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The same face, from one image to the next
The founder, the product, the shop: a description only ever got you a look-alike. A reference keeps the subject once and for all — a neutral sheet, a profile, three at most per image — and every image draws it the same way.
Describe a baker precisely — round glasses, short beard, navy apron, a tattoo on the forearm — and ask for him in five images. You’ll get five believable bakers. None of them will be Bastien, who has been kneading in this bakehouse since 2009.
That was where series stopped. A shared anchor gives a carousel the same light from one slide to the next; it doesn’t give it the same face. And a small brand almost always has a subject that keeps coming back: the person who runs it, the product it sells, the place people come to visit. On those three, a look-alike shows right away.
One reference, three parts
Every project now has its library, the “References” tab of the Brand page. It holds characters, products, places — and “other” for the mascot or the shop dog. A reference comes in three parts:
- a sheet: the subject from several angles, in a single image;
- a profile: “What never changes,” as a few named traits the AI writes from your photos and you correct, then “What can change” — the pose, the expression, the outfit;
- the original photos, one to four, one of them starred.
You then call it with @ in an image description, the way you’d mention someone in a message. The sheet goes out with the image, the profile goes into the prompt, and the model draws the subject instead of inventing it.
One sheet rather than four views
The first idea was the obvious one: generate the subject from the front, then in profile, then three-quarter, as four separate images. It doesn’t hold up. Four draws don’t always agree with one another — the nose shifts between front and profile, the label between two sides of the bag — they take four times as long and cost a lot more, and every image in the post would then have had to attach two or three of those views instead of one.
A sheet does the opposite: all the views in a single image, drawn together, so they agree. Its layout follows the type of subject. For a character, a portrait and then three full-length views — front, three-quarter, profile. For a product, the front, the three-quarter, the back and a close-up of the markings. For a place, a four-panel location board: the wide shot, the feature people recognize, a material, the light — and no one in frame, so each scene can put whoever it wants there.
The test that settled it, on September 21, 2026: three scenes generated with Bastien’s sheet show the same man — the face, the glasses, the beard, the tattoo. Two references combined in one image hold up too. The same description, without a reference, gave a baker who looked similar. Not the same one.
Why a neutral rendering
The sheet is deliberately flat: plain background, even studio light, no mood. The subject is true to your photos, but not to their light, nor to your brand’s style.
That’s a choice, not a shortcut. A brand can have up to five image styles — warm photos for behind the scenes, a cooler light for products, product components for a new feature. A sheet drawn in one of those styles would serve only that one, and lock a mood into the subject’s very identity. Neutral, it serves them all: the style comes from the post, when the image is made. Neutral is about the treatment, not the kind of subject — a drawn mascot stays drawn.
The sheet says who. The post says how.
The model also gets a firm instruction: keep the subject’s identity, but compose a new image, never reproducing the sheet — not its multiple views, not its panels, not its gray background.
Three at most
An image can call three references, no more. Beyond that, the subjects blend together: one person’s features slide onto another’s. And every attached image costs something. Three is enough for the busiest scene a small brand has: the founder, her product, her shop.
The picker warns you before you write a fourth; if it gets written anyway, its chip says so and nothing is attached for it. A post, for its part, can bring together up to six references in its cast — “In this post” — spread across its slides, three per image.
What it costs
The sheet is the most expensive step, and you pay for it once. Drawn in high quality from two photos, it’s estimated at 26; the first two real runs cost 14, then 16. The profile, read from the photos, costs 1.
After that, every image that calls the reference attaches its sheet, and the estimate counts it ingredient by ingredient, rounded only once: a slide image in high quality, with one sheet and the series anchor, is estimated at 23, against 17 with nothing attached. Measured, the same image cost 16. The estimate stays on the cautious side, and the actual cost shows on every version.
What it changes for a brand
If your brand has a face, it comes back. Two or three phone photos are enough to make a sheet, and their surroundings don’t come along: everything is brought back to a plain background. The founder shows up at the oven, at the market, in a portrait, and it’s him every time.
If it’s a product, it keeps its shape, its colors and its markings from one visual to the next, on the counter or in a hand. The packshot doesn’t even have to follow the carousel’s mood: an image can opt out of the series and keep a plain background.
If it’s a place, the shop or the workshop becomes a faithful setting, ready for any scene.
And if there’s no photo, the assistant takes care of it. A short interview — one question at a time, with ready-made answers — fills in the profile before your eyes, and you correct it by hand when it gets something wrong. Three castings are then drawn in a neutral rendering, for 11; you pick a face, and the sheet starts from it: estimated at 23, it cost 14 on the first real run. Once the reference is ready, “Try in a scene” puts it in a 4:5 image, in the style of your posts, before you call it for real.
And you don’t have to write the @s yourself. In “New post,” “Who appears?” offers the project’s references; writing the post, turning a text into slides, writing an animation and the editor’s assistant all call the subject where it appears, without describing it. A good image can become a reference too: “Create a reference from this image,” and you say who to keep.
The step-by-step is in the Guide: create a reference from photos, then call it with @.
