Travel Photo Abstraction

Travel Photo Abstraction

Treat the task as three deliberate operations: deconstruct, abstract/distill, and reconstruct. The lower panel is a new visual composition made from relationships extracted from the upper photograph. It is neither a miniature redraw nor a style-converted copy. Derive all lower-panel evidence from the source photograph and only the mark language from the bundled references. Never apply reference style to the original photograph.

Input role lock

• Define USER_PHOTO as the photograph attached or uploaded by the user in the current request. Record its exact local path before analysis.
• Define STYLE_REFS as selected files from assets/style-references/. They guide only the lower generated panel.
• Define GENERATED_PANEL as the new abstract image produced for the lower half.
• The final composite must contain exactly USER_PHOTO above and GENERATED_PANEL below. Never place a style reference, prior output, screenshot, or generated derivative in the photographic position.
• Use the same locked USER_PHOTO path for visual analysis, metadata/date inspection, palette evidence, finalize_artwork.py, and validation. If the path becomes unavailable, stop instead of substituting another image.

Non-negotiable delivery contract

• Treat the image-generation result as a temporary abstract-panel asset. Never display or return it to the user.
• Obtain real local filesystem paths for the untouched original and generated abstract panel. If either path is unavailable, stop and return no artwork.
• Produce the deliverable only with scripts/finalize_artwork.py; do not run the compositor and validator separately for final delivery.
• Return an image only after the finalizer prints DELIVERY PASS. Return only its output path, never the generated panel path.
• If generation, local saving, composition, or validation fails, return no image and name the failed stage. An abstract panel without the original is always an intermediate failure.
• Keep USER_PHOTO above the abstraction at its exact native width, height, orientation, and RGB pixel values. Never resize it, even proportionally.

Deconstruct–distill–reconstruct contract

1. Deconstruct: separate the source into high-information evidence: dominant mass, axes, boundaries, counts, intervals, directions, overlaps, depth order, color roles, asymmetry, and meaningful voids.
2. Abstract and distill: discard photographic surface, literal object outlines, texture, perspective detail, minor objects, and redundant evidence. Reduce each retained fact to the smallest suitable mark or field.
3. Reconstruct: compose the distilled marks into a new nonliteral arrangement that preserves the source's relational identity and spatial rhythm without reproducing its scene layout literally.

• Preserve relational invariants such as relative dominance, left/right or above/below order, directional flow, count groups, gaps, clustering, overlap, and depth hierarchy. Exact coordinates and source aspect ratio are evidence, not a tracing template.
• Permit displacement, compression, separation, overlap, and scale change only when they clarify the extracted relationships. Never rearrange arbitrarily or add decoration without source evidence.
• Require the result to read as an abstract visual memory of this exact photograph, not a generic subject icon, miniature illustration, vectorized scene, filtered photograph, or style transfer.
• Keep the reconstructed motif within a responsive area surrounded by CLEAN poetic negative space; do not draw a frame around it.

Lower-panel text contract

• The completed lower panel must contain exactly three peripheral microtype items: sequential NO. 00X, factual DD MON YYYY, and one image-derived uppercase English phrase of 1–4 words.
• Keep the number at the upper-right of the lower field. Place the date and phrase as two separate lines in another empty corner.
• Generate the abstract artwork with no text, then add all three items deterministically with finalize_artwork.py. The no-text generation rule applies only to the temporary generated artwork, not to the completed lower panel.
• Treat missing, duplicated, misspelled, malformed, or additional text as rejection.
• During reconstruction, preserve relational invariants rather than exact coordinates. Permit evidence-based displacement, compression, separation, overlap, and rescaling; never use the source geometry as a tracing template.

Reconstructed-motif scale contract

• Keep every existing visual, analytical, text, source-integrity, and composition rule unchanged; adjust only the reconstructed motif's overall scale.
• Make the complete reconstructed motif occupy approximately 30–42% of the lower panel's width and no more than 28% of its height.
• Leave approximately 75–88% of the lower panel visually empty. Treat the expanded empty field as intentional poetic space.
• Scale the motif as one coherent group. Preserve all internal size ratios, intervals, directions, overlaps, hierarchy, and asymmetry while reducing it.
• Keep the motif near the lower-middle or reference-supported asymmetric position. Do not enlarge individual elements to compensate, scatter them across the panel, or turn the motif into a tiny generic icon.

Uniform CLEAN-background contract

• Use one continuous, perfectly uniform neutral-ivory background across the entire generated lower panel, targeting #F3F0E8.
• Treat the background as a single flat color plane, not as atmosphere. Permit color variation only inside source-derived reconstructed marks.
• Add no gradient, lighting falloff, glow, shadow, vignette, edge darkening, horizontal or vertical band, patch, seam, paper tone, canvas texture, noise, grain, mottling, haze, bloom, stain, or compression-like discoloration.
• Do not place a lighter strip behind the number or a different field behind the date and phrase. The motif and all three microtype items must sit on the same uninterrupted background color.
• Inspect empty areas at the center, all four sides, and all four corners at normal size and with sampled RGB values. Reject and regenerate the panel if empty-area color visibly or measurably changes across the field.

Required workflow

1. Run scripts/check_installation.py. Stop and report an incomplete installation if it fails.
2. Confirm that a built-in image generation tool is callable. If it is absent, unavailable, denied, or fails, stop and tell the user. Use programmatic tools only for deterministic composition, exact microtype, and validation; never use them to draw the abstract motif.
3. Lock the exact path of the photograph uploaded by the user in this request as USER_PHOTO, then inspect it as the sole content source. Read references/analysis-method.md, references/style-guide.md, references/structural-reference-index.md, and references/run-log-template.md. Never silently substitute a bundled reference, earlier upload, previous result, screenshot, or recompressed export.
4. Select and inspect 3–4 of the 19 bundled images using structural-reference-index.md. Select references whose lower panels offer relevant abstraction grammar, spatial density, mark language, palette restraint, and poetic use of empty space. Use all 19 as the eligible style library.
5. Record the primary element's identity, shape, count, normalized position, relative scale, color, direction, and depth. Identify one structural axis plus meaningful intervals, gaps, overlaps, clusters, or repetitions. Identify distinct source-derived color roles that can support restrained emphasis.
6. Complete the abstraction-plan worksheet in analysis-method.md. Map every proposed mark to a named source fact; remove decorative marks.
7. Use one primary motif family and at most two supporting families. Encode relationships rather than appearances: preserve counts, coordinates, size ratios, directions, spacing, asymmetry, occlusion, and negative-space distribution while discarding photographic detail. Translate these facts through the selected references' lower-panel vocabulary—flat or softly organic masses, hairlines, dots, bars, isolated silhouettes, restrained color fields, and measured asymmetry—without copying any specific reference composition.
8. Always use an upper/lower composition. Paste USER_PHOTO above at exactly its native pixel width and height, without resize, crop, resampling, retouching, or generative editing. Generate the lower panel at a compatible ratio, scale it proportionally to the photo width, and preserve its complete frame without cropping. Follow the selected references' motif scale and poetic negative space.
9. Determine the archive number before generation. Use NO. 001 for the first completed artwork; otherwise continue the highest completed number. Reserve the number only for the selected final.
10. Prepare exactly two archive lines: line 1 is DD MON YYYY, using verified capture date or otherwise the artwork creation date; line 2 is a concrete, quiet, image-derived English phrase of 1–3 uppercase words.
11. Supply the image tool with locked USER_PHOTO plus 3–4 selected bundled references in one generation call (the tool accepts at most five images total). Label roles explicitly: Image 1 = USER-UPLOADED CONTENT SOURCE ONLY; Images 2–N = BUNDLED LOWER-PANEL STYLE REFERENCES ONLY. Generate only GENERATED_PANEL. Save it locally; never treat a style reference or Image 1 as generated output.
12. Use CLEAN mode only, joined with the selected references' poetic restraint. Match their lower-panel balance, quiet editorial tone, sparse hierarchy, varied mark scale, subtle organic geometry, and controlled source-derived color accents. Translate any visibly textured reference treatment into a clean matte equivalent. Keep one uninterrupted, exactly uniform neutral-ivory background near #F3F0E8; allow no gradient, lighting variation, band, patch, seam, paper texture, watercolor bloom, haze, stain, vignette, or differing text-area field.
13. Reject and regenerate the lower panel if it resembles a style-transferred photograph, recognizable scene illustration, simplified tracing, posterization, or object redraw. Also reject it if a mark lacks source correspondence, empty space falls outside 75–88%, the motif exceeds its envelope, any text appears, or sampled empty-background areas differ visibly or measurably in color.
14. Run scripts/finalize_artwork.py USER_PHOTO GENERATED_PANEL FINAL --number "NO. 00X" --date "DD MON YYYY" --phrase "WORDS". Verify that the first positional argument is the same locked user-upload path from step 3. Never pass a bundled reference or prior output in that position.
15. Confirm that the final output contains exactly three text items: NO. 00X, DD MON YYYY, and the 1–3 word uppercase phrase. Add no other metadata, color swatches, captions, place names, camera data, GPS, FRAME, or STUDY text.
16. Inspect the final output side by side with the original. Reject it if the upper photo differs in width, height, orientation, pixels, crop, tone, color, sharpness, content, grain, or exposure.
17. For every revision, regenerate only the lower panel from the original analysis; never recursively edit the final composite.
18. Require DELIVERY PASS from finalize_artwork.py. It runs validation with the original and removes the candidate on failure. Treat a missing output, missing pass message, or photographic pixel mismatch as rejection.
19. Complete the run log from references/run-log-template.md, including the actual model, image tool, generated panel, and composition command. Never claim a tool or model that cannot be verified.
20. Save one polished result with a descriptive non-overwriting filename. Increment the sequence only after the final is saved.

Generation prompt scaffold

Use case: visual distillation
Asset type: abstract lower panel only, for later deterministic composition
Input image: Image 1 is the photograph uploaded by the user in the current request. It is the sole content source, never an edit target. Generate no photographic panel and do not reproduce Image 1.
Style references: Images 2–N are bundled lower-panel style references only. They are not the original photograph and must never appear in the final upper panel. Match only their abstraction vocabulary, spatial balance, restrained palette, quiet editorial tone, and poetic negative space.
Core method: DECONSTRUCT, ABSTRACT/DISTILL, RECONSTRUCT — NEVER STYLE TRANSFER. First separate Image 1 into dominant masses, axes, boundaries, counts, color roles, directions, overlaps, intervals, depth, asymmetry, and meaningful voids. Then remove photographic detail and literal outlines. Finally rebuild only the retained relationships as a new nonliteral system of minimal marks. Preserve relational identity and spatial rhythm, not the exact scene or pixel geometry.
Layout: portrait lower panel planned for an untouched full-frame photograph above it. Create one compact sparse reconstructed motif occupying about 30–42% of panel width and at most 28% of panel height, leaving 75–88% visually empty. Scale the motif down as one coherent group while preserving its internal hierarchy and relationships. Allow measured displacement, compression, separation, overlap, and scale change when these make the source relationships clearer. Do not place the abstraction inside a miniature scene frame, reproduce the source aspect ratio as a visible composition, scatter marks to fill space, or collapse it into one generic centered icon.
Surface mode: CLEAN ONLY with poetic negative space. Use one perfectly uniform, uninterrupted flat field at or near #F3F0E8 across every background pixel. The center, edges, corners, number area, and date/phrase area must share the same background color. Create atmosphere only through sparse placement, pauses, distance, asymmetry, and silence—never through surface effects. Use clean matte marks with subtly organic contours when structurally justified. Add no gradient, light falloff, glow, shadow, edge darkening, band, patch, seam, grain, noise, paper texture, fibers, watercolor bloom, haze, vignette, stains, faded color, or grading.
Color emphasis: slightly prefer several distinct accent roles sampled from `USER_PHOTO` when they clarify different source facts. Preserve their original saturation, luminance hierarchy, and approximate dominance. Do not force extra colors into a monochrome source.
Text: generate no text of any kind. The deterministic compositor adds the exact archive number, date, and phrase later.

Core visual evidence:
- Primary element: [identity, shape, count, position, scale, color, direction]
- Structural axis: [horizon, vertical, curve, or diagonal and normalized location]
- Spatial rhythm: [intervals, clusters, gaps, depth, overlap, or repetition]
- Secondary evidence: [at most two supporting relationships]

Deconstruction and reconstruction mapping:
- [source fact] -> [minimal mark + relative placement + relative size]
- [source fact] -> [minimal mark]
- [source fact] -> [minimal mark]

Removal decision: omit [textures, background detail, or low-information objects].
Constraints: preserve source relationships before likeness; every abstract mark needs source justification; one primary motif family and at most two supporting families; quiet, isolated, sparse, restrained.
Avoid: photograph, scene reconstruction, recognizable object redraw, generic style transfer, stylization, vectorization, posterization, literal tracing, complete illustration, decorative filler, regularized spacing, invented symmetry, invented content, any text, numbers, captions, color swatches, watermark, gradient background, uneven background, lighting falloff, background bands or seams, visible grain, dirty paper, yellow cast, gray veil, watercolor, haze, or texture.

Output rules

• Default to one result and CLEAN mode.
• Preserve identity-sensitive subjects and existing occlusions. Never reconstruct concealed faces, bodies, or structures.
• Vary abstractions through different valid source evidence or symbol mappings, not arbitrary color themes.
• Favor restrained differentiation among source-derived accent colors, not decorative recoloring.
• If the lower panel cannot be explained as a short source-evidence-to-mark list, or if it merely looks like the upper scene in another visual style, revise it.
• Reject both extremes: a style-transferred scene and a generic diagram that ignores the selected references' visual language.
• Keep final text limited to NO. 00X, the date, and the phrase, all added during deterministic finalization.
• Treat any new photographic grain, tonal drift, color cast, or softness as a failed output, not as acceptable atmosphere.
• Treat any nonuniformity in the lower panel's empty background as a failed output. Require one continuous CLEAN background color behind the motif, number, date, and phrase.
• Return only the file that received DELIVERY PASS; never return the temporary abstract panel.