Digital Green
- phosphor green
- terminal green
- screen light green
One green hue at every value on black, as if a screen were the only light.
Opens an image model with the palette in the prompt. The same words work on a video model.
- #000000
- #02180C
- #0B3D20
- #1E9E4A
- #5BE58A
- #C9FFD9
What it is for
A monochrome green picture is read as a machine looking rather than a person looking. The colour carries the idea of a display, and no other hue does that job.
Green also happens to be where the eye has the most resolution, so a green only picture keeps more detail than a red or blue one at the same brightness.
How it works
Use one hue and build the values from it: near black, deep green, mid green, bright green, pale green. Five steps is the whole palette.
Make the green emit rather than reflect. Saying the light comes from a screen is what produces a glow, and a glow is what separates this from a green filter.
Keep white out of it. The brightest thing in the frame is a pale green, not a white highlight.
When to use it
Use it for a machine view, a terminal, a night vision shot, a system under threat, a title sequence, anything that has to look mediated.
Leave it alone for anything human and warm. A green only picture cannot be made friendly.
Told apart from its neighbours
A monochromatic palette is the general rule: one hue at several values on any ground. This is the specific version: one green, emitted, on black.
Monochrome in the cinematic catalogue is a grade, applied to finished footage. This is a decision about the light in the scene, taken before the shoot.
Where it was used
Cathode ray terminals really were green, because the phosphor was cheap and long lasting. Cinema kept the colour long after the hardware went, and by 1999 a whole film could use it as a signal that the audience was inside a machine.
- The Matrix (1999)
- Alien (1979)
- WarGames (1983)
The prompt
Run it as it stands, or drop the colour clause into a prompt you already have. It works in an image prompt and in a video prompt.
<subject>, a single phosphor green hue at every value on pure black, the green reading as emitted light from a screen rather than as paint on a surface, bright green highlights falling away to near black, no second hue anywhere, no white
What goes wrong
The picture comes back as a normal photograph with a green wash on it. Say the green is emitted light on black, not a filter over the scene.
White highlights appear on every edge. Say the brightest value is a pale green and there is no white.
Leave out
white highlights, a second hue, grey shadows, a warm cast
Watch for
Do not ask for a green filter. Say the green is emitted light on black or the picture comes back as a tinted photograph.
Questions
Paint it
Pay for the one run. No subscription, and the price is on the model page before you sign in.
