Animation support with customizable frame times and blending.
Audience & Benefit:
Ideal for digital artists, pixel art enthusiasts, game developers, educators, and designers who need a precise and flexible toolset to create detailed pixel art projects. KPix simplifies the process of generating color ramps, shading, and animations while maintaining artistic control.
KPix can be installed via winget.
README
KPix: A pixel art creation tool.
Application Screenshot, Artwork created by krush62, inspired by the Stephen King Novel "Under the Dome"
🖌️ Pen
💠 Shape
🔠 Text
🪣 Fill
💮 Stamp
➖ Line / Bézier Curve
💦 Spray Can
Shading
The drawing tools work directly (using the selected color) or in shading mode. In shading mode, the affected colors on the canvas are brightened/darkened based on the current color ramp.
Generative Palette
A palette consists of multiple independent color ramps. Each ramp can have an arbitrary amount of shades (colors). These shades are controlled by parameters:
KPix uses its own kpix format for storing project files. The file format documentation can be found here.
Export Formats
🖼️ Image Formats
Projects can be exported to uncompressed images including transparency. Integer scaling is supported.
png
📱 Application Formats
Projects can be exported for usage in other applications. Special Layers will be either omitted (reference, grid) or merged (shading, dither).
Application
Extension
Mode
Layers
Palette Inclusion
Aseprite
aseprite
indexed
✅
✅
Gimp
xcf
indexed
✅
✅
Pixelorama
pxo
rgba
✅
❌
🎨 Palette Formats
Palettes can be exported for usage in other applications.
png
aseprite (Aseprite)
gpl (Gimp)
txt (Paint.NET)
ase (Adobe)
pal (JASC)
xml (Corel)
soc (Star/Open/Libre Office)
json (Pixelorama)
🎥 Animation Formats
Animation projects can be exported to the following formats
apng
gif
zipped png images
Import Formats
Due to its unique way of having parameterized color ramps, an import of other formats always needs the creation of parameterized color ramps from the image's colors.
Any import is an approximation and will never exactly match the colors given in the original image.
The following raster image formats are supported: bmp, jpg, gif (first frame) and png.
🎮Controls
This application supports input by mouse/keyboard, touch screen and stylus.
The complete control table can be found here.
Quick Start
ACTION
MOUSE
TOUCH
STYLUS
use tool
left click
one finger
down
move canvas
middle click + move
two finger move
button press + move
zoom canvas
mouse wheel
two finger pinch
button long press + move up/down
color pick / switch shading direction
right click
---
quick button down and up
💾Installation
🪟Windows
Download from GitHub
Windows Installer (.exe) and Package (.zip) versions can be found at latest releases.
Installer
Download and run the provided Windows installer. The application can be easily uninstalled and a file association is created.
Package
This is a portable version. Extract the contents of the Windows Zip Package and run kpix.exe to start the application.
Install via WinGet
Open a terminal (cmd or PowerShell) and run the following command: winget install --id krush62.kpix
🐧Linux
Linux AppImage and Tarball (.tar.gz) versions can be found at latest releases.
This version needs to have libgtk-3-0, libblkid1 and liblzma5 installed and for file/directory selection, zenity, qarma or kdialog is needed.
AppImage
Just run the AppImage file from the Desktop or Terminal.
Package
Extract the contents of the tar.gz Package and run kpix to start the application.
Download the Android apk file and install it manually (side-loading needs to be enabled).
Even though, the apk can be installed on any device with the minimum required Android version, the application is designed for tablets (preferably with a stylus). The manifest file specifies the supported screen sizes and densities.
Web Version
A html/javascript version can be found at kpix.cloud. The web version has some limitations:
General performance is lower compared to the native versions
No project manager (simple load and save via up/download)
Application Screenshot, Artwork created by krush62, inspired by the Stephen King Novel "Under the Dome"
