How to write a card edit that works

When you edit a card, your words are handed to the model that paints it. We've looked at what happened to tens of thousands of real edits — which ones people kept, and which ones they threw away — and the difference is mostly in the phrasing, not in the difficulty of the change. Here is what actually works.

1. One change at a time

This is the big one. An edit asking for three different things at once is kept about 40% of the time; an edit asking for one thing, 79%. Ask for the change that matters most, look at the result, then ask for the next one.

• Instead of: "Make the dog's legs black and change the flowers to white and make the background darker"

• Try: "Make the dog's legs solid black." Then, on the next edit, the flowers.

2. Shorter is better — really

Short edits do best: under about ten words they're kept 85% of the time, and the rate falls steadily as they get longer. It feels wrong — surely more detail helps? — but long requests usually contain several changes, or spend words defending the request rather than describing it.

You especially don't need to add "and keep everything else the same". An edit already only changes what it names, and the extra words measurably make things worse.

3. Start with the verb

"Remove the birthday hat from the dog." Not "Could you please remove…", not "I don't like the hat". Instructions that begin with a verb are kept 81% of the time versus 72% for the rest. Say what should be true when the card is done.

4. Describe only what's on this one card

The model is shown a single image — this card — and nothing else. It cannot see your other cards, your earlier versions, or your photo. Requests that point outside the card are kept just 45% of the time.

• Instead of: "Make the banner match the other cards" / "Go back to how it looked before" / "Use my photo properly"

• Try: describe the result you want on this card — "An ivory banner with dark navy lettering." To go back to an earlier version, use version history instead of an edit: it's instant and free.

5. Say what should be true, not what to undo

The model can't see the previous version, so it can't reverse something. "Swap the eye colours" means nothing to it; "the left eye is brown and the right eye is blue" does.

6. Removals work beautifully

"Remove the bandana from around the neck" is the single most reliable kind of edit we see — kept 88% of the time. You don't need to explain what should fill the gap unless the removal would leave an obvious hole.

7. Name the thing, and which one

If there are two dogs, say which. "The small dog on the right", "the eyeball inside the crystal ball". A bare "change the cups" leaves the model guessing, and guessing is where edits get spent.

8. Concrete beats "nicer"

"Make it look happy" is hard to act on. "A joyful open-mouth expression, tongue out" is easy. Same for colour — "jewel-toned reds and golds" rather than "nicer colours".

Two things an edit is the wrong tool for

These are worth knowing, because they're where people lose the most edits:

• The banner, border, numeral or title font. That part of the card isn't painted — it's applied afterwards, which is why asking for it in an edit almost never works (requests to make banners consistent across a deck succeed under half the time, and deck-wide ones essentially never). Use the banner style picker on your order page instead: it changes every card at once, precisely, and it's free.

• Facts about your pet that are wrong on every card — eye colour, tail shape, markings, how many pets there are. Fixing those card by card is a losing game, because the same wrong note is steering every new card. Ask the Order Assistant (the (?) button on your order page) to correct your pet's details for the whole deck; it takes one message and it sticks for every card you make afterwards.

If a card keeps coming out wrong

If you've asked for the same change three times and it still isn't right, more attempts usually won't help — change the approach instead. You can restore an earlier version and start again, ask the Order Assistant to try a different kind of edit, or hand the whole thing to a person with the Artisan Edit Service, where a human artisan makes your edits for you.

And if something is genuinely wrong with a card — a wrong face, extra limbs, glitches, a strange-looking body — that's our bug, not your edit. Those fixes are free and don't come out of your edit allowance.

Not sure how to phrase something? Type it however it comes out and ask the Order Assistant on your order page — it will turn it into an instruction for you.