Layers let you revise one part of an artwork without rebuilding everything around it. A useful stack might contain a background color, a photograph, a painted accent, and a headline. Their order controls what overlaps; each keeps its own editing controls.

Keep the Stack Understandable

Select a layer in Layers before changing its content. Rename it around its purpose, such as Portrait or Workshop title, rather than leaving every row with a generic name. Drag to reorder eligible layers, or use the arrangement commands.

Visibility is a quick comparison tool. Locking protects finished content. Opacity changes the strength of a whole layer, while fill opacity can interact differently with layer styles. Supported blend modes include Normal, Multiply, Screen, and Overlay.

Choose a layer type that preserves the changes you expect to make later:

Groups organize eligible top-level layers and can be collapsed in the stack. Group visibility and locking affect the children. Nested group creation is not supported.

Hide Content With a Mask

A mask changes visibility without erasing the layer's color pixels. It is useful for framing a photograph, revealing one part of an image, or blending an edge into the rest of a composition.

For a predictable starting shape, select one eligible layer, make a non-inverted rectangular pixel selection, and choose Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal Mask from Selection. The rectangle becomes the revealed area. Other supported selection states create a reveal-all mask instead of reproducing an arbitrary outline.

Select the raster-mask thumbnail before painting the mask. White reveals, black conceals, and intermediate coverage softens the transition. Select the layer's content thumbnail to return to painting or editing its actual content. Mask-only inspection helps you see the coverage itself. The mask context menu can disable a mask for comparison or delete the targeted mask.

A vector mask uses path geometry instead. Vector Mask from Copied Path works with a supported copied closed path. It is a separate target from a raster mask, so check which thumbnail is active before editing or deleting one.

Preserve Reusable Sources With Smart Objects

A Smart Object keeps embedded source content inside a movable, resizable placement. Use it when you expect to resize an image repeatedly or return to a small layered composition within a larger one.

Select eligible layers and choose Layer > Smart Object > Convert to Smart Object. To change the source, use Edit Contents. Canvas opens that source in its own editing view; your edits do not immediately replace the parent artwork.

Choose Finish Editing Contents to apply the result back to the main composition, or Cancel Editing Contents to return without accepting those source edits. Finish or cancel before judging the parent image or handing off that part of the artwork.

Pasted or dropped external images can also arrive as Smart Objects with their original-resolution source content. A Smart Object is not the same as an ordinary paint layer: open its contents or rasterize it when an operation requires editable pixels.

Decide Before Combining Layers

Rasterize converts eligible text, shapes, SVG, fill layers, and closed Smart Objects into pixels. You gain pixel-editing access but lose their original editing controls in that layer.

Merge Down combines an eligible layer with the visible layer below it within the same group. Flatten Image combines visible artwork into one ordinary raster layer. Neither is needed just to export a finished PNG or JPEG; export can combine the image while your Canvas stays layered.

Keep a .vscanvas copy before simplifying a project whose text, masks, or sources may need revision.

Common Questions

Why is a layer command disabled?

Check locking, visibility, selected layer type, and whether multiple layers are selected. Protected backgrounds and groups do not accept every operation that an ordinary paint layer does.

Will hiding a layer remove it?

No. It changes visibility. Deleting, merging, and rasterizing have different effects on what remains editable.

Can I paint a mask and later recover the image?

Mask painting changes coverage rather than the layer's original colors. You can edit or disable the mask to reveal content again, provided you have not subsequently flattened or otherwise replaced the source.

Continue with Mask and adjust an image, or read Adjustments and effects before choosing how to change a layer's appearance.