Pinning reference images over the canvas in Paint
Place or paste reference pictures over the canvas in Paint by Zaweba, scale, turn, fade and lock them, and sample colours from them without exporting them.
Artists rarely work from memory alone. A portrait painter keeps the sitter's photo in view, an illustrator keeps a pose sketch or a colour study handy, and a retoucher matching a client's brand wants the approved sample on screen. Paint by Zaweba lets you pin those pictures straight over the canvas with View > Reference Images, so the reference lives with the work instead of in a separate window you keep losing.
Placing a reference
From View > Reference Images you can place a picture from a file or paste one from the clipboard. It appears pinned over the canvas. It is not a layer and it is not part of your artwork; think of it as a photo clipped to the edge of your drawing board.
There is also a Reference Image tool, which is the hands-on way to work with references once they are placed.
Moving and shaping it
A reference can be moved anywhere over the canvas, scaled by its corners and turned with its knob. Scale it down and park it in a corner while you paint, or blow it up and lay it over the area you are working on when you need to compare closely.
Opacity matters more than you might think. A reference at full strength competes with your work for attention. Turn it down and it becomes a gentle guide you can glance at. You can also grey it out, which is a well known trick for judging values: with colour taken away, it is much easier to see whether your painting's lights and darks match the photo's.
Flipping is there too. If your drawing faces the other way from the photo, flip the reference rather than straining to mirror it in your head.
Once a reference is where you want it, lock it. A locked reference cannot be nudged by a stray click, which matters when you are painting quickly around it with a pen.
Sampling colours
The Eyedropper can sample a reference image. That makes references useful for colour as well as shape. Pick a skin tone from the photo, the exact blue of a logo from a brand sheet, or a palette from a painting you admire, and paint with it directly.
Sampling from a reference is often better than sampling from your own work in progress, because it gives you the original colour rather than one you have already shifted.
Saved with the file, never exported
References are saved in the .ptx file along with the original picture, so when you reopen a project weeks later they are still there in the same place. But they are never exported. Save a PNG or JPEG and the reference simply is not in it. You do not need to remember to hide or delete it before sending work out.
Drawing jobs it suits
Portraits and figure drawing from photos. Product illustrations where the shape must match a real item. Recolouring jobs where you need to hit an exact sample. Concept art built from a mood board of several pictures. Matching a retouch to an earlier image from the same shoot, so a set looks consistent.
Keep references small unless you are actively comparing. Turn opacity down while painting and back up while checking. Use the greyed version to judge values and the colour version to pick hues. If several references are open, lock the ones you are not touching.
And pair them with Flip View: mirroring the canvas shows drawing errors, and comparing the flipped drawing with a flipped reference keeps the comparison fair.
A few cautions
Because a reference sits over the canvas, it can hide part of your work. If something seems to be missing, move or fade the reference before assuming an edit has gone wrong. And remember the Eyedropper may be sampling the reference rather than your layer when you click over it.
Reference images are a small feature with a large effect on drawing accuracy, and having them inside Paint by Zaweba keeps everything for a project in one file.
