You've generated a stunning, near-perfect image, but there's one glaring flaw: a character has six fingers, an object in the background looks strange, or a face has a distorted feature. In the past, you'd have to discard the entire image and start over, hoping the next roll of the dice was better. This is the problem that **inpainting** solves. Inpainting is a powerful feature that allows you to selectively regenerate a small portion of an existing image. Think of it as digital surgery. You use a brush to mask out the specific area you want to change, and then you provide a new, targeted prompt to tell the AI what to fill that space with. This gives you an incredible level of control and allows you to rescue and perfect your best creations.
Inpainting: The Art of Digital Surgery
You've generated a stunning, near-perfect image, but there's one glaring flaw: a character has six fingers, an object in the background looks strange, or a face has a distorted feature. In the past, you'd have to discard the entire image and start over, hoping the next roll of the dice was better. This is the problem that **inpainting** solves. Inpainting is a powerful feature that allows you to selectively regenerate a small portion of an existing image. Think of it as digital surgery. You use a brush to mask out the specific area you want to change, and then you provide a new, targeted prompt to tell the AI what to fill that space with. This gives you an incredible level of control and allows you to rescue and perfect your best creations.
The Inpainting Workflow: A Step-by-Step Guide
1. **Identify the Flaw:** Start with an image that is 90% of the way there but has a specific error.
2. **Mask the Area:** Use the inpainting tool's brush to carefully paint over the flawed area. For example, if a character's hand is malformed, you would mask out the entire hand and wrist.
3. **Write a Focused Prompt:** This is the most important step. Do not use your original, complex prompt. Write a new, simple prompt that *only* describes what should be in the masked area. For the hand example, your inpainting prompt would be something like: `a detailed, anatomically correct human hand, sharp focus.`
4. **Generate and Iterate:** The AI will now generate a new hand within the masked area, attempting to blend it seamlessly with the rest of the image. It might take a few tries to get it perfect, but this iterative process gives you the power to fix almost any small imperfection.
Outpainting: Expanding the Canvas
If inpainting is about fixing what's inside the frame, **outpainting** (sometimes called 'un-cropping' or 'generative fill') is about creating what's *outside* the frame. It's a magical tool that allows you to expand the canvas of your image in any direction. You might have a perfect close-up portrait of a character, but now you want to see what the rest of their room looks like. Outpainting makes this possible.
The Outpainting Workflow: A Step-by-Step Guide
1. **Start with Your Image:** Begin with the image you want to expand.
2. **Expand the Canvas:** Use the outpainting tool to drag the borders of your image outward, creating a new, empty area around it. A portion of your original image must overlap with the new empty area to give the AI context.
3. **Prompt for the New Content:** Write a prompt that describes what you want to see in the newly created empty space. If you are expanding a portrait, your prompt might be: `a bookshelf filled with old books, a cozy armchair.`
4. **Generate:** The AI will analyze the edge of your original image and your prompt, and then generate a new section that seamlessly extends your original picture. You can repeat this process over and over, expanding your canvas in any direction to create a vast, panoramic scene from a simple starting image.
Creative Use Cases
These tools are not just for fixing errors. They open up a world of creative possibilities. You can use inpainting to change a character's clothing, add an object to their hand, or change their facial expression. You can use outpainting to turn a portrait into a full-body shot, or a simple landscape into an epic vista. It's about moving from a static generation to a dynamic, editable canvas.
