Effects — Overlay

Grid overlay effect

Overlay a customisable grid on your photo: columns, rows, line style, colour, opacity, border and A1 or number labels.

Status
Live
Category
Overlay
Settings
8
01

What is the Grid overlay effect?

A grid overlay divides your photo into equal cells. Artists have long used grids to transfer drawings accurately, photographers use them to check composition, and social media creators use them to plan multi-post layouts.

Choose the number of columns and rows, the line width, colour, opacity and style, and decide whether to add an outer border. Cell labels can be off, numbered, or an A1 chart-style reference like a spreadsheet or map.

02

Grid overlay settings

  • Columns
  • Rows
  • Line width
  • Colour
  • Opacity
  • Line style
  • Outer border
  • Cell labels
What each setting does →
03

Best photos for it

  • Drawing and painting reference photos
  • Composition checks
  • Planning multi-post grid layouts
04

Tips for better results

  1. Tip 01

    Use 3 columns by 3 rows for the rule of thirds.

  2. Tip 02

    Choose a thin, semi-transparent line to avoid hiding detail.

  3. Tip 03

    Use A1 labels when you need to refer to cells by name.

05

Common questions

What do the cell labels do?

They add a reference label to each cell: none, numbers, or A1-style letters and numbers.

06

Similar effects

Also searched as: Photo grid, Drawing grid, Rule of thirds overlay.