Pixen

pixel art and animation editor

Pixen is a professional pixel art editor designed for working with low-resolution raster art, such as those 8-bit sprites found in old-school video games. With features including a unique color palette system, patterns, layers, and high-zoom support, Pixen packs all the tools pixel artists need in an intuitive, native interface. Pixen also makes creating frame-by-frame animations fun and easy.

Pixen for macOS:

Purchase Direct Purchase in the Mac App Store Twitter Support

New Pixen for iOS (iPad):

Purchase in the iPad App Store Twitter Support

Animations

Create and arrange image frames in the filmstrip view to piece together animations. Pixen can import animated PNGs and GIFs, and it can export animations as animated GIFs, QuickTime Movies, or even spritesheets!

Tools Updated

Leverage Pixen's wide array of tools when composing pixel art: Pencil, Eraser, Brightness, Text, Eyedropper, Zoom, Rectangular Selection, Magic Wand, Lasso, Move, Fill, Line, Rectangle, and Ellipse.

Layers Updated

Take advantage of the flexibility layers provide when working with complex pixel art. Change opacity, blending modes, and more to compose creative effects.

Color Palettes

Add and organize commonly-used colors into palettes. Pixen can even import color palettes in the Adobe Color Table, Microsoft Palette, JASC Palette, and GIMP Palette formats.

Patterns

Define custom patterns to use while drawing with the Pencil, Line, or Eraser tool (instead of a single pixel).

Custom Backgrounds

Pick a flat, striped, or checkered background to be drawn beneath the canvas. You can even set a reference image as a background.

Filters New

Use filters to adjust colors, create effects, and post-process your artwork.

Grid + Alignment Crosshair

Let the Grid and the Alignment Crosshair guide you in placing pixels just where you want them.

Preview Updated

While editing at high zoom levels, use the Preview window to view the canvas scaled out; play back animations in the Preview window. You can even mirror the Preview window to Pixen on Apple TV.

Left and Right Tools

Assign a different tool to the left and right mouse button. For example: pencil on the left; eraser on the right.

Pressure-sensitive Drawing Updated

Pixen supports pressure-sensitive drawing tablets and Force Touch trackpads, mapping pressure to color opacity.

Hotkeys

Customize tool hotkeys to ease the transition from other image editors.

Wide Format Support Updated

Export your artwork in PNG, JPEG, GIF, ICO, BMP, TIFF, RGF, and SVG file formats.

Sharing New

Share your creations quickly and easily using Twitter, Facebook, e-mail, and more!

Full Screen

Work with all your favorite tools in full screen mode.

View all changes in Pixen 4!