ai edit and designer
change part of a picture by painting it and saying what you want, or hand the whole layout to a designer pixie that lives in the composer.
Two ways to get help inside the image composer. AI edit is a brush: paint an area, describe the change, and the result lands as a new layer. The designer is a pixie that builds and revises the layout with you.
ai edit
Open it with the AI edit tool (<kbd>E</kbd>), or AI edit… in a picture layer's properties. A dock floats over the bottom of the stage.
- Mark the area. The Brush paints, the Box drags a rectangle. A slider sets brush size, and <kbd>[</kbd> <kbd>]</kbd> change it. Undo the last stroke or clear the mask with the two buttons beside it.
- Say what should be there. Type a prompt, such as "a red kite in the sky". Three chips fill common prompts: Remove, More detail and Blend in.
- Press Generate (<kbd>⌘</kbd> <kbd>↵</kbd>).
A layer named AI edit · your prompt appears over the region at once, marked as generating. The mask clears, so you can paint the next edit while it runs. The edit works on the flattened composition under the mask, so it can retouch a photo, a drawn shape or an earlier AI edit.
Nothing is destroyed: hide the layer, move it, or undo it like any other.
references
reference adds a picture from the canvas or an upload for the model to copy from. You can add up to 2. With the ixi inpaint model, name them in the prompt as "picture 2" and "picture 3": "the dog from picture 2 sitting here".
models
The model menu offers:
| model | how it edits |
|---|---|
| ixi inpaint | masked: only the painted area is regenerated |
| ideogram 4.5 precise | masked, with a quality level (low, medium, high; high by default) |
| nano-banana-2-lite, gpt-image-2, flux-3-image | instruction edit: they regenerate the whole crop from the prompt, but only the painted area changes in your composition |
The dock opens on ideogram 4.5 precise. Prices depend on the model and quality and come from the model catalog; they are not fixed in the composer. See your org's usage in billing and credits.
change a result
Select an AI layer. Its AI edit section shows the prompt, model and status (Generating, Done, failed). Change the prompt and press Regenerate, or Edit area to reopen the dock with the layer's mask and re-run that layer instead of adding a new one. Several edits can run at once; the card shows how many are generating.
If you close the tab while an edit runs, it is marked Stopped and you can regenerate it.
the designer pixie
A composer can have a designer: a pixie that lives with the composition and works on it while you do.
On the card there is a ✦ Assign a designer pixie… row. Click it and pick a pixie on this canvas; the pixie moves in as the composer's designer. Once it has moved in, the row shows its name and chat, and a folder icon opens its workspace canvas, where it makes pictures to place. If the designer has finished something, the card shows a dot.
What the designer does:
- Reads and edits layers. It writes batches of layer edits that apply all or nothing. If you changed the composition meanwhile, its batch is refused instead of overwriting your work, and it reads again.
- Looks at its work. It renders the composition and judges it before it tells you it is done.
- Places pictures. A picture from a node on your canvas goes in as a live reference. One it generated or imported in its workspace goes in by URL. For a cut-out it asks for a flat green background and sets the key.
- Reads your selection. Select layers in the studio and say "make these bigger"; the designer sees which layers you mean. It can also select layers in your studio to show you what it is talking about.
- Checkpoints and restores. Before a big change it saves a named version. Those versions show up in the studio's History tab, where you can restore them yourself. Its own restores are undoable.
- Exports. It renders the PNG like the Export button, 1× to 4×.
The designer does not run AI edits for you. Those are yours to run in the studio.
limits & good to know
- Up to 2 reference pictures per AI edit.
- A designer pixie is always in its own working mode and has no mode switch; see working modes.
- Pixie turns bill like any pixie chat: see what a pixie turn costs.
related
checked against the product · 2026-10-23