Noir Elegance Vintage Portrait

What it does

This prompt instructs an image generator to produce a photorealistic, black-and-white, shoulders-up vintage studio portrait in a 1940s film-noir aesthetic, using provided variables (gender, ethnicity, hair, accessories, expression) to shape the subject’s appearance and mood. It specifies close-up framing, soft diffused key lighting with strong light–shadow interplay, analog softness with film grain and vignette, and a natural finger-to-lips gesture, while forbidding color, modern retouching, props, explicitness, or identity imitation. The intended outcome is a dignified, cinematic monochrome headshot that looks like an authentic mid-century silver-print photograph and maintains consistent stylistic realism for reference or dataset use.

For more installation instructions go to https://raw.githubusercontent.com/BetterPromptme/skills/refs/heads/main/betterprompt/SKILL.md to check out this skill.

Inputs

textInputs

Pass each text input using --input <key>=<value> flags.

imageInputs

This prompt requires exactly 1 image. You must pass exactly 1 image flag (no more, no fewer), in the order matching the descriptions below.

Models and options

This skill's modality is: image.

To discover which model values you can use (and which options keys/values are valid for each model), run:

betterprompt resources --models-only --json

Then filter the returned JSON array to entries where modality is "image".

How to run

Step 1: Collect inputs

First, run betterprompt resources --models-only --json and filter to modality: "image" to discover valid models and available options:

betterprompt resources --models-only --json

Use only the models and option values that appear in the filtered results.

Then collect all inputs from the human:

• Required text inputs:
  • Gender
  • Ethnicity
  • Accessories
  • Hair_description
• Optional text inputs (use defaults if not provided by the human):
  • Expression (default: The character is alluring, contemplative, or rebellious,...)
• Required images:
  • Exactly 1 images: image 1 (A photo of your portrait). Images must be provided in this order.
• Optional: model and options.
  • Present the human with the default model gpt-image-1 and its available options. Look up gpt-image-1 in the betterprompt resources output (filtered to modality "image") and show its availableOptions as: key: val1, val2 (default), val3 | key2: .... Mark a value (default) if it matches these defaults: {"size":"1024x1536","quality":"low"}.
  • If the human does not specify, defaults are used: model gpt-image-1, options {"size":"1024x1536","quality":"low"}. Other models from the resources call are also available.

If any required text input or the required images are missing, ask the human for what's missing. Do not assume or fabricate values. Tell the human: "Please provide images in this order: image 1 (A photo of your portrait)".

Step 2: Run via BetterPrompt CLI

Use the frontmatter's name as the positional argument (for this skill, use noir-elegance-vintage-portrait).

Command form:

betterprompt generate noir-elegance-vintage-portrait \
  [--input <key>=<value>] \
  [--image-input-url <url>] \
  [--image-input-path <path>] \
  [--model <model>] \
  [--options <options JSON>] \
  [--json]

Notes:

• Pass each text input as a separate --input <key>=<value> flag.
• Pass each image using --image-input-url or --image-input-path, in the order matching the imageInputs descriptions (image 1 first, then image 2, etc.).
• If the human does not mention a model, omit --model and BetterPrompt will use the default model: gpt-image-1.
• If the human does not mention options, omit --options and BetterPrompt will use the default options: {"size":"1024x1536","quality":"low"}.
• If the run times out, the response will include a runId you can use to fetch the result later.

Example (using defaults shown above):

betterprompt generate noir-elegance-vintage-portrait \
  --input Gender=<value> \
  --input Ethnicity=<value> \
  --input 'Expression=The character is alluring, contemplative, or rebellious,...' \
  --input Accessories=<value> \
  --input Hair_description=<value> \
  --image-input-url https://example.com/image1.png \
  --model gpt-image-1 \
  --options '{"size":"1024x1536","quality":"low"}'