#What you'll learn

#Before you start

Read the Pixxomo Intermediate guide first: remaps, ramps, clipping, masks and variants.
If you know Photoshop's clipping groups and blend modes, most of this will feel familiar; the differences are called out below.

Pixxomo groups layers into clipping groups: a base layer plus the layers clipped (↳) to it, just like Photoshop.
The base decides the clip shape. A fill base clips to its own pixels; an adjustment base clips to the art it touches (the current image's shape, limited by its mask). Clipped layers with nothing below them clip to the art.
Groups are composited from the bottom up. Each layer's output is cached, and only layers from the first changed one upward are recomputed, which is why big stacks stay fast.
Every adjustment works colour by colour: each unique colour is computed once, then looked up for every pixel. Masks and opacity are then mixed per pixel.

Adjustment layers and clipped layers never change transparency: a transparent pixel stays transparent and every pixel keeps its original alpha.
Unclipped fill layers are drawn normally, so they can cover empty canvas. That is on purpose: it's what makes clipping meaningful.
If a fill covers the background, clip it (↳ Clip / Ctrl+Alt+G).

The 27 blend modes follow the W3C compositing formulas for the standard modes (including Soft Light) and the four colour modes (Hue, Saturation, Color, Luminosity); the rest follow Photoshop's own maths. Darker Color and Lighter Color compare channel sums; Hard Mix is pure on/off per channel.
A layer's content is weighted by Opacity × Fill; its layer styles only by Opacity. Photoshop treats Fill specially for a few modes (Color Burn, Linear Burn and similar); Pixxomo always treats Fill as plain coverage.
Blend If then hides the layer where the brightness of This layer or the Underlying image falls outside Black…White; the edge handles fade the transition.
Dissolve is seeded, so the same layer always dissolves the same pixels.

Avoid anything that blends: opacity below 100%, Smooth blend on gradient maps, Smooth gradients, soft blend modes, Blend If edges.
Use Steps or Dither on gradients, and Gradient map without Smooth blend.
Put a Palette snap layer at the very top as a final guarantee.
Check the swatch panel: colours out should not be more than in, and Diff shows every changed pixel.

Export map writes a -colormap.json file: { "pixxomo": "colormap", "v": 1, "pairs": [ { "from": "#…", "to": "#…", "tol": 0 } ], "ramps": [ … ] }.
Import map also accepts a simple object of colours, { "#from": "#to", … }, so a map can come from a spreadsheet or your own script.
Tolerance can be 0–100 in a file (the slider goes to 40); higher values pull in more neighbouring colours.

A cloud project is a zip with project.json (the document settings, layers, variants, saved selections and view) and source.png (your untouched art).
Animations are stored packed into one near-square sheet, so every layer runs once over one image; frames are cut back out on export and send.
Masks are stored compactly (run-length), so large masks stay small.

Build the look on one sprite (remaps, fills, a final Palette snap).
Open the next sprite: your layer stack is kept. Masks and saved selections are dropped if the size differs, so prefer clipping and colour-based remaps over masks for reusable looks.
Export or Send to App, then repeat. Save the look as a variant on each sprite you'll revisit.

Make each colour variant with a Swatch remap only (no fills or smooth adjustments).
Export map for each variant: the from → to pairs are exactly what a palette-swap shader needs.
Export one base sheet, ship the colour maps as data, and swap colours in the engine instead of shipping every sheet.

In Flow, add Pixxomo after Pixxava or Pixxani.
Keep the team's colour maps in a shared place; each person imports the right map, saves the variants and uses Send result to Flow.
Send to App also offers Its colours (palette), so the final palette can go to Pixxulo for the style guide.

Shift + / Shift − cycle blend modes on the selected layer; hover a mode in the menu to preview it.
Delete / Backspace removes the selected layer · Esc clears the selection.
Slider drags are grouped into one undo step per control, so Ctrl+Z undoes a whole drag.
Gradient angles follow Photoshop: 90° puts the first stop at the bottom.
Under Swatches, Result colours offers .hex and .gpl downloads and Send palette….

A clipped adjustment spreads onto empty space: it can't change alpha, so look for an unclipped fill underneath that's covering the canvas.
Colour modes look slightly different from an old project: the Hue, Saturation, Color and Luminosity modes now use the W3C formulas, so old projects that used them can shift a little.
Fill at 0 still shows something: that's the layer's styles (overlay, stroke, shadow). Lower Opacity to hide those too.
A mask vanished after opening another sprite: masks only survive when the new picture is the same size.
Import map says "No colour pairs": check the file has pairs or "#from": "#to" entries with 6-digit hex colours.