How-to · Edit with Paint

How to replace a fashion photo background with AI inpainting

Edit with Paint is Apiway's masked-inpainting tool — brush over the regions you want to change, describe what should happen there, and AI updates only those regions. Up to 5 mask regions per pass: swap a background, recolor a sleeve, remove a label, change an accessory, or relight a scene without a re-shoot.

Time
Difficulty
Intermediate
Cost
40 credits(~$0.40)
Steps
5

Last reviewed: .

What you need

  • Existing fashion photo (yours or generated by Apiway)
  • Apiway account

Steps

  1. Open Edit with Paint

    From the Creative hub, open the Edit with Paint template. The template is mask-based: you brush regions, then describe what should appear in each region.

    Open in Apiway

  2. Upload the source photo

    Upload the photo you want to edit — your own studio shot, an Apiway-generated White Studio output, or a phone photo. Resolution up to 4K is supported.

  3. Brush the regions you want to change

    Use the paint tool to brush over up to 5 distinct regions. For a background swap, paint the entire background. For a sleeve recolor, paint just the sleeve. The brush thickness adjusts on the fly; over-painting slightly is safer than under-painting.

  4. Describe what should appear in each region

    Add a short prompt for each masked region — 'sun-bleached desert backdrop', 'navy blue sleeve', 'remove the label entirely'. Plain English; specificity wins (color, texture, mood).

  5. Generate and refine

    Click Generate. The pipeline edits only the masked regions — pixels outside the masks are preserved exactly. If the result needs a tweak, adjust the mask or the prompt and re-run.

Common mistakes

  • Painting a mask too small to cover the edit zone

    If you want to remove a logo, paint the full logo plus a 5–10 pixel buffer around it. Tight masks leave artifacts at the boundary.

  • Asking the prompt to do work outside the mask

    Edit with Paint only changes the masked region. A prompt like 'change the model's pose' won't work because the model isn't inside the mask. For pose changes, run a fresh White Studio generation instead.

  • Using more than 5 mask regions in one pass

    5 is the per-pass cap. For more region edits, run multiple sequential passes — output of pass 1 becomes input to pass 2. Each pass deducts its own credits.

Troubleshooting

  • How well does the inpainting match the surrounding lighting?

    The pipeline reads the surrounding pixels (color, lighting, shadow direction) and matches the inpainted region to them. For most edits the seam is invisible at 1080p; at 4K with extreme lighting differences (strong directional sunlight vs flat indoor), the seam can show — split the edit into smaller regions or run a second relight pass.

  • Can I iterate on the same photo multiple times?

    Yes. Each Edit with Paint pass produces a new gallery entry; the source photo is unchanged. The typical creative pattern is 2–4 passes per hero shot, each refining a different region. Pass 1: background. Pass 2: garment colorway. Pass 3: accessory swap. Pass 4: final lighting tweak.

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