Layer styles, Blend If and the Image menu

Published 2026-10-19

This release brings three things people coming from Photoshop or Photopea reach for every day: the full Layer Style dialog, Blend If, and an Image menu that sizes, rotates and tidies the whole picture. As always, everything runs in your browser and your images stay on your device.

The full Layer Style dialog

Double-click a layer (or choose Layer → Layer Style → Blending Options…) to open it. On the left are all ten effects Photoshop has: Bevel and Emboss with Contour and Texture, Stroke, Inner Shadow, Inner Glow, Satin, Color, Gradient and Pattern Overlay, Outer Glow and Drop Shadow. A preview swatch on the right shows the style as you change it.

  • Every option you know. Each effect has its own blend mode and opacity, plus spread or choke, size, noise, contour and anti-aliasing. Gradients come in linear, radial, angle, reflected and diamond styles, with perceptual or linear colour blending. Strokes can sit inside, centred on or outside the edge, in a colour or a gradient.
  • More than one of an effect. The + next to Drop Shadow, Inner Shadow, Stroke, Color Overlay and Gradient Overlay adds another copy, so a double outline or a soft shadow under a hard one takes seconds. The arrows under the list reorder them.
  • Global light. Tick Use Global Light and every shadow and bevel in the document follows one angle; change it once and they all move.
  • Fill opacity. Under Blending Options, Fill fades a layer's own pixels but not its effects — set it to 0 for a stroke-only outline or a glass look.
  • Saved styles. New Style… keeps a style in your browser; the Styles page applies it to any other layer, next to a few built-in ones such as Neon, Gold and Glass.

Photoshop files keep their layer styles when you open them in Picstea, including every copy and option (Photoshop's own pattern images become the closest built-in pattern). Bevel, satin and texture are drawn closely to Photoshop's, not pixel for pixel. See layers, groups and masks for the details.

Blend If: hide pixels by brightness

Blend If, also in Blending Options, hides a layer's pixels depending on how bright they are — or how bright the pixels underneath are. It is the quickest way to put a texture only on the darks of a photo, drop a logo onto a wall without its white background, or let clouds show through a sky replacement.

  1. Drag the white slider of This Layer to the left to hide the layer's brightest pixels, or the black slider to the right to hide its darkest.
  2. Use Underlying Layer instead to show the layer only where the image below is dark (or light).
  3. Hold Alt (Option) while dragging a slider to split it into two halves: pixels between the halves fade gradually instead of switching off at once.

The Blend If menu works on grey or on the red, green or blue channel alone, and the R, G, and B checkboxes above it limit which colour channels the layer changes at all.

A complete Image menu

  • Image Size… scales the whole picture. Pixel layers keep their original pixels and are drawn at the new size, so making an image smaller and then larger again loses nothing; text and shapes stay sharp.
  • Canvas Size… adds or removes room around the image without scaling it. Pick one of nine anchors to choose where the new space goes, or tick Relative to type how much to add.
  • Image Rotation turns the canvas 90° either way or 180°, or flips it, with every layer, mask, path and guide.
  • Trim… crops away transparent edges or edges of one colour; Reveal All grows the canvas to show layers that reach past it.
  • Auto Tone, Auto Contrast and Auto Color fix a flat or tinted photo in one click. Unlike in Photoshop, each adds a Levels adjustment layer, so you can still tweak or delete the result.
  • Duplicate opens a copy of the document in a new tab, for trying an idea without touching the original.

Menus that fit on the screen

Related commands now live in submenus — Layer → New, Arrange and Align, filters grouped by kind, View → Guides — so no menu needs scrolling. Point at an item marked › or press Arrow Right to open it. There are new commands too: Edit → Copy Merged and Stroke…, Select → Grow and Similar, and a Window menu that brings any panel forward. The getting started guide walks through the workspace.

Try it in Picstea — free, no account, nothing uploaded.