Split an image into a grid
Split an image into a grid of separate pictures in Fil, for free. It finds the grid in a contact sheet, icon sheet or storyboard; set columns, rows and lines.
Grid cuts a picture made of several pictures into separate files: a contact sheet of headshots, a sheet of icons or stickers, a storyboard, a character sheet, or a run that drew four variations in one image. It finds the grid on its own, leaving out the gutters and the border, and each piece becomes a picture you can edit, upscale or turn into a video. Splitting runs in your browser and is free.
Split an image into a grid
- On a canvas, hover the picture and click the brush at its top right (Edit), or select its node and click Edit in the inspector.
- Click Split into grid ("Cut a grid of pictures apart · free"). The picture opens full screen on the Edit tab, with Grid picked in the rail on the left.
- Check what it found. The top left says so, such as "Found a 3 × 2 grid" (columns × rows). Each piece is numbered, in reading order, and what's left out, the gutters and the border, is dimmed.
- If the grid is wrong, fix it (see below).
- Click Split into 6 (the number is how many pictures you'll get), or press Enter.
The full view closes. The pieces land on the canvas beside the original, laid out as they were in the grid, and the canvas moves to show them. Each is a file node, headed Reference, named after the original and its place, such as Headshot sheet (1 of 6).jpg. The line beside the button says how many you'll get and, when they're all the same size, how large each one is.
Fix a grid that's found wrong
The grid is read from the picture's one-colour lines, so a sheet whose pictures touch, or whose gaps aren't all the same, can be read wrong. Here a sheet of twelve icons is found as 2 × 3, two icons to a picture:
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Columns and Rows | − and + set how many, from 1 to 8 each. A number other than the one found splits the picture evenly |
| A line | Drag a line between two pieces to move it |
| As found | Puts back the grid it found, gutters and border left out |
Back on the number it found, a side uses the lines it found again. As found shows only when a grid was found; with none, the picture starts as 2 × 2 and you set it. With fewer than two pieces, the button reads Split and the bar says "Add columns or rows to split it."
Where the pictures go
- On a canvas: new picture nodes beside the original, in the grid's layout, selected so you can move them together.
- In the Library or the Image view: open the picture full size (the expand icon on its tile, View full size), click the Edit tab and Grid. The pieces are saved to your Library, and the Library opens.
Pieces are JPEGs, or PNGs where the picture is see-through, so a sheet of stickers on transparency keeps it. Each is kept within your plan's file size: 1 MB on Free, 10 MB on Starter, 50 MB on Pro and 100 MB on Max, made a little smaller if it has to be.
Tips and limits
- Ask for sheets that split cleanly: "a 3 by 2 contact sheet with thin white borders" gives even gutters that are easy to find.
- It finds up to 6 columns and 6 rows on its own; set up to 8 of each by hand.
- Only the lines between pieces can be dragged; the border it found stays when you change the counts. If the border is read wrong, crop the original first, or a piece afterwards.
- An SVG made in code has only Inpaint, not Grid.
- To pull apart things that overlap, such as a product and its background, use Split into layers instead.
What's next
- Image editing: every tool in the Edit tab.
- Change the camera angle: reshoot one of the pieces from another side.
- Upscale and remove the background: make a piece larger, or cut it out.
- Video generation: turn a storyboard frame into a clip.