Using Reference Images Well

Use your own image or an image for which you have clear permission. Do not create deceptive or intimate depictions of another person without consent. Avoid uploading documents, private screens, location clues, or unrelated people in the background.

For a recognizable subject, choose a sharp image with natural proportions, even lighting, and no beauty filter. Extreme wide-angle selfies, heavy compression, occlusion, and dramatic colored light make identity cues harder to separate from photographic artifacts.

Identity includes stable facial geometry, skin tone, distinctive marks, hairline, and the actual character of the hairstyle. Performance includes gaze, expression, head direction, body pose, and interaction with the environment. The first group should remain recognizable; the second usually needs to change for the requested composition.

Avoid telling the model to copy every visible detail from the reference. That often imports the source camera angle or expression into a scene where it does not belong. Use language such as “use the reference as an identity source, not a pose lock” and then describe the new pose directly.

If the result looks like a different person, reduce competing style language and inspect the reference quality before adding more identity adjectives. Compare one variable at a time: face shape, eye spacing, nose, mouth, skin tone, hairline, then hairstyle. A large pile of generic beauty terms can overwrite the real reference characteristics.

When hair changes, describe its actual color, length, texture, density, hairline, and parting. Also allow physically plausible movement from gravity or wind. “Do not change any strand” conflicts with a new head angle and can create rigid or artificial results.

For multiple people, label each reference and assign a role, wardrobe, and position. State that each identity must remain distinct and that facial features must not merge. Keep the first test composition simple; complex overlap, profile angles, and small distant faces increase identity drift.

Check each person independently. A generation is not successful merely because one face is accurate. Review relative height, hands, interaction, eyelines, and whether clothing or accessories migrated between subjects.

Before sending a reference to any external model, review that provider’s retention and privacy settings. Promptgena does not process the reference image inside the prompt page; references are uploaded separately to the model you choose.