Draft Images

Insert and manage images in your drafts.

Last updated March 2026

Overview

Draft images let you embed pictures directly inside your drafts. Whether you're adding reference photos, mood board images, AI-generated scene illustrations, or character sketches, images live right alongside your prose in the editor.

Images are stored in the cloud and count against your storage quota. They're preserved when you export your draft to DOCX or PDF.

Inserting Images

There are two ways to add images to your draft: uploading from your device or generating one with AI.

Upload from Your Device

Click the image button in the toolbar to upload an image from your computer. Standard image formats are supported — JPEG, PNG, WebP, and GIF. The image uploads to cloud storage and appears inline in your draft.

You can also drag and drop an image file directly into the editor. Drop it where you want it to appear, and it uploads automatically.

Generate with AI

You can also generate images using AI directly from the editor. This uses the built-in image generation feature. Each generated image costs 15,000 Genesis Tokens.

Describe the scene or subject you want, and the AI generates an illustration. The image is inserted into your draft and saved to your storage.

Info
AI image generation uses the same token balance as text generation. The cost is fixed at 15,000 tokens per image regardless of which text model you have selected.

Image Storage & Quotas

Every image you upload or generate is stored in the cloud and counts against your plan's storage quota:

PlanStorage
Free Free50 MB
Writer Writer+25 GB
Basic Basic+10 GB
Professional Pro125 GB

Images tend to be the largest files in your storage. A high-resolution image can be several megabytes. If you're on the Free plan with 50 MB, be mindful of how many images you add.

You can check your current storage usage in Storage & Quotas.

Images in Exports

Images embedded in your draft are included in DOCX and PDF exports. They appear in the exported document at the same position they occupy in the editor, maintaining their inline placement between paragraphs.

This makes draft images useful for more than just personal reference — if you're creating an illustrated manuscript, children's book, or a document that needs embedded visuals, the images carry through to the final output.

Tip
For the best export quality, use high-resolution images. The DOCX and PDF exports preserve the original image quality, so sharper source images produce sharper exports.

Use Cases for Draft Images

Draft images serve many purposes in a creative writing workflow:

  • Mood boards. Insert reference images at the top of a chapter to capture the visual tone you're aiming for. A photo of a rainy street, a vintage map, a character reference — anything that inspires the scene.
  • Character references. Add character portraits or reference photos next to scenes where a character is introduced. This helps you stay consistent with physical descriptions.
  • Scene inspiration. Generate AI illustrations of key scenes and embed them in the draft. Seeing the scene visually can help you describe it in prose.
  • Maps and diagrams. If your story involves a complex setting (a castle, a city, a spaceship), insert a map or floor plan for reference while you write.
  • Illustrated manuscripts. For projects that include illustrations in the final product (children's books, graphic novel scripts, RPG supplements), draft images let you lay out text and images together.

Managing Images

Images in the editor can be selected by clicking on them. When selected, you can:

  • Delete the image by pressing Backspace or Delete.
  • Move the image by cutting (Ctrl+X) and pasting (Ctrl+V) at a new position.

Deleting an image from the editor removes it from the draft but does not automatically delete it from your cloud storage. To manage your stored files and free up storage space, visit your storage settings.

Tips

  • Optimize image size. Before uploading large images, consider resizing them. A 10 MB photo doesn't look noticeably better than a 1 MB version in the editor, but it uses 10x the storage.
  • Use WebP format. WebP images are significantly smaller than JPEG or PNG at similar quality. Most image editors can save to WebP.
  • Images are per-draft. Each image is embedded in a specific draft node. If you want the same image in multiple drafts, you'll need to insert it separately in each one.
  • AI-generated images for scene planning. Use the AI image generator to quickly visualize a setting or character before you write the scene. It's a fast way to get your creative juices flowing.
Draft Images | Genesis Writer Docs