Does it copy the furniture from the inspiration photo?

Not literally. It transfers the palette, materials, textures, and mood, and furnishes your room in that character. Your room's geometry decides what actually fits.

Will my room end up laid out like the reference?

No. Layout is a property of the reference room's architecture. Yours keeps its own walls, windows, and proportions, so the arrangement follows your space.

What makes a good inspiration photo?

A clearly lit photograph of a real interior showing enough of the room to read as a space. Editorial interiors shots and saved Pinterest images work well. Close crops, product shots, and stylised renders give thin results.

Can I use a photo from Pinterest or a magazine?

Only if your use of the reference and the resulting image is permitted. Saving an image does not give you rights to it, and the tool cannot clear copyright or licensing for you. For client, listing, or marketing work, prefer a reference you created, licensed, or have permission to use.

Is this different from choosing a style?

Same job, different way of specifying it. A style name is precise and repeatable. A reference image is richer and needs no vocabulary. Use a name when you have one.

Can I use a reference across several rooms?

Yes, and it is one of the mode's strengths. One reference across a whole property gives a coherent set, which per-room style choices rarely achieve.

Can I try it before paying?

Yes. Sign in with Google to get three free generations, no credit card required. After that, credits come in one-time packs starting at $9 for 20 designs, and they never expire.

Why did the result miss what I liked about the reference?

Usually because what you liked is architectural: the view, the ceiling height, the sheer size of the space. Those cannot transfer to a room that does not have them. Palette, materials, and mood do transfer.

Can I combine a reference photo with a written instruction?

Yes. The reference carries the overall character and the prompt handles specifics it cannot express, such as keeping your existing oak floor.

Does the reference photo need to be the same room type?

It helps. A living room reference on a living room transfers most cleanly. Cross-type references still carry palette and materials, but scale cues translate less reliably.

How long does it take?

About 30 seconds, the same as any other mode, delivered at 4K.

Can I use the result commercially?

Yes. Commercial use is included, covering listings and client work. Label virtually staged listing photos as such.

Feature

Last updated August 30, 2026

Apply a room you love to the room you have

Two photos in: the room you own, and the room you wish you owned. One photo out: yours, wearing the look of theirs.

Match an inspiration photo

2 photos

your room, plus the look you want

No style name

for looks you cannot put a word to

30 seconds

from reference to result

Style names only help when you know the name. Most people do not arrive with the word Japandi in mind; they arrive with a screenshot from Pinterest and no vocabulary for why they like it. Matching an inspiration photo skips the naming problem entirely. You supply the look as an image rather than a label, and the model pulls across its palette, materials, textures, and light while keeping your room's walls, windows, and proportions where they are.

What this mode does

Input: A room photo plus a reference interior you are permitted to use.
What changes: Transfers palette, materials, textures, object density, and lighting character.
What stays: Your room geometry, openings, proportions, and camera position.
Use another mode when: Use Restyle when you already know the style name and want a more repeatable target.

What transfers, and what does not

What comes across is the character of the reference: its colour palette, its materials and finishes, the woods and metals and textiles it favours, the temperature and direction of its light, and its general density of objects. Those are the properties that make a room feel like the picture you saved, and they are portable between rooms of different shapes.

What does not come across is layout. If the reference has a sofa under a window and your room has no window on that wall, you will not get the sofa under a window. Layout is a property of the reference room's architecture, and your room has its own. Expecting the arrangement to transfer is the single most common disappointment with this mode, and it is a category error rather than a failure.

The practical consequence is that the best references are rooms broadly similar in kind to yours. A living room reference applied to a living room transfers cleanly. A dramatic double-height atrium applied to a small bedroom gives the model a palette and a mood it can use, and a scale it cannot.

Choosing a reference image that works

A good reference is a photograph of a real interior, lit clearly, showing enough of the room to read as a space. Editorial interiors photography is close to ideal, which is why saved Pinterest images tend to work well. The model is reading properties out of the image, so the more room there is in it, the more there is to read.

Weak references share one trait: not enough interior in the frame. A close crop of a cushion carries a colour and nothing else. A product shot on a white background carries a single object with no context. An illustration or a render in a stylised house style carries an aesthetic the model may reproduce as flatness rather than as material. None of these fail outright, but all of them give thin results next to a full room photograph.

It is also worth checking that the reference is a room you like for reasons that can transfer. People often save images for the view out of the window, the exceptional ceiling height, or the sheer size of the space. Those are architectural properties, and your room will not inherit them. If what you love about the picture is the room rather than the styling, no transfer will deliver it.

Inspiration photo, or a style name?

Both restyle a furnished room and both preserve your architecture. The difference is only how you specify the target, and each has a genuine advantage. A style name is precise and repeatable: choose Japandi twice and you get a consistent result, and you can hand the name to a colleague and have them reproduce it. A reference image is richer and needs no vocabulary, but it is harder to describe to someone else and harder to reproduce exactly.

The practical rule is to use a name when you have one and an image when you do not. Someone who already knows they want mid-century modern should say so, because the style is well defined and the named route is more consistent. Someone with a folder of saved screenshots and no idea what connects them should use the images, and may well discover the name afterwards.

They also combine. Running your room against a reference first, then reading which named style the result resembles, is a reasonable way to acquire the vocabulary. Once you have the name, the named mode gives you a more repeatable version of the same direction.

Using someone else's photograph as a reference

Almost every reference comes from somewhere: a magazine, a designer's portfolio, an estate agent's listing, a board of saved screenshots whose sources nobody remembers. It is worth being clear about what happens to that image here. It is read for its properties and it is not reproduced. What comes back is your room, with your walls and windows and proportions, furnished in a character taken from the picture. None of the reference photograph appears in the output.

The practical distinction is between general design ideas and the protected expression in a particular photograph. A palette or broad material direction may be described in general terms, while the photograph itself can carry copyright in its composition and other creative choices. The legal position depends on the image, the intended use, and the jurisdiction, so the tool cannot clear those rights for you.

Use references you created, licensed, or have permission to use whenever the output is for a client, listing, campaign, or other commercial purpose. Do not republish the source photograph unless you have the right to do so. Keep the reference separate from the generated result, review the result for recognizable copied expression, and obtain legal advice when the intended use makes the distinction important.

Why match an inspiration photo works

For looks without a name

If you can screenshot it, you can ask for it. No need to work out whether what you like is Japandi, warm minimalism, or something in between.

Palette and materials, not furniture

It transfers the character of the reference: its colours, woods, metals, fabrics, and the quality of its light. It does not copy the reference room's layout into yours.

Your architecture is kept

The reference supplies the look. Your photo supplies the room. Walls, windows, and proportions come from yours.

Settle a client conversation

When a client sends three inspiration images, running each one against the real room turns a taste discussion into a comparison of outcomes.

Consistent across rooms

Use one reference across several rooms in a property and the set holds together, which a per-room style choice rarely does.

Better than describing it badly

A reference image carries detail no prompt of a thousand characters would capture, and it carries it without ambiguity.

How it works

1
Upload your room
The space you actually want changed, shot from a corner in daylight.
2
Add the inspiration photo
A screenshot, a magazine scan, or a saved Pinterest image. Interiors work best; a fabric swatch gives the model far less to read.
3
Generate and compare
Get your room in the reference's character in about 30 seconds.

Go deeper

Choosing a mode Writing a prompt that works Browse looks by style For interior designers Interior design glossary All design modes