Krea publishes prompting guide for Krea 2

Krea has published a prompting guide for Krea 2, which the company describes as its first foundation model, "built completely from scratch and focused on aesthetics and creative control." The post is a how-to for a model that has already launched, not a new release.

Krea's argument is that most image models handle what is in an image well but drift toward a polished, generic "AI look" in how it is rendered. The guide lays out three ways to control style in Krea 2.

Exploration. A bare prompt such as "a cat riding a bicycle" is meant to return very different renderings, such as painting, VHS photography, minimal illustration and abstract shapes, rather than four versions of one safe interpretation. Adding a style term like "retro cartoon illustration" narrows the range while keeping variety within that style. Krea says the model will also produce deliberately degraded looks, including low resolution and chromatic aberration, that many models tend to clean up.

Style references. Users drag an image into the prompt box, and the system pulls out its color, texture, composition cues and medium, then applies them to a new prompt. A strength slider sets the balance: at 20% the output leans toward the base model's realism, 50% is a blend, and at 80% the reference dominates. Krea says it spent as much effort on this style-transfer system as on the foundation model itself. At very high strength, it notes, the model can override the subject to make the style fit.

Moodboards. The guide also covers moodboards for setting an overall aesthetic, but the source text provided ends before that section, so no details are available here.