Photography Prompt System

Requirement

Photography for INTO Consulting should provide atmosphere and material texture without narrating the message.

Constraints

• Default rule: no stock photography.
• Shallow depth-of-field macro photography in the INTO palette is the primary atmospheric register for editorial surfaces, covers, section breaks, hero/photo overlays, web-app section pauses, slides, and video title cards.
• Macro texture is a brand code only when it hosts text or creates an editorial pacing surface.
• The image must host text. It must not compete with the headline.
• Subjects are matter, not objects: oxidized copper, coiled wire, dark concrete, still water at night, brushed steel, ink in water, wet stone, and frosted glass.
• Shadows pull toward petrol/teal; highlights stay cool. Blacks hold an approximate 15% luminance floor and never fall to pure black.
• No warm contamination: no brass, gold, amber highlights, lifestyle warmth, or skin-tone hero subjects.
• Private client imagery must be treated as evidence and redacted when needed.
• Text over photography must sit on negative space, a quiet third, or a separate overlay field. Never place text over the focal subject.
• Captions, source notes, and cutlines stay visually attached to the image they explain.

Bet

Macro material photography gives the brand depth without literal AI imagery. The cost is stricter art direction: prompts must specify scale, depth of field, light, color grade, and non-identifiability.

Failure Modes

• The subject is too literal and becomes an illustration.
• The image is too bright or variable for text.
• The image introduces the wrong category signal, such as robots, rockets, handshakes, generic offices, or cityscapes.
• Warm highlights drift into brass, gold, amber, lifestyle, or skin-tone signals.
• AI-generated images add text, faces, products, or recognizable objects.

Identifiability Test

If a viewer can name the subject within one second, the image is too literal for a backdrop. They should register texture, color, light, and feeling before they can name the object.

Prompt Anatomy

Every macro backdrop prompt should include:

1. Subject and scale: “extreme macro” or “ultra close-up.”
2. Depth of field: shallow focus with only a narrow plane sharp.
3. Directional light: angle, quality, and what the light reveals.
4. Non-identifiability: no visible objects, no recognizable forms.
5. Color grade: desaturated teal, near-black, cool steel-blue, petrol shadow, mild vignette, saturation 15-20, and no warm contamination.
6. Camera/lens reference: macro lens language that pushes photographic realism.
7. Negative prompt: no text, no faces, no logos, no CGI feel, no product objects, no brass, no gold, no amber, no skin tones, no lifestyle warmth.

Reference inspection - technique notes

These notes come from live inspection of the current reference URLs on 2026-05-19. They extract technique only and do not import any palette, copy register, illustration register, or product positioning.

• https://claura-ai.com/en: The current page uses a very large quiet first viewport before the hero claim, which creates a slow editorial entrance rather than immediate SaaS density. The headline uses one contrasting italic word inside an otherwise consistent serif display line. Process content is presented as selectable stages, with one active stage expanding into a composed product-like panel. Technique to keep: breathing room, one controlled mixed-register word, and stage-based process reveal. Do not keep the warm palette, lifestyle/floral imagery, star-rating proof, or rounded marketing cards.
• https://cofounder.co: The current page no longer presents shallow-DOF macro photography in the inspected hero; it uses a full-bleed pixel-art scene with foreground/background scale changes, a translucent nav layer, small dark task overlays, and product UI scenes later in the page. Technique to keep: text anchored over a quieter portion of an atmospheric field, foreground detail kept away from the main claim, and capability shown through composed product states. Do not import the pixel-art register, saturated blue/green palette, mascot-like scene language, or game-world metaphor.
• https://open-design.ai: The page uses an editorial magazine grid with a dense metadata frame, mixed sans/italic serif headline register, one large dominant visual plate, corner crop marks, small numbered labels, and a compact CTA cluster. It communicates AI capability through craft, systems, and artifact density rather than a generic dashboard hero. Technique to keep: disciplined metadata frame, one dominant proof image, mixed-register headline only when it improves hierarchy, and capability expressed through artifacts. Do not import the coral accent, cream palette, classical bust collage, or open-source studio positioning.

Gradient Overlay

Every photo surface that carries text needs an overlay between image and text. Use the canonical photo overlay gradient unless the medium spec gives a more specific value:

linear-gradient(135deg, rgba(15,21,24,.88) 0%, rgba(15,21,24,.58) 52%, rgba(26,74,77,.24) 100%)

Layer order:

• 0: background image.
• 1: optional CSS bokeh backstop layer when the source lacks natural DOF.
• 2: gradient overlay.
• 3: text content.
• 4: optional grain or compression-aware surface texture.

CSS Bokeh Backstop

When a generated or edited macro image lacks natural shallow depth of field, add a dedicated duplicate background layer below the gradient overlay:

filter: blur(3px);
transform: scale(1.06);

The blur layer is a backstop, not a substitute for art direction. It must be paired with the gradient overlay so text contrast is governed. The scaled layer hides edge artifacts; do not blur the content layer, text, controls, or evidence screenshots.

Grain And Texture

Atmospheric macro photography should carry baked-in film grain. Use a Lightroom-equivalent grain setting of 28-34 on hero, cover, section-break, and video-title imagery. Apply it at generation or source-image editing time, not as a runtime filter.

Runtime canvas grain may sit above atmospheric photography only when the surface is a hero, cover, video title card, dramatic conclusion, or governed photo overlay. Use approximately 5.5% opacity with mix-blend-mode: overlay and disable animation under prefers-reduced-motion: reduce.

Do not apply baked-in or runtime grain to evidence screenshots, product UI captures, chart marks, tables, body text, or controls. See brand/texture-system.md for the full cross-surface texture contract.

Surface-Specific Positioning

Surface	Aspect / Crop	Focus Placement	Text-Safe Area
Webflow or web hero	16:9 or viewport crop with bleed beyond all edges.	Small in-focus zone decentered to the right or lower third.	Claim sits on negative space or quiet third; no floating dark card as the main containment.
Slide or proposal cover	16:9 export with mobile/social crop considered when reused.	Focus zone sits away from title and logo.	Title and metadata occupy the quiet half or third; keep wordmark clear of focal detail.
Web-app section break	Wide but shallow band, usually between workflow modes.	Texture remains mostly out of focus; no recognizable product or object.	Short section claim only; route dense controls back to Warm Light work surfaces.
Dark-editorial cover	Full-bleed with deep teal base, gradient overlay, and grain.	Focal detail stays peripheral and low-contrast.	Display title, short support line, and secondary glass CTA use protected overlay zones.

Slide Image Roles

Use these rules when routing photography into contexts/google-slides-system.html#wireframe-set.

Slide Type	Image Role	Positioning Rule
Title / cover	Atmosphere	16:9 full bleed. Focal detail stays outside the title, subtitle, wordmark, presenter strip, and date zones.
Section divider	Atmosphere	Macro texture or deep teal field may bleed; the section number and title sit inside the safe margin on a quiet third.
Two-column image + text	Evidence or explanation	Image occupies 50/50 or 60/40 side. Text stays in the separate column; caption/source attaches to the image.
Exhibit full-width	Evidence	The image, screenshot, or diagram becomes the exhibit and carries a caption/source; do not cover it with text.
Team	Evidence	Use shallow-DOF environmental portraits in the INTO palette when available; otherwise use a role matrix and document the exception.
Decision / ask and closer	Atmosphere	Dark-cover treatment is allowed only when the ask/contact remains readable and concrete.
Data, terms, risk, and dense comparison	None by default	Do not add atmospheric photography; these slides need inspectable data, terms, mitigation, and source detail.

Editorial Image And Text Composition

Treat photography like a magazine editor would: first decide whether the image is evidence, explanation, or atmosphere.

• Evidence photography or screenshots prove a real product, place, client artifact, or workflow. Use captions, source notes, redaction, and hairline framing.
• Explanation images support diagrams, schematics, or technical sketches. Put labels near the object they describe.
• Editorial macro images create texture and pacing. They must not narrate the message literally.

Text placement rules:

• Use negative space, a quiet third, or a separate column for text.
• Do not cover the focal subject.
• Keep the headline short enough to survive crop and compression.
• Use the canonical overlay before placing light text over a photo.
• Attach captions and source notes to the image; detached captions fail review.

Canonical Prompt Examples

photo-prompt-oxidized-copper

Extreme macro photograph of oxidized copper surface, irregular patina in deep teal and near-black, shallow depth of field with only a narrow plane in sharp focus, remaining surface dissolving into atmospheric blur, directional raking light from upper left casting low-relief shadows across surface texture, shot on Hasselblad 120mm macro, no visible objects, pure material abstraction, editorial quality, desaturated teal color grade.

photo-prompt-copper-wire

Ultra close-up macro of tangled fine-gauge copper wire, dense coiled forms, shallow depth of field leaving foreground and background as soft blur, cool steel-blue ambient light with teal edge glints, dark near-black background behind subject, shot on Canon MP-E 65mm macro, no text, no faces, no identifiable objects, photographic material study, no brass, no gold, no amber.

photo-prompt-concrete-aggregate

Extreme macro photograph of dark concrete aggregate surface, fine granular texture with micro-shadows, very shallow depth of field, only a thin plane of focus visible, soft teal-tinted ambient light from left, deep charcoal tones, grain and mineral inclusions visible in focus plane, rest dissolving to near-black blur, shot on Nikon 200mm macro, documentary realism, no humans, no objects.

photo-prompt-dark-water

Extreme close-up of still dark water surface at night, a single cool teal light source reflecting in a narrow ellipse, surrounding surface almost pure black with micro-ripple texture, shallow depth of field, absolute stillness, ultra-fine grain film simulation, desaturated, cinematic, no sky, no horizon, pure abstract surface, shot on Sony 90mm macro, 1/2 second exposure.

Agent Rule

Use these prompts as canonical starting points, not as generic moodboard text. For every generated image, run the identifiability test and the text contrast test before using it in a cover, title slide, social post, newsletter, or video frame.

Plane Illustration Retirement

The airplane sketch and the prior unified vintage technical illustration direction are superseded for atmospheric hero, cover, and section-break work. The plane may remain on legacy Webflow pages until a separate website elevation pass replaces it, but agents must not create an equivalent redraw project or use the plane as the canonical atmospheric anchor. About-page operational line icons remain governed by brand/icon-system.md and are not part of this retirement.

Hard Rules

• No stock photography.
• No generic AI imagery, robots, glowing brains, rockets, or handshakes.
• No gradient blobs posing as atmosphere.
• No lifestyle photography or skin-tone hero subjects.
• No brass, gold, amber, or warm contamination.
• No literal product photos in hero or cover backdrops.
• No text over the focal subject.
• No photo grain rules redefined here; route to brand/texture-system.md.