An Aesthetic is only as good as the images behind it. Aesthetics extracts a visual signature from 4 to 10 references and reapplies it to everything you generate after, so the selection is the whole job. Here is how to get it right.
How to get it right
Step 1 - Build the board. Collect stills in a Board until the set reads as one art direction.
Step 2 - Create the Aesthetic from the AI Dock. Select the 4 to 10 most consistent images and save the selection as a preset.
Step 3 - Use it. Prompt with the Aesthetic applied, or drop an existing visual into the AI Dock as a reference image to bring it into the look.
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What to look for in an image
An Aesthetic looks at what makes an image visually distinctive, not what it shows:
- Style & rendering: medium, artistic direction and rendering techniques.
- Color & light: palette, contrast, exposure, lighting behavior and shadows.
- Optics & atmosphere: lens characteristics, texture, depth of field, grain and overall mood.
If those hold across the set, the subjects can be unrelated and the Aesthetic still works. A portrait, a car interior and a wide landscape belong together as long as they share a treatment.
What breaks a selection
Building the board like a shot list: a character, the location, a prop, the costume. Those images share subject matter and nothing else, usually across four different visual languages.
The preset holds the treatment, the prompt holds the scene. Character, setting and composition go in your prompt and reference images, never in the Aesthetic.
Before saving, scan the selection fast. If one image pulls away from the rest, leave it out. Six coherent images beat ten with two intruders.
Build your board in the library, then open the AI Dock to turn it into an Aesthetic.
Got
Questions?
Between 4 and 10. Consistency beats volume: four images sharing one grade and one light define a direction better than ten that only share a subject.
The selection probably mixed visual directions, or was picked on content instead of treatment. Rebuild it around color, light and texture, then run the same prompt again.
No. Only generating with it does, at an amount set by the model you choose.
A reference image carries its content into the result. An Aesthetic carries only the treatment. They work together.