PHOTO TOOLSSTUDIO Open editor

Product reference

Every control.
Plainly explained.

Photo Tools Studio is a local-first, layered raster editor for current desktop browsers. This reference follows the product that ships today, including its useful boundaries.

Open the editor Browse commands

First document

Start with the work, not a setup screen.

Choose File › New for a blank RGB/8-bit sRGB document, or File › Open for a raster image or PSD. Use File › Import as Layer to add another image to the current stack.

  1. 01
    Open or create

    The document tab holds one layered canvas, one active layer, one selection, the foreground/background colour pair, and undo history.

  2. 02
    Edit in context

    Choose a tool from the rail, change its options in the bar above the canvas, and use the panels to manage the document.

  3. 03
    Save the right output

    Save PSD to retain editable layers. Use Export As for PNG, JPEG, or WebP delivery files.

Tool palette

Choose a tool. Keep your bearings.

The left rail groups related tools. Hold a grouped tool or right-click it to open its flyout; use the shown letter to switch directly. Space temporarily pans, X swaps foreground and background colours, and D resets them to black and white.

Arrange and select

  • V Move
  • M Rectangle Select; Shift+M Ellipse Select
  • L Lasso; Shift+L Polygon Lasso
  • W Magic Wand
  • A Quick Selection
  • C Crop

Paint and repair

  • B Brush; N Pencil; E Eraser
  • S Clone Stamp
  • J Healing Brush, Patch, and Red Eye cycle
  • O Dodge, Burn, and Sponge cycle
  • R Blur, Sharpen, and Smudge cycle
  • G Gradient; Shift+G Paint Bucket

Draw and navigate

  • I Eyedropper
  • U Rectangle; Shift+U Ellipse shape
  • P Pen; Shift+P Direct Selection
  • T Type
  • H Hand
  • Z Zoom

Tool options are contextual. Painting tools expose brush settings; selection tools expose their operation and edge behavior; shapes, paths, text, gradients, and transforms each expose their own controls above the canvas.

Document control

The stack, the states, the documents.

The dock can show multiple panels at once on wide screens and switches between panel tabs when space is tight. Select a panel in Window when it is not visible.

Layers

Select, rename, show or hide, lock, reorder, group, duplicate, merge, clip, mask, and blend layers. The active layer is where edits land. Use PSD when those edits need to stay editable.

History

Revisit document states without losing your place. Undo and redo are also available as Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+Shift+Z.

Documents

Each open file has its own document tab, layer stack, selection, view, and history. Close the active document with Ctrl+W.

Properties

Adjust the selected layer and its settings, including text, adjustments, and transforms when relevant.

Channels and paths

Inspect RGB channels, save and load selections as alpha channels, and manage saved paths. Saved alpha channels are document data and do not export to PSD.

Actions, adjustments, type, swatches

Use the supporting panels for available actions, non-destructive adjustment layers, typography controls, and colour swatches.

Precision workflows

Select, refine, then transform.

Selections apply to the current document and constrain compatible painting, filling, filtering, and layer operations. Start with the selection tools, then use the Select menu to extend the result.

Build a selection

Make a rectangle, ellipse, lasso, polygon lasso, quick selection, or magic-wand selection. Select › All, Deselect, Reselect, Inverse, Color Range, Grow, Similar, and Modify extend the workflow. Use Select and Refine for edge refinement.

Keep useful selections

Save a selection from the Select menu and reload it later. Load a layer mask as a selection when a mask should become the next edit boundary.

Transform deliberately

Use Ctrl+T for Free Transform on the active layer, or Select › Transform Selection to transform only the selection boundary. The Edit menu also exposes skew, distort, perspective, warp, and other transform workflows.

Tone and texture

Correct without losing the original.

Choose Layer › New Adjustment Layer to add an editable adjustment layer. Its controls stay available through the layer and Properties panel, so the pixel layers beneath remain unchanged.

Adjustment layers

  • Brightness / Contrast
  • Levels
  • Curves
  • Hue / Saturation
  • Color Balance
  • Exposure
  • Invert

Filter menu

  • Gaussian, Motion, and Radial Blur
  • High Pass and Unsharp Mask
  • Median, Minimum, and Maximum
  • Add Noise and Find Edges
  • Emboss and Solarize

Filters process the active editable pixels. The worker-backed operation reports progress, can be cancelled, and does not partially commit an unfinished result.

Files and colour

Know what stays editable.

PSD is the layered project format. PNG, JPEG, and WebP are flattened delivery formats. Raster files open through browser decoding; the editor works in RGB/8-bit sRGB.

Open and import

Open or import browser-decodable raster images and PSD projects. Use Import as Layer to retain the current document while adding a raster source.

PSD projects

Photo Tools Studio writes RGB/8-bit PSD projects. Preserve editable work by saving PSD before exporting delivery files. Unsupported or fidelity-affecting PSD content is disclosed rather than silently represented as an editable equivalent.

Non-RGB PSD input

Grayscale, Indexed, Multichannel, and Duotone PSD/PSB files open as flattened RGB previews and can retain their native composite only while eligible and untouched. CMYK and Lab open as RGB/8-bit sRGB conversions with a fidelity warning; they are not native CMYK or Lab documents.

Colour scope

New and edited documents are RGB, 8-bit, and sRGB. There is no native CMYK, Lab, Bitmap, Indexed, Duotone, or Multichannel editing mode, and no CMYK PSD export.

Boundaries by design

Local, bounded, recoverable.

The editor rejects work that crosses its published resource boundaries where it can, and reports recoverable errors rather than allocating until the tab fails.

Document
16,384 px per side · 100 MP
Raster source
75 MB · 100 MP decoded
PSD project
1 GB
Resident layers
250 MP at 8-bit equivalent
Completed output
1 GB maximum
Session memory above idle
2 GB maximum

Privacy and offline behavior

Images are read from your device and processed inside the editor tab. There are no accounts, uploads, analytics, ads, or remote executable code. The hosted app needs a connection to fetch its static assets on a cold start; once loaded, editing and export make no network requests.