The Combine Images tool combines 2 to 12 local pictures into one PNG output, choosing horizontal, vertical, or grid layout with a configurable gap and background color — and it does every step inside your browser without uploading the source files. That makes it a direct substitute for the Blend Image app inside Canva whenever you want to merge photos on a single canvas but don't want to sign in, install an app, or hand your files to a remote server. You select the files in the order you want them placed, pick a layout, and the tool draws every picture at its real decoded pixel size on top of your chosen background. Nothing is stretched, cropped, or resampled, and the result is one PNG you can download and use anywhere. Because decoding, layout math, drawing, and PNG encoding happen in your current tab, the workflow is the same on a Chromebook, a Mac, a Windows PC, or a phone browser.
What the Blend Image App Does Inside Canva
Canva's Blend Image app is the in-Canva way to combine two pictures into a single composite without manually masking or layering. Designers reach for it when a quick merge looks cleaner than two side-by-side elements, and the controls stay focused inside the editor rather than spreading across the whole page.
The general workflow inside Canva looks like this:
- Open or create the Canva project where the blended image will live.
- Upload the two pictures you plan to combine and drop them onto the canvas.
- Open the Apps panel from the left sidebar and search for "Blend Image."
- Launch the app, select the image that should sit on top, and pick the blend style from the panel that appears.
- Apply the result to the canvas, then export the page as PNG or JPG once you're happy with the look.
One gotcha worth knowing up front: the blending controls only appear when an image element is actively selected on the page. If the top toolbar stays empty after launching the app, the image is likely locked or grouped — ungroup or unlock it and the controls come back.
That workflow is solid when you already have a Canva account and a steady connection. When you don't — a school laptop without sign-in, a kiosk, a slow cafe network, or simply a job that doesn't need the rest of the design suite — a local browser tool does the same job without the upload step. For related image work inside the editor, the guide on cropping images in Canva or right in your browser covers a similar trade-off for cropping.
Why a Local Combiner Beats the Upload Path
Canva is a strong design suite, but the Blend Image app comes with several fixed costs: an account, an active internet connection, a server-side render, and a download step that goes back through the network. For a quick "merge these five screenshots into one strip" job, those requirements are more friction than the task deserves.
Combine Images removes each of those costs. It reads your files directly from your device, decodes them with the browser's built-in image bitmap path, computes the placement from integer pixel sizes, and writes a single PNG that lives only on your machine until you choose to share it. There's no project to save, no template to duplicate, and no watermark stamped on the export. The page also keeps working after the initial load even if your connection drops, which matters on flaky hotel or campus Wi-Fi.
That makes it a natural fit for product comparison shots, before/after sliders flattened into one image, storyboard strips, screenshot sequences, and quick mood boards that you want to drop into a chat or ticket without first exporting from a heavier editor.
How to Use Combine Images to Blend Photos Locally
The full job takes about a minute once your files are in one folder. Each step is intentional — order matters because the tool preserves your selection order, and the layout choice changes the math that follows.
- Open the Combine Images page in any modern browser.
- Pick between 2 and 12 supported raster images in the exact order you want them placed from left to right, top to bottom, or grid cell to grid cell.
- Choose a layout: Horizontal for a side-by-side strip, Vertical for a stacked column, or Grid for a square-like arrangement.
- Set the gap in pixels (0 to 100) and pick the six-digit background color that fills the canvas and the space between pictures.
- Click Combine images, confirm the output dimensions shown on the result panel, and download the generated PNG.
The output width and height appear before you download, so you can cancel and adjust the gap, background, or layout if the canvas isn't the shape you expected. Once the PNG is on disk, it behaves like any other image: drop it into a doc, share it in chat, or feed it to another tool without a second account login.
How Each Layout Places the Pictures
Each of the three layouts follows a fixed rule. Horizontal stacks images left to right using their decoded widths plus the gap; vertical stacks them top to bottom using their decoded heights plus the gap; grid divides the count into a near-square table of cells. The table below summarizes what each layout does to the placement math.
| Layout | Direction | Cell or row sizing | How shorter images are handled | Output shape |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Horizontal | Left to right | Each image at its decoded pixel width | Centered vertically against the tallest image | Sum of widths plus gaps wide, tallest image tall |
| Vertical | Top to bottom | Each image at its decoded pixel height | Centered horizontally against the widest image | Widest image wide, sum of heights plus gaps tall |
| Grid | Square-like cells, left to right then top to bottom | Column count is the ceiling of the square root of the image count; every cell uses the widest and tallest decoded image as its bounds | Each source is centered inside its cell without stretching, cropping, or changing aspect ratio | Cell bounds plus gaps wide and tall; final row may leave empty cells that show the background color |
Concrete example: with five screenshots of 1200 by 800 pixels and a grid layout, the column count is the ceiling of √5, which is 3. That gives a 3-by-2 grid where the last row holds only two cells; the missing cell shows the background color. Bumping the count to 9 lands exactly on a 3-by-3 grid with no empty cells, and 16 lands on a clean 4-by-4.
Supported Inputs, File Limits, and What the PNG Keeps
The tool accepts the raster image formats your browser can decode natively. The table below lists the supported types, the cap on each source, the total cap across all selected files, and the hard ceiling on the final canvas — every limit is enforced before the PNG is encoded, so a rejected file fails the job instead of producing a broken export.
| Setting | Accepted value or limit |
|---|---|
| Accepted formats | PNG, JPEG, WebP, GIF, AVIF, BMP |
| Rejected on purpose | SVG (kept out to bound the local workflow) |
| Image count | 2 to 12 files |
| Per-file size cap | 25 MiB |
| Combined size cap | 100 MiB across all selected files |
| Canvas side cap | 8,192 pixels on either width or height |
| Canvas area cap | 32,000,000 pixels total |
| Output format | PNG, single still frame |
Files whose extension looks familiar can still fail if their bytes are corrupt or the codec isn't supported by the browser. Animated GIF, WebP, or AVIF sources contribute only the frame that the browser's image bitmap path decodes — animation, original filenames, EXIF, color profiles, layers, and metadata are not preserved in the PNG. Transparent areas in any source become the chosen background color, since the background fills the canvas before the images are drawn on top. For print production or color-managed compositing, verify the exported PNG in dedicated software rather than trusting the PNG alone.
When to Pick Combine Images Over Canva (and When Not To)
Use Combine Images when the job is "put several existing pictures on one canvas in a predictable order" and you want the smallest, most private path. That covers before/after comparisons, thumbnail strips, storyboards, screenshot walls, and any task where the design itself is the layout choice rather than a hand-tuned composition layered with text, frames, or animation.
Stay inside Canva when you need typography, branded templates, animation across multiple frames, team commenting, or stock assets that live inside Canva's library. Canva is a full design environment; Combine Images is a single-purpose utility for one specific operation. Knowing which one matches the job saves you from forcing a Canva project into a task better served by a focused tool, and saves you from reaching for a one-off combiner when you actually want the full design surface.
Under the hood, the canvas drawing uses the browser's standard Canvas 2D context (see the CanvasRenderingContext2D drawImage reference on MDN) and exports via the HTMLCanvasElement toBlob PNG path. That keeps the rendering rules predictable — sharp pixels, alpha on supported inputs, and an opaque fill everywhere the background color was set — without leaning on any browser-specific trick.