Creating your profile image

What the profile image is

Your profile image is the small avatar Dialog Lab shows for you beside your name in the account menu, in the conversations you take part in, on your instructor's live monitor, and on the series roster. If you don't add one, Dialog Lab uses a plain avatar with your initials.

Everyone with an account can create a profile image: participants, instructors, and administrators.

Open your account settings

Your profile image lives in Account settings, in the Profile Image card. There you can describe yourself, choose a style, generate images, and choose which one to use.

Describe yourself

There are two ways to create the description your image is generated from:

• Describe from a photo. Choose a photo of yourself and select Describe from Photo. Dialog Lab sends the photo to its AI provider to draft a short description of your appearance, then discards the photo — it is not stored. Review the draft and edit it as you like; for example, adjust hair color or clothing, or add glasses.
• Write your own description. Type a description of your appearance in the How should you be described? field and select Save Description.

Keep the description to your outward appearance: hair, face, features, glasses, clothing, and expression. Please don't include private or sensitive information. Descriptions that mention weapons, violence, drugs, hate, or sexual content can't be used.

Choose a style and generate

Choose a Visual style, then select Generate Image. The available styles are Stylized 3D / Digital Animated, Modern Flat Vector, Comic / Graphic Novel, and Editorial Watercolor. A photorealistic style is intentionally not offered for personal profiles.

Images are created by AI from your description, so they are illustrations of that description and may not be an exact likeness.

Use, change, or remove an image

• Use: select Use under an image to make it your avatar.
• Remove: select Remove to drop an image from your list. If you were using that image, Dialog Lab falls back to your initials avatar.
• Use Generic Avatar: if you have selected an image and want to return to initials, select Use Generic Avatar.

Limits

• You can generate 5 profile images every 30 days.
• You can keep your 5 most recent images; older images are removed from your list automatically.
• Instructors and administrators have a higher allowance (20 every 30 days, keeping 20).

Your remaining allowance is shown in the Profile Image card in Account settings.

If an image is flagged

An instructor or administrator can flag a profile image for review. If one of your images is flagged:

• it can no longer be used as your active avatar, and
• the description used to create it can't be used to generate another image until you change it.

You will see the reviewer's short note under the image in Account settings. Edit your description and generate again when you are ready.