Three costumes from one closet photo
One closet photo, three Halloween costumes from ChatGPT.
Free in your phone’s browser, without signing in.
There's a Halloween party coming up, and you'd rather not buy a costume you'll wear once. Take one photo of your closet, and ChatGPT finds three costumes already hanging in it. It's free on your phone, and you never sign in. Every costume comes with a list of the exact pieces to pull out, and you can check each piece against your photo.
Open the closet wide
Doors wide open, hangers slid apart.
Pull hats, scarves and jackets to the front.
Step one. Open the closet doors all the way, and slide the hangers apart so each piece shows. Pull hats, scarves and jackets out to the front. ChatGPT can only work with what's in the picture. The closet in this episode is a real one, photographed in Australia in 2009. The owner shared the photo on Wikimedia Commons, a free public photo library.
Why one photo is enough
One or two pieces make a costume people recognize.
Hawaiian shirt over a yellow one: tourist.
At a party, you recognize a costume from one or two pieces, the things you spot first. A loud Hawaiian shirt over a bright yellow shirt says tourist from across the room. So you can start from what you already own, and one photo of your closet shows all of it. ChatGPT's answer does two things with that photo. It names the clothes it can see. Then it groups those clothes into costumes people know.
Take the photo and add it to ChatGPT
The whole closet, in one photo.
Open chatgpt.com and add the photo with the plus sign.
No account, nothing to pay.
Step two. Step back until the whole closet fits in one shot, and turn the light on. Step three. Open the browser on your phone and go to ChatGPT dot com. You don't need an account. Tap the plus sign at the bottom left of the box, tap Photos, and pick your closet picture. After a few photos, ChatGPT may show a box asking you to log in. You can close that box and keep going.
Type this
Type this under your photo, then tap send.
The exact words behind the answer in this episode.
Type these words under the photo, and you can screenshot this card. Here's a photo of my closet. Suggest three Halloween costumes I could make using only the clothes you can see. For each one, list which pieces from the photo to use. No tables, I'm on my phone. The words using only the clothes you can see tell ChatGPT to stick to your closet. The last sentence asks for a plain list that fits a phone screen. Then tap the arrow to send it.
Check every piece against your photo
Check each piece against your own photo.
The tourist came up in all five tries.
Here's the real answer, first try. ChatGPT came back with three costumes, an eighties dad, a tropical tourist, and a retro tennis player. ChatGPT itself said the tourist would be the most recognizable from the clothes alone, so start there. Step four. Find every piece it names in your own photo. The bright Hawaiian shirt with the palm leaves is right there. The yellow shirt hangs to its left. Then ChatGPT adds shorts or dark pants, lower in the closet. In this photo, that's a patch of black fabric behind the Hawaiian shirts, and you can't tell what it is. So open the closet and look. If there are no shorts in there, use any shorts you own. I ran the same photo through ChatGPT five times, and the tourist came up in all five answers. One answer suggested hats on the top shelf. That shelf holds books and boxes, and no hats. Across the five answers, ChatGPT listed forty-seven pieces, counting repeats. Forty-two of those pieces are plainly in the photo. Four were guesses you can't confirm from the photo, and one, the hats, wasn't there at all.
The 80s dad and the retro tennis player
The same closet makes an 80s dad and a retro tennis player.
The white striped polo works in both.
Blue shorts and sneakers: from your own closet
The other two costumes work the same way. The eighties dad is the red striped shirt, the denim on the far left, and the white polo with green and navy stripes. ChatGPT calls the denim jeans, and it calls the red shirt a sweater. In the photo, the red shirt has short sleeves, and the circle shows the one ChatGPT means. The retro tennis player uses that same white polo, with the navy and cream striped sweater draped over your shoulders. ChatGPT also adds blue shorts, if you have them, and the cleanest sneakers you own. It never claims to see either one, so they get no circle.
Pull the tourist's pieces tonight
Pull the tourist’s pieces out tonight and you’re dressed.
Pick one costume and pull those pieces out tonight. For the tourist, that's the Hawaiian shirt, the yellow shirt, and whatever shorts you actually find. Wear the Hawaiian shirt open over the yellow one, the way ChatGPT suggested. That costume costs nothing, because every piece was already in the closet.
Try this tonight
Try this tonight.
The exact words behind the answer in this episode.
Try it tonight on your own closet, or on your kid's. Open the doors, take one photo, and add it to ChatGPT. Then ask for three Halloween costumes you could make using only the clothes it can see, with the pieces from the photo listed under each one.
