Image Editor

Layers

The document model — every visible element is a layer with a transform, effects, opacity, and blend mode. How to select, reorder, transform, and clip layers.

Every visible element in the editor is a layer. Layers stack from bottom to top in the layers panel — the topmost layer paints last and visually wins.

#Layer kinds

Kind	Source tool	Notes
`bitmap`	Open image / Asset stamp	Raster image. Supports per-asset Curves, Levels, HSL mixer, and AI background removal.
`shape`	Shape tool (`S`)	Rectangle, rounded rect, ellipse, triangle, polygon, star, line, arrow. Solid / gradient fills and strokes.
`text`	Text tool (`T`)	Inline editable. Supports text-on-path.
`icon`	Icon tool (`I`)	Vector icon from the bundled library. Tintable.
`asset`	Asset tool (`A`)	A user-uploaded image or SVG. Frame-clip and erase-mask supported.
`draw`	Brush tool (`B`)	Free-paint strokes. The eraser punches transparency through draw layers.
`group`	`Ctrl+G`	A container with its own opacity, blend mode, and clipping. See Groups.

#Selecting layers

The fastest path:

Click a layer with the pointer tool. The layer's tool also activates so you can edit it immediately.
Ctrl+Click to add or remove from the current selection.
Ctrl+Drag on empty canvas to rubber-band-select.
Click in the layers panel to select without leaving the current tool.

When multiple layers are selected, transform handles wrap the union bounding box.

#Transforming

Move — drag the layer body, or ←↑↓→ to nudge by 1 px (Shift+arrow for 10 px).
Resize — drag a corner or edge handle. Hold Shift for proportional, Alt for resize-from-center.
Rotate — drag the rotation handle above the bounding box. Hold Shift to snap to 15°.
Free transform — right-click → Free Transform opens the skew-capable HUD. You can drag any of the four corners independently.
Flip — right-click → Flip Horizontal / Vertical.

#Reordering

Ctrl+] — bring forward
Ctrl+[ — send backward
Right-click → Bring to Front / Send to Back — full-stack moves
Drag in the layers panel — explicit re-ordering, including moving in and out of groups

#Per-layer opacity and blend mode

Open the layers panel. Each layer has:

Opacity — 0–100%
Blend mode — normal, multiply, screen, overlay, soft-light, hard-light, lighten, darken, color-dodge, color-burn, difference, exclusion, hue, saturation, color, luminosity
Visible / locked toggles

These also apply to groups (whole sub-tree blends as a unit).

#Layer effects

Each layer can carry up to several effects:

Drop shadow — color, blur, x/y offset, opacity
Inner shadow
Outer glow / inner glow
Stroke — outline applied to the layer's silhouette

Effects render in the worker and live on layer.effects in the document. See Effects & filters.

#Clipping masks

Sometimes you want a layer to only show inside the silhouette of the layer below. That's a clip-to-below.

Select the top layer
Press Ctrl+Alt+G (toggle)
The layer now paints only where the layer beneath has alpha

Clip-to-below is a flag on the layer (clipToBelow: true), not a separate node, so it cleanly survives reordering and serialization.

For more elaborate masking — image-inside-shape, shape-as-window — use frame clip on an asset layer (see Asset tool).

#Groups

Groups deserve their own page — see Groups.

Right-click any layer in the canvas or layers panel for:

Duplicate / Delete
Cut / Copy / Paste
Bring forward / send backward / to front / to back
Group / ungroup
Free transform
Align to canvas (left / center / right / top / middle / bottom)
Flip horizontal / vertical
Convert to / from clip mask

#Document state — what survives a save

Everything visible in the layers panel and transient state needed for redo:

Layer order, transforms, fills, strokes, gradients
Effects (per-layer)
Group hierarchy and group-level opacity / blend / clip flags
Per-asset edit state (curves, levels, HSL, erase mask, background-removed bitmap)
Crop state (committed and pending)
Undo / redo history snapshots

This is why .img files round-trip cleanly — the document model and the on-disk format are 1:1. See The .img format.