A quick reference to the words you'll see across BLNG and this help center. The names of tools, panels, and view modes are used the same way everywhere, so a term you find here means the same thing wherever you meet it in the product.
View modes & editor
| Term | What it means |
|---|
| Canvas | The main editing surface where you draw, place images, and arrange layers. Your design lives on the Canvas. |
| Split view | A comparison mode that overlays two images and lets you drag a slider across to reveal one beneath the other, best for direct A/B comparison of the same framing. |
| Side by side | A comparison layout that places two images next to each other (left and right) so you can review both at full size at once. |
| Stacked | A comparison layout that arranges two images one above the other, useful for wide images or narrow screens. |
| Preview Pane | The area that shows the currently selected image (such as a Chat result) so you can preview it before adding it to the Canvas. |
| Layer | One stacked element of your design (an image, drawing, shape, text, or 3D model). Layers can be reordered, hidden, locked, and blended independently. |
| Toolbar | The set of tools for drawing and editing: brush, shapes, text, selection, color, and more. |
| Move tool | The default tool (V) for selecting, moving, resizing and rotating objects on the Canvas. |
| Arrange menu | The submenu in an object's right-click menu that holds layer order and structure: things like bringing a layer to front, sending it to back, grouping, and merging. |
| Group | Several layers combined so they move and transform as one; ungroup at any time. |
| Template (canvas size) | A preset canvas size on the dashboard's Start a new project strip: a resolution (HD / 2K / 4K) by aspect, plus print sizes and your own saved presets. Not a pre-made design. |
| Properties | One tab of the left sidebar, next to Layers, for the selected object. With an image selected, this is where Filters live. Also opened from the sliders icon on a selected image (Image properties). |
Creating with AI
| Term | What it means |
|---|
| Chat panel | Where you prompt the AI, attach references, set options, and view generated results. |
| Prompt | The text description you give the AI of what to create or change. |
| References | Images or videos (and the live Canvas thumbnail) you feed the AI to steer a result. Attach them to a prompt with the Add references (+) button in the Chat panel, by dragging, or by pasting, to lock in a shape, style, material, or look. |
| Influence | A per-reference slider that controls how closely the AI follows that reference or your Canvas: higher sticks to it, lower gives the AI more freedom. |
| Scene style | A preset that sets the background and mood of a result (for example White, Arctic, Noir, Aurora), plus options for a custom color, transparent background, or your own image as the scene. |
| AI modes | How the AI approaches a request, trading speed against deliberation: Auto (the default) picks the approach for you, Light is optimized for speed, and Thinking runs the highest quality settings for complex briefs. |
| Multi-step generations | Multi-step requests the AI breaks down and works through to reach a larger goal. |
| Step | One stage of a multi-step generation; each step executes and is reviewed in turn. |
| Regenerating | The automatic re-run of a step whose result didn't meet its goal. It happens on its own and needs nothing from you, unlike Try again, which you trigger yourself. |
| Voice input | Dictating a prompt by speaking instead of typing. |
| Try again | Generating a fresh variation of a chat result from the same prompt; it works on images, videos and 3D models in the chat. On the canvas, run the tool again instead. On the chat tile of a clip made from the image menu, Try again asks you for the camera move again (to try a different move, choose AI Tools › Generate video again); BLNG never retries a failed video on its own. |
| Upscale to 4K | Re-rendering a generated result at higher resolution, from its menu in the Chat or on the canvas. On a video layer the entry reads Upscale video to 4K and upscales the whole clip. |
| Add to canvas | Dropping a generated result onto a new layer so you can keep editing it. |
Editing, masking & 3D
| Term | What it means |
|---|
| Selection | A live area drawn with the Selection tool (M). While a selection is active, edits only affect the area inside it; a selection can be converted into a mask. See Selection. |
| Mask | A grayscale overlay on a layer that hides or reveals parts of it without deleting pixels: white stays visible, black is hidden. Create one from an active selection, or add one to a layer and paint it with the Brush. On iOS, the tap-to-select mask assist helps you build the selection. See Masks. |
| Remove background | Isolating the subject by stripping its background, handy before generating 3D or placing a subject on a new scene. |
| Generate 3D | Turning a 2D image into a 3D model you can rotate and refine. |
| Single / Quad 3D view | 3D viewing layouts: one viewport, or four at once. Quad opens on Perspective, Front, Right, and Top, and each pane can be switched to another angle. |
| Material library | Surface looks (finishes, textures, colors) you can assign to a 3D model. |
| USDZ | Apple's native 3D model format, used by the 3D viewer on iOS. |
| Brush | The drawing tool, with options including pressure-sensitive pencil brushes for Apple Pencil. |
| Stabilization | Smoothing applied to brush strokes for cleaner lines. |
| Eraser | The tool (E) that removes pixels from a drawing or image layer. Unlike a mask, erasing changes the pixels themselves. |
| Crop | Trimming what an object shows with the Crop tool. Non-destructive, stored as a mask, so you can re-crop or undo at any time. |
| Feather | A soft falloff on a crop or selection edge, set in pixels, so the edge blends instead of cutting hard. |
| Filters & adjustments | Looks and adjustments applied to an image, opened from Properties: named preset families such as Black & White, Film, and Cinematic, plus manual tools such as Curves and Levels. They change existing pixels; they do not regenerate the design. See Filters & Adjustments. |
| Active stack | The list of filters already on the selected image(s), shown in the Active section of Properties. Each row has its own mix (%); the header has a master mix and Compare original. |
Video
| Term | What it means |
|---|
| Generated video | A short clip the AI makes from an image (AI Tools › Generate video, or a request in the Chat) or by changing a video you already have. With several images attached in the Chat, the first is the start frame, the last is the end frame, and the ones between guide the motion. Clips come back in full HD (1080p), or 4K on request. It arrives as a chat tile and can be added to the Canvas. See Video on the Canvas, Generating a video. |
| Video layer | A video on the Canvas, a layer of its own with a video menu. Pause it on a frame and Merge › Flatten turns the current frame into an image layer. Generated clips loop and start muted. |
| Scrub preview | The quick preview that plays when you hover a video tile in the Chat; click the tile for the full player. |
| Turntable | A product-video camera move where the piece rotates in place through a full turn. |
| MP4 / WebM | The two video download formats. MP4 plays everywhere; WebM keeps transparency for shaped or cropped clips. |
Looking for a term that isn't here? Check the section it belongs to, for example Editor Overview or Chat Panel, or the FAQs.
