Image gneration is great but struggles with left - right direction

[thomoz]

Hi.

How do I consistently prompt for facing characters in the correct direction in ChatGPT 40?

I’m promoting it with text and an image of a character that it previously created for style and lighting reference.

I’ve supplied it an example pose that’s facing in the correct direction.

I’ve tried saying: screen right, facing his left, our right, facing camera right, facing the camera’s right, but it, almost 100% of the time, gets it wrong. I try tricking it by prompting to face the character left, and it still doesn’t face it right. I’ve uploaded pose examples facing the correct direction and it still gets it wrong. I’ve asked it the best way to prompt to get the direction right, and it tells me e.g.

Example based on what you just asked:

Character: Riggs (use Riggs01.png for style consistency)
Pose/Action: Standing with feet together, side-on facing screen right, stern expression, mouth open talking, dangling a full set of handcuffs from far hand.

It still gets it wrong.

I’ve asked it to assess and tell me the direction of a character it’s created in the wrong direction, and it recognises its mistake and askes me if I would like it to be corrected, and I say “yes”, and it almost 100% of the time recreates it in the same, incorrect direction.

I’ve tried figuring out what I’m prompting differently when it does get it right, but I can’t see a difference in my request.

Most of my character creation time in ChatGPT 40 time is spent trying to correct direction - it nails the poses, styles, lighting etc very quickly, but then I’ll spend literally hours trying to get the direction correct. I’d simply reverse the direction in Photoshop but then the lighting isn’t correct.

Thank you.

[polepole]

Hi, welcome to the community!

Click here to see the prompt

Size: 1536x1024, Quality: high, n: 1, style: realistic.
Create an image of a man, style and pose consistency. Full body view.
The character stands side-on in profile view, body and feet facing strongly toward the right side of the frame (the viewer’s right).
His left shoulder is closest to the viewer, and his right shoulder is farther away.
Expression: stern expression, mouth slightly open speaking.
Action: dangling a full set of handcuffs from his right (far) hand.
Scene lighting: warm afternoon sunlight coming from the viewer’s front-right side, casting light across his chest and face.
Important: Do NOT mirror or flip the character. Keep the pose and facing direction exactly as described.

[thomoz]

Thanks polepole. That creates the correct direction (although I’m baffled as to why, as the directions are not consistent with the correct image it delivers) when not uploading a style and lighting reference image. As soon as I upload a reference image, it faces the character incorrectly. Even when I explicitly tell it to only reference the image for style, and even if I uplaod two images - one for style, one for pose and direction.

[polepole]

I tried uploading image:

Also I tried reverse another side:

Prompt

Size: 1024x1536, Quality: high, n: 1, style: realistic.  
Create an image of a man using appearance of the man I uploaded.
Full body view.
The character stands side-on in profile view, body and feet facing strongly toward the left side of the frame (the viewer’s left).
His right shoulder is closest to the viewer, and his left shoulder is farther away.
Expression: focused expression, mouth slightly open speaking.
Action: dangling a full set of handcuffs from his left (far) hand.
Scene lighting: warm sunset light coming from the viewer’s front-left side, casting light across his chest and face.
Important: Do NOT mirror or flip the character. Keep the pose and facing direction exactly as described. 
Style and pose consistency.
tall 2:3 aspect ratio.

[thomoz]

Thanks again polepole. It still ends up around the wrong way. Here’s the image I give it, and the result ends up facing screen-left instead of screen-right. It nails the pose though. I’d upload the result but am restricted to one image as I’m a new user.

Create an image of a man using appearance of riggs01.png.
Full body view.
The character stands side-on in profile view, body and feet facing strongly toward the left side of the frame (the viewer’s left).
His right shoulder is closest to the viewer, and his left shoulder is farther away.
Expression: focused expression, mouth slightly open speaking.
Action: dangling a full set of handcuffs from his left (far) hand.
Scene lighting: warm sunset light coming from the viewer’s front-left side, casting light across his chest and face.
Important: Do NOT mirror or flip the character. Keep the pose and facing direction exactly as described.
Style and pose consistency.
tall 2:3 aspect ratio.
Transparent background

@polepole

Size: 1024x1536, Quality: high, n: 1, style: realistic.  
Create an image of a man using appearance of the man I uploaded.
Full body view.
The character stands side-on in profile view, body and feet facing strongly toward the left side of the frame (the viewer’s left).
His right shoulder is closest to the viewer, and his left shoulder is farther away.
Expression: focused expression, mouth slightly open speaking.
Action: dangling a full set of handcuffs from his left (far) hand.
Scene lighting: warm sunset light coming from the viewer’s front-left side, casting light across his chest and face.
Important: Do NOT mirror or flip the character. Keep the pose and facing direction exactly as described. 
Style and pose consistency.
tall 2:3 aspect ratio.

[_j]

@thomoz

It still ends up around the wrong way. Here’s the image I give it, and the result ends up facing screen-left instead of screen-right.

I can serve up some imagery for you.

And a trick that might work for us - getting you the correct direction to choose from.

Here’s how I’ll create your image:

Create image reproduce the same cartoon character exactly as shown — a serious-looking, stocky NYPD officer with a dark navy uniform, badge, hat, and serious facial expression — maintaining the same proportions, style, and details. The character’s clothing, equipment (belt, pouches, and badge), and footwear will match perfectly with what’s seen in the input image.

The setting will be a neutral, seamless background (plain white or light gray) to keep full focus on the characters. Create two instances of the same figure: one rotated to a perfect 90-degree left-facing side profile (so he looks to the left), and one rotated to a perfect 90-degree right-facing side profile (so he looks to the right). They will be placed side-by-side, posed towards each other.

The perspective will remain at an eye-level height to match the original upright stance and the slight three-dimensionality of the figure. The scale, lighting, and shadowing will remain consistent across both figures to preserve the realistic cartoon styling.

The final image will be perfectly square (1:1 aspect ratio) so that each figure occupies roughly half the frame, ensuring symmetry without cropping or altering the original character’s height or figure proportions.