Make controlled edits to AI images

The focused view lets you mark up an image with painted areas, numbered spots, and references, then apply an edit with a short prompt. The marks say where. The prompt says what. Every edit becomes a new version of the image, so you can always step back to an earlier one. Time: 10 minutes You’ll need: A generated image to edit (or any image on your canvas)

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1. Open the focused view

Select an image node and click Edit on its toolbar. You can also select the node and switch the View toggle at the top of the editor from Workflow to Image. The image fills the window. Mark tools sit on the left and the Edit image panel sits on the right. Press Esc to return to the canvas.

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Mark tools

• Paint an area: brush over the region the model should change.
• Box: drag a rectangle around the region to change.
• Number a spot: drop numbered pins. Refer to them in the prompt as “area 1”, “area 2” and so on.
• Sketch: draw freehand lines, for example the outline of something to add.
• Text label: write a short note on the image.
• Select: pick and adjust a mark.
• Mark colour: change the colour of new marks.
• Invert mask: switch between marking the area to change and the area to keep.
• Clear marks: remove every mark and start again.

For the full reference see Image editor.

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2. Mark the area you want to change

Choose Paint an area and brush over the part of the image you want the model to edit. Keep the painted area tight around the region. Anything outside it should stay as it is. To make several changes in one edit, use Number a spot instead. Drop a pin on each place you want to change, then refer to each pin by number in the prompt.

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3. Describe the change

Write the edit in the prompt box of the Edit image panel, or click a starter above it: Change material, Remove, Place this here, Replace, Restyle, or Extend. A starter fills in a prompt for you to complete. A good edit prompt has three parts:

1. Name the region. “In the marked area…” or “At area 1…” anchors the model to the place you marked.
2. Be concrete. “A thoughtfully designed outdoor space with colourful furniture” beats “make it nicer”. Vague verbs like “improve” or “fix” almost never work.
3. Point at a reference. When you have a reference image, mention it: “…using the furniture from the reference image”.

One idea per prompt. Read it back as a single instruction you could give a retoucher. The sparkle button in the prompt box (Improve the prompt with AI) rewrites a rough prompt into a more specific one.

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4. Choose a quality and apply

Pick Draft, Balanced, or Quality under the prompt. Draft is fast and cheap for trying ideas. Quality is for ship-quality work. Hover each option to see which model it uses. Click Apply (or press Ctrl/Cmd + Enter). The button shows what the edit costs. When the edit finishes, it replaces the image on the node and is added to History in the panel.

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5. Step through versions

History lists every version of the image, starting with the Original from the workflow. Click a version to preview it. Click Restore to here to make that version current again. Because each edit is a new version, you can try an edit, compare it with the version before, and roll back if it didn’t work.

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6. Add a reference

When you want the model to use a specific object or material, give it a reference:

• Click the Place this here starter, then Add reference image and pick the reference. Mark where it should go and describe how it should sit in the scene.
• Or paste a reference straight onto the image. It lands as a layer. Drag it into place, scale it from the corners, and click Merge to bake it into the image (or Discard to remove it).

Pasting the reference into the image works well when the model struggles with scale. Tuck it into a corner where it covers something you don’t mind losing, merge it, then prompt: “Use the bottom-left as the reference.” Same coordinate space, better scale.

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7. Try one edit at a time

Single edits beat compound ones. Asking for three things at once usually gets you one right and two wrong. Apply one change, check it, then apply the next. Simple unrelated edits, adding a person plus interior lighting, can compound fine. Four things at once cannot. When a result is close but not right:

• Adjust the marks and apply again. The marked area is the cheapest variable to change.
• Switch to Quality and apply the same prompt.
• Mark the leftover artefact and apply a cleanup edit on top.

Every edit is non-destructive. Your original is always first in History.

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Build the edit into a workflow

To make a masked edit part of a repeatable workflow, use a mask input instead of the focused view:

1. Select your image node, click + next to the agent composer, and choose Replace region. A region-editing model is added to the right of your image and connected to it.
2. On the new node’s mask input, click Draw.
3. Paint over the area to change with Paint an area or Box, then click Save mask.
4. Write the prompt and click Run.

The mask stays on the node, so you can swap in a new image or prompt and run the edit again.

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Quick tips

• For fine edits like adding a figure, a Number a spot pin is more precise than a painted area.
• Ask the agent to help from the focused view with Ask agent in the Edit image panel.

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Next steps

• Render from a Rhino screenshot, generate the baseline images these edits build on
• Train a custom LoRA, for systematic style consistency across edits