PSD compatibility

A feature is listed as supported here only when its output is verified against Photoshop’s own render. Where faithful reproduction is not possible, the row says so and points at the mechanism that gets you the same look.

Recommendation: keep supported features live rather than baking them into pixels. A live feature stays accurate for every design you send.

What renders as authored

Feature	Notes
Smart objects, embedded	Artwork replacement and several smart objects per template. Smart objects and live text inside a smart object are listed in its entry and filled in the same render.
Smart objects, linked	Rendered from their placement geometry, so Embed Linked is not required before upload.
Layer masks	Honoured and rendered to match Photoshop.
Blend modes, all 27	Photoshop-accurate compositing. Pass Through is additionally accepted as a group blending mode.
Smart object warps, mesh	Warp meshes render to match Photoshop’s own output, verified pixel for pixel.
Perspective transforms	Four-point perspective placement on smart objects.
Layer effects: Drop Shadow, Stroke, Inner and Outer Glow, Bevel and Emboss, Blend If	Rendered to match Photoshop, verified against Photoshop 2026 exports. Bevel covers the inner, outer, emboss and pillow emboss styles.
Adjustment layers	Brightness/Contrast, Levels, Curves, Exposure, Vibrance, Hue/Saturation, Black & White, Channel Mixer, Invert, Posterize, Threshold, Selective Color and Gradient Map apply to the layers beneath them, in their own blend mode, at their own opacity and through their own mask, clipped or not.
Text layers	Point, multi-line and area text render with editable wording, font, size and colour. Rotated and skewed point text, type on a path and ten warp styles render live with your new text; the remaining warp styles and vertical text render as authored.
International scripts	Latin-based scripts, including Turkish and accented characters, render as designed. Arabic and Hebrew render right-to-left, with a readable fallback when the chosen font lacks those glyphs. CJK text renders live with your wording from catalogue families, and Text layers shows how to keep spacing exactly as designed.
Smart filters	Perspective Warp, Curves, Gaussian Blur, Box Blur, Brightness/Contrast, Invert, Displace, Find Edges and the one-click filters render with no extra parameters in the request body.

Colour modes other than RGB are converted on upload. Duotone and Multichannel currently render in grayscale, so convert those files to RGB in Photoshop while you still hold the ink values. Every row above renders as authored without a parameter in the render request. The verified result for each supported filter is on Smart filters, and the call itself is on Render a PSD mockup.

A template uploaded before Gradient Map, skewed point text and type on a path rendered live picks them up once the PSD is uploaded again. The new upload is a separate template with its own UUIDs, as Upload a PSD explains.

What to send as pixels instead

Feature	What to send instead
Bevel set to Stroke Emboss	Rasterize the styled layer. The other four bevel styles render as authored.
3D layers	Render the 3D pass to pixels in Photoshop and keep it as a static layer.
Video layers	Export the frame you want and place it as a pixel layer.
Camera Raw Filter, Filter Gallery, Liquify, Lens Correction	Not rendered: they rely on proprietary Adobe algorithms. Rebuild the geometry with Warp or Perspective Warp and the tone with Curves or Brightness/Contrast clipped to the smart object, or rasterize the styled layer.
Clouds, other randomized filters, and Average	Not rendered: the PSD does not store the result they drew, and a randomized filter draws a different one on every pass. Rasterize the texture into a static pixel layer.

Every unsupported row routes to something that does render. A texture that is the same on every design belongs above the print area as its own layer, tinted at render time through color.blending_mode on the smart object rather than flattened into the artwork. The modes and what each one does are on Fit and blend modes.

Hidden layers and linked content

How a hidden layer behaves depends on its type, and the two rules point in opposite directions. A smart object that is hidden in Photoshop is not exposed as a slot and is not rendered, so make the layer visible and upload the file again. The upload still succeeds and comes back carrying the advisory code PSD_HIDDEN_SMART_OBJECTS, so you find out before your first render. The rule is the same for a smart object hidden inside another one. A text layer that is hidden is kept as a fillable slot instead: it renders when you send a text_layers entry for it and stays hidden when you leave that entry out. One template can therefore carry optional lines, personalized fields or language variants that appear only on the renders you choose to fill. Both cases are worked through on Hidden layers. Linked content renders from its placement geometry, which is why linked smart objects sit on the supported side above. When a linked smart object carries no usable placement geometry, the render returns a permanent 422 with the error code LINKED_SMART_OBJECT_CONTENT_MISSING, and retrying the same file returns it again. Run Layer > Smart Objects > Embed Linked and upload the file again, or send the artwork in the render body. The retry rule for every code is on Errors.

Contents of a smart object

When the contents of a smart object cannot be read, the upload still succeeds. That happens, for example, when the contents hold a smart object in a vector format, or when they are larger than the pixel ceiling. The smart object stays one slot that takes artwork as a whole, and the upload carries the advisory code PSD_NESTED_CONTENTS_UNAVAILABLE. A top-level smart object in a vector format fails the upload instead, with UNSUPPORTED_SMART_OBJECT_FORMAT. A linked smart object stays one slot without a code, because its contents are not in the file.

Overview

PSD mockups

Photo mockups

Text and fonts

Integrations

Reference

Advanced

Choosing an approach

Troubleshooting

Working with the API

Account and billing

Changes

PSD compatibility

What renders as authored

What to send as pixels instead

Hidden layers and linked content

Contents of a smart object

Learn more

Smart filters

Hidden layers

Next steps

Preparing a PSD

Render a PSD mockup

​What renders as authored

​What to send as pixels instead

​Hidden layers and linked content

​Contents of a smart object

​Learn more

Smart filters

Hidden layers

​Next steps

Preparing a PSD

Render a PSD mockup

What renders as authored

What to send as pixels instead

Hidden layers and linked content

Contents of a smart object

Learn more

Next steps