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Automation Squad
You run thisWritten for ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini (image upload)

Turn a screenshot into something I can actually act on

Robert MacKelfresh

By Robert MacKelfresh

Founder, Automation Squad

Image reading is confident by default and wrong in a specific way — it fills in truncated labels and half-visible figures with plausible values, which is undetectable unless something is explicitly hunting for it. Section 3 is the whole safeguard, and section 2 is the reason it's useful: you took the screenshot because something caught your eye, and naming it is often the actual answer.

The prompt

Here's a screenshot: [ATTACH IT]

What it is: [ONE LINE — a dashboard, an error, an invoice, a slide someone sent, a settings page you don't understand]
What I'm trying to do: [YOUR ACTUAL GOAL]

Read it properly, then:

1. WHAT THIS IS SAYING, in plain language. Include the numbers or labels exactly as they appear — don't paraphrase a figure, and don't round it.

2. THE THING I'M MEANT TO NOTICE. Screenshots usually get taken because something is wrong or surprising. Tell me what it is, even if it's not what I asked about.

3. WHAT'S AMBIGUOUS OR CUT OFF. If a label is truncated, a value is partly hidden, or the image doesn't show enough to be sure — say so specifically rather than guessing. This is the section where confident image reading goes wrong, and I'd rather you flag it than fill it.

4. WHAT TO DO NEXT. Concrete steps, in order. If the answer is "you need to look at something else first", say what.

5. WHAT I'D NEED TO CHECK to be certain. The one thing that would confirm or kill your reading of this.

Rules: do not invent a number you cannot clearly see. If text is illegible, say "illegible" — a plausible guess at a figure is worse than no figure, because I'll act on it.

Copy it, paste it, run it. Nothing here is gated.

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Written for ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini (image upload) as of August 2026. Models change — if this stops working the way it should, that is worth telling us about.