Polaroid Snapshot

Photography · Instant Film · Snapshot

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Polaroid Snapshot, Direct flash, milky shadows and a white border that has yellowed — Kitchen party, direct flash·Nano Banana Pro

Recipe

The style is the recipe. The subject is yours.

The examples above were generated with Nano Banana Pro and Seedream 4.5. The recipes below are written for GPT Image and Flux, so treat the settings as a starting point rather than the exact run.

A description in plain sentences. This is the version to start with, and it works on any current image model. Settings below are the ones we used on GPT Image; treat them as a starting point.

Make it yours

The recipe is the style, not the picture. Put your own subject in and the highlighted part of the prompt changes.

Prompt

An instant film snapshot from 1988 of two people laughing in a small kitchen. Direct on camera flash, the nearest shoulder slightly blown out, milky lifted shadows, a warm yellow green colour shift, soft focus and a slightly tilted horizon. Square image area with a wide white border at the bottom, the border faintly yellowed, a small crease in one corner.

The prompt gets you close. Feed one of the examples in as a style reference for the rest. Download the images

Use the examples as a reference

Download the examples

Send the example as an input image to the images.edits endpoint alongside the prompt, or attach it in ChatGPT. It follows composition closely, so describe your subject firmly or it will copy the example.

Settings on GPT Image

Size: 1024 x 1024 plus border
Quality: Medium
Background: Opaque
Output: PNG

Tips

1Lifted milky shadows matter more than the border. That is what instant film actually did.
2Ask for one blown highlight near the camera. Flash falloff sells it instantly.
3A tilted horizon and approximate focus keep it a snapshot rather than a photograph.