Generative Fill: Why Sometimes it is better to enter an empty prompt

Why This Matters

If you've ever tried to stretch a photo for a website banner and ended up with a wonky mess, you're not alone. This is a hidden headache in web and graphic design. You may start with a gorgeous photo with a simple background and need to turn it into an ultra-wide hero image, often for a homepage, landing page, or blog header. The trouble is, most photos aren’t shot wide enough to fill those huge panoramic spaces. You get stuck scrabbling for extra pixels, or staring at a beautiful scene ruined by weird cloning or lumpy repairs.

Adobe Photoshop’s AI-powered content-aware and generative fill tools promise to save time in this situation. In theory, you select the empty part of the canvas, hit a button, and let the algorithm fill in the blanks with a seamless extension of your image. In reality, though, things can go awry: texures jumble, skies blur or repeat in obvious bands, and the original photo loses its magic.

For designers, developers, and marketers working to tight deadlines, this can chew through hours. You try to tweak the prompt, micromanage the fill, or retouch for ages, which burns time and risks quality. That means missed deadlines, strained budgets, and, if you’re unlucky, a homepage that doesn’t look quite right on launch day.

The most effective approach may be to do less, rather than more.

Common Pitfalls

Most people make the mistake of overthinking this process. It sounds counter-intuitive, especially when we’re conditioned to believe AI needs careful instructions. But with Photoshop’s generative fill, especially when extending a photo for a hero image, throwing in a complicated prompt (or any prompt at all) can actually make things worse.

People tinker with detailed instructions like “extend the field to the left” or “add more sky,” hoping for pixel-perfect control. The result? The AI tries too hard, sometimes introducing new objects, odd colours, or dividing lines where there should only be a gentle spread of grass or bricks.

On top of that, there’s the temptation to over-correct. If the first result isn’t perfect, you hit undo, rephrase the prompt, do it all again, and before long you’ve got half a dozen layers of messy attempts. Sometimes the AI’s imagination gets a little wild, so sheep start appearing in the field, or new fence posts pop up that weren’t in your photo at all.

All of this creates a mess, drains your creative energy, and delivers a result that doesn’t truly blend with your original photo.

Step-by-Step Fix

This is the “empty prompt” approach I use to extend photos without AI oddities, plus the extra touch at the end that really makes it look like you shot it ultra-wide in the first place.

Step 1: Prep your image and your canvas

Open your photo in Photoshop. Before anything else, take a look at what you’ve got and consider the background. Is it a field? A wall? Open sky? This technique works best where you’ve got repeating or reasonably consistent textures.

Decide which direction you need the image to grow. For hero banners, you’ll very often need extra width, sometimes turning a 4:3 photo into something like 1920×600 pixels, or whatever your design calls for. Use the Crop tool (C) and pull the canvas outwards, adding extra space at the sides as needed. Make sure “Content-Aware” is not checked in the Crop tool itself; leave that for the next stage.

Step 2: Select the empty space

With your canvas expanded, you’ll see transparent or plain-coloured areas where there’s no image. Grab the Rectangular Marquee tool (M) and select just the new, empty bit. Don’t overlap your main photo. This tells Photoshop, “fill in only this section.”

If you’ve added space to both sides, do one side at a time for better results (AI seems to handle smaller tasks more elegantly than a big chunk at once).

Step 3: Run Generative Fill with an empty prompt

Most people tense up at this stage, fingers hovering over the keyboard to type out a prompt. Instead, when Photoshop asks for a prompt, leave the prompt box totally empty, then hit “Generate.”

AI will analyse the pixels directly adjacent to your selection: texture, lighting, detail. It will do its best to stitch in more of what’s already there. No instruction, no confusion.

Nine times out of ten, you’ll get a surprisingly natural result. A field will have more field, a wall will continue in texture, a sky will flow across without obvious repetition. No new objects, no random cows.

Step 4: Check carefully for repeats and weirdness

Carefully examine the result. Sometimes, even with an empty prompt, you’ll spot subtle signs of cloning such as patterns in grass repeating or a cloud that looks like it was copy-pasted. You might also see areas where the join between the original photo and the extended fill is too sharp or there’s a slight shift in colour.

Use the Spot Healing Brush (J) or the Clone Stamp (S) in small, low-opacity doses to gently tidy up oddities, or blend the seam where new meets old. If there’s something truly weird (for example, a “mutant sheep” in the background), use the Lasso tool to select just that area and run Generative Fill again on a much smaller location.

Step 5: Add subtle vignetting to focus the viewer

Once your new, wider photo looks seamless, it’s time for the finishing touch that separates an amateur fill from a hero image ready for the front page: a soft vignette. This gentle darkening of the edges draws the eye back to the subject, and it also hides any faint artefacts at the borders.

Here’s how I do it:

1. Add a new layer above your photo.
2. Use the Elliptical Marquee tool (M) to make an oval selection that leaves a generous margin around your main subject.
3. Invert the selection (Ctrl+Shift+I).
4. Fill the selection with solid black (Edit > Fill, or Shift+F5).
5. Drop the layer opacity to around 10–20% and set blend mode to Soft Light.
6. Add a blur (Filter > Gaussian Blur) to soften and feather the edges.

Adjust the strength until it looks right. The effect should be subtle and not call attention to itself.

Step 6: Export for your platform

You’ve finished the core work. Now, make sure your image is saved at the correct dimensions and format for your website or project. Export as JPG or PNG, double-check the sharpness, and preview at final size.

What Most People Miss

Photoshop, especially with AI tools, tends to deliver better results with less intervention. The instinct to direct or describe the result is strong, but the context provided by your photo is what matters most. By leaving the prompt blank, the software studies and mimics what is already present, instead of getting sidetracked by your hints.

This habit is helpful for more than just repeating backgrounds. The idea of trusting what’s already working applies across generative tools.

The Bigger Picture

Adopting this workflow can save your sanity on banner projects. Consider the benefits:

• Faster image prep: You can go from starter photo to ultra-wide banner in minutes, not hours. That means deadlines are easier to meet.
• Consistency in branding: Hero images look professional and cohesive, no matter what the original photo ratio.
• Less burnout: Fewer rounds of tweak-and-retry, and far less manual cloning or brushwork.

If you’re working in teams, it’s easy to show others this “empty prompt” trick, and you can speed up the whole project.

Quick FAQ

Q: How do I know when to use an empty prompt versus a specific instruction?
A: If the background is simple or repeating (fields, walls, sky), go empty. If you need to add a distinct object (like a new building or car), a specific prompt can make sense, but expect to retouch.

Q: Why does my extended fill sometimes look obviously fake?
A: This usually happens with busy or complex backgrounds (lots of people, power lines, etc.), or when the selection overlaps tricky edges. If the fill is too obvious, undo and try a smaller area, or tidy up manually.

Q: What is the best order? Should I vignette first, or after the fill?
A: Always after. Vignetting is the polish, not the basecoat.

Q: Can I use this for portrait photos?
A: It works, but be cautious, since faces or detailed objects tend to trip up AI fills more than abstract backgrounds.

Jargon Buster

• Content-Aware Fill: This Photoshop feature analyses surrounding pixels to intelligently fill selected areas. It is great for removing objects or, in our case, extending backgrounds smoothly.
• Generative Fill: The newer AI-powered version available in recent Photoshop releases. It extends images even better, although it sometimes gets creative if you stray from simple prompts.
• Vignette: A gentle darkening (or lightening) at the photo's edges to subtly centre attention on the subject.
• Hero Image: The main banner or focal photo on a webpage, usually spanning edge to edge.

Troubleshooting: Before You Start

• Don’t use on busy, cluttered backgrounds unless you’re willing to do more manual cleaning up after.
• If the first fill doesn’t look right, try selecting a smaller area. AI works better with smaller tasks.
• If the lighting looks off in the generated area, tweak with Curves or the Dodge/Burn tools, or re-run the fill for variety.
• Always keep a backup of your original photo. Nondestructive editing is your friend.

What This Means For Your Work

You don’t need to master every AI detail to get fast, smart results from Photoshop’s generative tools. Most of the time, “hands off and let it fill” gives you a better starting point than detailed prompts or pixel-by-pixel handiwork. A couple of finishing touches—such as gentle vignetting and careful imperfection checks—are all it takes to sell the illusion.

You’ll spend less time arguing with Photoshop, more time delivering work you’re proud of, and, best of all, you will avoid repeating the same cloned tree three times in a website banner.

Wrap-Up

If you’ve been battling with photo extensions or wrestling Photoshop to get your hero images just right, give the empty prompt technique a try. Sometimes, the simplest workflow is the smartest, and it is also the fastest way to get from “it almost works” to “it looks fantastic.”

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