CanvasRenderingContext2D.globalCompositeOperation

The CanvasRenderingContext2D.globalCompositeOperation property of the Canvas 2D API sets the type of compositing operation to apply when drawing new shapes, where type is a string identifying which of the compositing or blending mode operations to use.

See also the chapter Compositing in the Canvas Tutorial.

Syntax

ctx.globalCompositeOperation = type;

Types

Examples

Using the globalCompositeOperation property

This is just a simple code snippet using the globalCompositeOperation property to draw two rectangles that exclude themselves where they overlap.

HTML

<canvas id="canvas"></canvas>

JavaScript

var canvas = document.getElementById('canvas');
var ctx = canvas.getContext('2d');

ctx.globalCompositeOperation = 'xor';

ctx.fillStyle = 'blue';
ctx.fillRect(10, 10, 100, 100);

ctx.fillStyle = 'red';
ctx.fillRect(50, 50, 100, 100);

Edit the code below and see your changes update live in the canvas:

Specifications

Specification	Status	Comment
WHATWG HTML Living Standard The definition of 'CanvasRenderingContext2D.globalCompositeOperation' in that specification.	Living Standard
Compositing and Blending Level 1	Candidate Recommendation

Browser compatibility

WebKit/Blink-specific notes

• In WebKit- and Blink-based Browsers, a non-standard and deprecated method ctx.setCompositeOperation() is implemented besides this property.
• Support for "plus-darker" and "darker" were removed in Chrome 48. Developers looking a replacement should use "darken".

Gecko-specific notes

• An early Canvas specification draft specified the value "darker". However, Firefox removed support for "darker" in version 4 (bug 571532). See also this blog post that suggests to use the difference value to achieve a similar affect to "darker".

See also

• The interface defining it, CanvasRenderingContext2D
• CanvasRenderingContext2D.globalAlpha