Live-Action Cartoon Stamp Window from a Photo

Format

Text Parameterized

Inputs

Reference_photo (image) · Required title (text) · Optional · Default: CABLE CAR place (text) · Optional · Default: SAN FRANCISCO

Outputs

Transformed_image (image)

Replace the ${…} placeholders with your values before using this prompt. See parameters and defaults below.

Turn the single photo I uploaded into one "live-action cartoon stamp window" image, following the rules below. Do not stitch several frames together or build a collage. One uploaded photo gives one output image.

[TITLE] ${title:CABLE CAR}
[PLACE] ${place:SAN FRANCISCO}

# Which photo works
A travel photo with one clear main subject works best. Trams, cars, scooters, boats, street stalls, staircases, towers, and narrow alleys all have a readable outline. It works best when a line crosses the frame: a rail, a road, a railing, a horizon, or the edge of a stair.

# Whole frame
- The original photo fills the entire canvas edge to edge. Do not put a margin, frame, or rounded corners around the photo.
- A top-versus-bottom split, a left-versus-right split, or cartooning the whole frame is a failure. The photo stays a photo.
- Do not change the subject's identity, count, pose, real size, position in the frame, viewing angle, natural light and shadow, relationship to its surroundings, or photographic texture.

# The stamp window (the core of this look)
- Cut a flat stamp window, fully ringed with perforation teeth, exactly where the main subject already sits in the photo.
- The window has to cover the area the main subject occupied. Moving it to a convenient corner is a failure.
- Inside the window, redraw only that same subject and a little of its immediate surroundings as a retro animation illustration. Outside the window, the sharp real photograph stays untouched.
- Inside and outside must show the same single moment.
  - The subject's count, center position, size, pose, facing direction, and perspective must match inside and outside. Count the subjects that fall inside the window before drawing, and draw exactly that many.
  - A person's feet, a vehicle's wheels, a boat's waterline, the road, rails, stairs, railing, and horizon must continue through the perforation edge into the outside photo without a break. If a line is offset at the edge, it is a failure.
  - Do not shift or enlarge the subject into a different, closer crop.
  - If one complete photographic subject and one illustrated copy of it are visible at the same time, it is a failure.

# Stamp window size and shape
- The window is a plain upright rectangle over the main subject, where the subject already stands in the photo.
- Its short side has to be at least 45% of its long side. A narrow strip or thin band is a failure.
- If the subject is taller or wider than a comfortable rectangle, let the subject run out past the perforation edge. Whatever falls outside stays a sharp photograph; do not stretch the window to swallow the whole subject.

# Perforation edge
- All four sides need continuous, crisp perforation holes of equal size and equal spacing. If even one side is missing its teeth, it is a failure.
- The inner artwork is inset evenly on all sides, and the paper margin must be the same width on all four sides.
- The stamp window is a flat region lying completely on the photo surface, where only the visual language has changed. Thickness, a drop shadow, a lifted corner, a floating feel, a tilt, or a physical card effect is a failure.
- The four sides of the stamp window must be exactly parallel to the edges of the frame. If even one side is tilted or drawn in perspective, it is a failure. For variation, change the window's position or size instead of rotating it.
- The real photograph must clearly remain outside the window on all four sides. If the stamp window covers more than 70% of the frame area, it is a failure. When the subject fills the frame, do not try to fit the whole subject in: open a smaller window over its most recognizable part.
- It must not look like a dotted border, rounded-corner UI card, physical postcard, or sticker.

# Drawing inside the window
- The reference style is a 1960s to 1970s travel-poster silkscreen. Build the scene from a few wide, flat color areas and bold, simple ink lines only.
- Do not describe textures such as stone, brick, roof tiles, bark, husk, or wire mesh with dense small strokes or stippling. Flatten texture into one color area, and draw a single line only where a separation is genuinely needed.
- Use loose ink lines, retro animation cel fills, faint old-print grain, and restrained paper tooth.
- Pull the colors from the original photo and reduce them to 3 to 5. Keep the colors that make the subject recognizable.
- The drawing inside the window must carry several colors. Drawing it in one sepia tone, one brown, black and white, or a single ink color is a failure. Always keep and paint the most prominent color of the original photo.
- Build shading from 2 to 3 flat color steps only. Engraving, woodcut, pen hatching, and stippling that darken an area with dense thin lines are failures. If a single area repeats thin strokes running in the same direction, it is a failure.
- Erase complicated photographic detail. Keep the subject's outline, motion, key structure, and only the environmental clues needed.
- Quiet color areas and empty space must take up at least 35% of the window. Blowing one subject up to fill the window or redrawing the background densely is a failure. Leave breathing room around the subject.
- Do not draw polished Japanese anime character art.

# Lettering
- Only these three pieces of text may appear in the frame:
  1. Main title: the exact words written in the [TITLE] field above.
  2. Lower line: the value of the [PLACE] field above, then a slash, then SCENE NOTE. Example: SAN FRANCISCO / SCENE NOTE. The words SCENE NOTE are part of this line and are always printed. A lower line with the place alone, without a slash and SCENE NOTE after it, is a failure.
  3. Observation line: one natural English sentence that fits the place and the scene in the photo. No more than 8 words.
- Use the words I wrote in [TITLE] and [PLACE] exactly, letter for letter. Do not invent different wording after looking at the photo. Do not polish the meaning or correct the grammar.
- If I wrote something that is not English in [TITLE] or [PLACE], translate it into English first and draw English only.
- Put all lettering inside the stamp window, in the quietest area. Do not put a single character on the photo outside the window.
- Match the typeface to the illustration: a retro animation title-card face, a serif with slightly starved ink, or loose hand lettering.
- The main title must stay readable when the image is shrunk to a chat preview. Do not set it too small.
- Do not cover a face, joint, vehicle, rail, or key object with lettering.

# Lettering bans (breaking any of these fails the image)
- Every visible character uses the Latin alphabet only. If even one Hangul, Chinese, Japanese, or Cyrillic character is visible, it is a failure.
- Do not place a single digit anywhere in the frame. A year, number, time, or stamp face value is a failure.
- The main title is 2 English words or fewer and 14 characters or fewer, including spaces. If the title's width exceeds 70% of the artwork width inside the stamp, it is a failure.
- The title, lower line, and observation line must all sit at least 8% inward from the perforation edge. If a single stroke touches or crosses the perforation, it is a failure. If text would overflow, reduce the type size. Do not crop it.
- If a bracketed field name such as [TITLE] or [PLACE], or any sentence from these instructions, gets printed into the image, it is a failure. Do not draw the field names, only their values.
- Do not smear the spelling or overlap letters into a blur. Do not add typos or reversed characters on purpose.
- Do not insert an extra stroke such as a vertical bar or slash inside a word. If SHARED reads as SHA|RED, it is a failure. Separate words with a single space only.
- If an underline or decorative rule touches the lettering and reads as part of a letter, it is a failure.
- Do not print the same words twice anywhere in the frame.
- Inside the stamp window only: if a logo, shop sign, licence plate, or lettering printed on clothing or a car body falls inside the window, erase that part and draw it as a plain, unpatterned surface. Leaving it as a blurry letter shape is a failure. Outside the window, never retouch the photo: signs, plates, and shop lettering already in the photo stay exactly as they are. The digit ban above applies to lettering you draw, not to what the camera recorded.

# Other bans
Do not use a photo-versus-illustration split at the top and bottom, a left-and-right two-panel layout, cartooning of the whole frame, a stamp window moved elsewhere, a duplicated subject, changed subject proportions, offset rails or ground lines, a plain white border, missing perforation, a dotted border, a rounded-corner card, a physical postcard, a floating sticker, paper thickness, a cast shadow, an unrelated background, an artist name, a signature, a logo, an address, a QR code, a watermark, or unreadable fake lettering.

# The most important rule
The illustration inside the stamp window has to replace the subject and the scene that stood in that same place, at that same size, in the original photo. It should not read as a drawing pasted onto a photo. It should read as if one piece of the real frame suddenly turned into animation.