Edit an existing image while checking what stays unchanged

Review scope: Linked public documentation checked October 30, 2026. Examples are proposed checks, not recorded OD results; use your account's current controls.

This lesson changes only Mira's navy jacket to dark green. Mira remains the same fictional 30-year-old adult archivist. You will work from an image already generated inside OD.

An edit modifies a selected source picture. A scene is the situation shown in that picture. An editing model is the tool selected to perform the change; it may differ from the model that generated the original. A preset is a ready-made instruction and can introduce changes beyond the words you type.

1 Choose a useful source

Open your generated-image collection and locate an accepted picture of Mira. The ideal exercise source shows her warm brown skin, brown eyes, black shoulder-length braids, and navy jacket clearly.

Open that image and locate its Edit action. If Edit is unavailable, do not substitute copying its prompt into Generate: that would make a new generation, not edit the original.

Keep the original's identifier and an available saved copy. You should be able to return to it after a disappointing result.

The Help Center article dated March 9, 2026 says external reference-photo uploads are not allowed. This lesson uses an in-app generated source; it does not authorize uploads or imply that every later media-reference feature follows the same workflow. Reference-photo policy

2 Inspect the editing controls

Record the actual editor or model label. The Known State guide describes Spark for ordinary clothing and background edits; use the options actually present in your account. Locate the edit instruction field. Do not put the instruction into Mira's permanent appearance settings. Editing guidance

Look for any active preset that would change the pose, outfit, or background. For this exercise, retain only inputs compatible with a jacket-color change.

3 State the change precisely

Paste this into the edit instruction field with the original image selected:

Change only Mira's navy jacket to dark green, keeping the same cut and
fabric. Preserve the same adult woman's face, brown eyes, warm brown skin,
black shoulder-length braids, lean build, expression, pose, hands,
camera angle, crop, archive background, and existing lighting.

This is a preservation goal for comparison. The sentence cannot guarantee that every retained feature will survive.

Notice what the request does not require: new shelves, a different hairstyle, a smile, or a fresh camera angle. Saving those ideas for later makes this result easier to judge.

4 Use selective editing if available

A September update added brush-based selective editing to ordinary image editing. Availability and exact controls should be checked in the current editor. Selective-editing update

If a brush or region-selection tool is shown, follow its instructions to select the jacket. Keep the selection away from the face and braids as far as the garment boundary allows. Use the same edit text.

If no selection tool appears, continue with the ordinary edit field. Do not invent a mask parameter or assume that unselected areas are perfectly locked.

5 Generate and compare side by side

Read the displayed cost before submitting the edit. Once the result appears, compare it with the actual original.

First check the intended change: is the jacket dark green, with the same garment design? Then check Mira's identity, braid length, build, hands, pose, framing, background, and light. Look at the face before accepting an otherwise attractive image.

Keep a short note:

Requested: navy jacket becomes dark green.
Observed: [describe what the result actually shows].
Unwanted changes: [list them, or write none observed].
Decision: keep result / return to source / revise instruction.

The brackets are note-taking prompts, not text to send to the image editor.

6 Choose the next source deliberately

Keep a successful green-jacket result if it is useful. Retain the original as well. For a later background experiment, decide whether you want the navy or green jacket before choosing the source image.

Checkpoint: You have inspected both images. You can name the requested change and any unintended changes instead of claiming preservation from the prompt alone.

Treat several editing passes as a source chain

Community examples reviewed October 31, 2026 describe achieving a composition through several passes, with unwanted pose and background changes along the way. Keep those as creator reports, not evidence that a particular emphatic phrase or numeric weight reliably preserves an image.

For each pass, record the selected source, the one intended change, the returned candidate, the displayed charge, and whether you accepted that candidate as the next source. Compare against the original as well as the immediate parent; small changes can accumulate. Keep an unsuccessful weather or lighting attempt from silently becoming the new identity reference.

In a two-person archive scene, inspect the two adults separately, then their relative positions, hands, crop, and the door's location and shape. A recognizable face does not establish that the rest of the composition survived. If you deliberately crop a source, save the crop as a distinct input and recheck what is still visible. The current-form continuity module helps distinguish intended identity or form changes from drift.

Keep a two-image experiment conditional

A supplied suggestion proposes borrowing identity from one image and composition from another. Try that only through a current workflow that actually accepts the necessary generated-image inputs and lets you identify their roles. If the editor offers one source image, do not assume that mentioning another image or character name supplies its pixels. Continue with the single-source exercise instead.

Where the required inputs are supported, first write a source-role note: which image supplies the person, which supplies pose and layout, and which properties may change. Review every pass and retain failures. This is a proposed experiment; no two-image native procedure or successful preservation result is established here.

Three common problems

1. The face changed: return to the accepted original and retry the narrow jacket change.
2. The jacket changed shape: explicitly retain its cut and fabric; inspect overlapping outfit instructions.
3. Each correction makes the picture worse: stop extending that edit chain. Choose a cleaner source and make the next change from it.

Next: Gallery and image reuse. Back: Generate images or the Tutorial index.