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Tips & tricks.

The expanded version of what's in the app. The kind of stuff I learned the hard way and figured I'd write down so you don't have to.

01Source images

Use clean grid sheets

Ask your AI image generator for an exact grid size like 3×3 or 4×4 with even spacing. The cleaner the layout, the cleaner the slice — Smart Slice can recover from minor unevenness, but if your generator drops a column-and-a-half on one side, you'll be dragging dividers manually.

White or pastel backgrounds

Pure white backgrounds work best with Remove BG mode. Pastels work too — bump the tolerance slider higher to catch them. If your background is a gradient or has texture, switch to Smart subject mode (Vision-based) instead.

Keep subjects inside cells

Avoid art that bleeds to the edge of each grid cell — the slicer adds a small inset that could trim parts of the subject. If you need bleed, ask the AI for a 5% inner margin around each subject.

Skip the word "sticker" in AI prompts

Ask the AI image model for a grid of characters or illustrations on a clean white background. Mentioning "sticker" often makes the model draw thick white outlines around each subject — those bake into the artwork and can't be cleanly separated from the real background.

See the prompts page for prompts I've actually tested.

02Background removal

Smart subject for photos

Use Smart subject when the source is photographic — people, animals, real objects. Vision detects the foreground using on-device ML. Works best when the subject contrasts cleanly with the background.

Remove BG for illustrations

Use Remove BG for hand-drawn or AI-generated art on white. It floods the white away while preserving interior whites — the white inside letters or eyes stays intact, the white around the subject goes.

Tolerance per tile

Some tiles have slightly different shades of off-white (especially on AI-generated sheets where each cell was rendered with subtle compression artifacts). Use the per-tile tolerance slider on the Refine stage to dial each one in. The slider is right under the tile preview; you don't need to commit a global value.

Erase brush for the stuff that slips through

One stray pixel? Open the tile, switch to the erase brush, and clean it manually. Undo if you slip. The brush sits where your thumb is — there's a lefty/righty toggle in Settings if the default doesn't match you.

03Outline & smoothing

Thinner for detailed art

Lower the stroke width to 4–6px when subjects have fine lines or small features. Heavy strokes can swallow detail — your character's whiskers or tiny accessories get absorbed into the outline.

Thicker for chunky cartoons

Bigger strokes (10–16px) work for chibi or cartoon styles where the silhouette is the main visual. The outline becomes part of the design language.

Smooth corners is slow but worth it

Smooth corners traces vector contours (1–2 seconds per tile) for clean curves. Worth it for organic shapes — characters, animals, anything with curves. Overkill for sharp icons or pixel art where the staircase is the aesthetic.

04Grid customization

Drag dividers to adjust

After picking a grid size, drag the white handles in the source preview to align lines with your sheet's actual cell boundaries. Each row and column moves independently — you don't need the grid to be perfectly even.

Reset if it gets messy

The Reset button restores even spacing if you've nudged dividers off-track. No harm done; you can drag again from the clean baseline.

05Animation

Aim for 8–24 frames

Sticker loops feel best around 1–2 seconds. 8–10 frames at 8–10 FPS reads as a subtle idle; 12–18 frames at 12 FPS suits reactions. WhatsApp's 10-second ceiling is a hard cliff, not a target — stay well under it.

More frames = bigger files

Animated WebP scales roughly linearly with frame count. WhatsApp rejects stickers over 500 KB — detailed art can hit that ceiling around 30–40 frames at 512×512. GridSticker drops frames or dials down quality automatically before it overshoots, but you'll get a cleaner result if you start lean.

Long-press to drop frames

On the Refine frame line, long-press a tick to dim it and exclude that frame from the export. Long-press it again to bring the frame back. Useful for trimming an imported GIF down to just the keepers without re-importing.

Animated stickers go to WhatsApp + Photos. Telegram animated needs WebM/VP9 with alpha, which isn't shipped yet. As a workaround, save individual stickers as animated GIF, then DM them to @Stickers on Telegram — the bot converts GIFs to Telegram-spec WebM server-side.

06Pack workflow

Build from multiple images

Use Add more on the Pack stage to keep building from another source image. Mix character sheets and reaction packs in one set. The pack stays open until you export it — there's no time limit on the workflow.

Tap to deselect duds

Tap any tile in the Pack grid to deselect it. WhatsApp packs need 3–30 selected stickers; Telegram allows 1–120. The validation banner above the pack tray tells you exactly what's blocking each destination.

Press-and-hold to inspect

Press and hold any tile in the Pack grid to view it fullscreen. Release to dismiss. Useful for catching a tile with a stray pixel before you export.

07Export

Add Stickers to… menu

The green button on the Pack stage opens a menu with every destination — WhatsApp, Telegram, animated GIF (when applicable), Save to Photos, Share. Each menu item greys out independently when the current pack doesn't satisfy that destination's rules.

WhatsApp pack limits

WhatsApp packs need 3–30 stickers, can't mix static and animated, and animated packs cap out at 10 seconds total runtime. The WhatsApp menu item greys out when any of those rules don't fit; the validation banner above the pack tray spells out exactly what's blocking.

Telegram (static for now)

Telegram packs allow 1–120 static stickers and don't have a 3-sticker minimum like WhatsApp — solo stickers work. Each export creates a new Telegram pack; Telegram asks you to name it after the handoff.

iMessage stickers

Pick Share… from the menu to send selected tiles to iOS Stickers (iMessage). On iOS 17+, the share sheet shows an Add Sticker option that adds them to your personal library. Works one tile at a time — pick the ones you actually use, not your whole pack.

Save to Photos for everything else

Photos export keeps full hi-res PNG with alpha. Use these in any app that takes transparent PNGs — manual uploads to Telegram's @Stickers, Discord servers, third-party sticker tools, or Cricut Design Space for Print-then-Cut projects.