Why pasting a screenshot into your AI builder doesn’t match (and how to fix it)

What an image doesn’t tell the builder

• Names. It sees a font but not which one, a blue but not its hex code, a gap but not its size. So it approximates each one.
• Behavior. A still frame has no hover, focus, open menu, or motion.
• Other screen sizes. It shows one width, so the phone and tablet layout is guesswork.
• Exact text. Small or low-resolution text gets paraphrased or replaced.

Why fixing it round by round is expensive

Each correction is another generation: more tokens, more time, and sometimes a regression elsewhere. And you often don’t know what a style is called, so you can’t ask for it precisely (“make it more… premium?”).

The fix: give it a spec, not a picture

Builders are excellent at following precise instructions. Write the styles down (colors as hex, fonts with sizes, spacing in pixels, exact copy, states, and responsive rules) and the first result lands far closer. The guides on v0 and Lovable show how, step by step.

What Recast does

Recast reads the pixels and writes that spec for you, so your builder doesn’t have to guess. In Precise mode it’s 91% accurate on real designs. Here’s how it describes interactions a screenshot can’t show, from a real example.