Personal
Travel memories as objects
A trip reduced to five planes reads as a keepsake in a way the original snapshot does not. The style discards detail and keeps the shape you actually remember.
One photo · Five or six layers · Tone from shadow, not ink
AI Paper Cut Art Generator
Paper cut art is not a paper texture. It is a stack of separately cut sheets with a few millimetres of air between them, and every bit of depth you see is a shadow one layer throws onto the next.
The shadows do the workNo printing on the paperEvery shape has to hold together
Cut pieces
Three subjects, three ways the layers stack
Look at the shadow under each layer edge before you look at anything else — that is the difference between cut paper and a paper-textured filter. Every output is AI-generated, so treat these as what the conversion aims at rather than results you will get back identically.
Corridor
A corridor: depth from repetition
Craft tool
Why depth is the only thing that matters here
Everything else about the style is easy. The layering is what almost every attempt gets wrong.
Image tool
Layered paper cut work separates a scene into planes — sky, distant hills, midground, subject, foreground — cuts each from a single sheet of coloured card, and stacks them with spacers so light rakes across and each layer casts onto the one behind. The shadows are what tell your eye there is depth, and they are also what a flat filter cannot fake, because a filter has no layers to cast between.
So the conversion has to make an explicit decision about how many planes the image splits into and what belongs on each one, then light the stack from a consistent direction. One honest limit: this produces a photograph of a paper artwork, not a cutting file. There is no SVG to send to a machine, and a real maker would still have to redraw the shapes.
Creative engine
How a stack is built
Upload a photo, say how many layers and where the light is, then look at the shadow edges.
One photo
5–6 paper layers
Shadows between sheets
Scenes with real depth work best
A landscape, a street, a room. The style needs foreground, midground and background to have something to separate — a flat headshot on a plain wall gives it nothing to stack.
Name the light direction
"Lit from the upper left" makes every layer throw its shadow the same way. Without it the stack lights inconsistently and the depth stops reading.
How to use
Three clauses that decide whether the depth reads
The default prompt carries the layering rules. These are the choices that belong to your photo.
- Subject
Pick a photo with distance in it
Something with a clear foreground, middle and background. Depth is what the style is for, and a subject on a blank wall has none to give it.
- Depth
Say how many layers
Five or six is the sweet spot. Three reads as flat, ten stops being legible as separate sheets and starts looking like a render.
- Light
Fix the light direction
One direction, stated once. Every layer then casts the same way and your eye reads the stack correctly instead of fighting inconsistent shadows.
Who it's for
Where cut paper beats a photograph
Four jobs where the simplification is the point rather than a loss.
Print
Cards and announcements
The craft look carries warmth that a photograph does not, and it prints well at small sizes because the shapes are large and flat.
Editorial
Editorial and title art
Layered paper has a distinct, expensive-looking texture that stands out in a feed. It is a common commission for exactly that reason.
Craft
A reference for a real maker
Not a cutting file, but a settled design. Handing a papercut artist an image of the intended result removes a whole round of back-and-forth about how the layers split. A maker working in glass faces the same constraint — see the stained glass version.
Answers
Paper cut conversion FAQ
The questions that come up before the first run.
No. This produces a photograph of a paper artwork, not an SVG or a cutting file. A maker could work from it as a design reference, but the vector paths would have to be drawn from scratch.
Five or six. Three reads as a flat illustration and the effect disappears; past about eight the sheets stop being individually legible and the whole thing looks like a 3D render rather than cut card.
Almost always because the light direction was not fixed, or because the source photo had no depth to separate. Add "lit from the upper left so each layer casts onto the one behind" and start from a photo with a foreground and a background.
Yes, and it is the most demanding version — with no colour difference between layers, every bit of tone has to come from shadow. Ask for a white paper relief explicitly, and expect to need a photo with strong forms.
It works, but differently. A portrait has little natural depth, so the style tends toward relief rather than a stack of scenic planes. Adding foliage or a border around the subject gives the layering something to do.
It travels over HTTPS and lands in your own history. Nothing is used to advertise. Worth knowing if you are working on a client brief: nothing you upload here is published or shown to another user.
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Credits are shared across everything Kavel runs. You see the cost before each run, and a failed job is never charged.
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- = 232 a month — 46 images or 5 videos
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More tools
Other materials to rebuild a photo in
The rest of the craft bench.
Stack a photo in paper
Pick something with distance in it, ask for five or six layers, and check the shadow under every edge — or work it in glass instead.