Editable freehand drawing
Draw a contour in one or several strokes with Vector Pencil. Auto-fill fills it when the outline closes. Add or move points and bend segments while keeping the strokes and linked fill editable.
Features
Draw freehand contours you can reshape later, paint individual pixels and animate your artwork frame by frame.
Editable drawing
Lines, curves & shapes
Draw straight lines, Bézier curves, rectangles, ellipses and 2:1 isometric diamonds. Adjust their geometry, stroke width, color and opacity before rasterizing.
Point and curve editing
Move, nudge or delete selected points and adjust their handles. Pull a segment into a curve while keeping its endpoints in place.
Live fills
Fill regions bounded by editable paths; the color follows the boundaries as you reshape them.
Connected paths
Continue, join and close compatible paths, mixing straight and curved segments in one outline.
Editable originals
Save editable shapes and paths in native projects. Rasterize them when you need to paint directly on their pixels.
Pixel painting
Pencil & Eraser
Draw and erase pixels with adjustable tips and optional pen pressure. Hold E for quick corrections, or choose transparency to erase with your Pencil tip.
Custom brushes
Paint with custom stamps and adjustable spacing. Enlarge tips in whole-number steps to preserve their pixel pattern. Organize collections and exchange PNG, GBR or collection ZIPs.
Pixel-Perfect strokes
Remove extra corner pixels from 1 px Pencil, Eraser and Vector Pencil strokes without blurring the artwork.
Symmetry
Mirror strokes horizontally, vertically or both, around a center you can reposition.
Auto-fill
Close a raster contour with Pencil and fill the newly enclosed area as you finish the stroke.
Color and palettes
Color selection
Sample artwork, set exact RGB, HSL, hex and opacity values, or choose transparency directly in Color Chooser and Palette.
Document palettes
Keep up to 256 named RGBA colors; reorder, edit, import or export GPL/PAL palettes.
Palette library
Save reusable palettes, revisit recent choices and set a favorite palette for new documents.
Palette-based Shading
Build an ordered color sequence and preview substitutions before shading existing pixels. Unselected colors stay unchanged.
Fill
Fill regions formed by pixels and open editable paths without rasterizing your paths. Control tolerance, connectivity and visible-layer sampling.
Gradients & dithering
Create linear gradients with smooth transitions or two-color Bayer 2×2, 4×4 and 8×8 patterns.
Filters
Replace Color
Swap a color in pixel artwork. Adjust tolerance to include similar colors and preview the result on the canvas.
Palette Remap
Recolor a pixel layer using your document palette, with optional Bayer dithering.
Gradient Map
Choose palette colors from shadows to highlights to recolor a pixel layer by brightness.
Seamless Offset
Wrap pixels across the canvas edges. Shift by half the canvas to bring seams into view for touch-ups.
Outline
Add an inside or outside outline on the active pixel layer, or create separate outline layers for sprites and animation frames.
Frame animation
Frame editing
Duplicate or delete selected frames together, reorder frames and adjust timing. Clear raster contents while keeping the frames.
Sprite sheet import
Turn strips or grids into editable animation frames. Preview the slicing, adjust margins and spacing, and choose whether to keep empty frames.
Onion skins
See neighboring drawings while working on the current frame to keep motion consistent.
Timing & playback
Set individual frame durations and preview your animation in a continuous loop.
Per-frame artwork
Vary pixels, paths, live fills, positions, layer visibility and opacity from frame to frame.
Edit frames together
Duplicate frames, adjust timing and move raster cels in groups. Export only the frames and layers you select.
Selections & transformations
Rectangle & Lasso
Isolate a region; move its border, add, subtract, intersect, invert or restore selections without changing pixels.
Magic Wand
Select connected or global matching colors with tolerance, diagonal connectivity and visible-layer sampling.
Move & duplicate
Cut and move selected pixels by dragging or keyboard nudges, reposition raster layers, duplicate, or copy and paste details.
Automatic layer targeting
See which raster layer is under your pointer before moving it. Enable Auto-Select to select it as you drag.
Free Transform
Preview scaling, rotation, flips, skew and corner distortion before applying them to raster artwork.
Pixel-art resampling
Choose Nearest Neighbor or RotSprite for raster transformations without blending new colors.
Image resizing
Resize the whole image with Nearest Neighbor while keeping native paths editable.
Canvas framing
Crop to a chosen ratio and choose whether to delete pixels outside the crop. Extend the canvas or trim transparent margins across all frames. Editable paths stay editable.
Layers & workspace
Layers & folders
Organize Pixels and Paths layers with folders, thumbnails, multiselection, drag-and-drop, visibility and locks.
Free Canvas
Arrange floating tools, colors, palettes, brushes and layers around your drawing. Fold each module in place and return to your docked workspace with Tab. Hide unused modules while keeping their positions.
Independent Preview
Check your artwork at 1×, 2×, 3×, 4× or Fit while keeping the canvas zoomed in.
Flexible panels
Arrange panels and save window positions or tool shortcuts. Choose from seven languages, including Portuguese for Brazil and Portugal and Spanish for Spain and Latin America. Appearance can be Dark, Light or System.
Blend modes
Combine layers with opacity and ten modes, including Multiply, Screen, Overlay, Color and Luminosity.
Merge & rasterize
Merge down, combine selected layers or groups, or merge visible artwork. Convert editable content to pixels and use Undo to restore it.
Canvas navigation
Zoom around your pointer, pan the drawing or use drag zoom to inspect details while keeping your artwork unchanged.
Pixel Grid
Count individual pixels and inspect contours with a high-zoom overlay that stays out of Preview and exports.
Construction grids
Align drawings with configurable rectangular or 2:1 isometric guides, with independent snapping for new lines and shapes.
Repeat View
Spot seams with neighboring copies along either axis. Pencil and Eraser can draw across repeated edges.
Multiple documents
Work across document tabs and open native files directly in the same editor window.
Import & export
Import
- Photoshop PSD/PSB. Open supported layered files and Frame Animations, retaining pixels, timing and supported per-frame layer states.
- Aseprite ASE/ASEPRITE. Bring supported sprites and animations with their layers, palette and frame durations.
- PNG & JPEG. Open existing images as a starting point for new pixel artwork.
Export
- Photoshop & Aseprite. Export supported layered artwork and animations as PSD/PSB or ASE/ASEPRITE.
- PNG & JPEG. Export the current frame or first selected frame, with crisp 2×/4×/8× scaling. PNG preserves transparency.
- Animated GIF. Share a loop with transparency and optional dithering.
- Sprite sheets. Arrange frames in strips or a grid, with adjustable margins and spacing.
- PNG sequences. Export lossless frame images with a timing manifest.
Compatibility covers supported subsets, not every source-app feature. Photoshop masks, effects, text and Smart Objects, and Aseprite tilemaps are unsupported. Aseprite export cannot retain changing per-frame layer visibility or opacity. Paths and live fills rasterize in external copies; native projects keep them editable.
Saving & recovery
Native projects
Save layers, palettes, editable paths, live fills, frames and timing together in .pxlithra files.
Shared undo & redo
Revisit drawing, geometry, colors, layers, transforms and animation edits in one history.
Document recovery
Restore periodic snapshots after an interruption, keeping the original file intact.
Windows & licensing
Portable & offline
Run the portable Windows application and work offline after itch.io ownership activation.
Permanent license
One payment, all tools and future updates included. Try every tool free for 15 days.
Free for students
Students can request a free permanent license with all tools and future updates, and keep it after their studies. Apply for a student license →