Print Process beginner degradedanonymousurgent

Generation Loss

An image copied from a copy from a copy, until contrast collapses to black and white.

What it does

Each photocopy generation raises contrast and drops midtones. By the third or fourth pass a photograph is pure black and paper, edges have thickened, fine text has filled in and toner speckle has appeared in the margins. Zine culture used it because it was free; the look has since been adopted deliberately. The tell of a fake is uniform degradation, because real generation loss is uneven, worse toward the edges of the platen and around the fold of anything copied from a bound page.

The prompt

[Subject] as a fourth-generation photocopy. Midtones gone entirely, only pure black and paper white, edges thickened and small detail filled in solid. Toner speckle scattered in the margins, a dark band along one edge where the platen lid did not close, slight skew from being fed crooked. Copied from a folded original so a crease line runs through it.

Replace [Subject] with what you are shooting. Everything else is deliberate: the gear, stock and lighting are what push a generator towards this look.

Works well in

Midjourney, FLUX, Stable Diffusion

Pairs with

Punk Xerox Cut-Up Coarse Halftone

The Prompt Atlas

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