PTF Studio 1.0

PTF Studio

Version 1.0 · Build 2026.07.17

A portable PSP PTF theme maker, editor, live viewer, and exporter for the modding community.

Created byBlue

DevelopmentWith the assistance of ChatGPT

TestingBlue and community testers

RuntimeDependency-free browser build

Credits

Created by Blue with the use and assistance of ChatGPT.

Third-party libraries

No external runtime libraries are bundled. PTF Studio uses standard browser APIs, including its built-in legacy LZR/RLZ decoder.

Project home: github.com/S1implyBlue/PTF-Studio

PSP PTF Design Guide

Dimensions, formats, transparency, focus artwork, and hardware limits

Required asset dimensions

Asset	Canvas	Notes
Category icon	64 × 48 px	No separate focus image.
First-level icon	48 × 48 px	Keep transparent padding inside the full canvas.
First-level focus	64 × 64 px	Matching 48 × 48 icon centred with 8 px space on each side.
Second-level icon	32 × 32 px	Used in nested XMB menus.
Second-level focus	48 × 48 px	Matching 32 × 32 icon centred with 8 px space on each side.
Preview icon	16 × 16 px	Keep the design extremely simple at this size.
Preview image	300 × 170 px	Theme preview shown by the PSP theme selector.
Wallpaper	480 × 272 px	Native PSP screen resolution.

Image format and palette limits

Use transparent PNG artwork while designing. PTF Studio converts supported assets to PSP-compatible indexed GIM data during export.
Icon artwork is limited to an indexed palette of no more than 256 RGBA entries. Complex gradients can band or dither after conversion.
Keep fully transparent pixels transparent and avoid hidden coloured pixels outside the visible artwork.
Use Import only for artwork already matching the exact canvas size. Use Downscale & Import for larger artwork.
Downscaling preserves the complete canvas and transparent borders. It does not trim to visible pixels or enlarge undersized artwork.

PSP-safe focus artwork

Focus graphics should be an outer white halo stored mainly in the alpha channel, not a second coloured copy of the icon.
Keep the original icon silhouette centred and leave 8 px of transparent room around it.
Use restrained blur and opacity. Heavy glow, glass effects, and complex transparency consume palette entries and may break or degrade on hardware.
Generated focuses are validated for dimensions, palette count, transparency, GIM round-trip, and final theme size before being accepted.

Design recommendations

Design with bold silhouettes, clean edges, and limited colour ramps. Tiny details often disappear on the PSP LCD.
Preview artwork against both dark and bright wallpapers. White XMB labels need sufficient contrast.
Do not crop transparent margins from icon canvases; PSP alignment depends on the full canvas, not only visible pixels.
Test the exported PTF on real hardware. The live viewer closely recreates the XMB but is not firmware emulation.

Theme limits and common failures

Keep the final PTF below approximately 768 KB. Large focus sets and complex palettes can exceed the practical PSP limit.
Do not invent unsupported record IDs. Later or model-specific XMB items should use the Default/Fallback icon where the PTF format has no safe dedicated slot.
Never overwrite the only copy of a working theme. Export to a new file and verify it on the PSP first.

Project support and bug reports: PTF Studio on GitHub

Export PSP PTF Theme

Review metadata, choose the output filename, and validate the theme before export

Output filename

The .ptf extension is added automatically when omitted.

Theme title

Product ID

Letters, numbers, hyphens, and underscores only.

Version

Theme colour

Choose Monthly / automatic or a fixed January–December colour.

Waiting for validation PTF Studio will verify metadata, assets, compression, and final file size.

—

I confirm that I reviewed the validation results and want to export this theme.

Focus Generator

Create PSP focus glows from normal icons

Select a body icon first

Target

Generation mode

Focus RGB

Opacity 90%

Halo blur radius 6 px

Sony canvas margin 8 px

Select a target to preview the matching icon pairs.

PSP-safe mode follows Sony's focus workflow: the body stays at native size, is centred with an 8 px transparent margin, the sharp core is removed, RGB remains pure white, and glow strength is stored in a maximum 64-entry alpha palette. The theme is rebuilt and checked against the 768 KB limit before changes are accepted.

Theme Analysis

Palette, dimensions, compression and estimated export size

Run analysis to inspect every asset.

Asset	Size	Colors	Raw	Packed	Compression	Status

Theme Variants

Export several colour editions from one project

Variant name

Theme color

Optional icon tint

Tint strength 0%

No variants added.

A 0% tint changes only metadata and preserves imported resources. Higher tint strengths re-encode icon assets while keeping their alpha transparency.

Import asset

Choose how the image should be handled.

Images smaller than the required canvas are not enlarged automatically.

Asset Maker

Create PSP-ready icons, focus graphics, wallpapers, and preview assets

First-level icon · 48 × 48px 0 / 256 colors

Drag layers directly on the canvas. Drop an image file here to add it as a new layer.