Pixen is a professional pixel art editor for iOS, designed for working with low-resolution raster art such as those 8-bit sprites found in old-school video games. Pixen packs all the tools pixel artists need in an intuitive, native interface including support for high zoom levels, animation editing, color palettes, and a lot more.
The Pixen experience starts in the Projects Gallery, which allows you to manage all of your creations in one place.
You can import and export files in various file formats including PNG, JPEG, GIF, ICO, BMP, TIFF, SVG, and PSD. Files can be imported from your Photos library, the Files app, or even the clipboard.
Pixen for macOS users can also take advantage of seamless iCloud sync. When you're ready, you can share your creations with friends and even export sprite sheets.
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.
All of Pixen's tools are fully compatible with Apple Pencil on iPad. You can take advantage of the double-tap gesture on Apple Pencil 2 to quickly switch to your last tool, switch to the eraser, or bring up the color picker. Pixen even has hover support when using Apple Pencil Pro, so you can see a preview of what you're about to draw before your Apple Pencil touches the screen.
With Pixen, you can add and organize commonly-used colors into palettes. Pixen can also import and export color palettes in the Adobe Color Table, Microsoft Palette, JASC Palette, and GIMP Palette formats. You can even perform palette operations such as sorting colors, removing duplicate colors, and more, directly in the app.
Create and arrange image frames in the filmstrip view to piece together animations. Pixen can import animated PNGs, animated GIFs, and sprite sheets. It can export animations as animated GIFs, animated PNGs, movies, image sequences, and sprite sheets!
Take advantage of Pixen's grid tools to guide you in placing pixels just where you want them.
Define custom patterns to use while drawing with the Pencil, Line, or Eraser tool (instead of a single pixel). You can even import patterns from 1-bit images.
While editing at high zoom levels, use the Preview feature to view the canvas scaled out. You can even play back animations and tile small images when working on patterns.
Sync your creations with Pixen for Mac over iCloud and resume your work right where you left off, regardless of device.
Take advantage of the flexibility of layers and change opacities, blend modes, and more to compose creative effects.
Invert colors, convert to grayscale, dither, apply sepia tone, remove alpha components, palettize, adjust hue, exposure, brightness, contrast, and more.
Pixel Perfect mode removes extra pixels while drawing such that any drawn paths are at most 1 pixel in width. In other words, it removes the middle pixel of an L shape.
Pick a flat, striped, or checkered background to be drawn beneath the canvas, or set a reference image.
If you use your iPad with a keyboard, increase productivity with Pixen's wide array of keyboard shortcuts.
Export your artwork in PNG, JPEG, GIF, ICO, BMP, TIFF, SVG, and PSD file formats.
Share your creations quickly and easily via AirDrop, Messages, email, and more!
Adjust the position of Pixen's layers panel, pick alternate app icons, customize the Apple Pencil 2 double-tap gesture, and more.
Pixen is carefully designed for iOS and built with native technologies such as Core Animation, Core Image, and UIKit to take full advantage of what iOS and iPad have to offer.
★★★★★
Amazing for a new
artist, deserves your attention
I just recently got into pixel art. As a software developer I've always wanted to make games but felt lost when it came to creating assets. Pixen takes that fear away. It provides a great workflow when switching between the mobile and desktop versions, and all of the tools you need are just right there.
- App Store review
We hope you enjoy Pixen, the best pixel art editor for iPad! Be sure to also check out Pixen for macOS.
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