Keep Your Face the Same in Every AI Image: The One Prompt

AI image tools keep changing your face. Your nose gets thinner, your jaw moves, and you end up looking like your cousin. This one prompt, with your own photo attached, keeps you looking like you, so you can make real images for your posts.

A free guide by Zach Crawford

You ask AI for a picture of you. It comes back close, but not you. The nose is different. The jaw moved. Your friends would say "who's that?"

So you try again, and now it's a different almost-you.

The fix is to attach a real photo of yourself and give the AI strict face rules: what to keep, what never to change, and how a real photo looks. Here's the prompt.

Step 1. Pick your reference photo

The better your photo, the better every image after it.

• Your face, looking at the camera, in good light.
• No sunglasses, no heavy filter, nothing covering your face.
• If you always wear something (a cap, glasses) or have a tattoo people know you for, use a photo that shows it.
• One clear photo works. Two from different angles works even better.

Step 2. Open Codex and attach your photo

This uses Codex, OpenAI's coding agent, which can make images. Open the Codex app, or type codex in your terminal. Attach your photo. In the app, add it to the message. In the terminal, add -i yourphoto.jpg when you start.

Image making in Codex isn't on every plan, and it uses up your Codex usage faster than text. Check your plan first.

Step 3. Paste the face prompt

Fill in the 2 lines in [brackets] first.

Use your image generation tool. Make a new, original photo of the person in the attached photo.

Keep this exact face: the same eyes, nose, jaw, hairline, facial hair and skin tone. Don't make them younger, thinner or prettier. It has to look like them.
Always keep: [anything that's always part of your look, like "a black cap" or "glasses" or "the tattoo on the right arm". Delete this line if there's nothing.]

The scene: [where you are, what you're doing, what you're wearing and holding. Example: "sitting at a desk in a home office, typing on a laptop, wearing a plain black t-shirt"]

Make it look like a real photo from a modern camera with an 85mm lens: natural light, sharp, not a drawing or a painting.
Real proportions: the head, shoulders, arms and hands are the normal size of a real person. Keep the arms close to the body. Never push a hand or an object toward the camera.
Exactly 2 arms and 2 hands, each hand on its own arm.
Real skin: pores and small lines, matte. No airbrushing, no glow.
A natural expression, never a big posed grin. Eyebrows relaxed and level.
No text or logos anywhere unless I asked for them above.

Make 2 versions. Save them as photo-1.png and photo-2.png.

If your cap or shirt has a logo you want to keep, name it in the "Always keep" line, like "a black cap with the white logo on the front." Otherwise the "no logos" rule takes it off.

Step 4. Check it before you use it

Open both and zoom in. Check these every time:

• The face. Does it look like you, or like a cousin? Pick the closer one.
• The hands. Count the fingers. AI still gets hands wrong.
• The details. Is the thing you always wear still there?

If the face drifted, say exactly what changed: "The nose is too thin. Make it match the photo." If it keeps drifting, attach a second photo from another angle.

The limitations you should know

• It won't be perfect every time. That's why it makes 2. Throw out the bad ones.
• Only use your own face, or a face you have permission to use. Never make fake photos of real famous people.
• Be honest about AI photos. Don't use one to show a result, a place or a moment that didn't really happen.
• Image making uses your Codex usage faster than text, and it isn't on every plan.

Want the next guide? Follow @zachcrawford.ai