Pixen

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

Layers and Filters

Take advantage of the flexibility layers provide when working with complex pixel art. Change opacities, blend modes, and more to compose creative effects. Use filters to adjust colors, create effects, and post-process your artwork.

Tools

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. You can even assign a different tool to the left and right mouse button. For example: pencil on the left; eraser on the right.

Color Palettes

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.

Animations

Create and arrange image frames in the filmstrip view to piece together animations. Pixen can import animations from animated GIFs, animated PNGs, and even sprite sheets! It can also export animations as animated GIFs, animated PNGs, movies, and sprite sheets.

Grid and Alignment Crosshair

Take advantage of Pixen's grid tools to guide you in placing pixels just where you want them.

Patterns

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

Preview

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.

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.