Using Layerify

1. Open an image in the Image Editor: a texture of your model, any image file, a generated or packed image, a UDIM set.

2. Open the Sidebar (N) and its Layerify tab.

3. Click Edit with Layerify. To start from a PSD on disk instead, click Open PSD…

Put a 3D View beside the Image Editor in Material Preview: your model updates as you work.

The first time, a welcome card shows three tips and asks what Ctrl+S should do over the canvas:

• Save the layers, as in Photoshop (Blender's Ctrl+S still saves the .blend everywhere else), or
• Save the .blend, as in Blender: the layers then save with Alt+S.

You can change it later in the add-on's Preferences, under Saving.

1 Options bar: the active tool and its settings (size, hardness, opacity...).

2 Tool bar: hover a tool for its shortcut and how it works; the corner mark means more tools in a flyout.

3 Colors: the foreground and background colors (X swaps them).

4 Info pill: the layered file's name (a dot while it has unsaved changes), the size, the bit depth, the zoom; click it for the Image menu.

5 Image menu, Before / after, help (?): hold Before / after (or \) to see the image as it was.

6 Live: on, the image in Blender (and your model) follows every edit; off, the model waits for Apply.

7 Apply (and where it writes, the arrow) and Close (×).

8 Layers panel, with the channel buttons RGB · R · G · B · A at its top.

1 Blend mode and opacity of the selected layer.

2 Eye: show / hide. A group's arrow opens it (Alt+click: all groups).

3 Adjustment layer, with its mask (white shows, black hides).

4 Smart object and its smart filter: click the filter to change it, its eye to hide it.

5 Fill layer, with a mask made from a selection.

6 Footer: new layer, group, adjustment / fill, mask, duplicate, filter, layer style (fx), delete.

Right-click a layer: the layer menu

The Brush button (left of Size in the options bar) opens the Brush panel: presets with a preview of their stroke, a search field, and the tip, shape and color settings.

• Import .abr: Photoshop brush files join a library you can use in every project.
• [ ] size; Alt+right-drag: size left / right, hardness up / down.
• Pen pressure for size, opacity and flow; Symmetry in the options bar.
• Shape and color dynamics, texture and dual brushes, as in Photoshop.

Selecting

• Shift+drag adds, Alt+drag subtracts, Shift+Alt keeps the overlap
• Ctrl+A all, Ctrl+D none, Ctrl+Shift+I inverse
• Right-click: grow, shrink, feather, smooth, border
• Ctrl+click a thumbnail: select that layer's pixels; Ctrl+click R, G, B or A: by a channel
• Delete clears the selected pixels; Ctrl+J copies them to a new layer
• Ctrl+C / X / V, images copied in other programs too

Free Transform (Ctrl+T)

• The layer, the selection, or the selected layers
• Drag a corner to scale (Shift: freely, Alt: from the centre), outside to rotate
• Ctrl+drag a corner: distort, for perspective
• Enter or double-click applies, Esc cancels
• Edges and centres snap to the image's and other layers' (Ctrl: freely)

Adjustment and fill layers (the half-circle button): Color, Gradient and Pattern Fill; Brightness / Contrast, Levels, Curves, Exposure, Vibrance, Hue / Saturation, Color Balance, Black & White, Photo Filter, Channel Mixer, Color Lookup, Invert, Posterize, Threshold, Gradient Map, Selective Color. Each comes with a mask and stays editable: click the layer for its settings.

Filters (the sparkle button): Blur, Distort, Noise, Pixelate, Render, Sharpen, Stylize, Other and Texture (Make Tileable, Height to Normal, Normalize Normals, Flip Green). Tick Editable later (smart filter) and the layer becomes a smart object: the filter stays in its list, to change, hide, mask or remove later.

Text (T)

• Click to type on a line, drag for a box the text wraps in
• Click text to edit it; Esc or Ctrl+Enter: done
• Font menu: type a name to find a font, each previewed
• Font, style, size, color change the selected letters
• Warp: Arc, Flag, Wave… it stays editable
• Any language; Type… button for Chinese, Japanese, Korean input

Shapes (U)

• Rectangle, Ellipse, Polygon (star), Line, Custom Shape
• Drag; Shift: square, circle, 45°; Alt: from the centre
• Fill, stroke, corner radius, sides in the options bar
• 34 custom shapes: hearts, stars, arrows, bubbles, leaves…
• Right-click: Rasterize Shape to paint on it
• Text and shapes are saved as text and shapes in the PSD

Saving the layers

• Save Ctrl+S · Save As Ctrl+Shift+S · Save a Copy Ctrl+Alt+S, over the canvas (Alt+S, Shift+Alt+S if Ctrl+S saves the .blend), or the Image menu
• The first save asks where: by default beside the image, as <image name>.psd
• A .psd image edits its own layers and saves back into its file
• Image > Revert: back to the PSD as last saved
• A PSD saved by another program meanwhile: Reload, or Keep mine

Applying the result

• Apply in Blender only: the image in Blender (save it with Image > Save, or Blender asks on quit)
• Apply and save image file: overwrite its file on disk (no file: packed instead)
• Apply and pack into .blend
• Choose with the arrow beside Apply, or in the Sidebar
• After Apply it's an ordinary image: the .blend renders the same without Layerify

Layers not saved yet aren't dropped silently. Saving the .blend, Layerify asks: Save All (each beside its image), Choose where…, or Not now. Quitting (Ctrl+Q), it lists them first.

Close (×) saves the layers to their PSD first.

Crash? Unsaved layer work is copied in the background every 2 minutes (Preferences); the next time you edit the image, Layerify offers it back.

In the Image menu (top bar, or click the info pill):

• Tiling Preview: the image repeated around itself; paint across the seams. Filters > Texture > Make Tileable blends them in one step.
• UV Layout: the UV edges of the meshes using the image, over it.
• Edit Linked Maps Together (on by default): crop, resize, turn or flip the color map and the material's normal, roughness… maps get the same change.
• UDIM: edit one tile, or All Tiles side by side; Apply writes the changed ones.
• Image Size (Ctrl+Alt+I), Canvas Size (Ctrl+Alt+C), rotate, flip.

Channels: RGB · R · G · B · A at the top of the Layers panel shows one channel as grey; painting, fills and filters then change only it (Ctrl+2 to Ctrl+6). Float images (EXR, HDR) are edited in float; 8K textures work.

Image > Channel Packer, four tabs:

• Pack: roughness, metallic, AO… into one image's R, G, B, A. Presets for glTF / Unreal (ORM), Unity (mask map) and more; each row a map, a constant or a channel. Click a thumbnail to remap it (Low, High, Gamma); Ctrl+V over a row pastes a map.
• Unpack: a packed image back into separate maps.
• Convert: Spec/Gloss to Metal/Rough and back; UDIM sets tile by tile.
• Export: your materials' texture sets for Unreal, Unity, Godot, glTF or O3DE, with their names and normal-map conventions. Also from the command line, for pipelines.