Reference Images: Show, Don't Just Tell
The most underused capability in every modern tool. A picture communicates a look in a way no sentence can, and essentially every 2026 platform will take one.
The three things a reference can carry, usually as separate controls:
- Style reference — take the palette, light, texture and mark-making from this image, but not its content. This is how you get a consistent look across a whole set, and how you apply your own style rather than borrowing someone's name.
- Character or subject reference — keep this face, this person, this product across many different images.
- Composition or structure reference — keep this layout, this pose, this perspective, and change everything else.
Most tools let you weight how strongly the reference applies. Low weight is a hint; high weight is nearly a copy. Start low and increase — the failure mode of a strong reference is a near-duplicate of the input, which is both useless and, if the reference isn't yours, a problem.
Use your own images. Your photographs, your sketches, your palettes, your previous work. This is the single clearest route to output that looks like you made it, and it strengthens your position on authorship considerably.