Design proposal · for review

Generative Workflows for Multiple Users: A Proposal

A user makes 154 outputs for one shot. A week later someone else opens the one they kept and asks how it was made. Right now the only way to find out is to ask them, and if they are not around the next person spends a day retrying what the original user already knows does not work.

01

Single OutputThe deepest zoom: a single image and its whole record

Everything recorded about one single output: what went in, which model ran it, and what it came from.

selectby Brad TangonanReuse inputsUse as referenceCompare…
more info
this output461038eca0c1362f
this try20260806T062412Z_midjourney-v7
these inputs252f82b4acdea442
model asked formidjourney-v7
authorBrad Tangonan
seedNone
generations4
outputs back16

what went in, in the order it went in

the words
Text Prompt
252f82b4acdea4424,357 chars
[VISUAL STYLE]
Medium: live action | photograph | high
Color Grade ("Petrol Halo Bloom"): black at 2, petrol-teal shadows | midtones low, S-curve, ochre skinless metal | roll-off to cream and sodium amber | saturation restrained, teal-versus-amber split extreme
Skin: Photorealistic skin with natural texture, visible pores, and true tonal variation.
Film Stock: film | unnamed push-processed color negative (low) | coarse grain, heavy in shadows, chroma-speckled | halation, bloom, edge chroma bleed
Lens: unnamed spherical (low) | 90mm | wide aperture, shallow plane, smeared oval highlights | soft overall, heavy diffusion, veiling glow, long fall-off
Lighting: single hard raking key, low left, specular | hard, shadow edge dissolving into haze | 12:1, no fill, shadows crushed to black | fall-off immediate, background unlit

[REFERENCE PROTOCOL]
Image 1 is the STYLE reference: take film character, lens rendering, colour grading, and the QUALITY of its light (how hard or soft it is, its contrast ratio, direction and fall-off) from it, and nothing else. Do not copy its subject, composition, location, any object in it, or its time of day and weather. Compose a wholly new scene per [SHOT].
Image 2 is the CHARACTER reference, walker 2: slender east asian woman, subtle freckles across her cheeks and nose, long thick wavy dark hair. The person in the photograph is this exact person. Match their face, hair, skin and build precisely. Take NOTHING else from it, not their clothing, not their pose, not the studio backdrop they stand on. Wardrobe, pose and setting come from [SHOT].

[FACES]
Faces come from the character reference images and from nowhere else. Take no face, likeness or person from image 1, whether or not people appear in it. Any additional person the shot names is a NEW INVENTED INDIVIDUAL with an invented face, never a face taken or adapted from image 1.

[SHOT]
Two women walk past each other in opposite directions through abutting dimensions; one woman walks through  an airport concourse: a low moving-walkway rail, a row of black bench seating, an abandoned luggage cart, and the base of a column carrying a departures board. The right half is open field: dry grass lying in windblown rows, a bare dirt path worn through it, scattered white wildflowers, and one leaning wire fence post. At the seam between the two dimension ground planes, the concourse floor meets the soil,  the two women are level with each other at the center of the frame, roughly two arm-lengths apart across the seam. 

The camera is high angle, 3/4 orthogonal  pointing down at them; both ground planes read parallel and surfaces converge

[EXPRESSION]
Derive each person's expression from what they are doing and where they are, as described in [SHOT]: let the action and situation set the face, as an unposed documentary frame would catch it. When several people appear, each reacts to their own part of the scene rather than to the camera. Avoid BOTH failure modes: posed camera-aware smiling, and uniformly blank expressionless faces.

[STRICT NEGATIVE PROMPTS]
No text, glyphs, lettering, writing, numbers, typography, captions, subtitles, watermarks, logos, or borders anywhere in the image. Any signs, screens, labels, posters, or packaging that appear in the scene must be BLANK or fully illegible; never render readable characters in any language. No plastic, waxy, airbrushed, or beauty-filtered skin. No posed or camera-aware smiling. No extra people beyond those the shot names. No duplicated, merged, or deformed faces, hands, or limbs. No CGI, illustration, or plastic render look. No studio backdrop unless the shot names one. No added props beyond the shot description.

Render the shot in exactly the visual style described. Film stock character, lens rendering and colour grade stay constant. Lighting SPLITS: its quality, meaning how hard or soft it is and its contrast ratio, direction and fall-off, carries over from the Lighting line above; its condition follows the shot's stated time and weather. Where the Lighting line names a time of day, weather or light source that [SHOT] contradicts, [SHOT] decides the condition and only the quality carries over, rendered within the stated grade. If the shot names no camera position, use a tripod-height frontal or profile stance with the subject mid-frame. Full-bleed photograph.
position 1
style
35980349.jpgf1f082404f4ecf55corpus/arena_v2_still_life_1525022574/
position 2
character_sheet
8369_bonnie_chen.png1ae6ae0d4a470c3auserdocs/test_images/studio_cyc/
02

Output ComparisonThe one thing nothing else does

Compare the differences between the inputs of two or more outputs.

6 diffsmediumcolour gradefilm stocklenslightingstyle imagedarker words differ between A and B
A · e12063e3260e187emidjourney-v8
this outpute12063e3260e187e
this try20260806T062146Z_midjourney-v8
these inputsc7f1e92c7737ff91
position 1 · style
f6d6497eb282417616559177.png
Medium: illustration | digital painting | medium
Color Grade ("Cyanotype Drift"): pure black shadows, ink-navy | low midtones, S-curve, steel-blue | soft roll-off, pale seafoam | moderate saturation, navy-to-mint split
Film Stock: digital | unnamed (low) | fine luma noise, low density | bloom, mild compression
Lens: unnamed spherical (low) | 85mm | f/4, deep focus, small round highlights | soft overall, diffused edges, halo bloom
Lighting: single raking key from upper left, diffused | soft, gradual shadow edge | 8:1, no fill, crushed blacks | rapid fall-off to void
B · e4ed77d2c16dd4e1midjourney-v8
this outpute4ed77d2c16dd4e1
this try20260806T062349Z_midjourney-v8
these inputsc9e21e5c3b4b5af7
position 1 · style
f1f082404f4ecf5535980349.jpg
Medium: live action | photograph | high
Color Grade ("Petrol Halo Bloom"): black at 2, petrol-teal shadows | midtones low, S-curve, ochre skinless metal | roll-off to cream and sodium amber | saturation restrained, teal-versus-amber split extreme
Film Stock: film | unnamed push-processed color negative (low) | coarse grain, heavy in shadows, chroma-speckled | halation, bloom, edge chroma bleed
Lens: unnamed spherical (low) | 90mm | wide aperture, shallow plane, smeared oval highlights | soft overall, heavy diffusion, veiling glow, long fall-off
Lighting: single hard raking key, low left, specular | hard, shadow edge dissolving into haze | 12:1, no fill, shadows crushed to black | fall-off immediate, background unlit
A · e12063e3260e187emidjourney-v8
B · e4ed77d2c16dd4e1midjourney-v8
14 identical lines84% of the prompt textsame model · midjourney-v8no shared reference
identical in both14 of 19 lines
[VISUAL STYLE]
Skin: Photorealistic skin with natural texture, visible pores, and true tonal variation.
[REFERENCE PROTOCOL]
Image 1 is the STYLE reference: take film character, lens rendering, colour grading, and the QUALITY of its light (how hard or soft it is, its contrast ratio, direction and fall-off) from it, and nothing else. Do not copy its subject, composition, location, any object in it, or its time of day and weather. Compose a wholly new scene per [SHOT].
[FACES]
Every person in the frame is a NEW INVENTED INDIVIDUAL with an invented face. Take no face, likeness or person from image 1, whether or not people appear in it.
[SHOT]
Two women walk past each other in opposite directions through abutting dimensions; one woman walks through an airport concourse: a low moving-walkway rail, a row of black bench seating, an abandoned luggage cart, and the base of a column carrying a departures board. The right half is open field: dry grass lying in windblown rows, a bare dirt path worn through it, scattered white wildflowers, and one leaning wire fence post. At the seam between the two dimension ground planes, the concourse floor meets the soil, the two women are level with each other at the center of the frame, roughly two arm-lengths apart across the seam.
The camera is high angle, 3/4 orthogonal pointing down at them; both ground planes read parallel and surfaces converge
[EXPRESSION]
Derive each person's expression from what they are doing and where they are, as described in [SHOT]: let the action and situation set the face, as an unposed documentary frame would catch it. When several people appear, each reacts to their own part of the scene rather than to the camera. Avoid BOTH failure modes: posed camera-aware smiling, and uniformly blank expressionless faces.
[STRICT NEGATIVE PROMPTS]
No text, glyphs, lettering, writing, numbers, typography, captions, subtitles, watermarks, logos, or borders anywhere in the image. Any signs, screens, labels, posters, or packaging that appear in the scene must be BLANK or fully illegible; never render readable characters in any language. No plastic, waxy, airbrushed, or beauty-filtered skin. No posed or camera-aware smiling. No extra people beyond those the shot names. No duplicated, merged, or deformed faces, hands, or limbs. No CGI, illustration, or plastic render look. No studio backdrop unless the shot names one. No added props beyond the shot description.
Render the shot in exactly the visual style described. Film stock character, lens rendering and colour grade stay constant. Lighting SPLITS: its quality, meaning how hard or soft it is and its contrast ratio, direction and fall-off, carries over from the Lighting line above; its condition follows the shot's stated time and weather. Where the Lighting line names a time of day, weather or light source that [SHOT] contradicts, [SHOT] decides the condition and only the quality carries over, rendered within the stated grade. If the shot names no camera position, use a tripod-height frontal or profile stance with the subject mid-frame. Full-bleed photograph.
assets in common0 of 1
Neither reference is shared. Each try carries exactly one style image, and they are different files: A f6d6497eb2824176 versus B f1f082404f4ecf55.
▸ Between these two tries, six things changed: medium, colour grade, film stock, lens, lighting, style image. So nothing here can say which one mattered. Real work rarely moves one thing at a time, and a neat before-and-after would quietly teach something false.
03

Generation MapOne group over time: what was tried, in what order, what is still alive

The view shows generation rounds over time, with groups defined as packages built from alike inputs: the same reference pictures or the same prompt wording.

inside one shot · the 16 real packages
group 105:52
midjourney-v7d046452a
3 refsstyle c1473ca4
midjourney-v8ce781146
2 refsstyle c1473ca4
group 205:57
midjourney-v8304b1513
1 refstyle c1473ca42 triessame inputs, other model
midjourney-v7aa39be39
2 refsstyle c1473ca42 tries
krea-2-large304b1513
1 refstyle c1473ca4same inputs, other model
group 306:04
midjourney-v84c430985
1 refstyle 2d9f672bsame inputs, other model
midjourney-v7315ca06a
2 refsstyle 2d9f672bsame inputs, other model
group 406:07
krea-2-large4c430985
1 refstyle 2d9f672bsame inputs, other model
seedream-5-pro315ca06a
3 refsstyle 2d9f672bsame inputs, other model
group 506:11
midjourney-v82759f3a1
1 refstyle fe5d5f77
midjourney-v87656bb74
1 refstyle 9647c1d7
group 606:21
midjourney-v8c7f1e92c
1 refstyle f6d6497e
midjourney-v8c9e21e5c
1 refstyle f1f08240
midjourney-v7252f82b4
2 refsstyle f1f08240
▸ Columns are gaps in the clock, not rounds. Nothing records when a round began, so the rule is just: more than two minutes since the last run starts a new column. One gap here is 2m03s, three seconds from not being a break at all.
04

Evolution MapWhich packages were built from alike inputs, and when each ran

The view shows generations over time, grouped by the similarity of their inputs (text and images).

the evolution map · 16 packages · reference + prompt overlap (v2) · similarity010.70
05:5231 minutes of work06:24
style c1473ca4shared by every package in this row
7 packages · 50 outputs
mj-v7
8 out
mj-v8
8 out
mj-v8
8 out
mj-v7
8 out
mj-v8
8 out
mj-v7
8 out
krea-2
2 out
style 2d9f672bshared by every package in this row
3 packages · 20 outputs
mj-v8
8 out
mj-v7
8 out
krea-2
4 out
style f1f08240shared by every package in this row
2 packages · 32 outputs
mj-v8
16 out
mj-v7
16 out
weak matchnothing else shares enough of their inputs
4 packages · 52 outputs
seedream
4 out
mj-v8
16 out
mj-v8
16 out
mj-v8
16 out
same inputs, only the model movedleft to right = when it ranevery package appears in exactly one row
05

Contact SheetOne shot flattened, at real relative size: the scale a user deals with

All 154 outputs of a single shot, from 16 packages, made in about half an hour. An entire session reads at a glance. The user can drill down into any individual output or switch views to track prompts over time.

every output from one shot · all 154 of them
▸ Every output here is real, at real relative size. The contact sheet stays as a view in its own right. Read top to bottom, the run moves from portraits into the aurora experiments, then into the walking figures, and that is useful before a single label has been read.
06

Open QuestionsEach is answerable without reading anything above

Q1

What should be on screen at open?

Recent sessions as cards, leaving the choice of where to go. Or straight back into the last session. I guessed the second one, because the work tends to sit on one thing for hours.

Q2

Should the tool guess when a new round starts, or be told?

Right now it guesses by looking for gaps of more than two minutes, and it admits it is guessing. The other way is a “new round” button pressed before starting. One extra click buys a fact.

Q3

Output Comparison: early or late?

It is the only thing here nobody else has, which argues for building it first. It is also the one that can confidently show a pattern that is not real, which argues for building it last, once the record underneath is solid.

Q4

Lots of small outputs, or fewer big ones?

This page is packed on purpose, so a whole shot reads at once. The trade is that every output is small. Six big outputs instead of sixty small ones is a different tool, and now is the time to decide.

07

GlossaryNine words the rest of this page uses, from the outside in

Session
a stretch of work

The tool opens and closes, so it records this for free without asking anyone. Everything on this page happened in one 31-minute session. A session holds whatever you did in it, however many things that was.

Shot
a view across sessions

Packages built from alike inputs, gathered by the dial whether they ran ten minutes or ten days apart. Nothing to file: a session is what you worked in, a shot is what the work turns out to be about.

Package
inputs plus outputs

One submission, kept together: what went in and what came back. One package in this shot billed 4 calls, returned 16 images and cost $0.32.

Inputs
everything fed to the model

The text written, and any images or video handed to the model alongside it, plus which model and which settings. Change any one of those and they are different inputs.

Outputs
what the model returned

A single image or clip. This shot has 154 of them. The page treats image and video the same way, because the trail behind them is the same trail.

Generation
what came back at once

One call to the model returns a group. The package on this page made 4 calls and got 16 images back: 4 generations of 4, not one batch of 16.

Reference
an image or clip fed in

One of the inputs: a style to copy, a character who has to stay the same, a colour palette. Order matters to some models.

Provenance
the trail back

For any output: which words made it, which references went in, which model, who made it, when. When the trail is broken the page says so instead of guessing.

Branch
starting from an existing output

A user sees an output they like and carries on from there. The tool remembers where they started, so the path back never gets lost.