Effect layers
Effect layers create outlines, soften images or turn texture detail into surface relief. They keep the source editable, so you can adjust it without rebuilding the effect.
Choose an effect
Use + at the bottom of Layers:
| Goal | Layer | Start with |
|---|---|---|
| Outline a shape | Outline | Width, softness and inside/outside placement. |
| Make a mask based on distance from an edge | SDF | Source channel, Threshold and Max Distance. |
| Create surface relief | Normal Map | Height Map or Texture. See Normal Map. |
| Soften an image | Blur | Mode → Gaussian, then Radius. |
| Create a motion trail | Blur | Mode → Linear or Circular. |
| Restore edge contrast | Sharpen | Strength and Radius. |
| Join opposite texture edges | Make Seamless | Method, Channels, method-specific edges and blending, optional Poisson Correction. |
Choose what the effect uses
| Input | Source |
|---|---|
| Previous | The layer directly below the effect, in the same group. |
| Specific | The layer or group selected in Target. |
| All Below | The combined visible layers below the effect, including opacity, blending and FX. |
For Specific, choose Target from the list or drag a layer into the field. When dragging several selected layers, the active layer becomes the target. None (Layer) means no source is assigned.
Previous and Specific can use a hidden source. For a group, hide the group itself, not the children needed in the result. Only its contents are used, without the background behind it.
All Below stays within the current group, even in Pass Through; at the root it uses the lower document stack. An empty stack is transparent, and Target is hidden. An opaque background also makes the combined alpha opaque: Outline/SDF using Alpha cannot separate silhouettes above it. Use Specific or a separate source group for those silhouettes.
Outline and SDF
Outline adds a border. SDF turns distance from a contour into a gradual transition, useful for masks, glows or a height profile. Both keep the source editable.
Outline: border and fill
Choose Source Channel (Alpha by default, or Red, Green, Blue or Luminance), then place the border inside, outside or across the edge.
| Setting | Visible effect |
|---|---|
| Width (px) | Border width; fractional values are supported. |
| Softness (px) | Feathers both sides without changing Width. Zero keeps a crisp, antialiased edge. |
| Offset (px) | Moves the border inward when negative, outward when positive, without changing its width. |
| Color | Border color. |
| Fill Center / Fill Color | Adds a filled center with its own color and opacity. |
Try a small negative Offset if a border looks detached from a soft source. To back a drawing with a solid silhouette, place Outline below it and select that drawing as Specific input. Above the drawing, the fill covers it. Fill follows the contour, not the source’s soft alpha; holes remain holes.
SDF: distance as a gradient or data
Choose Source Channel: Alpha, an RGB channel or Luminance, including for groups. Threshold determines the contour; Max Distance (px) determines how far the transition extends. Zero selects the distance automatically.
| Output | Result |
|---|---|
| Gradient (default) | The palette supplies RGB, HDR intensity and alpha. Source alpha is not retained. |
| Linear Data | Normalized distance in raw 0–1 RGB, opaque alpha, without color gamma conversion. |
The default palette is black at 0, white at 1, with Perceptual interpolation. Inverted reverses normalized distance; Profile then reshapes it before palette sampling. Both apply to both outputs. A linear Profile leaves the transition unchanged; changing Output preserves the palette and inversion.
Position chooses the distance region: Outside, Inside, Center (both sides), or Signed (default). Signed is low inside and high outside; the contour maps to 0.5 before Profile. Inside Distance and Outside Distance set its two ranges independently; zero inherits Max Distance or auto. Contour Offset (px) expands the shape when positive and shrinks it when negative.
For bevel lighting, use Linear Data or a grayscale gradient and shape the height with Profile. With the default palette, both outputs have the same inside-to-outside brightness direction.
Source edges and distance quality
Source Offset (px) moves the SDF input while retaining the influence of contours beyond the canvas. Source Edges extends it as Transparent (default), Clamp, Repeat (including distance across seams) or Mirror. It cannot recover details already clipped by the source layer.
Large offsets and Repeat need more memory. If the extended calculation exceeds 64 million pixels, reduce the offset or resolution; WhimTex reports an error instead of silently cropping.
The distance algorithm changes corners and diagonals:
| Algorithm | Result |
|---|---|
| Euclidean | Rounded distance contours. |
| Manhattan / Chebyshev | More angular contours. |
| Euclidean Antialiased | Follows a smooth, partially transparent source edge. |
| Euclidean Exact | Hard-threshold silhouette, useful for pixel masks. |
With Euclidean Antialiased, Outline follows 50% of the selected Source Channel; SDF uses Threshold. Regions that never reach that threshold do not form a silhouette.
Blur
Add Blur, then choose Mode in Properties: Gaussian, Linear or Circular. Only the relevant controls are shown; switching modes keeps their settings.
Gaussian
Increase Radius for a softer image. Start small for edge cleanup; use a larger radius for broad, soft shapes.
Strength (%) controls intensity: 0% shows the original, 100% gives normal blur, and up to 400% makes translucent areas denser without changing the radius or brightening the colors. Values above 100% do not change fully opaque areas.
To blur several layers together:
- Put them in a group and add Blur above it with Mode set to Gaussian.
- Leave Input at Previous.
- Hide the group itself to show only the blurred result.
- Adjust Radius and Strength.
Linear and Circular
Choose Linear for a straight trail. Distance (px) sets its length and Angle (deg) sets its direction. Choose Circular for a rotating trail, then set Center and Arc.
Direction places the trail around the source, ahead of it or behind it. Strength below 100% brings back more of the sharp original. Above 100%, it makes translucent trails denser without making them longer.
Sharpen
Add Sharpen to restore local edge contrast without changing the source alpha. Choose Gaussian for conventional unsharp masking or Adaptive to favor coherent edges over weak, directionless detail using a local edge-coherence mask. Strength (%) controls the amount (0–400%) and Radius (px) controls the comparison distance in canvas pixels. Threshold sets the minimum detail to sharpen. Noise Reduction further suppresses irregular detail in Adaptive mode only; it does not remove noise already in the source. Halo Suppression limits edge overshoot. Channels can process RGB or luminance. Edges chooses Transparent, Clamp, Repeat or Mirror sampling outside the source. The operation preserves HDR color values. During an active edit WhimTex uses a faster approximation; the wider Gaussian-weighted result is calculated when the interaction settles.
Make Seamless
Add + → Make Seamless above a texture or group, choose Input, and hide the source if you want to see only the processed result. Enable Tiled to compare the repeated edges.
| Method | How it joins edges | Main trade-off |
|---|---|---|
| Offset Blend | Blends copies shifted by half a period. | A useful starting point for noise and surfaces; colors and repeated details can change. |
| Mirror | Reflects the opposite edge into a transition strip. | Fast to adjust, but recognizable details may look mirrored. |
| Screened Poisson | Applies a smooth correction to opposing edges. | Can also change the center and other edges; it does not reconstruct matching details. |
| Patch Quilting | Finds strips in the source and joins them along a low-error cut. | Can retain sharper detail, but may repeat features or leave visible joins in smooth noise. |
New layers use Offset Blend. Offset Blend and Mirror start with Blend Width 20%, Transition Start −25%, and Poisson Correction → All Edges enabled. All copy edges and both mirror axes start enabled. Switching methods retains each method’s settings; existing layers keep their saved values.
Edges and channels
Channels → R / G / B / A chooses which channels receive the result; all start enabled. Turn off A to retain source transparency. With all channels off, seam processing is bypassed. Later FX, Swizzle and layer blending can still change the image.
The square selects edges of the current pass:
- Copy Edges: four independent edges for Offset Blend.
- Mirror Direction: an edge is the destination for a reflection of the opposite edge. Click it again to disable the axis, or click the opposite edge to reverse direction. Two enabled axes also join the corners.
- Patch Edges / Poisson Edges: opposing edges toggle together. Top & Bottom repeats vertically; Left & Right horizontally; All Edges enables both. Both pairs can be off.
Linked edges highlight together. Clicking the center inverts the selection. For Mirror, it disables both axes if either is active; the next click enables Left To Right and Bottom To Top. Disabling a pass greys out its dependent fields, not the square or the other pass, and retains its values.
Poisson Correction has its own edges. It can run even when copying, mirroring or patching is disabled.
Offset Blend
| Control | Effect |
|---|---|
| Blend Width (%) | Width of the copied strips: 2–50%, default 20. |
| Transition Start (%) | Start of fading within the strip, not the whole canvas: −100…95%, default −25. Before this point, the copy has full influence. |
| Contrast Compensation / Strength (%) | Reduce contrast lost through blending. Enabled by default; Strength 0–100%, default 100. |
A lower Transition Start widens the fade; 0 starts at the edge. Positive values narrow it. Negative values extend the fade beyond the canvas and may bring back a seam. Poisson Correction can reduce that seam; changing Transition Start does not toggle it.
Strips overlap at corners and are at least two pixels wide. Without Poisson Correction, pixels outside them remain unchanged apart from floating-point/alpha rounding. Contrast compensation preserves the distribution approximately, not exactly. Disabling it or setting Strength to 0 skips histogram analysis.
Mirror
Blend Width (%) sets the transition width. Falloff concentrates reflection closer to the destination edge as it increases. The reflected strip fades into the original; an axis with no selected edge is unchanged.
Transition Start (%) uses −100…95%, default −25, within Blend Width. Zero keeps the original fade profile; positive values delay and narrow it, negative values broaden it beyond the canvas and may reintroduce a seam. It works with or without Contrast Compensation and is independent of Offset Blend’s setting.
Contrast Compensation is off by default. It blends reflected pixels with histogram-based compensation to reduce contrast loss, but can change colors and does not remove mirrored motifs. Strength (%) is 0–100; 0 uses ordinary Mirror.
Screened Poisson and Poisson Correction
Radius (%) controls the correction’s reach relative to the shorter image side: 0.5–25%, default 5. The correction has no hard strip boundary. It approximately preserves central brightness, but may change the center and unselected edges; only selected edge pairs are joined. Bright values may leave the permitted range and clip. Mirror controls do not affect this method.
Offset Blend, Mirror and Patch Quilting offer the same operation as Poisson Correction:
- Each has an independent Poisson Edges selection. Its reach is not restricted to the copy/patch strip.
- Correction is on by default for Offset Blend and Mirror, off for Patch Quilting.
- Offset Blend and Mirror also have Automatic Radius, on by default: one quarter of Blend Width, with a minimum of 0.5%. The Radius field shows the calculated value; turn Automatic Radius off to restore and edit the saved manual radius.
- Correction adds calculation time. Check both contrast and seams in Tiled view.
Patch Quilting
Only edge strips are reconstructed, not the whole image.
| Control | Effect |
|---|---|
| Patch Width (%) | Width of each strip: 2–45%, default 20. Wider strips allow more cut placement but change more of the image. |
| Feather (%) | Share of the available symmetric blend around each cut: 0–100%, default 50. This blends patches, not a texture blur or a percentage of Patch Width. |
| Search Quality | Draft, Normal (default), High. Higher settings test more candidates at higher analysis resolution; they cost more and do not guarantee a better-looking result. |
| Along-Seam Search (%) | Shift donor strips along the seam: 0–25%, default 0. Zero uses unshifted candidates. Shifts fade at strip ends without wrapping and may stretch detail. |
| Seed / Random | Choose another reproducible match. Different seeds can select the same result. |
| Channel Matching | Linked (default) shares the donor and cut across selected channels. Independent matches each channel separately: useful for packed maps, not for preserving color and transparent colored edges. |
Feather 0 leaves a hard cut; 100 uses the widest symmetric transition available without leaving the strip or opening the seam. Very narrow strips may show little difference between percentages. At one output pixel there is no room for feathering; a tiny analysis strip uses centered cuts. Without Poisson Correction, pixels outside the strips are retained apart from rounding.
Contrast Compensation is off by default. With Feather above 0, it can reduce contrast loss inside the fade. Strength (%) is 0–100. The correction considers the similarity of the source and donor and may change colors. At Strength 0 or Feather 0 it does no work; the control is unavailable at Feather 0. With both axes enabled, the second search uses the first corrected result and can choose a different patch.
Preview and calculation
- Sources remain editable: changes update the result; the layer does not bake them.
- Patch Width and Feather apply after releasing their sliders. Quilting calculation can temporarily block editing; higher quality and wider searches can take longer.
- A smaller preview can choose different patches and cuts. Ordinary preview is limited to 512 pixels; Live Quality 100% does not remove that limit outside painting. Select Pencil without painting and enable Tiled to check full resolution before export.
Older documents: saved Feather values are now percentages without migration (16 means 16%), so the result may differ. Loading does not automatically rewrite files. Later transforms and FX may break seamlessness; check the final composite as well.
For scripts and agents, see the Make Seamless parameter reference and clipboard recipe. To repair an area rather than join opposite edges, use Content-Aware Fill.
Keep the edges right
Blur effects have an Edges setting:
- Transparent: fade into empty space.
- Clamp: extend the edge colors.
- Repeat: wrap around; useful for seamless textures.
- Mirror: reflect the image at the border.
Normal Map offers Clamp, Repeat and Mirror, but not Transparent.
For seamless work, set Edges on the effect as well as enabling Tiled preview.