Photopea reads PSD, not .procreate
Photopea is a free image editor that runs in the browser and looks a lot like Photoshop. It opens a long list of design formats; the list in its repository includes PSD, PSB, XCF, Sketch, XD, Figma, Clip Studio and PaintTool SAI files. Procreate’s format is not there. A .procreate file is a ZIP of compressed layer tiles in Procreate’s own layout, and Photopea has no reader for it.
PSD is the bridge. Photopea’s PSD support is its strongest feature, and toPSD writes a standard layered PSD from the .procreate file.
Two browser tabs, no install
- Open the toPSD converter and drop the
.procreatefile on it. You see the artwork and the full layer list right away. Select Download layered PSD. Your first PSD is free with a free account. - Open Photopea in another tab and choose File > Open, then pick the PSD.
Both steps happen inside your browser. toPSD never uploads the file; the conversion runs on your own computer, which is why there is no size limit beyond your machine’s memory.
What you will see in Photopea
The PSD from toPSD carries every Procreate layer with its name and order, the groups, each layer’s opacity and visibility, all 26 blend modes mapped to Photoshop’s, clipping masks, layer masks, and the canvas’s color profile. In Photopea’s Layers panel that looks like a normal Photoshop document: groups you can fold, layers you can hide, and blend modes in the dropdown.
We have opened these PSDs in Photopea, as well as in Photoshop and GIMP (see how this page was tested, below). Things worth a glance after opening your own file:
- Clipped layers still only show over the layer below them.
- Layers using Hue, Saturation, Color or Luminosity look right. Compare with the free flat PNG from toPSD if not.
- Colors are not pale. If they are, Photopea may have ignored the embedded profile; see Procreate PSD problems for what to do.
Text layers from Procreate arrive as pixels, so the words can’t be retyped in Photopea without redoing them with its text tool.
Big canvases
Photopea runs in a browser tab, and so does toPSD, so very large canvases can be heavy. A regular PSD can’t exceed 30,000 pixels on a side; above that, toPSD writes a PSB file automatically, which Photopea also opens. If a tab runs out of memory, close other tabs and try again, or use a desktop editor for that file.
If you’d rather use a desktop app
Photopea is handy on a Chromebook or a locked-down PC, which is why the Chromebook guide points here. If you can install software, GIMP is free and we have tested the PSD in it, and Photoshop opens it as expected.
How this page was tested
On October 12, 2026, we converted Silicate’s two open-source sample files with toPSD and opened the PSDs in Photopea in Chrome on Linux. The blend-modes sample (53 layers) opened with the artwork matching the original and every group in the Layers panel under its Procreate name; layers we checked kept their modes, for example Divide and Linear Light. The mask sample opened with its layer mask attached and editable, and the masked area rendered as it does in Procreate. We did not check clipping masks or the color profile in Photopea, which is why they are on the list above.