What Cubism Editor needs from a PSD
Live2D’s manual page Notes on PSD creation lists the rules. The first three are hard limits: if one is not met, the PSD will not import.
| Rule from the Live2D manual | The PSD from toPSD |
|---|---|
| PSD format | Yes |
| RGB color mode | Yes |
| 8 bits per channel | Yes |
| sRGB color profile | Keeps the canvas profile. Procreate canvases can be sRGB or Display P3, so check it (below) |
| One part per layer, line art and clipping masks merged | Keeps Procreate’s layers and clipping masks as they are, so merge them in Procreate first |
| No layer masks | Keeps layer masks, so merge them in Procreate first |
| A different name on every layer | Keeps Procreate’s layer names |
The Import PSDs page adds two things that matter for Procreate files. Hidden layers and groups are imported too, so old sketches become parts unless you delete them. And each ArtMesh is created “with a 1 pixel margin relative to the layer size”, which is why a layer as big as the canvas gives a part whose box is as big as the canvas.
Layers that fit their parts
On the Live2D forum, an artist found that “Procreate uses the entire canvas for each layer” and fixed it by merging every layer with a blank one in Photoshop. On the Adobe Community, an animator saw the same thing in After Effects: the transform box of a small eye spanned the whole canvas.
toPSD crops each layer to the rows and columns that have paint on them before writing the PSD, so an eye layer in the PSD is the size of the eye.
In our test, a 2118 by 1836 pixel sample file from the Silicate project came out with each layer’s bounds set to its painted area, for example 276 by 292 pixels for one of its shapes, and every PSD was 8-bit RGB. A filled background layer stays as big as the canvas, because it is painted everywhere. Paint that is almost invisible still counts too. A faint stroke left far from a part keeps that part’s box large, and Live2D’s own Live2D_Cleaning script for Photoshop exists to remove “eraser residue and other small dust” of this kind.
Fix these in Procreate before converting
The Live2D check above reads the file’s layer settings and lists what to change. These are the usual ones:
- Color profile. If the canvas is Display P3, switch it to an sRGB profile with Actions > Canvas > Canvas information > Color profile, as the Procreate Handbook describes, or convert the PSD to sRGB in Photoshop afterwards. Compare the colors after switching.
- Clipping masks and line art. Merge each clipped layer, and each line layer, into the part it belongs to with Merge Down in Layer Options. Cubism wants one finished part per layer.
- Layer masks. A Procreate mask stays attached to its layer until you merge or delete it, according to the Procreate Handbook. Merge each one into its layer.
- Names. Rename repeated names such as “Layer 1” so every part is easy to find in Cubism. Live2D’s cleaning script warns that matching names can even cost a layer its drawing.
- Blend modes. Cubism 5.3’s Color blend list covers Multiply, Screen, Overlay, Soft light and some others; anything else is imported as Normal.
- Hidden layers. Delete sketches and references you don’t want as parts.
Work on a duplicate of the artwork in the Procreate Gallery, so the version with separate line art and masks stays editable.
If you have Photoshop
Live2D publishes two Photoshop scripts: Live2D_Preprocess merges groups (except groups whose name starts with *), merges layer masks and combines clipping masks, and Live2D_Cleaning removes leftover specks. They work on the PSD from toPSD like on any other PSD. The Photoshop guide covers opening the file.
What we have and haven’t tested
Checked on October 15, 2026:
- Tested: toPSD’s PSDs from the MIT-licensed Silicate sample files are 8-bit RGB with every layer cropped to its painted area, read back with an independent PSD reader.
- Not tested: importing a toPSD PSD into Live2D Cubism Editor, and Procreate’s own PSD export, since we have neither Cubism Editor nor an iPad on our test machine. The forum reports of full-canvas layers are other artists’ experience, linked above.
If you rig with a toPSD file, a short note to hello@topsd.app on how the import went helps us make this page say “tested”.