What is actually inside a PSD file
A PSD is not a picture with layers glued on. It is a container with a header, colour blocks, layer records and a separate flattened composite — which explains most of its odd behaviour.
Convert
Open the layered PSD, hide what you do not need, pick a size and export a flat PNG with the alpha channel intact. Everything happens in your browser tab.
At a glance
Files never leave your device
Drag the .psd file onto the canvas, or use File → Open. The layer stack, masks and blend modes come in with it.
Hide layers you do not want, or crop to the artwork. Transparency is preserved — do not add a background unless you want one.
File → Export writes a flat PNG at full resolution. Downscale first if the target is a website.
Details
These are the parts that actually change the outcome, not marketing copy.
A PSD keeps every element on its own layer; a PNG has no layers at all, only a single grid of pixels with an alpha channel. Converting therefore means rendering: the editor composites the visible layers, applies their blend modes, masks and opacity, and writes the result into one RGBA image.
That is why hidden layers simply disappear from the PNG, and why a 90%-opacity layer becomes blended pixels rather than a separate object. If you need the layers later, keep the original PSD — the PNG is the delivery format, not the working file.
PNG-24 supports a full 8-bit alpha channel, so soft edges from masks and feathering survive the conversion. The most common mistake is exporting with a white background layer still visible: the file looks fine on screen and then shows a white box on a dark site.
Check the layer panel before exporting and toggle off any solid background layer you added for editing. If you need the artwork on a background, export twice — one transparent PNG and one flattened JPEG — instead of guessing what the destination needs.
The PNG is written at the document resolution. A 3000 px mockup exported at full size is often several megabytes; for web use, scale the document down to the display size first, then export. Scaling after export costs an extra resampling step and softens fine detail.
There is no quality slider for PNG because it is lossless — the only lever is dimensions and colour depth. If the target is a photo rather than flat artwork, a JPEG or WebP export will be a fraction of the size.
The trade-offs that actually matter when you convert a file once a month.
| PhotoPSD | Desktop editor | Upload-based converter | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Install required | No | Yes, ~2 GB | No |
| File leaves your device | No | No | Yes — uploaded to a server |
| Keeps transparency | Yes | Yes | Usually |
| Can hide layers before export | Yes | Yes | No |
| Price | Free | Subscription | Free tier, then credits |
| Works offline after first load | Yes | Yes | No |
Yes, as long as no visible background layer covers the artwork. PNG-24 stores an alpha channel, so mask edges and soft shadows are preserved.
The practical limit is your own memory: the document is decoded in the tab. Documents up to a few thousand pixels per side are comfortable on a normal laptop.
Open them in separate tabs of the editor; each tab handles one document. There is no batch queue, because there is no server to queue work on.
A PSD is not a picture with layers glued on. It is a container with a header, colour blocks, layer records and a separate flattened composite — which explains most of its odd behaviour.
Most slow pages are caused by three decisions made in the editor: the wrong dimensions, the wrong format and a quality slider set to 100. A practical checklist that fixes all three.
Five formats that answer five different questions. A comparison on the axes that decide real projects: loss, transparency, layers, animation and browser support.
No install, no sign-up, no watermark. First load is about 14 MB, then it comes from cache.
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