Photo guide

1. Getting started

The start screen shows Your designs, sizes for a New design (or a Custom size) and Templates. Open a file… opens a picture, a Photoshop file (.psd) or a saved design (.photo.json).

The editor

• Tools down the left (a small corner mark means a button holds more tools: press it again, or right-click, for the list), with the colour and second colour at the bottom.
• The picture in the middle, with the pages under it.
• The panel on the right: Edit (the tool's settings, then whatever is picked, or the page), Add, Adjust and Layers.
• The top bar: undo, redo, History (the clock), zoom, ⋯ (more) and Download.

Every change is saved by itself in this browser. The design's name at the top can be changed by typing in it.

2. Layers

A design is a pile of layers: pictures, text, shapes, icons, charts, QR codes, tables and adjustment layers. Click a layer on the picture to pick it; Shift-click or drag a box round several to pick more.

• Move by dragging; it snaps to the page's edges and middle, other layers, guides and the layout grid (hold Alt to move freely; Alt at the start leaves a copy behind).
• Resize with the handles: pictures keep their shape (Shift frees them), shapes stretch (Shift keeps them even), Alt resizes from the middle. Turn with the round handle above (Shift: steps of 15°).
• In Edit: X, Y, W, H, Turn, Opacity, Blend, align, order, flip, duplicate, lock, group and delete.
• The Layers tab lists them, top first: drag to reorder, the eye hides, the lock locks, a double-click renames. Its bar has New paint layer, New adjustment layer, Group, Merge down, Make pixels, Duplicate and Delete.
• Groups move together; double-click picks one layer inside.
• Find layers (above the list, with 2+ layers) shows only the layers whose name has what you type; the list beside it shows one kind (Pictures, Paint, Text, Shapes, Adjust, Smart, Hidden).

Fill, Blend If and locks

• Blend has all of Photoshop's modes, including Linear burn, Linear dodge, Vivid light, Linear light, Pin light, Hard mix, Subtract and Divide; Photoshop files keep them both ways.
• Fill (under Opacity) fades the layer's own pixels but not its layer styles: at 0 a shape with a stroke or shadow shows only the stroke or shadow.
• Blending options › Blend If shows the layer only where it, or what is under it, is in a range of brightness (Grey) or of one colour. Darks from hides what is darker, Lights to what is lighter; Soft fades instead of cutting. Use it to drop a texture only onto the light parts, or to keep clouds when laying a sky on.
• Lock: See-through pixels lets brushes, fills and gradients paint only where the layer already has pixels; Pixels stops painting; Position stops moving and resizing. A small lock shows on the layer's row.
• Link (pick 2+ layers): linked layers move together without being a group. Pick linked picks them all; Unlink undoes it.
• Photoshop files keep Fill and the locks both ways.

3. Smart objects, versions and actions

Smart objects

Pick some layers and press Make a smart object (at the bottom of Edit). They become one layer you can resize, turn and filter (Adjust tab › Smart filters, and Fix) as much as you like: what is inside never changes, so text and shapes stay sharp even after making it small and big again. Edit contents opens them on a page of their own; change anything, then press Done. Unpack turns it back into separate layers.

Versions of a page (layer comps)

In Layers, + Save keeps which layers show and where they are. Change things (hide a layer, move a title) and save another; press a version's name to switch back. ⟳ updates it to the page as it is, ✎ renames it.

Actions and batch editing

⋯ › Actions and batch editing…: tick steps (the picked picture's Filters, Auto enhance, Crop to a shape, Longest side, Border, Watermark), give them a name and Save to keep them as an action. Play on this design runs them here; Choose photos… runs them on as many photos as you pick and downloads them as a .zip (JPG, PNG or WebP). The photos are edited in the browser, never uploaded.

4. Layer styles and clipping

Layer styles

Any layer except an adjustment layer has Layer styles at the bottom of Edit, as in Photoshop: Drop shadow, Inner shadow, Outer glow, Inner glow, Stroke (outside, centre or inside), Colour overlay, Gradient overlay and Bevel. Tick one to turn it on and show its settings (“Light from” is the angle the light comes from). A layer with styles shows fx in the Layers list.

Copy style and Paste style move styles from one layer to others; Clear takes them off.

Clipping to the layer below

A clipped layer only shows where the layer under it has pixels, for example a photo shown only inside big letters. Tick Clip to the layer below in Edit, press Ctrl+Alt+G, or Alt-click its row in Layers. Clipped rows show ↳. An adjustment layer clipped to a layer changes only that layer.

5. Text

1. Pick the Text tool (T) and click the page, or use Add › Text (a heading, a subheading, body text or one of the styled combos).
2. Type; Ctrl+Enter or a click elsewhere finishes, Esc takes the change back. Double-click text to change it again.

Edit has the font (with your brand fonts first), size, bold, italic, underline, capitals, alignment, weight, colour or a gradient, line height, spacing and Curve (letters round an arc). Effects: Shadow, Lift, Hollow, Outline, Neon, Echo, Background, Splice and Glitch.

Styling some of the words

While you type, pick some letters in the box (drag over them, or Shift + arrows). Bold, Italic, Underline (Ctrl+B / I / U), Size, the font and Colour then change only those letters, so one word can be bigger, bolder or another colour. Picked letters in Edit adds a Highlight behind them, and Plain letters takes their own styles away (with nothing picked, from the whole text). With no letters picked, the buttons change the whole text as before. On a phone a strip beside Done has B, I, U, A+ / A− (bigger, smaller), a highlighter and a colour. Curved text and text on a path stay in one style; an SVG download draws mixed-style text as a picture.

Character and paragraph styles

Under a picked text, Text styles: Save as a character style keeps its font, size, weight, colour, spacing, outline and shadow; Save as a paragraph style keeps its alignment, line height, list and background. Press a saved style to put it on the picked text; right-click one to remove it. They are kept in this browser, for every design.

Layout

• • List or 1. List puts a bullet or a number before each paragraph.
• Shrink to fit the box: drag the box's edges and the words get smaller to fit it; Largest size is as big as they may grow.
• Warp: Arch, Arc down, Wave, Flag, Bulge, Squeeze or Rise, with Bend for how much.
• On a path: Circle, Arc or Wave lays the words along a line; see section 8.

⋯ › Find and replace… changes words in every text, table and chart on every page.

6. Pictures and frames

Add pictures with Add › Add pictures…, by dropping them on the editor or by pasting. A picture dropped on an empty frame fills it.

• Replace…, Natural shape, Crop to it, Shape (cut it to a circle, heart, star…), corners, border and shadow.
• Remove background finds the subject on this device (the first time it downloads about 40 MB) and hides the rest with a mask you can touch up.
• Auto enhance sets the levels and adds a little life.
• Blur background keeps the subject sharp and blurs the rest (an adjustment layer clipped to the picture, with Blur, Bright spots and Edge).
• Grab the subject lifts the person or thing in the photo into a layer of its own (found on this device) and fills where it was from what is round it, so you can move it, resize it or put text behind it.
• Replace sky… finds the sky (it works best on a clear skyline) and puts a new one on top as its own layer with a mask: Blue sky, Clouds, Sunset, Dusk, Night, Storm or your own picture. A clipped Photo filter (“Sky light”) tints the photo to match; touch up the mask with the brush.
• Content-aware scale… makes the picture narrower, wider, shorter or taller by taking out (or doubling) the plainest lines of pixels, so people and things keep their shape. Tick Keep the subject (found on this device) or select what must stay first and tick Keep the selected part. It takes a few seconds.
• Enlarge… 2× or 4× gives the picture more pixels, smoothly and sharpened (not AI: it is crisper, but it can't invent detail). The page's own Enlarge… makes the whole design bigger with its pictures enlarged too.
• Camera (under a picked photo): Photo info shows the camera, lens, settings and date saved in the photo, and says so when it also holds the place it was taken (with a map link). Downloads from Photo never carry this information; Forget it removes it from the design too.
• Lens blur by depth (Camera, or ⋯ › Image) finds what is near and far in the photo on this device (the first time it downloads about 27 MB) and adds a Lens blur (depth) adjustment clipped to it: Blur, Focus (far ↔ near), Sharp depth (how deep the sharp part is), Bright spots and Blur what is nearer too. Pick the focus then a press on the photo keeps that part sharp; See the depth shows the map for a moment (white is near).
• Passport and ID photo… (Camera, or ⋯ › Image): pick the size (India, US, UK, Schengen, Canada, Australia, China visa or square), a plain background (white, light grey, light blue, or keep the photo's) and a sheet to print (4 × 6 in or A4). The face is found on this device, sized and placed by that rule with the eyes level, and the photo goes on a new page at 300 dpi; the sheet has as many copies as fit, with grey cut lines. Print the sheet at actual size, and check the rules of the office you send it to.
• Colours from it shows the picture's main colours: press one to paint with it, or add them all to the brand kit.
• Perspective, Warp and Liquify…: see section 20.
• Make a sticker…, Dispersion…, Motion trail… and Free crop: see section 24. An overlay layer (snow, rain…) has Shuffle to draw it again.
• Filters and colour… opens the Adjust tab: filters and looks (section 21), Effects (section 22) and Beautify (section 23).

Frames (Add › Frames) are shapes waiting for a picture. Double-click a filled frame (or Move inside) to move and zoom the picture in it; Esc when done.

Letter frames (Add › Letter frames › Letters or numbers…): type up to 14 letters or numbers and pick a bold font; you get a frame in their shape to drop a photo into.

Shadows

Pick a picture: Edit › Shadows has Drop, Glow, Page lift (the corners seem to lift off the page), Curved, Angled (as if lit from the side) and Backdrop (a solid block behind, offset), with its darkness and colour. The shadow moves and animates with the picture. (A picture with a mask keeps its shadow only inside the mask.)

7. Shapes, icons, charts, QR codes and tables

• Shapes: Add › Shapes, or the Shapes tool (U) to draw one. Fill (a colour, a gradient or none), border, dashes and corners.
• Icons: about 300 line icons in Add › Icons, with a search box. Change their colour, line width and tint.
• Charts: Bars, Sideways bars, Stacked bars, Line, Area, Scatter, Radar, Pie, Donut, Progress ring, Gauge, Icon count (ten icons, as many coloured in as your number is of “Full at”; pick the icon) and Big number. Change the Kind in Edit at any time. Type the names and numbers in the table; + Row adds a row, + Series another column of numbers (each series gets its own colour and a name, shown in the key over the chart). Scatter rows are a dot each: how far across, then how far up. Paste from a spreadsheet… takes rows copied from Google Sheets, Excel or Numbers (a first row of headings names the series), and Open a CSV file… reads a .csv file the same way. Before / After put a sign round every number ($, %, k…). Pick the colours (Brand uses your kit) and show or hide names, numbers and the key.
• Diagrams (Add › Diagrams, or ⋯ › Create): Mind map, Org chart, Timeline, Steps and Cycle, drawn from an outline you type: one thing a line, with spaces (or Tab) before a line to put it under the one above. A mind map's first line is the middle; in Steps, Timeline and Cycle the lines under an item are its small print. Pick the diagram and Edit shows its kinds (switch any time), Edit the outline… and its colours; it is laid out again each time, so changes made to its boxes by hand go.
• QR codes: type a link or text; colour, background (or none), round dots and margin. Test it with a phone's camera.
• Tables: + Row, + Column, type in each cell; text size and font, the top row's colours, lines, stripes and corners.
• Stickers: emoji, which are text you can size and turn.

8. Pen, paths and SVG

The pen

Pick the Pen (P, in the Shapes group; Draw on a phone). Click to add points, or drag to pull out a curve. Click the first point to close the shape (it is filled with the colour); Enter leaves it open (a line in the colour). Backspace takes the last point back, Esc stops.

Changing a path

Pick a path and the Pen (or Edit points), then:

• drag a point, or the round handles beside it, to change its curve (Alt drags one handle on its own);
• click the line between two points to add one; Delete removes the picked point;
• Alt-click a point (or Corner / curve) to make it sharp or smooth; Open it / Close it;
• Ctrl-click another layer to pick it without leaving the Pen.

Any shape can become a path: pick it and press Make it a path. A path keeps its fill, border and shadow, and resizes like any shape.

Text on a path

Pick a text: On a path › Circle, Arc or Wave. Or pick a text and a shape together and press Put the text on the shape; the words go round the outside, centred on the top. Start slides them along, Lift raises them off the line, Other side flips them, and Edit the path changes its shape with the Pen.

SVG

Download › SVG keeps shapes, paths and text sharp at any size (text uses its Google font); pictures, effects and anything under an adjustment layer go in as pictures. Opening or dropping an .svg brings its shapes in as paths you can change (grouped); its words are left out, and one with no shapes comes in as a picture.

9. Templates, photo grids and the brand kit

Templates

Start from a template on the start screen, or add one from Add › Templates. There are 113, sorted into Posts, Stories, Thumbnails & banners, Photo layouts, Events & invites, Business and Print; the search box finds them by name, kind, size or any word on them. Some are sets of pages (a five-slide carousel, a four-slide presentation, a five-slide pitch deck, a four-page "day in my life" story). Festivals (Diwali, Holi, Christmas, New Year) are under Events; some templates come with icons, a QR code (the Wi-Fi sign, the pitch deck), a table or a chart you can change like any other.

Pressing one opens a preview. Pick its Colours (as made, four other colour sets, or a dark or light version) and, for a set, look through its pages. On the start screen Use this template makes a new design. In the editor it is added after the page you are on (or in place of an empty page); when its size differs, Add at this page's size lays it out again at your page's size. Its frames wait for your pictures: the landscapes in the previews only show where pictures go.

Your own templates

⋯ › Save as a template… keeps this page (or every page) with its pictures in this browser, for every design. It shows first, under Yours, on the start screen and in Add › Templates, and the search finds it by its name and words. It opens like the others (colours, use, add); Delete in its window removes it. Videos and GIFs are left out of templates. Tick Lock the layout to make a template others (or Bulk create) can only fill in: words can be changed and photos swapped, but they can't be moved, and everything else can't even be picked. A page made from it says so, with Unlock the layout (nothing picked) to free it.

Photo grids

Add › Photo grids fills the page with frames in a layout (two, three, four, five, six or nine). With the grid picked, Spacing and Corners change all of it at once.

Brand kit

⋯ › Brand kit… (or Add › Brand kit) keeps your colours, a heading font, a body font and logos in this browser for every design. Brand colours come first in every colour row, brand fonts first in the font list, and the kit's buttons add a heading, body text or a logo.

Several kits (for work, a club, a client…): the list at the top of Add › Brand kit switches between them; its ⋯ makes a New brand kit…, renames, edits or deletes the one in use.

10. Pages and backgrounds

Click empty board to see the page in Edit: its size, Background (Colour, Gradient, Pattern or None) and Guides and grid. Patterns: dots, stripes, diagonal, grid, checks, waves, zigzag, plus and paper, with two colours and a size.

A design can have several pages: + under the picture (or ⋯ › Add a page). Each page's own menu duplicates, moves or deletes it.

Styles

With nothing picked, Styles (under the page's settings) puts a colour set and a pair of fonts on every page at once: the biggest words get the heading font, the rest the body font, and words are kept readable on what is behind them. Shuffle moves the same colours round; From the photo makes a set from the design's biggest photo. Undo goes back.

Present

⋯ › Present (Shift+P) shows the pages full screen: click, → or Space for the next, ← for the one before, Esc to leave. Notes, the presenter view and recording are in section 12.

Even gaps and Tidy up

Moving something next to others snaps it to an even gap (halfway between two, or the same gap two others already have), with pink marks in the gaps. Pick several things and press Tidy up to put them in neat rows with even gaps.

11. Animation, video and music

Things on a page can move, as in Canva. Nothing is uploaded: the video is made on your device, frame by frame.

Animate one thing

Pick it, then in Edit › Animate choose Fade, Rise, Pan, Drop, Pop, Zoom, Wipe, Tumble, Bounce or Typewriter (letters one at a time; other things fade in), or Breathe and Drift, which go on all the time the page shows. The page plays it once as you pick. In comes in at the start, Out goes out at the end of the page, Both does both. Speed is how long it takes and Start after waits that long first. As the page follows the page's animation; Off keeps this one still when the page has one.

Animate the page

With nothing picked, Edit › Animate gives every thing on the page the same animation, one after another from the bottom of the pile up (a group moves as one; a picture covering the page stays still). Page lasts sets how many seconds the page shows (5 to start with; the page strip shows each page's time). To the next page picks a transition: Dissolve, Slide, Push, Wipe, Zoom or Circle, and how long it takes; the two pages overlap for that long. Same for every page copies the animation, length and transition to all pages.

Magic Animate

With nothing picked, Edit › Magic Animate gives everything on the page its own animation in one press: Calm, Bold, Playful or Smooth. Headings come first, then the rest in reading order (top to bottom, left to right; a group as one); a picture covering the page drifts or stays still; the page lasts long enough to read it, and gets a transition to the next page (Smooth uses Match & Move). Tick On every page to do the whole design. Each thing can then be changed on its own; Undo takes it all back.

Match & Move

A transition (Edit › Animate › To the next page): things on both pages (with the same name, or the same picture, words, icon or shape) slide, grow, turn and change colour from where they were to where they are, while the rest of the two pages fade across; they don't come in again on the next page. It plays in Play, in saved videos and GIFs and in Present. Pages of different shapes, or with nothing in common, simply dissolve. To pair things that differ, give them the same name in Layers.

Motion paths

Pick one thing, press Edit › Motion path › Draw a path and drag on the page the way it should go (from anywhere: the path starts at the thing). Go along it moves it along the path and leaves it at the end, Arrive here brings it in along the path to where it is, Leave takes it away along the path at the end of the page. Takes is how long, Start after when; the path shows as a dotted purple line while it is picked. Draw again or Remove the path.

Timing

Timing… (Magic Animate, Motion path, or ⋯ › Motion) shows a bar for each thing that moves on the page, with a preview and play button. Drag a bar to change when it comes in; drag its right end to make it faster or slower; orange is its way out. Page lasts sets the page's length.

Videos and moving GIFs

Add › Videos › Add a video or GIF… (or drop one on the page; Add pictures… takes them too) puts an MP4, WebM, MOV or a moving GIF on the page as a layer you can move, resize, turn, mask and fade like a picture. Pick it for Start at / End at (trim it), Comes in after (seconds into the page), Loop, and for a video Mute and Volume. Play the page plays it; Page as long as it sets the page's length to the video's (a page with videos lasts as long as they do until you set a length). It moves when the design plays, in Present and in saved MP4, WebM and GIF files, with its sound mixed in; PNG, JPG, PDF and the editor show the frame where it starts. The file stays on this device, kept with the design in this browser (not in the design file).

Music

Edit › Music › Add music… (nothing picked) puts a song from your device under the whole design: its volume, where in the song to start, and a fade out over the last two seconds. The song is kept in this browser with the design (not in the design file).

Play and save

Play (or ⋯ › Play the design) shows the whole design with its timing and music; drag the bar to jump. Save video… (⋯ › Save as a video…) makes an MP4 or WebM at 480 px up to the full size, 24, 30 or 60 frames a second, with the music, or an animated GIF (no sound, at most 400 frames). Every page gets the first page's shape; other shapes are fitted on black. If the browser lacks the usual encoders (H.264 and AAC for MP4) it uses others, and some players may not open those; then try WebM. The older Animation frames in the Layers tab (section 31) still make frame-by-frame GIFs.

Present (below) plays each page's animations as the page comes up.

12. Presenting and recording

Notes

With nothing picked, Edit › Notes keeps what you want to say on that page. Only you see them, in the presenter view.

Presenter view

⋯ › Presenter view (with notes) opens a second window (allow pop-ups if the browser stops it) with a clock, the page now, its notes and the next page, and Back / Next / End buttons; the arrow keys work there too. The pages show in this window; drag it to the screen or projector people see.

Shortcuts while presenting

Present and record

⋯ › Present and record… presents the pages while recording them, with your camera in a circle in the corner and your microphone (either can be off). The browser asks before it uses them. Move through the pages as usual; the shortcuts above show in the recording too. Esc ends it and saves the video (WebM, or MP4 in Safari) to your device. Nothing is sent anywhere.

13. Bulk create

⋯ › Bulk create… makes one copy of the page for each row of a table: name cards, certificates, price tags, posts for each product.

1. The data: paste rows from a spreadsheet (the column names in the first row), or open a .csv file.
2. Link to columns: write {{Name}} in any text (or a QR code or table) and it is replaced by that row's Name; or link a whole text to a column. For pictures, link a frame or picture to the column holding file names, then Pick the pictures… from your device; they are matched by name (with or without the .jpg).
3. Make: the pages after this one, PNG files in a .zip, or one PDF. Up to 300 rows.

A chart's numbers can come from a spreadsheet too: pick the chart and press Paste from a spreadsheet… or Open a CSV file… (names in the first column, then a column of numbers for each series).

14. Whiteboards, connectors, sticky notes and page numbers

Lines

Add › Lines: a line, dashed, an arrow, both ways, a triangle or dot ends, an elbow or curved arrow. They are connectors (below): drag their ends anywhere on any page, or onto things to join them, and change the ends, dashes and route in Edit.

Connectors

Pick two things and press Join them with a connector (or Add › Whiteboard › Connector for a loose one). Its ends stick to the sides of what they join and follow when those move. Pick the connector and drag an end onto something else to stick it there (it outlines in blue), or onto empty page to leave it loose. It can be Straight, Elbow or Curved, any colour and width, dashed, with an arrow, triangle, dot or bar at either end.

Sticky notes

Add › Whiteboard › one of the six colours adds a note: a coloured square with a shadow and words that shrink to fit, grouped. Double-click the words to write.

Whiteboard pages

On the start screen, Whiteboard starts a large dotted page; Add › Whiteboard › Make this page a whiteboard turns any page into one. A whiteboard grows by itself when you put something near any edge, so there is always room.

Page numbers

Add › Whiteboard › Page numbers puts a number in the bottom right of every page. They keep themselves right when pages are added, moved or deleted; pick one to show it as 1, 1 / 5 or Page 1. Move and style them like any text.

Links

Pick a thing and type a web address (or mailto:) in Edit › Link. In a PDF the thing can then be clicked.

15. Your uploads, recently used, search and Copy style

Your uploads

Every picture you add from your device is also kept in Add › Your uploads, for any design in this browser. Press one to add it (into a picked empty frame, or in the middle); the × takes it out of the list.

Your designs: folders, stars and search

On the start screen, each design's ⋯ can Star it or Move to a folder… (an existing folder or a new one). Chips over Your designs show All, Starred and each folder; the search box finds designs by name.

Recently used and search

The top of the Add tab shows the shapes, frames, icons, stickers, notes and text combos you used last, and the fonts you picked last come first in the font list (marked Recent). The search box there looks through shapes, frames, icons, stickers, charts and templates at once.

Copy style

Pick something and press Copy style (Ctrl+Alt+C), then click what should look the same: it gets the colour, and from the same kind of thing the rest too (a text's font, size, weight, spacing, outline and background; a shape's outline and corners; a picture's filters and border), plus opacity, blend and layer styles. Hold Shift to paint several; Esc stops. Paste style (Ctrl+Alt+V) puts it on what is picked.

16. Check design, versions and comments

With nothing picked, the Edit tab's Review section has the buttons below; they are also in ⋯ › Review.

Check design

Check design looks through every page before you download or share: words hard to read on what is behind them, words too small for the page, pictures shown much bigger than their pixels (they look blurry), things off the page or cut by its edge, words very near the edge (printers trim a little), empty frames, placeholder words such as “Add a heading”, empty text boxes, words on top of each other and more than three fonts. Show goes to the page and picks it; many have a fix (a clearer colour from your brand kit or near black / white, a bigger size, moved inside the page, removed). Fix all does every fix at once, and Undo takes them back.

Version history

Photo keeps a version of the design by itself every 10 minutes while you work (the last 20), and Keep this version keeps one with your own name until you delete it. In Versions, Go back to this puts a version back (the design as it was just before is kept as a version too, and Undo takes you forward again); Open as a copy opens it as a new design and leaves this one as it is. Versions are kept in this browser with the design; deleting the design deletes them.

Comments

Comment (Ctrl+Alt+M), then click where it goes: write it and, if you like, your name. It shows as a numbered pin, stuck to what you clicked on, so it moves with it. Click a pin to read it, Reply, Resolve (the pin goes away) or Delete. Comments lists them all (Open, Resolved, All) and can hide the pins. Comments never show in downloads. They stay with the design in this browser and in its design file, so they work as notes to yourself or to someone you hand the file to; nothing is sent anywhere.

17. Drawing and painting

• Brush (B): paints on the picked picture, or on a new paint layer. Size, hardness, opacity and flow; [ and ] change the size.
• Eraser (E): rubs out pixels of the picked picture. In its group: Background eraser (Shift+E): press on the background and paint along an edge; only colours like the one first pressed on go (Tolerance sets how alike). Magic eraser (Alt+E): a click erases a colour and everything like it, touching or everywhere.
• Paint bucket (G) fills like colours; Gradient (Shift+G) fills across your drag (see below).
• Mixer brush (Alt+B, in the Brush's group): paints the colour and blends it with what is there, like wet paint. Wet is how much it picks up, Load how long the paint lasts, Mix how much they blend; Load at 0 only pushes the paint around.
• Colour replacement (Shift+Alt+B): paints the colour over colours like the one you first press on, keeping their light and shade (Colour, Hue or Saturation only).
• History brush (Y): paints the picked picture back to how it was at a step of History (Paint from; Opened is the start). The layer must be the same size as then.
• Eyedropper (I) takes a colour from the page.
• Magic brush (Shift+B, in the Brush's group; Draw › Magic on a phone): Neon, Rainbow, Glow pen, Sparkles, Hearts, Stars, Confetti, Bubbles and Dots, with their own colour and a size. Each stroke goes on a new layer, unless a magic layer is picked.

With a selection, painting stays inside it. X swaps the two colours, D resets them.

Brush tips

Under the Brush and the Eraser: Round, Spray, Chalk, Marker, Watercolour (builds up, with a darker wet edge) and Calligraphy. Spacing is the gap between dabs, Scatter throws them off the line, Size jitter makes them vary; Marker and Calligraphy have an Angle.

Your own brush: select something (dark parts paint, light parts don't) and press Make a brush from the selection. It is kept in this browser as Your brush.

Symmetry

Under the brush: mirror left and right, top and bottom, four ways, round the middle (2–16 copies) or a mandala (round and mirrored). Dotted lines show the mirrors; it works for the brush, eraser, pattern stamp and the dodge, burn, sponge, blur and sharpen brushes.

Gradients

The Gradient tool has five kinds: Straight, Round, Angle (round the start point), Reflected (both ways from the start) and Diamond. Without changes it goes from the colour to the second colour (or to see-through). Pick a gradient from the swatches, or press Edit: click the bar to add a colour, drag one along it to move it or down off it to remove it, and set the picked one's Colour and Opacity. Save this gradient keeps it in this browser (first in the swatches; right-click one to remove it); Reverse turns it round.

A Gradient map adjustment layer uses the same editor (More colours…): the darkest parts of the picture take the left colour and the lightest the right one.

Pattern stamp

Alt+S, beside the Clone stamp (Draw on a phone): paints a pattern (dots, stripes, checks, waves…) in the colour and the second colour, with Pattern size. Use the selection (or the picked picture) paints that picture over and over instead.

18. Selections

• Box select (M, box or oval), Lasso (L) and Magic wand (W, alike colours). Shift adds, Alt takes away, both overlap.
• Quick selection (Q): paint over a thing and the selection grows to its edges; each stroke adds, Alt takes away.
• Colour range (Shift+W): click a colour to select everything like it, softly; Shift-click adds colours; Fuzziness sets how alike.
• Select subject (in the selection tools' settings) finds the main thing, on this device. Select sky beside it (or ⋯ › Select sky) finds the sky of the picked photo.
• Object selection (Shift+Q with no selection, in the selection tools' group; Area › Object on a phone): drag a box round a thing and it is found and selected inside the box. Shift-drag adds another, Alt-drag takes one away. It uses the same subject finder (the first time downloads about 40 MB).

With a selection, Edit shows: Deselect (Ctrl+D), Invert (Ctrl+Shift+I), Copy to layer (Ctrl+J), Cut to layer, Fill, Erase (Delete), Crop to it, Make a mask, Remove (fills it from round it), Select and Mask… and Save / load….

Modify, transform and stroke

• Modify…: Expand or Contract by some pixels, Border (a ring round the edge), Smooth (rounds corners and drops specks), Feather (a soft edge), Grow (adds the touching pixels with colours like those selected; the Magic wand's Tolerance sets how alike) and Similar (the same, anywhere on the page).
• Transform moves, resizes or turns the selection itself, not the pixels: drag inside it, a corner (Shift: freely) or outside it, then Apply (Enter).
• Stroke… draws a line of a width and colour inside, on or outside the selection's edge, on a new layer.
• Quick Mask (Shift+Q with a selection): what isn't selected turns red; paint with black to take away from the selection and white to add (any brush tip, soft or hard), then press Make the selection (or Shift+Q) again.

Select and Mask

For hair, fur and soft edges: select roughly first (Select subject is a good start), then Select and Mask… (in Edit, or ⋯ › Select).

• Views: Red, On black, On white, Onion (the rest fades to a see-through checker) and B & W (the selection itself: white is in). View strength sets how much they cover.
• Smooth, Feather, Contrast and Shift edge as before.
• Radius (edge detection): near the edge, each pixel is worked out again from the colours that are surely in and surely out round it, so wisps of hair come in and the background between them goes.
• Refine Edge brush: tick it and paint over the hair or fur; the same happens just where you painted (shown in green). Take away (or hold Alt) unpaints; Clear the brush strokes starts again.
• Decontaminate colours (with Amount) gives the see-through edge pixels the subject's colour, so no fringe of the old background is left. It always makes a new layer.
• Send to: Selection, Layer mask (on the picked picture), New layer, or New layer with a mask. A new layer goes above the picked picture, which is hidden.

Apply (Enter) keeps it, Cancel (Esc) puts the selection back.

Select by depth

⋯ › Select › Select by depth… selects what is between two distances (white is near), with a soft edge; the selection shows as you move the sliders. It uses the depth of a Lens blur by depth on the page, or finds it for the picked (or biggest) photo.

Saved selections

Save / load… keeps a selection with the page to load again later.

19. Retouching

Pick the photo first; these work on its pixels.

• Spot heal (J): paint over a spot and it is filled from round it.
• Remove (Shift+J): paint over a thing; when you let go it is filled with what is around it (content-aware fill). Bigger things take a few seconds.
• Clone stamp (S): Alt-click where to copy from (on a phone, Set source), then paint.
• Red eye (Shift+S): click each red eye, with the ring about the eye's size.
• Dodge (O) lightens and Burn (Shift+O) darkens the shadows, midtones or highlights; Sponge (Alt+O) adds or takes away colour.
• Smudge (R) drags colours; Blur (Shift+R) softens and Sharpen (Alt+R) sharpens where you paint.
• Patch (Shift+Alt+J, in the Clone stamp's group; Fix › Patch on a phone): draw round what to fix (or use a selection), then drag it onto a clean place. The clean part is laid in and matched to the colours round the old one, so no edge shows.
• Content-aware move (Alt+J; Fix › Move): draw round a thing and drag it somewhere else. Move fills where it was from round it; Extend leaves it there too (a copy). It blends into its new place; Soft edge softens where it lands.

Frequency separation

⋯ › Frequency separation… (a photo picked) splits it into two layers that together look the same: Low frequency (blurred: colour and tone) and High frequency (the fine detail, in the Linear light blend). Smooth blotchy skin on Low with the Blur brush, Spot heal or a soft brush, and fix texture on High, without the one spoiling the other. The photo stays, hidden, under them. Blur radius is about the size of the detail to keep apart: 4–8 for a face.

20. Liquify, warp and perspective

• Liquify… (a picture): Push, Twirl, Bloat, Pucker, Smooth and Restore brushes with a size and a strength. Twirl, Bloat and Pucker keep going while you hold still. Apply (Enter) or Cancel (Esc).
• Warp (any layer; text and shapes become pixels first): drag the 16 handles to bend it, or inside to move it all. Apply or Cancel.
• Perspective (a picture): drag its four corners. Or hold Ctrl and drag one of a picked picture's corner handles to move that corner alone (distort), or a side handle to move that side; Ctrl+Shift on a side slides it along itself (skew). Then Apply or Cancel.
• Puppet warp (a picture): click to put pins on it (on joints, or on what must stay put), then drag a pin; the rest bends naturally round the pins. Alt-click a pin to remove it, Clear pins starts again. Apply (Enter) or Cancel (Esc).

21. Filters, colour and adjustment layers

A picture's own filters (Adjust tab)

• Looks with a Strength, and sliders: exposure, brightness, contrast, highlights, shadows, saturation, vibrance, warmth, tint, hue, fade, sharpen, blur, grain, vignette, pixelate, Clarity, Texture and Dehaze.
• Colour mixer: pick one of eight colours and change its hue, saturation and lightness.
• Colour grading: a colour for the shadows, midtones and highlights, with Balance.
• Duotone: two colours for the dark and light parts, with a strength.
• Fix: Noise reduction (smooths grain but keeps edges; Keep detail puts some texture back), Colour noise (blotches of colour), Lens bulge (straightens a wide-angle lens's bulge, or the other way) and Colour fringes (the red and blue edges some lenses add).

These never change the picture itself; Reset all takes them off (the Effects too). Below them in the Adjust tab are Effects, Your looks and Beautify: see sections 22 and 23.

Adjustment layers

They change everything under them (or only one layer, when clipped), and can be hidden, masked and changed later: Brightness / contrast, Levels (with Auto), Curves, Exposure, Hue / saturation, Vibrance, Colour balance, Black & white, Photo filter, Invert, Threshold, Posterize, Gradient map, Blur, Sharpen, Noise, Vignette, Selective colour, Channel mixer, Motion blur, Radial blur, Lens blur, High pass, Unsharp mask, Emboss, Colour grading and Brushed filter (see Effects).

More adjustments (Add or Adjust tab › Adjustment layers, or ⋯ › Adjustments…): Match colour (pick a picture or another page and press Take the colours; what is under the layer takes on its colours and light, with Amount, Brightness and Colour), Replace colour (a colour and the ones like it, by Fuzziness, get a new hue, saturation and lightness), Equalize (spreads the brightness evenly; Work it out again after changes under it), Desaturate, Colour lookup (LUT) (load a 3D .cube file from a camera or grading app; it stays on this device) and HDR toning (Radius, Strength, Detail, Exposure, Saturation).

Filters

Add or Adjust tab › Filters (or ⋯ › Filters…), grouped as in Photoshop. With a layer picked, the filter is added as an adjustment layer clipped to it, so it changes only that layer, stays changeable and can be masked; with nothing picked it covers the page.

• Blur: Blur, Motion, Radial (spin or zoom), Lens, Field blur (the blur changes from one point's amount to the other's), Iris blur (sharp inside an oval) and Surface blur (smooths flat areas, keeps edges). Field and Iris blur have dots on the picture to drag.
• Sharpen: Sharpen, Unsharp mask, Smart sharpen (with Reduce noise and Halos).
• Noise: Noise, Median, Dust & scratches (only specks that differ by more than Threshold).
• Pixelate: Mosaic, Crystallize, Pointillize.
• Stylize: Emboss, Find edges, Solarize, Wind.
• Distort: Polar coordinates (both ways), Wave, ZigZag, Offset (what goes off one side comes in on the other, for seamless tiles).
• Render: Clouds (in two colours; try the layer's Blend) and Lighting effects (a light with a colour, strength and reach, and a texture from the picture's brightness; drag its dot).
• Other: High pass, Minimum / maximum, Custom (your own 5 × 5 grid of numbers).

22. Effects (Snapseed and Picsart)

Pick a photo, then the Adjust tab › Effects. Pick a group (Snapseed, Artistic, Distort, FX) and press an effect: it goes on the photo and its settings open under it. Effects with a highlighted name are on; Remove takes one off. Like the other filters, they never change the photo itself and can be changed any time.

• Snapseed: HDR Scape (Nature, People, Fine, Strong), Glamour glow, Tonal contrast (high, mid and low tones, protect shadows / highlights), Drama (six styles), Vintage (nine styles), Retrolux (light leaks and scratches), Grunge (textures), Noir (black and white with wash and grain), Vignette (outer and inner brightness) and Lens blur (round or tilt-shift, with light spots shaped as discs, hexagons, hearts or stars).
• Selective: click the photo to put a point there; it changes the brightness, contrast, saturation and structure of that spot and the colours like it round it. Drag a point to move it, Alt-click to remove it, Size for how far it reaches.
• Artistic: Sketch (pencil, colour, charcoal), Cartoon, Oil paint, Pop art, Halftone (black, colour dots, print), Watercolour and Neon edges.
• Distort: Twirl, Bulge / pinch, Fisheye, Ripple (waves or rings), Mirror and Kaleidoscope.
• FX: Glitch, Lens flare and Light rays.

Shuffle (Retrolux, Grunge, Glitch) draws them again differently. Vignette, Lens blur, Twirl, Bulge, Ripple rings, Kaleidoscope, Lens flare and Light rays have a dot on the photo: drag it to move the middle.

Also under Snapseed

• White balance from a spot: then click something in the photo that should be grey or white. Auto colour fixes a colour cast by itself.
• Brush a filter on…: Exposure, Warmer / Cooler, Saturation, Structure or Soften, painted only where you brush (white puts it on, black with X takes it off). It is an adjustment layer clipped to the photo, so its strength can be changed later.
• Expand…: more room round the photo (each side, or to 1:1, 4:5, 9:16 or 16:9), filled by Smart from what is near the edges (best on sky, grass, walls and plain backgrounds), the photo blurred, white or black. A photo that covers the page makes the page bigger too.

Your looks

Save this look… keeps all the photo's filters and effects under a name, in this browser; press it to put it on another photo. Share or delete… shows a look's code and a QR; Paste a code… and From a QR picture… (where the browser can read QR codes) put a shared look on.

23. Beautify and face shape

Pick a photo with a face, then the Adjust tab › Beautify. Faces are found on this device: the first time, the face finder (about 18 MB) comes from this site, never from anywhere else, and the photo is never sent anywhere. With more than one face, pick All or a face's number. The face found is outlined while the Adjust tab is open.

• Smooth skin (keeps the eyes, brows and lips sharp; with no face it smooths skin colours anywhere), Whiten teeth, Brighten eyes, Colour the eyes, Colour the lips and Colour the hair (hair is found by its own small model), each with an amount and, for colours, a colour.
• Face shape: Slimmer face, Bigger eyes, Smaller nose, Smile and Turn the head, then Apply. Small amounts look real; big ones bend what is behind the face too.
• Paint it instead…: brushes for what the face finder misses (a face turned away, small or covered): smooth skin, whiten teeth, brighten, a colour layer for eyes, lips or hair, and Spot heal for blemishes.

Each tool changes the photo's pixels; Undo compares.

24. Overlays, stickers and quick layouts

From the subject (Edit tab, a photo)

• Make a sticker…: cuts out the subject with a white outline and a shadow, adds it to the page and keeps it in My stickers (Add tab, in this browser) for any design; the × deletes one.
• Dispersion…: the subject breaks into pieces that blow away (a direction, an amount, a piece size); the background behind it is filled in.
• Motion trail…: fading copies behind the subject.
• Free crop: draw round what to keep with the lasso, then Mask › From selection. The Shape row crops a photo to a circle, heart, star and more.

These find the subject with the same finder as Remove background.

Overlays (Add tab)

Snow, Rain, Sparkles, Bokeh, Smoke, Dust, Light leak, Confetti, Hearts and Stars, drawn on this device over the whole page as a layer of their own (most with Screen blending). Shuffle on the layer draws it again.

Quick layouts (Add tab)

• Fit (square, story…): the whole photo on a 1:1, 4:5, 9:16 or 16:9 page, over the photo blurred, its main colour, white, black or a pattern, with a margin.
• Freestyle collage and Scrapbook: the photos on the page (or the picked ones) scattered at angles with white borders and shadows; Scrapbook adds tape and paper. Press again to shuffle.
• Meme text (top and bottom), Caption above (a white band with words) and Borders… (white, black, Polaroid, a line inside, round corners).

25. Masks

A mask hides parts of a layer without erasing them. Add a mask (or From selection), then paint on it with the brush: black hides, white shows; the eraser shows. Click the mask's thumbnail in Layers to paint on it. Invert, Apply (bake it in), Select it and Delete are in Edit.

26. Crop, trim and resize

• Crop (C): drag the box or its edges, pick a shape; outside the page adds room. Enter applies.
• Straighten turns everything on the page and grows it just enough that no corner is left empty; the buttons under it turn the page a quarter left or right and flip it across or up and down (everything on it moves along).
• Perspective crop (Shift+C, in the Crop's group, or the button under Crop): click the picture, drag the four corners onto something that should be square on (a sign, a document, a painting) and press Crop (Enter). The page becomes that part, straightened, as one picture.
• Ruler (Shift+I, in the Eyedropper's group, or the button under Crop): drag to measure a length and angle. Straighten along it turns the page so that line is level (or upright), like Straighten.
• ⋯ › Trim cuts the page down to what isn't see-through (with a colour background: to what isn't that colour). ⋯ › Reveal all makes the page big enough for every layer, even the parts hanging off it.
• Resize… changes the page's size, scaling everything or not; Enlarge… makes it 2× or 4× with sharper pictures.
• Other sizes… (or ⋯ › Resize for other sizes…) lays the design out again for other sizes: tick them and Make copies (they appear on the start screen) or Resize this design. Backgrounds still cover; everything else keeps its place and shape.

27. Rulers, guides and the layout grid

Rulers (Ctrl+R, or the page's Guides and grid): drag from a ruler to make a guide; drag a guide back onto the ruler to remove it; Clear guides removes all. Ctrl+; hides or shows them.

Layout grid (Ctrl+'): columns, rows, gap and margin. Moving layers snaps to guides and the grid.

28. Panels: histogram, info, navigator, channels, swatches, glyphs

⋯ › Panels opens a small window over the picture with Photoshop's panels; its tabs switch between them, ✕ closes it, and on a computer it can be dragged by its tabs.

• Histogram: how many pixels have each brightness, for the colours together or Brightness, Red, Green or Blue alone, with the mean, spread and middle.
• Info (F8): the colour under the pointer (hex, RGB, HSB and CMYK), where it is, and the size of the picked layer or the selection. The Colour sampler (Alt+I, in the Eyedropper's group) keeps up to four points whose colours stay listed here: drag one to move it, Alt-click to remove it.
• Navigator: the whole page small, with a red box for what you see; click or drag in it to look there, and a Zoom slider.
• Channels: show only Red, Green, Blue or See-through as grey (to judge contrast or a mask), and RGB for all. Alpha channels are saved selections: click one to load it (Shift adds, Alt takes away), or save the selection as one.
• Swatches: your colours, kept in this browser. Click for the colour, Alt-click for the second colour, right-click to remove, + adds the colour. Load .aco… takes Photoshop swatch files; Save as .aco makes one; From this design adds its colours.
• Glyphs: punctuation, arrows, maths, money, shapes and accented letters; a click puts one where you are typing, or at the end of the picked text.

29. Several photos: align, panorama, focus stack, HDR

Add the photos to one page (drop them in, or Add › Pictures), pick them (Shift-click, or drag a box round them; with none picked, every picture on the page is used), then press a button under Several photos in Edit, or ⋯ › Several photos. It all happens on this device and can take some seconds; the bottom photo in Layers is the one the others are lined up on.

• Auto-align: finds the same points in each photo and bends the others to sit exactly on the first (photos taken by hand, a little moved or turned).
• Panorama: joins photos that overlap (by about a third) into one wide picture on a new page, matching their brightness and blending the joins. Up to eight photos; crop off the uneven edges after.
• Focus stack: from photos focused at different distances, keeps the sharpest parts of each (close-ups, products).
• Merge to HDR: from a dark, a normal and a bright shot, keeps what is best exposed in each, so both the sky and the shadows show.
• Median stack takes, for every pixel, the value most photos agree on: people or cars passing through a few shots disappear. Mean stack averages them: less noise from several shots in the dark.

The results go on a new layer on top (Panorama: a new page), so the photos are kept. Photos with too few points in common are used as they are (as from a tripod) and named in the message.

30. Undo and History

Undo (Ctrl+Z) and redo (Ctrl+Shift+Z) go a step at a time. History (the clock at the top, or ⋯ › History… on a phone) lists every step by name, such as “Move Picture”; press one to go straight back to it. The last 60 steps are kept while the design is open.

31. Download, files and mockups

Download (Ctrl+S):

Print sheets

⋯ › Print › Print sheet… lays out this page, as many as fit (stickers, labels, cards) or every page once on A4, Letter, A5 or 4 × 6 in paper, upright or sideways, at the width you give in millimetres, with a gap and crop marks; it says how many fit. The sheets are added as pages at the end, at 300 dpi: download them as a PDF at print size (300 dpi) and print at actual size (100%).

Soft proof

⋯ › Print › Soft proof on / off shows roughly how the design may look printed in CMYK ink on paper (a simple ink model, not your printer's colour profile). Gamut warning on / off greys out colours that print may not reach, such as bright blues and greens. Only the screen changes; downloads stay as they are.

Animation frames

In Layers, Animation frames: show the layers for the first picture and press + Frame, show other layers and add another, and so on (or One frame per layer: each layer in turn over the bottom one). A frame's picture shows its layers again; ⟳ updates it to what shows now; each has its own time. Play shows them; Save GIF… makes an animated GIF (a size, looping or not; at most 256 colours) and Save video… a WebM video, played through a few times (where the browser can record one).

Copy puts the picture on the clipboard; Share appears where the device can share files. Opening a .psd brings its layers, groups, blend modes, layer styles and clipping in, and its text as text you can change (in the nearest font Photo has).

Mockups

⋯ › Mockup… opens a window with a big preview of the page in a mockup:

• Devices: a phone, a tablet, a laptop, a monitor, a browser window, or a laptop and a phone together. A wide design lays the phone or tablet on its side.
• Prints: a poster taped to a wall, a framed print with a mat, a canvas, a book, business cards.
• Merch: a T-shirt, a tote bag, a mug (the design wraps round it). Social: an Instagram post.
• Pick the colour (the device, the frame, the cloth, the mug), the background (soft, warm, dark, a wall, gradients, your colour or see-through), turned left or right, the shadow and the page's size (4:3, 1:1, 4:5, 9:16, 16:9). Your choices are remembered.
• With more than one page, Every page makes a mockup of each. Add as a new page adds it after the page.
• Each mockup is a group of ordinary layers: move it as one; double-click the screen (or print) to pick it, and drop or add a picture on it to change what it shows. The name and caption of the Instagram post are text you can change.

32. On a phone

The bar at the bottom: Select, Text, Draw (with the Magic brush, the Pen and the Pattern stamp), Fix (the retouching tools), Area (selections), Crop, Add, Adjust and Layers. Settings open in a sheet: drag its grip, or press the same button again to put it away. Two fingers pinch and pan; a double tap on empty board fits the page. A floating bar over a picked layer has Edit, Duplicate, Forward, Back, Delete and Style. Swipe a layer's row left to delete it.

Draw, Fix and Area open as a small strip: the tools, then one setting (the size, or New / Add / Take away for selections) and More for the rest (a tap on the grip does the same). Pulled up all the way, the sheet still leaves part of the picture showing.

Add and Adjust show one kind at a time: press a chip at the top (Text, Photos, Elements, Stickers, Templates…; Looks, Adjust, Effects, Beautify, Fix, Colour, Layers). The last one you used opens next time. Looks are a row to swipe through. In Adjust, hold the round button on the picture's corner to see it without its filters and adjustment layers.

A picked picture's tools are tiles in three rows: Basics, Shape and Smart. A picked text has Font, Colour and Spacing chips. Crop has shape chips, ✕ and ✓ at the top, Straighten and the turn and flip buttons.

Adjust holds the filters, Effects, Your looks and Beautify. To move an effect's middle, tap or drag the dot on the photo; for Selective, tap the photo to put a point there and drag it to move it.

Draw also has the Mixer brush, the Background and Magic erasers, Recolour (Colour replacement) and the History brush; Fix has Patch and Move (Content-aware move); Area has Object (Object selection). Crop has buttons for the Perspective crop and the Ruler. The Panels window (⋯ › Panels) sits across the top of the picture.

Installed from the browser, the PixelDodo app opens Photo like any other app. It isn't in Android's Share menu, so to edit a picture from your gallery, use Open a file… on the start screen or Add pictures… in the editor.

33. Keys

34. Good to know

• Nothing you open or make is uploaded. Only fonts (from Google Fonts) and, for Remove background, Select subject, Blur background, stickers, Dispersion and Motion trail, the subject finder are downloaded. The face finder for Beautify comes from this site.
• Very big pictures are made smaller to fit 12,000 pixels a side.
• The brand kit is kept in this browser, apart from the designs; each browser has its own.