Importing
Every format Celas Studio accepts, the menu item each one arrives through, the layer it becomes, and where the limits are.
Everything comes in through File ▸ Import, which lists one item per kind of file. The submenu is greyed out until a project is open, because an import always lands in a scene.
You do not have to use the menu. Dragging a file onto the canvas imports it, and Ctrl+V pastes vector artwork or a bitmap straight from another application. Whichever route you take, an import is a single step in the History panel, so one Ctrl+Z undoes it.
What you can bring in
| Menu item | Extensions | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Image… | png, jpg, jpeg, bmp, webp | One Image layer, centred on the canvas |
| SVG… | svg | Shape layers and Image layers inside groups |
| PSD… | psd | One Image layer per Photoshop layer, inside groups |
| Video… | mp4, mov, avi, mkv, webm | One Video layer with a clip on the timeline |
| Audio… | mp3, wav, ogg, flac, aac, m4a, ac3, opus, wma | One Audio layer with a waveform on the timeline |
| Celas Project (as group)… | cls | The whole project as one group in your scene |
Images, SVG artwork and Photoshop layers are stored inside your project, so the .cls no longer depends on the file you imported from. Video and audio are linked by path instead: see The .cls project file.
Images
A PNG, JPEG, WebP or BMP arrives as an Image layer centred on the canvas, and is registered in the Library panel so you can find it again. The original file bytes ride along inside the project.
PNG and WebP keep their transparency. JPEG and BMP have none to keep, so they arrive fully opaque.
Pasting
Ctrl+V looks at what is on the clipboard, in order: layers you copied inside Celas Studio, then SVG markup from another application, then a bitmap. Vector artwork copied out of Affinity Designer, Illustrator or Inkscape therefore pastes as editable shapes rather than a picture of them.
Where the limits are
- GIF cannot be imported at all, in either its still or animated form.
- An animated WebP imports as a still image: only its first frame arrives.
- Large-document Photoshop files (.psb) are refused; save as .psd first.
- Video import needs Windows or macOS. On Linux it is unavailable.
- On Linux, audio import is limited to WAV, MP3, FLAC and OGG.
- An .mkv can be imported but not exported.
- A file with an extension that is not on the list above is ignored without a message.
Where to go next
Each of the layered formats has its own page, because each one has its own mapping and its own list of things it leaves behind: Importing Photoshop files, Importing SVG, Importing video and audio, and Merging another project.