One Colour and a Shadow
Hand it a photograph of one thing and it takes everything away — no surface, no horizon, no props — leaving the object on one flat colour with one soft shadow under it. Two fields; the listing shot.
One treatment, two different photographs. A white shoe onto a mid grey and a black kettle onto a bone white — the two ends of the ground rule, chosen so the pair shows what the colour field is actually for rather than defaulting to white twice.
The separation works in both: a white object on a grey that is genuinely darker, and a black one on a warm white, so neither disappears into its own ground. That took a correction — the grey was first asked for as #ECEDEF, which is a light grey by name and very nearly the shoe by value, and the run duly returned a white shoe on almost-white. The ground law is a rule about the field you type, not only about what the run does with it. What neither run got right is the shadow. The template asks for one soft contact shadow starting where the object meets the ground, and both came back with barely a line under the sole and the base. On a flat colour there is nothing else in the frame to anchor the object, so this is the treatment where a missing shadow costs the most, and it is the one to check before shipping. The colour is also approximate rather than exact: neither ground samples to the hex it was given, so if a set has to match, correct it afterwards rather than trusting the field.
Generated for this library
Input
Object a white canvas sneaker
Colour a mid cool grey, #C9CDD2
Photograph sneaker-front.png (1254 x 1254)
Returned 1 image · 1:1 · the same object, one colour
object unchanged, same place, same light on it
camera same eye line and distance; outline lands on
itself
ground one flat mid grey, no seam and no horizon -
well darker than the shoe, which is the point
shadow barely there - a thin dark line at the sole
and nothing beyond it
removed surface, horizon, texture, every other object
words none, in any scriptYou fill in 2 fields — the braced lines at the top. Everything below them is fixed.
- 1The object, in three or four words
- 2The colour behind it
One Colour and a Shadow
What this makes
Hand it a photograph of one thing and it takes everything away — no surface, no horizon, no props — leaving the object on one flat colour with one soft shadow under it. Two fields; the listing shot.
You are given ONE photograph of ONE object. Return ONE image: the same object on one flat colour, with a single soft shadow and nothing else at all. Follow every line. Replace only the FIELDS block; everything after it is fixed.
First — do you have the photograph and the fields?
Say what this makes before you ask anything, in one or two sentences of their own words. Someone who has just pasted this has no idea what they are being asked for, and questions arriving cold are questions answered badly.
If no photograph is attached, stop and ask for one. This template has nothing to work on without it, and an object generated from the description instead is a different object that resembles the answer.
If either field below still has braces around it, stop and ask. Put both questions in one short message, and show the example under each one so they can see the shape of a useful answer. Wait for the replies, then work. Never fill a brace yourself: a value you invented is a value nobody asked for.
Ask in whatever language they are writing to you in. Translate the questions and the examples; do not make someone read English to tell you what they want.
If the photograph is attached and both fields are filled in, ignore this and carry on.
Fields — replace these two lines only
- The object, in three or four words: {what is in the photograph}
- The colour behind it: {one flat colour, named or as a hex}
The law everything else follows from
You can only see the face the photograph gave you.
So this template builds around the object and asks nothing of the object itself. It never turns it, opens it, tilts it or shows another side — you would have to invent that side, and not inventing it is the whole promise. If what you are about to do needs a face the photograph never showed, you are doing the wrong thing.
The object — carried through untouched
- Silhouette, proportions, and the position of every part.
- Colour, finish and material, including how light behaves on it: matt stays matt, gloss keeps its highlights where they were.
- Every existing mark, seam, join, chip and irregularity, including the ones that look like faults. They are how someone recognises their own thing.
- Any lettering already on the object stays exactly as photographed — same words, same letterforms, same position. You are not setting it again.
Nothing is added to the object: no label, no cap, no strap, no second copy of it, and no adjustment of its colour "to suit the scene".
The camera — it did not move
- Same eye line, same distance, same focal length.
- The object fills the same share of the frame within a twentieth, and sits in the same place in it.
- Perspective is unchanged: an ellipse that read nearly flat still reads nearly flat, a face that read square still reads square.
Check it by overlay. Stack the two frames. The object's outline should land on itself. Bigger, smaller, higher, or more from above means the camera moved — go again.
The light — it comes from somewhere
- One dominant source, with a direction and a height you have decided.
- Every shadow in the frame agrees with it, including the object's own.
- The contact shadow starts where the object meets the ground and is darkest there. A detached shadow is an object pasted onto a picture.
The treatment — everything taken away
Remove the surface, the background, and every other object. What is left is one flat colour and the subject standing on it.
- One flat colour, behind and beneath, with no seam between the two. No horizon line, no visible sweep, no floor. A very slight vignette is allowed; a gradient that reads as a room is not.
- No texture. Not paper, not fabric, not a wall. The colour is a colour, not a material.
- One soft contact shadow, and nothing else. It starts where the object meets the ground and is darkest there, spreading and lightening outward. No second shadow, no reflection, no glow.
- The colour is not the object's colour. The ground law survives even here: a white object needs a ground that is not white, a black one a ground that is not black. If the field asks for one anyway, give it, and separate the object with the shadow and a rim of light instead.
The object is lit as it was. Nothing about it changes.
Never
- Lettering, numerals, logos, labels, watermarks, price flashes, badges or packaging copy anywhere in the picture, in any script. Words already on the object are the only words allowed, and they stay as photographed.
- Hands, faces, figures, or any part of a person.
- A border, frame, vignette or sticker laid over the picture.
- A second copy of the object, a reflection showing a side that was never photographed, or a view into a part the photograph did not show.
What it should read as
A photograph taken in a proper studio on a seamless — not an object cut out and dropped onto a colour.
The whole template, in one piece. The steps below are the entire workflow.
How to use it
- Copy the whole template with the button above.
- Attach your photograph and paste the template in the same message.
- Replace the two FIELDS lines. Give a hex if you have one — but sample what comes back rather than trusting it, because the returned ground lands near the hex and not on it. For a set that has to match exactly, correct the colour afterwards in any editor.
- Check the shadow touches. A shadow with daylight between it and the object is the cut-out look this template exists to avoid.
- Run every product in the set from the same colour line, and they will sit on one ground.
What you swap
- The object, in three or four words
- a white canvas sneaker
- The colour behind it
- a mid cool grey, #C9CDD2
Before it runs
- An actual photograph of the thing, attached to the message. There is nothing here for a description to work on.
- A colour that is not the object's. This is the whole ground law in one field, and it is the field people fill with white regardless of what they are photographing.
- The marketplace's own rule, if there is one. Some require pure white, which this template will give you — but a white object on pure white is the reason those listings look empty, and that is worth knowing before you ask for it.
- One colour per set. The point of this treatment is that a row of products sits on one ground; picking a different colour per product loses the only thing it was for.
When to reach for it
When the picture has to be a listing image: a marketplace main shot, a catalogue row, a grid of products that must all sit on the same ground. Templates in this genre hand back a white background with a hard drop shadow pasted under the object, which is the look of a cut-out rather than of a photograph.
What changes
- One photograph in, one out — the object on one flat colour, everything else gone.
- No horizon, no visible surface texture, no props, no gradient that reads as a room.
- One soft contact shadow, starting where the object meets the ground rather than floating under it.
- The colour still has to differ from the object, so a white thing does not get a white ground.
- The camera holds, so a row of products run through this all sit at the same size.
Pairs with
- Kept Among Its OwnHand it a photograph of one thing and it gathers three to five companions from the same material world around it — wood with wood, glass with glass — all lower, all behind, none crossing it. Two fields.
- Lit Across, Not AtHand it a photograph of a thing and it takes one macro shot of the part you name — lit from the side so the surface proves the one fact you would otherwise have to touch it to learn. Two fields.
- Photographed by Somebody Who Owns ItHand it a clean product photograph and it takes the picture again as a customer would — wrong light, off-centre, a real room behind it — with the product itself unchanged. Two fields.