Vibary.ai
Go Pro
← All of Image

Layered Paper Cut Effect

Hand it a photograph and it comes back built out of cut paper — a countable stack of flat layers, each throwing a shadow on the one behind it, and every curve rolled in one direction because that is all a sheet can do. Two fields.

bring a photographicsstillphoto-incraftimage-promptminutes
ExamplesOne photograph in · one cut-paper build out · layers you can count
in
Valley and ridges
in
Monstera in a pot

We made two examples, from two different photographs: a valley that is all distance, and a houseplant that is nearly one flat plane. The plant is the harder test, because it has barely any depth to separate into layers.

You get your photo rebuilt in cut paper: flat layers in the photo's depth order, each casting a shadow on the one behind in the same direction, and no curve bending two ways. Fine textures such as a forest become a sawtooth cut edge. The number of layers you ask for isn't kept exactly and tends towards however many planes the photo really has. Use the first field to say what sits at the front and what sits at the back, because that part holds.

Generated for this library

Input
  Layers      five - the lake on the front layer, the
              furthest ridge on the back one
  Paper       matt coloured card, slightly fibrous at the
              cut edges, in the picture's own colours
  Photograph  valley.png (1254 x 1254)

Returned   1 image · 1:1 · the valley cut from card

layers     about nine against the five that were asked
           for - flat planes throughout, in the
           photograph's own depth order
shadows    one direction across the whole build, and
           the gap is legible from the shadow's width
curves     none in two directions - the ridges are flat
           sheets, the forest is a sawtooth cut edge
detail     the trees became one cut edge; nothing small
           survived as itself
words      none, in any script
SKILL.mdthe whole thing, as you would paste it© vibary.ai

You fill in 2 fields — the braced lines at the top. Everything below them is fixed.

  1. 1How many layers, and what is on the front one and the back one
  2. 2The paper it is cut from

Layered Paper Cut Effect

What this makes

Hand it a photograph and it comes back built out of cut paper — a countable stack of flat layers, each throwing a shadow on the one behind it, and every curve rolled in one direction because that is all a sheet can do. Two fields.

The whole template, in one piece. The steps below are the entire workflow.

How to use it

  1. Copy the whole template with the button above.
  2. Attach the photograph and paste the template in the same message.
  3. Replace the two FIELDS lines. Name the front and back layers from the picture, so the depth has two ends.
  4. Count the layers in the result. If you cannot count them, the run has made a soft 3D scene rather than a stack of sheets.
  5. Look for a double curve — a sphere, a dome, a rounded face. Paper cannot make one, and finding one means the run rendered rather than cut.

What you swap

How many layers, and what is on the front one and the back one
five layers — the lake on the front layer, the furthest ridge on the back one
The paper it is cut from
matt coloured card, slightly fibrous at the cut edges, in the picture's own colours

Before it runs

  • A photograph, attached to the message, with distances in it. A picture that is all one plane has no layers to separate and comes back as a flat cut-out.
  • A number of layers you have actually chosen. Four is a landscape; ten is a thicket. The count is the design decision, and 'several' will produce a mush.
  • Willingness to lose everything small. A leaf, a face, a wire and a word are all below the size of a cut, and they become part of the shape they sit on.
  • A subject that survives being simplified into silhouettes. If the thing is only recognisable by its surface detail, this is the wrong treatment for it.

When to reach for it

When something should look made by hand out of materials: a card, a cover, a title card, a window display, a children's book page. Templates in this genre ask for a paper-craft diorama and hand back a smooth 3D render with a paper texture on it — round forms no sheet could be folded into, and no layers to count.

What changes

  • One photograph in, one cut-paper construction out — a stack of flat layers you can count.
  • Each layer casts a shadow onto the one behind it, and the size of that shadow tells you the gap.
  • Curves are rolled or scored in one direction only, because paper cannot take a double curve without crumpling.
  • Detail smaller than a cut is dropped into the shape it belongs to instead of being printed on it.
  • One image, no type, no border, no photograph of a craft table.

Pairs with