All tools › How a surface looks
Blend modes
What each mode does to two colours, worked out exactly for the twelve that can be.
It runs entirely in this browser tab: the CSS you paste is never uploaded, and the preview is drawn from the same numbers the rule carries rather than rendered by the browser — which is why a tool whose effect only exists in a compositor says so instead of drawing one.
Settings
- Which layer
- Between two elements, or between two backgrounds of one element. Choices: Between elements, Between backgrounds.
- Top colour
- The colour on top, which is the one being blended.
- Bottom colour
- The colour underneath, which the top one is blended into.
How to use it
- Paste your text into the box above, or open a file.
- Adjust the settings beside it until the result is what you wanted.
- Copy the result, or save it as a file. The result updates as you type.
Questions
- Is what I paste uploaded anywhere?
- No. The whole application is carried as WebAssembly and runs on your own device. There is no server to send a stylesheet to, and no tool here makes a network request while it works.
- Is the preview what my browser will actually draw?
- For a colour, a shape and a curve, yes — it is drawn from the same numbers the rule carries. For anything a browser's compositor does against the page behind it — a backdrop filter, a blend mode, a scrollbar — no, and that tool says so on its own result rather than showing you an approximation.
- Why does a size come out as 1.125rem and not 1.1250000000000002rem?
- Because none of the arithmetic is done in binary floating point. Every length here is an exact decimal, so a conversion ends where it should: 18px is 1.125rem and 24px is 18pt, with no run of nines and no stray four at the twelfth place.
- Can I use these rules without attribution?
- Yes. What comes out is CSS — a declaration is not a work with an owner, and nothing here writes a comment into your stylesheet about where it came from.
Other tools for how a surface looks
Frosted panel
A panel that blurs what is behind it, with the fallback that keeps it readable where it cannot.
Soft shadows
A raised or pressed surface, with the two shadows taken from the background rather than from black and white.
Text shadow
One shadow or five, including the four-corner trick that draws an outline everywhere.
Filters
Brightness, contrast and the rest, with only the ones that do something written down.
Background pattern
A repeating pattern made of gradients, so that there is no file to load and nothing to go missing.
All twenty-seven tools