Editorial Layered Papercut Poster

Editorial Layered Papercut Poster

Use the system imagegen skill and image-generation tool. Treat each uploaded photograph as the edit source. Let one paper hero carry recognition while a small number of source-derived layers establish space and editorial rhythm.

Output contract

• Produce one independent raster poster for every uploaded photo. Never combine photos into a collage, contact sheet, comparison layout, diptych, or shared canvas.
• Use a 3:4 portrait canvas with one exact horizontal 50/50 division. Keep truthful photography in the upper half and the layered papercut composition in the lower half. Do not let either medium invade the other.
• Preserve immediate correspondence through the hero's silhouette, posture, proportion, direction, relationship, and defining structure.
• Use one core hero, a small number of paper layers, large quiet paper, one main title, and two to four microtext groups.
• Use the user's language for primary text unless they request another language.
• Return every poster as a separate image. Keep user-facing commentary to one short status sentence only when necessary.

Preserve the photographic upper half

Keep the source recognizably photographic. Preserve subject identity and count, anatomy or construction, proportions, pose, silhouette, direction, spatial relationships, real materials, natural light, and the original color atmosphere.

Apply only restrained art-magazine, independent-publication, or exhibition-photography color correction. Do not redraw, vectorize, beautify, materially relight, or apply paper layers, cut edges, typography, or graphic overlays to this region.

Crop deliberately for the upper half. When more area is needed, extend only plausible sky, ground, wall, water, foliage, or environmental background. Never stretch, warp, mirror, duplicate, or redesign the subject.

Extract a paper-layer blueprint

Before prompting, privately identify:

1. the one hero subject or inseparable relationship carrying recognition;
2. its decisive silhouette, posture, proportion, direction, openings, overlaps, and structural turns;
3. three to six identity features that must survive paper simplification;
4. the minimum source environment needed to establish foreground, middle ground, background, scale, or narrative;
5. the main axis, center of gravity, scale contrasts, occlusion order, and important negative spaces;
6. which forms need a cut edge, fold, overlap, slot, opening, recessed layer, or protruding flap;
7. the upper photograph's most spirited color, dark structural color, light layers, and any tiny accent;
8. one concise main title and two to four groups of supported micro-information.

Delete incidental scenery and small detail. Do not expose this analysis or repeat the user's design brief.

Reduce the hero to cut paper

Build the hero from a few coherent paper pieces. Preserve its characteristic outer contour, scale, pose, direction, relational gap, and defining local features. Merge minor details into larger planes.

Use cutting, folding, layering, overlap, slots, apertures, and shallow raised flaps only when they correspond to real structure:

• a fold for a ridge, roof, garment turn, wing, body plane, or material change;
• an opening for a window, eye, wheel, arch, gap, or negative space;
• an overlap for depth, limbs, foliage, facade, object assembly, or two related subjects;
• a recessed layer for shadow, interior, water, ground, distance, or background;
• a narrow strip for path, branch, rail, stem, edge, motion, or axis.

Keep the hero recognizable at thumbnail size. Avoid many tiny pieces, exact surface replication, generic origami facets, puzzle-like assembly, thick foam board, cute rounded craft shapes, and a white sticker border.

Build only the necessary depth layers

Organize the lower scene into a restrained depth system:

1. one foreground edge, overlap, or directional fragment when needed;
2. the hero as the dominant middle or cross-depth layer;
3. one background plane or quiet environment relation;
4. optionally one very small accent layer for a key source event.

Use scale difference, shared axes, positive/negative shape, and occlusion to make depth clear. Let some layers crop or continue beyond an implied area when the source direction supports it.

Keep broad warm-ivory or pale paper visible. Maintain one center of gravity, one dominant hero, and a clear reading path. Do not build a complete miniature room, crowded landscape, many repeated subjects, multiple foreground props, decorative cloud/plant sets, or a full paper theater.

Render real matte paper craft

Use fine matte cardstock with visible but restrained fibers, crisp cut edges, slight edge compression, subtle fold thickness, small hand variations, and soft contact shadows between layers.

Use diffuse natural light from one direction. Keep shadows short and soft enough to reveal layer order without turning the scene into dramatic 3D.

Avoid glossy plastic, resin, clay, foam, felt, fuzzy fabric, thick corrugated board, laser-burned edges, excessive bevels, hard shadows, ray-traced lighting, gradient shading, photorealistic miniature photography, and cheap construction-paper texture.

Translate a finite paper palette

Derive the lower color system from the upper photograph. Use warm ivory or another clean pale paper as the main ground, one principal source color for the hero, one deep structural color, one or two lighter layers, and at most one small accent.

Assign color by spatial and structural role. Preserve the source's warm/cool relation and identity while simplifying noise. Let adjacent layers separate through hue, value, and shadow rather than many colors.

Keep color clean, matte, coordinated, and alive. Avoid fixed pastel craft palettes, muddy aging, neon, rainbow paper, complex gradients, equal-area multicolor, unrelated beige minimalism, and repeated decorative accents.

Build the editorial microtype system

Derive one concise title from the source's identity, supported place, action, material, emotion, or symbolic meaning. Add two to four microtext groups chosen from supported content:

• an object or place descriptor;
• a number, chapter, sequence, or classification marker;
• a direction, state, or material word;
• one extremely short poetic note or micro-explanation.

Do not use years. Do not invent places, coordinates, sequence facts, measurements, classifications, materials, archive data, or quotations.

The main title carries recognition and mood. Microtype carries order, scale, rhythm, and close-reading detail. Keep the hierarchy deliberate: one title, one extremely small group, and one or two intermediate groups.

Make type share paper structure

Arrange text along cut edges, hero contours, paper axes, or shaped negative spaces. It may run horizontally or vertically, rotate, open its tracking, press into a corner, cross a color field, nest between layers, or become partially occluded by paper.

The title may be rendered as a restrained cut-paper or folded-paper letterform when legibility remains strong. Keep microtype slender, precise, and printed or lightly embossed on the paper.

Every text group needs a compositional function: extend an axis, stop a layer, balance a mass, activate blank space, or clarify depth. Avoid a conventional centered headline, equal captions, dense copy, pseudo-data decoration, UI panels, logos, brands, signatures, pseudo-language, or watermarks.

Compile the image-edit prompt

Write one source-specific production prompt per input photo containing:

1. one independent 3:4 portrait output and the exact 50% photography / 50% layered-papercut split;
2. the upper-half preservation invariants, restrained color correction, crop, and any safe background extension;
3. the lower hero, relationship, silhouette, posture, proportion, direction, openings, three to six identity features, and deleted detail;
4. the exact paper pieces, folds, cuts, slots, apertures, overlaps, recesses, flaps, and structural role of each;
5. the foreground, hero, background, and optional accent layers, with scale, axis, occlusion, crop, center of gravity, and negative-space hierarchy;
6. the matte cardstock, fibers, cut edges, compression, thickness, hand variation, diffuse light, and short contact shadows;
7. the exact warm-ivory ground, principal source color, deep structural color, lighter layers, optional accent, and area assignments;
8. the exact main title in the user's language and its source meaning;
9. the exact two-to-four microtext groups, factual support, type hierarchy, orientation, edge/axis alignment, nesting, crossing, corner, or occlusion function;
10. hard exclusions: no multi-photo layout, no altered or redrawn upper subject, no approximate split, no many tiny paper pieces, no complete scene copy, no crowded diorama, no repeated hero, no generic origami, no children's craft, no cheap cardstock, no plastic 3D, no hard shadow, no fixed palette, no year, no false data, no UI, no e-commerce display, no logo, and no watermark.

Use concrete paper piece, layer, occlusion, edge, color role, and typographic function rather than relying on adjectives such as “premium,” “handmade,” “editorial,” or “collectible.”

Inspect and correct

Review every result at full size and thumbnail size. Verify the exact split, truthful upper photography, immediate lower recognition, one hero, restrained foreground/middle/background layers, broad quiet paper, real matte cardstock, clear cut edges, soft contact shadows, source-derived color, one title, and two-to-four integrated microtext groups.

If the scene becomes crowded, remove environmental layers until only recognition and depth remain. If it resembles a children's craft, simplify cute details, refine scale and edges, and increase blank space. If the hero loses identity, restore the silhouette and strongest features. If it looks plastic or CGI, flatten gloss, shorten shadows, and reveal matte paper fiber. If text looks pasted on, align it to a paper edge, axis, gap, or occlusion. Regenerate with one targeted correction when needed.