Start with your selection
Properties follows your selection. Choose one layer in Layers to see its controls, or choose a folder for dimensions, group transforms, filters, and box shadows. With nothing selected, there is nothing to edit.
If you selected several layers, Properties tells you how to move or rotate the selection. Click one row without Command or Ctrl to return to individual controls. This keeps a precise adjustment from accidentally affecting the whole composition.
Navigate properties sections
Use the icon tabs at the top of Properties to show one section at a time. Hover an icon to see its name; clicking dismisses the tooltip. With a tab focused, use Left / Right to switch sections, or Home / End to jump to the first / last tab.
Folders have General (blend mode and dimensions), Transforms, Border radius, Borders, Filters, and Shadows tabs. Individual layers have Appearance for type-specific controls and Background for blend mode, tiling, size, and position. Gradient layers also have Colors for color stops, easing, and color repetition.
Your chosen tab stays selected when you switch layers or folders. If it does not apply to the next selection, Properties temporarily shows the first available tab and restores your choice when it applies again. Choosing another tab replaces that preference. Reloading starts fresh with General for folders or Appearance for layers.
Position and size
Under Background, Size W / H sets the layer's width and height in pixels. Position X / Y places its top-left corner in pixels: increasing X moves right; increasing Y moves down. Inside a transformed folder, these are local values before the parent transform.
A layer can be smaller than the canvas, extend outside it, or repeat across it. Changing its size doesn't change the project's canvas size. A zero width or height makes a layer disappear along that axis; give it a positive size to see it again.
A layer clone has its own Background size and position. A child repeated through a cloned folder is different: its size and position stay linked across the folder's occurrences. Select the outer folder to change one motif's placement, or break its clone before changing just one occurrence's contents.
For folders, General > Dimensions offers Fit contents or Fixed sizing. Bounds X / Y and W / H change only the folder frame, not its children's geometry. Overflow: Hidden clips children to that frame; Visible lets them extend beyond it. Use Transform's Bounds mode for the same edits on the canvas, or Scale to transform the whole artwork. See folder dimensions. In Skew mode, corner handles shear the folder while the opposite parallel edge stays fixed; the initial movement locks the drag to one of its edge directions, including diagonal edges. The direction stays locked until release. Edge handles still scale it.
Background position or gradient center
Radial and conic gradients also have Position X / Y near their gradient
settings. Those percentages move the gradient's center inside its layer:
50% / 50% is the middle.
To move the entire piece, use Background Position. To move a highlight within the piece, adjust the gradient center. These two controls solve different problems. In a layer clone, the gradient center remains shared even though Background Position is independent.
Tiling and repeat
The Background Repeat X / Y switches repeat the entire layer horizontally and vertically. Its width and height become the tile size. Set a small tile, turn on one or both axes, and adjust Position to offset the pattern.
Gradient Colors > Repeat repeats the sequence of colors inside the gradient instead. A repeating gradient and a repeated background can be combined, but they are not interchangeable. See color stops, easing, and repeat.
For seamless tiles, check the edges as well as the middle. A rotated pattern or an arbitrary tile size can make repeated layer boundaries visible.
Blend modes
Select a layer and choose Blend under Background. Normal keeps the original alpha compositing. Each choice has a split-square preview: the left half shows Normal, and the right half blends the same teal-blue sample over a warm background. The selected mode keeps its preview beside the label. These fixed examples do not change with your artwork.
Multiply darkens overlapping colors; Screen lightens them. Try Overlay or Soft light for noise and textures, Difference for contrasting edges, or Hue, Color, and Luminosity to combine color and tone from different layers.
The mode combines this layer with visible layers beneath it in the same folder. It works with gradients, solid colors, noise, shapes, patterns, textures, and text. Reordering or hiding underlying layers changes the result. A clipped layer blends after its mask is applied; hiding its base hides the clipped layer.
Folders also have a Blend control in General. Their children blend in isolation from outside artwork; the folder's mode blends the finished group with its siblings. See folder blending.
Blend settings support Undo/Redo, save/load, JSON import/export, and duplication.
Clones share their source's blend mode. HTML/CSS export uses
background-blend-mode for shared CSS background stacks and mix-blend-mode
for separate layers, keeping the same result as the canvas.
Colors and transparency
Click a color swatch to open the picker. Choose a hue, adjust saturation and
brightness, or enter a color value. Alpha controls transparency: 0 is fully
transparent and 1 is fully opaque.
Choose None in the picker to clear the color and close the popover. This is the same as deleting the HEX value in the input. Click the swatch again to choose a new color.
Read the field label before changing it. Fill colors the inside of a shape or text; Stroke colors its outline; a pattern's Background colors the space behind its marks; a gradient stop colors one point along a blend. Transparency reveals artwork below rather than painting white.
Changing a stroke color won't make it visible if Stroke width is still 0.
Canvas tools and precise values
Use Transform to drag a selected layer or folder and its frame handles to resize it. Hold Shift while moving to constrain the movement to one axis; hold Shift while resizing to keep its aspect ratio. Background fields reflect these visual changes.
Rotate shows a dashed frame with a rotation cursor for shapes, folders, and text. Drag the frame around its pivot to turn the artwork without moving it. Gradients and patterns keep the angle dial. Use arrow keys on either control for one-degree adjustments. Rotate is disabled for individual layers without a rotation setting, including solid colors, noise, textures, and radial gradients. A gradient angle rotates its color direction; a shape, text layer, pattern, or folder has its own rotation behavior. For a literal rotation of several different kinds of artwork, put them in a folder and rotate that group.
With several layers selected, use the tool bar's alignment and distribution controls. Select one item again to resize it or edit its individual values.
Type-specific properties
Not every layer has every control. A linear gradient has an angle; a radial gradient has a shape and center; a noise layer has frequency and seed. The gradient Type picker switches between linear, radial, and conic modes. To use an entirely different kind of artwork, add that layer type.
For each type's controls, see the Layer types guide. For a selected folder, see Folders and filters. The folder's Box shadows section has separate Inner and Outer lists, coordinate and spread/blur popups, and easing between neighboring shadows.
Bind a property to a variable
Inputs that support variables have a small link button. Open it and select a compatible variable; the field shows the variable's label instead of an editable static number. Numeric inputs can also use a Formula.
The property supplies the unit. A Number variable used for width means pixels; the same number used for an angle means degrees. Compatibility also checks the current value and the input's limits.
Choose Static value to remove a binding and restore that input's stored static value, not a frozen copy of the latest calculated result. See Variables and templates for a complete example.
