# Clear line comic style generator

Your photo redrawn as a comic panel: a few broad shapes, each in one flat colour and closed by one even black line. The photo stays on your device.

Open the generator: https://morph.ogeny.app/clear-line/

## Design choices

- **Flat fields** (`color.flat-fields`): Unmodulated areas of colour. Set by “Flat colours”. https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/flat-fields/
- **Full polychrome** (`color.polychrome`): Many saturated hues at once. “Colour”: The photo’s own hues. https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/full-polychrome/
- **Isolated object** (`layout.isolated-object`): A single object or figure isolated on a plain ground. “Backdrop”: Bare paper. Measured on the opening picture: ground showing 79% with “Bare paper”, 26% with “As photographed, simplified” and 53% with “A flat colour”. https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/isolated-object/
- **Framed panels** (`layout.framed-panels`): Content held in borders, cartouches or compartments. Set by “Framed panels”. https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/framed-panels/
- **Line illustration** (`image.line-illustration`): Outline drawing, engraving, pen and ink. Always. https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/line-illustration/
- **Comic & cartoon** (`image.comic`): Outlines, speech balloons, character art. Always. https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/comic-and-cartoon/
- **Treated photography** (`image.treated-photo`): Duotone, high-contrast or posterised photographs. Always. https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/treated-photography/
- **Ornament-free** (`ornament.none`): Decoration rejected; form follows function. Always. https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/ornament-free/

## How it works

- The photo is simplified into a few broad closed shapes, each in one flat, unshaded colour from the palette, and every shape is closed by one even black contour; shapes are simplified as forms, so specks and slivers give way and contours run as smooth curves.
- The subject’s silhouette is its own shape with a slightly firmer line, and throws at most one flat cast shadow.

It never does:

- No hatching, no shading by line, no gradients, no halftone dots and no photographic texture: tone appears only as a different flat colour.
- No characters, lettering or settings from any comic: the tool draws only what is in the visitor’s photo.

## Controls

- `weight` Line weight (1–8, default 3.5): The one even black line, in thousandths of the picture’s width; the silhouette is a little firmer.
- `detail` Detail (0–1, default 0.85): How many shapes: low keeps only the broad forms, high keeps smaller ones.
- `count` Flat colours (2–7, default 4): How many flat colours the subject is sorted into.
- `colour` Colour (hue | tone; default hue): Each shape takes the palette colour nearest its own, or the palette is laid on from light to dark.
- `backdrop` Backdrop (photo | flat | paper; default flat): Behind the subject. Busy photos with no clear subject keep their backdrop. Bare paper: Measured on the opening picture: ground showing 79% with “Bare paper”, 26% with “As photographed, simplified” and 53% with “A flat colour”.
- `shadow` Cast shadow (default true): One flat shadow thrown by the subject.
- `frame` Framed panels (panel | bleed; default panel): A black-ruled panel on the paper, as on a comic page, or the picture to the edge.

## About Ligne Claire (Franco-Belgian Clear Line)

Clear line is a way of drawing comics that took shape in Belgian and French comic magazines from the 1930s and was given its name in the late 1970s. Every figure, building and cloud is closed by one black line of even weight; colour fills each shape flat, with no hatching and no shading, and the few shadows are flat shapes too. Near and far are drawn with the same clarity, so a picture reads at a glance. Since the late 1970s the style has also been used for posters, record sleeves and magazine covers.

This generator draws only from your photo. It cuts the subject from its backdrop, joins areas that differ only by soft shading while keeping the real edges, then gives each shape the palette colour nearest its own, or lays the palette on from light to dark. Specks join their neighbours, and every outline is smoothed into a curve that is drawn once and shared by the shapes on either side, so line and colour always meet.

Choose the line weight, how much detail to keep, the number of colours, the backdrop, a flat cast shadow and a ruled panel. The photo is read in your browser and never uploaded; the SVG is plain vector shapes, so the line stays sharp at any size.

Ligne Claire (Franco-Belgian Clear Line) in Stylogeny (1929–today): https://stylogeny.com/styles/ligne-claire/

## Recipe

```json
{
  "tool": "clear-line",
  "v": 1,
  "seed": 1,
  "format": "portrait",
  "params": {
    "weight": 3.5,
    "detail": 0.85,
    "count": 4,
    "colour": "hue",
    "backdrop": "flat",
    "shadow": true,
    "frame": "panel"
  },
  "palette": "ligne-claire"
}
```