Image Emboss
Turn any image into a raised relief that looks pressed into metal or paper. The tool converts the picture to grayscale and applies a directional 3x3 emboss kernel, so flat areas become mid gray while edges facing the chosen light direction turn bright and the opposite sides turn dark. Pick one of eight light directions and a depth from 0.5 to 5 for subtle or deep embossing.
Frequently asked questions
How does the emboss effect work?
The image is converted to grayscale and filtered with a 3x3 kernel that subtracts the neighbors on the lit side from those on the shadow side. The result is shifted to mid gray, so areas without detail become gray and edges get a bright and a dark rim. This creates the illusion of raised shapes.
What does the light direction change?
It sets where the virtual light comes from: top left, top, top right, left, right, bottom left, bottom or bottom right. Edges that face the light become bright and edges facing away become dark. Top left is the default and matches the way most interfaces draw raised elements.
What does the depth setting do?
Depth multiplies the kernel weights from 0.5 to 5. Low values give a soft, subtle relief and high values give strong contrast between the lit and shaded rims. Very high depth clips many edges to pure white or black.
Why is the result gray?
Embossing deliberately removes color and keeps only the relief, with flat regions at a value of 128. This is the classic emboss look and it works well as a texture or bump map. To bring color back, layer the result over the original in an editor with an overlay or soft light blend.
Is transparency preserved?
Yes, the alpha channel of the original is kept, so transparent backgrounds stay transparent around the embossed shape. This is handy for logos and icons. The file is saved as PNG.
Which images give the best emboss?
Logos, text, coins, architecture and images with clear shapes and strong edges give a crisp relief. Very noisy or soft images produce a grainy, uneven surface. Increasing the depth helps with low contrast sources.
Can I use the result as a bump or normal map?
The embossed output is a grayscale height impression that many 3D and design tools accept as a bump map. It is not a true normal map, but it gives a convincing quick texture. Use a larger depth for stronger surface detail.
Which formats can I upload?
JPEG, PNG, GIF, WebP, TIFF and AVIF images up to 5 MB are accepted. Animated files use their first frame and images over 4000 pixels on a side are scaled down to fit. The result is a PNG.
Does the image size change?
No, the embossed image has the same width and height as the uploaded file after the 4000 pixel limit. Border pixels are filtered with the nearest available neighbors.
What engine is used?
The grayscale conversion runs in the tool itself and the emboss kernel is applied with the convolve operation of the sharp library on libvips. The process is deterministic and repeatable.