A photo or a drawing in · Clean transfer linework out · Seconds, not an evening of tracing
A stencil is a photograph with everything removed except what a needle can follow. Drop in an image and get flat black linework on white — no gradients, no grey, nothing that will not transfer.
Our own run on this site's engines. Drag the divider and watch what survives: an outline per petal edge, veins on the leaves, hatching only in the deepest shadow, and not one grey pixel anywhere. Every output is AI-generated; line weight is still a decision for whoever tattoos it.
Drag to compare before and after
It is the outline drawing that gets transferred onto skin before any ink goes in: flat black lines on white, no colour, no photographic tone, showing only what the artist will follow.
This is the one page in the tattoo cluster that is used by both sides of the chair. Artists convert reference into line to save an hour of tracing per piece. Clients convert their own photo — a pet, a portrait, a plant from the garden — because they want to hand over something an artist can work from instead of a saved image and a hopeful description. The output serves both: it is a drawing, and a drawing is a shared language.
The demo is our own run: a photograph of a red rose, and the same rose as a transfer sheet. What makes it a stencil rather than a filter is what got discarded. The colour is gone, obviously, but so is every soft gradient across the petals — replaced by an outline for each petal edge and hatching only where the shadow was deepest.
An edge-detect filter would have kept the noise and produced a hundred broken hairline fragments; a needle cannot follow those.
One realistic caution. A generated stencil is a starting draft, not a finished transfer. Line weight still needs an artist's judgement at the size you are actually tattooing, small internal detail usually has to be thinned or dropped, and anything that will close up as the ink spreads has to be opened out by hand.
Take the draft to the person doing the work — and if you have not settled on the design yet, generate the artwork first.
Creative engine
Upload the photo or drawing, ask for a stencil, print the result on transfer paper.
Your own dog, your grandmother's handwriting, a leaf off the balcony — anything photographable becomes line.
The tedious part of turning reference into line is the part this removes; the judgement calls stay with the artist.
A clean, high-contrast source produces a clean stencil. There is no way around that.
Even light, a plain background, the subject filling the frame. Busy backgrounds get interpreted as part of the design, and a dim photo produces mush wherever the model cannot tell an edge from a shadow.
"Clean transfer stencil, black outlines on white, no grey, hatching only in the deepest shadows" is the whole brief. Add "bold" or "fine" depending on the size — a piece going on a finger needs fewer lines than one going on a thigh.
Print at the actual dimensions before you fall in love with it. Detail that reads beautifully on a screen frequently turns into a solid blob at four centimetres, and that is easier to see on paper than to argue about.
Two sides of the chair and one person practising at home.
Six clients, six references, six evenings of tracing. Converting them to line first leaves the judgement — weight, spacing, what to drop — where it belongs, and removes the mechanical part.
You want your own dog, not a dog from a flash sheet. Bringing a clean line version of the photo makes the first consultation about placement and size rather than about whether the idea is workable at all.
Practice needs a stack of stencils, not one precious drawing. Generate a dozen, run them through the thermal printer, and spend the time on the needle — then preview the finished piece on an arm to check the placement reads.
Asked by both sides of the machine.
Yes — that is what the output is shaped for. Black on plain white with no half-tones is exactly what a thermal printer needs; photographic greys are what make transfers come out patchy. Print at the size you intend to tattoo, not scaled to fill the sheet.
Portraits are the weakest case here and it is worth saying plainly. Realism is built from tone rather than line, so reducing a face to outlines throws away the information the tattoo is actually made of. Line-based styles — botanical, fine-line, traditional, lettering, geometric — convert well; a realistic portrait needs an artist working from the photograph directly.
Yes, and it is one of the better uses. Photograph the writing flat under even light with no shadow across the page. The output cleans up paper texture and pen wobble while keeping the shapes of the letters, which is the part that carries the meaning.
Ask for them explicitly — "bold heavy outlines" or "delicate fine linework" — and rerun. Weight is the single most consequential variable at small sizes, so it is worth generating both and comparing them printed rather than deciding on screen.
Treat it as a draft. Interior detail that will close up as ink spreads has to be opened out, line weight has to be set for the final size, and anything ambiguous needs a decision an image model does not make. Every output is AI-generated, and the artist edits before it goes on skin.
It keeps the subject and layout of what you upload. If you want the design cropped, mirrored, or arranged differently on the sheet, do that to the source image first — asking for it during the conversion tends to cost you line quality.
One credit pool covers Nano Banana images and Seedance and Veo video. The cost shows before every run, and failed jobs are not charged. Use a subscription for ongoing work, or a one-time pack when you just need to top up.
What's included
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What's included
Secure checkout by Stripe. Card details never touch our servers.
What's included
Secure checkout by Stripe. Card details never touch our servers.
What's included
Secure checkout by Stripe. Card details never touch our servers.
One-time top-ups — buy extra credits any time you run low.
What's included
Secure checkout by Stripe. Card details never touch our servers.
What's included
Secure checkout by Stripe. Card details never touch our servers.
What's included
Secure checkout by Stripe. Card details never touch our servers.
Charges appear as “KAVEL AI” on your card statement. You can cancel any time from Settings → Billing; cancellation takes effect at the end of the period you already paid for.
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Use one balance across every supported image and video model — eleven of them today, listed below — and check the credit cost before each request.
Video models
Image models
Model credit guide
You're only charged for successful generations. The exact estimate in the generator varies by model, length, resolution, audio, and number of images.
| Type | Model | Credit cost |
|---|---|---|
| Video | Seedance 2.5 | The long-take tier, priced per second: 5s 480p ≈ 211 credits, 5s 720p ≈ 473. A full 30s take runs ≈ 1,260 at 480p and ≈ 2,835 at 720p. Supplying a reference clip lowers the per-second rate. |
| Video | Seedance 2.0 | 5s 720p image-to-video ≈ 188 credits; text-to-video ≈ 308 credits. Scales with resolution and length. |
| Video | Seedance 2 Fast | Faster and lower cost. 5s 720p text-to-video ≈ 248 credits. |
| Video | Seedance 2 Mini | The cheapest Seedance tier. 5s 720p ≈ 154 credits, 5s 480p ≈ 72 credits. |
| Video | Seedance 1.5 Pro | Audio doubles the rate. 5s 720p ≈ 27 credits silent, ≈ 53 with audio; 1080p ≈ 57 and ≈ 113. |
| Video | Veo 3.1 | Billed per video, not per second (Lite tier). About 45 credits at 720p and 53 at 1080p. |
| Video | Kling 3.0 | Audio raises the rate. 5s 720p ≈ 105 credits silent, ≈ 150 with audio; 1080p ≈ 135 and ≈ 203. |
| Video | MiniMax H3 | Fixed 2K, no resolution ladder. Priced per second — a 5s clip ≈ 158 credits. |
| Image | Nano Banana 2 | Generate or edit from text and images. About 8 credits per 1K image, 12 at 2K, 18 at 4K. |
| Image | Nano Banana Pro | Consistent run times across generations. About 12 credits per 1K or 2K image, 21 at 4K. |
| Image | Nano Banana 2 Lite | Faster, simpler variant. A flat 8 credits per image at every resolution. Start here to test. |
| Image | GPT Image 2 | The lowest-cost image model here. About 3 credits per 1K image, 6 at 2K, 12 at 4K. |
| Image | Seedream 5.0 Lite | Flat pricing — about 8 credits per image whether you generate or edit. |
Design it, preview it, or take the drawing somewhere else.
Upload the photo, get the transfer draft, and spend the evening on the tattoo instead of on tracing it — then [check the placement on a real arm](/image/tattoo-try-on).
A real edit made with this tool — drag your own photo in on the left, the prompt is already written, then press Generate.
