# Tools Every tool in the toolbar, what it does, its keyboard shortcut and its options. _Shortcuts are written for Windows and Linux. On a Mac, use ⌘ Cmd where they say Ctrl, and ⌥ Option for Alt._ The toolbar has 33 tools. Some share a button: a small corner mark shows a button holds more than one tool, and right-clicking it lists them. Pressing a shared button's key again switches to the next tool on it (for example, `B` picks the Pencil, pressing `B` again picks the Spray, then the Scatter and then the Dither). Each tool's settings appear in the tool options bar above the canvas, and each entry below links to them in [Tool options](https://pxstud.io/docs/manual/reference/tool-options.md). Each tool keeps its own brush size, shape and ink, so switching from the pencil to the eraser and back brings the pencil's brush back; turn off Settings > Remember Brush per Tool to share one brush between every tool. Your other settings are kept as you switch tools. ## How tools behave - **Left and right mouse buttons.** The left button draws with the foreground color and the right button with the background color. With the Shading ink, the right button steps the other way along the shade ramp. - **Alt picks a color.** Holding `Alt` over the canvas switches to the Eyedropper until you let go, except on tools that use Alt themselves: the selection tools, Magic Wand, Move, Hand, Line, Rectangle, Ellipse, Triangle, Hexagon, Star, Tile Stamp and Iso Shape. - **Selections and symmetry.** When part of the sprite is selected, painting stays inside the selection. With symmetry on, strokes and shapes are mirrored across the symmetry axes. - **Painting several cels at once.** Turn on **Paint across cels** in the tool options bar, then select cels in the timeline: each stroke, fill or shape you make on one of them lands on all of them, and one undo takes it all back. The badge next to the button says how far it reaches, for example "2 layers × 4 frames". While you draw you see the stroke on the cel you're painting; the others update when you let go. - **Snap to grid** (`Shift+S`) snaps shapes, lines, selections, slices and gradients to the document grid. A drag across cells covers them exactly, as in Aseprite: a rectangle or selection dragged over one 8×8 cell is 8×8, not 9×9. **Snap to guides** (`Ctrl+Shift+;`) snaps them onto a nearby [guide](https://pxstud.io/docs/manual/guides/selection.md#rulers-and-guides), which wins over the grid. - **Shapes and lines.** `Shift` makes a square, circle or square box (on the shorter side of the drag, as in Aseprite) and snaps a line's angle. `Alt` or `Ctrl` draws from the center: the point you pressed becomes the middle. Pressing or letting go of these keys mid-drag updates the shape straight away, except that on the Rectangle `Alt` pressed after the drag has begun rotates it instead. - **Straight lines from the last point.** Shift-click with any freehand tool (Pencil, Eraser, Dither, Spray, Scatter, Blur, Jumble, Dodge/Burn) draws a straight line from where the last freehand stroke ended, whichever tool made it and on whichever layer or frame. The stabilizer doesn't apply to that line, so it reaches the click. - **Locked and hidden layers** can't be painted on, including layers inside a locked or hidden group. - **Tilemap layers.** The pixel tools paint a tilemap layer's tiles in the Pixels modes; picking one while in Tiles mode switches back to Pixels. The Tile Stamp switches to Tiles mode. - **Tools with several steps** (Polygonal Lasso Selection, Polygon, Curve, Iso Shape) finish with `Enter` or a double-click. `Esc` cancels. The Text tool finishes with `Ctrl+Enter` instead, since `Enter` starts a new line. - **The tool wheel.** Hold `` ` `` (the backquote key, under `Esc`) and two rings of tools open around the pointer: the inner ring close by, the outer ring behind it with each icon between two inner ones. Move toward one and let go of the key to switch to it; letting go in the middle, or pressing `Esc`, changes nothing. Choose the tools and where they sit in Settings > Tool Wheel...: drag tools into the eight slots of each ring (slots may stay empty), drag one slot onto another to swap, and right-click a slot or drag it onto the trash at the end of its row to empty it. - **Borrowing a tool.** Turn on Settings > Hold Tool Keys to Borrow and a tool's key does two things: tapping it switches to the tool as usual, while holding it for a moment only borrows the tool, and letting go returns to the tool you had (hold `E` to erase, release to carry on with the pencil). It is off by default so that a key held while you think never changes the tool. - **Panning.** Hold `Space` and drag, or drag with the middle mouse button, with any tool (Space is the hand tool's quick key, as in Aseprite). While [keyboard drawing](https://pxstud.io/docs/manual/guides/accessibility.md#drawing-with-the-keyboard) is on, Space draws instead. ## Brush and ink options The drawing tools share their brush and ink options: the brush **Size** from 1 to 64 pixels (which the Spray, Scatter, Dither, Blur, Jumble and Dodge/Burn use too), **Brush shape** (square, circle, line, diamond, cross, X or star) and **Angle** (it turns the line and square), a **Custom brushes** button for the Brush Library (its built-in brushes and My Brushes), **Pixel-perfect**, **Dynamics** (a stabilizer, and pen pressure or speed mapped to size, angle and color; pen pressure to size is on from the start, and mouse and finger strokes ignore pressure) and the **Ink** with its **Shades**. Each tool's list, with the values and defaults, is in [Tool options](https://pxstud.io/docs/manual/reference/tool-options.md). ## Selection tools Double-click with any of them to select the grid cell under the pointer, and keep the button down after the second click to drag across more cells ([grid cells](https://pxstud.io/docs/manual/guides/selection.md#making-a-selection)). ### Rectangular Selection Shortcut: `M`. On the toolbar's Marquee Selection button, with Elliptical Selection. Drag to select a rectangular area; double-click selects a grid cell. Drag from one corner to the opposite one. Hold a key when you start to combine with the current selection, as in Aseprite: `Shift` adds to it, `Alt+Shift` (or just `Alt`) subtracts from it, and `Ctrl+Shift` keeps only the overlap. A click without a drag deselects. During the drag, `Shift` makes a square and `Ctrl` grows it from the point you pressed; a key you held when you started only does this once you press it again. **Radius** rounds the selection's corners, all four together or each on its own (see the Rectangle below); the marquee keeps its own radius, separate from the Rectangle's. ### Elliptical Selection Shortcut: `Shift+M`. On the toolbar's Marquee Selection button, with Rectangular Selection. Drag to select an elliptical area; Shift makes it a circle and double-click selects a grid cell. Works like the Rectangular Selection, with the same keys when you start and during the drag: `Shift` during the drag makes a circle and `Ctrl` grows it from the center. A click without a drag deselects. ### Lasso Selection Shortcut: `Q`. On the toolbar's Lasso Selection button, with Polygonal Lasso Selection. Drag a freehand outline to select the area inside it; double-click selects a grid cell. Drag around the area; the outline closes by itself when you let go. The keys combine with the current selection as above, and a click without a drag deselects. ### Polygonal Lasso Selection Shortcut: `Shift+Q`. On the toolbar's Lasso Selection button, with Lasso Selection. Click to place corners; double-click or press Enter to close the shape and select it. Each click adds a corner, and a line follows the pointer to show the next edge. Pressing and dragging before you let go adds two corners, where you pressed and where you let go, as in Aseprite. Double-click or press `Enter` to close the shape. `Esc` cancels. ### Magic Wand Shortcut: `W`. Click to select pixels of a similar color on the active layer; drag to add every area you pass over. Selects by color on the active layer only. **Contiguous** selects the connected area you click; **Global** selects every matching pixel on the layer. **Tolerance** (0 to 255) sets how different a color can be and still match. On an indexed sprite it matches palette indices instead: two entries of the same color are different, and Tolerance is how many indices apart a pixel may be. **8-connected** and **Stop at grid** work as with the paint bucket. These settings are the wand's own: changing them leaves the paint bucket's alone (in Aseprite the two share them). Press and drag to sweep: every area the pointer passes over joins one selection, the outline grows as you go, and letting go makes it a single step to undo. The wand ignores the current selection while it looks for matching pixels; the selection keys held as you press then combine the whole result with the current selection. A click outside the canvas does nothing. ## Drawing tools ### Pencil Shortcut: `B`. On the toolbar's Pencil button, with Spray, Scatter and Dither. Draw freehand with the current brush; right-drag draws with the background color. Drag to draw; the whole stroke is one undo step. Shift-click draws a straight line from where the last freehand stroke ended. In tiled view, strokes wrap around the edges. As in Aseprite, a tilted line brush skips pixel-perfect (removing corners would leave holes in its band). Options: brush size, shape and angle, pixel-perfect, ink and dynamics. On a tilemap layer, **Place tiles** puts the selected tile on the cells the stroke touches. ### Spray Shortcut: `Shift+B`. On the toolbar's Pencil button, with Pencil, Scatter and Dither. Spray random dots around the pointer, building up while you hold it. Holding the button still keeps spraying. **Rate** (1 to 64) sets how many dots each burst adds; moving, it sprays a burst per pixel of path, so a fast mouse or pen doesn't spray thicker. The spray's radius follows the brush size. ### Scatter Shortcut: `Alt+Shift+B`. On the toolbar's Pencil button, with Pencil, Spray and Dither. Stamp the brush along the path, each stamp nudged by a random offset: foliage, grass, sparkles. Drag to stamp the brush along your path, about one brush width apart, with each stamp landing at a random spot near the path: good for leaves, grass, sparkles and rubble, especially with a custom brush. **Scatter X** and **Scatter Y** (0 to 64 pixels) set how far a stamp can land to either side of the path and above or below it, and **Count** (1 to 16) sets how many stamps land at each step. With both offsets at 0 you get a dotted line. The whole stroke is one undo step, and unlike the spray, holding still adds nothing. Options: brush size, shape and angle, ink, Scatter X, Scatter Y and Count. ### Dither On the toolbar's Pencil button, with Pencil, Spray and Scatter. Draw freehand with the current brush, painting only the pixels of an ordered pattern (a checkerboard at 50%) and leaving the others as they are; right-drag paints the background color. Draws like the pencil, but paints only the pixels of an ordered pattern and leaves the pixels in between as they are, for dithered shading and textures. **Pattern** picks the pattern (Bayer 2×2, 4×4 or 8×8, halftone dots, horizontal, vertical or diagonal lines, or noise) and **Density** (0 to 100%) how much of it gets painted: 50% of Bayer 2×2 is a checkerboard, 100% paints every pixel. The pattern lines up with the sprite's top-left corner, not with your stroke, so strokes that overlap, mirrored strokes and other frames all stay on one pattern. With the brush preview on, the cursor shows the pixels a stroke would paint. Shift-click draws a straight line from where the last freehand stroke ended. Options: brush size, shape and angle, pixel-perfect, ink, dynamics, Pattern and Density. ### Eraser Shortcut: `E`. Erase pixels to transparent with the current brush. Erases to transparent with the current brush. Shift-click erases a straight line from the end of the last freehand stroke. The **Right-click** option chooses what the right button does: **Paint BG** paints the background color, and **Replace FG** turns only pixels of the foreground color into the background color. With a pen that has an eraser end, turn the pen over: the editor switches to the Eraser while the eraser end is on or over the canvas, and back to your tool once you draw with the tip again or move the pen away. A stroke always finishes with the tool it started with. ### Eyedropper Shortcut: `I`. Click to pick the foreground color from the canvas; right-click picks the background color. Click, or drag to keep picking as you move. Transparent pixels are skipped. **Composite** picks the color you see, from all visible layers; **Layer** picks from the active layer only. ## View tools ### Zoom Shortcut: `Z`. Click to zoom in on a point; right-click to zoom out. Each click zooms in a step, keeping the point under the pointer where it is (in tiled view too, on whichever copy you clicked); right-click zooms out. ### Hand Shortcut: `H`. Drag to pan the view. Drag to move the view. Double-click zooms in 2x; `Alt` and double-click zooms out. ## Moving and slicing ### Move Shortcut: `V`. Drag to move the selection or the whole cel; its handles scale, rotate and skew it, and Ctrl/Cmd-dragging a corner distorts it (add Shift for perspective). Drag inside to move the pixels; `Shift` keeps the move to one direction and `Alt` moves a copy. The handles transform them: - drag a corner or edge handle to scale (`Shift` keeps the proportions); - `Ctrl` and drag an edge handle to skew; - `Ctrl` and drag a corner handle to distort it on its own (add `Shift` for perspective); - drag just outside a corner to rotate (`Shift` snaps to 15° steps); - drag the dot in the middle to move the point everything turns and scales around. Press `Enter` or click outside to apply the change as one undo step, or `Esc` to cancel it. The options choose the rotation method (**Fast Rotation**, **RotSprite** or **Bilinear**) and place the pivot. Layers with locked movement can't be moved. The Move tool also drags [guides](https://pxstud.io/docs/manual/guides/selection.md#rulers-and-guides) (unless View > Guides > Lock Guides is on): drag one to move it, or off the canvas to remove it. With View > Guides > Snap to Guides on, moving lands the content's nearer edge on a guide in reach, and scaling and the pivot snap to guides too. ### Slice Shortcut: `Shift+C`. Drag to create a slice, a named region for export or 9-slice scaling; click a slice to edit it. Drag on an empty spot to make a slice; `Shift` makes it square. Click a slice to select it (`Shift` or `Ctrl` adds to the selection), then drag it, its handles, its 9-slice guides or its pivot. Double-click a slice to open its properties, or right-click it for its menu. Changes apply from the current frame on. ## Fill tools ### Paint Bucket Shortcut: `G`. On the toolbar's Paint Bucket button, with Gradient. Fill the clicked area, or every matching pixel, with the foreground color. **Contiguous** fills the connected area you click; **Global** recolors every matching pixel on the layer. **Tolerance** (0 to 255) sets how close a color must be to count as matching (on an indexed sprite, how close a palette index must be, as with the magic wand). Right-click fills with the background color. On a tilemap layer, **Place tiles** makes the bucket fill cells instead of pixels: Contiguous fills the connected cells holding the clicked cell's tile with the selected tile, Global every cell holding it (Tolerance and the other pixel options don't apply). With a selection, a Contiguous fill stays inside it: unselected pixels act as walls, so the fill doesn't flow from one selected area into another, and clicking outside the selection fills nothing. A Global fill recolors the matching pixels inside the selection wherever you click. **8-connected** (Contiguous only) also spreads to diagonal neighbors, so the fill leaks through 1 px diagonal lines; off, only up, down, left and right count as connected (Aseprite's default). **Stop at grid**, while the grid is shown, keeps the fill inside the grid cell you click. On an isometric grid that's the diamond the grid draws: it includes the line pixels along its two upper edges and stops at the lines along its lower edges, which belong to the diamonds below. A hexagonal grid works the same way: a hexagon includes the line pixels along its left side and its two upper edges. **Close gap** (0 to 5, Contiguous only) lets you fill a sketchy outline that isn't quite closed: gaps up to that many pixels wide count as closed, so the fill stops at them instead of leaking out, and the gap itself is filled. Keep it low on small shapes, where a high setting can also stop the fill at narrow necks inside the shape. **Pattern** fills with a repeating pattern of the foreground and background colors (Checker, Dither 25% and 75%, stripes, Diagonal, Grid, Dots, Bricks) instead of a solid color; right-click swaps the two. Patterns line up from the canvas's top-left corner, so fills next to each other match. ### Gradient Shortcut: `Shift+G`. On the toolbar's Paint Bucket button, with Paint Bucket. Drag from inside an area to fill it, as the bucket would, with a foreground-to-background gradient. Drag from where the gradient starts to where it ends; right-drag runs it the other way. Like the paint bucket, it fills only the area you start in: the connected area of the color you press on (or, with **Global**, every pixel of that color), with the bucket's **Tolerance**, **8-connected**, **Stop at grid** and **Close gap**, and inside the selection, so you can shade a shape without selecting it first. To fill the whole layer, use Global with Tolerance 255. With symmetry on, the mirrored areas get the same gradient. A fade to a transparent color keeps the other color and only fades it out. Options: **Linear** or **Radial**; **Colors**, either foreground to background (**FG → BG**) or through up to 32 **Stops** placed along the drag; **Dither** for a stepped pixel-art blend (Bayer 2×2, 4×4 or 8×8 checkers, halftone **Dots**, horizontal, vertical or diagonal **lines**, or an even **Noise** scatter); and **Snap**, where **Palette** paints only palette colors, so with Dither on the gradient steps between neighboring palette colors. To make a multi-color gradient, set **Colors** to **Stops**. The Stops bar shows the ramp, with a handle under it for each stop; its left end is where you start dragging on the canvas. - **Add** a stop: click the bar (it takes the foreground color), or drop a palette swatch on it. Shift+clicking a range of the palette loads the whole range, evenly spaced. - **Move** a stop: drag its handle. Stops can't pass each other, but two can meet for a hard edge between their colors. With a handle selected, the arrow keys nudge it (`Shift` for bigger steps). - **Recolor** a stop: drop a palette swatch on its handle, or select it and press **FG**. - **Remove** a stop: drag its handle well off the bar and let go, or select it and press `Del`. - **Even** spreads the stops out evenly; **Clear** removes them all. ### Tile Stamp Stamp the selected tile onto a tilemap layer's cells; Alt-drag removes tiles. Click or drag across a tilemap layer to place the selected tile in each cell you pass; `Alt` removes tiles instead. Flip and rotate the stamped tile with the **Flip H**, **Flip V** and **Rot 90°** options. Works on visible, unlocked tilemap layers. It mirrors with symmetry and stays inside a selection, as the other tools do when they **Place tiles** (see [Tilemaps](https://pxstud.io/docs/manual/guides/tilemaps.md#placing-tiles-with-other-tools)). ## Shape tools Pressing `U` repeatedly steps through the rectangle and ellipse, outlined and filled. `Shift+U` starts the same cycle from the ellipse. The triangle, hexagon and star have no key of their own: pick them from the Shape button's flyout, or give them one in Keyboard Shortcuts (pressing it again switches between outlined and filled). ### Rectangle Shortcut: `U`. On the toolbar's Shape button, with Ellipse, Triangle, Hexagon, Star and Iso Shape. Drag to draw a rectangle, outlined or filled. Drag from corner to corner; `Shift` makes a square and `Ctrl` draws from the center, as does `Alt` if it is already down when you press. Press `Alt` part-way through the drag to rotate the rectangle about its center: move the cursor around the center to turn it (`Shift` snaps to 15° steps), and let go of `Alt` to keep the angle and carry on sizing. A turned rectangle is painted as a four-corner polygon, so its corners are not rounded. Options: **Outline** or **Filled**, and **Radius** to round the corners. With the link button on, one Radius sets all four corners; turn it off for a field per corner (top-left, top-right, bottom-right, bottom-left), so you can round just one side or make a tab or a speech bubble. ### Ellipse Shortcut: `Shift+U`. On the toolbar's Shape button, with Rectangle, Triangle, Hexagon, Star and Iso Shape. Drag to draw an ellipse, outlined or filled. Drag the box the ellipse fits in; `Shift` makes a circle and `Alt` or `Ctrl` draws from the center. The pixels are Aseprite's, so an ellipse always touches all four sides of its box, and the circle brush is the same filled circle. Options: **Outline** or **Filled**. ### Triangle On the toolbar's Shape button, with Rectangle, Ellipse, Hexagon, Star and Iso Shape. Drag to draw a triangle pointing up, outlined or filled. Drag the box the triangle fits in: it points up, with its base along the bottom of the box. `Shift` makes the box square and `Alt` or `Ctrl` draws from the center. Options: **Outline** or **Filled**. ### Hexagon On the toolbar's Shape button, with Rectangle, Ellipse, Triangle, Star and Iso Shape. Drag to draw a flat-topped hexagon, outlined or filled. Drag the box the hexagon fits in: its flat sides run along the top and bottom of the box. `Shift` makes the box square and `Alt` or `Ctrl` draws from the center. Options: **Outline** or **Filled**. ### Star On the toolbar's Shape button, with Rectangle, Ellipse, Triangle, Hexagon and Iso Shape. Drag to draw a five-pointed star, outlined or filled. Drag the box the five-pointed star fits in: it points up and its outer points touch every side of the box. `Shift` makes the box square and `Alt` or `Ctrl` draws from the center. Options: **Outline** or **Filled**. ### Iso Shape Shortcut: `K`. On the toolbar's Shape button, with Rectangle, Ellipse, Triangle, Hexagon and Star. Draw an isometric box, ramp, stairs, pyramid, prism, cylinder, cone, sphere or dome, adjust it with its handles, then press Enter. 1. Drag from the shape's back corner to its front corner to set its footprint. `Shift` keeps it square; hold `Alt` to freeze the footprint and move the pointer up or down to set the height. A click without dragging places a shape the size of the last one. 2. Adjust it: drag a handle to change that dimension (`Shift` scales all three together), drag the shape to move it, or nudge it with the arrow keys. 3. Press `Enter` or double-click to draw it. Clicking elsewhere also draws it; `Esc` throws it away. Pressing `K` again switches the shape. Options: - **Shape:** Box, Ramp, Stairs, Pyramid, Prism (a roof), Cylinder, Cone, Sphere or Dome. The round shapes (cylinder, cone, sphere, dome) have a circular footprint, so their two side handles both set the diameter. The cone rises to a point and the dome to a rounded top at the height you set. A sphere's height follows its width, so it has no height handle. - **Cap:** the width of the flat tip at the top and bottom corners, 2 (pointed) to 4 (flat). - **Bevel** (boxes): chamfers the top edges by that many pixels, so a slope runs between the top and the sides. 0 keeps the edges square. - **Style:** fill and outline, fill only, or outline only. In outline style, **Show back edges** draws the hidden edges too. - **Rotate 90°** turns ramps, stairs and prisms to slope the other way. - **Auto-shade from foreground:** the top face uses the foreground color and the sides are shaded darker, following the Shades ramp when the color is on it. Turn it off to pick the outline, inner edge and face colors yourself. The shape follows the sprite's isometric grid ratio (2:1 unless you change it). ### Contour Shortcut: `D`. On the toolbar's Contour button, with Polygon. Drag a freehand outline; it closes by itself and its inside is filled. Fills the shape you drag, outline included. The shape needs at least three points. ### Polygon Shortcut: `Shift+D`. On the toolbar's Contour button, with Contour. Click to place corners; double-click or press Enter to finish the closed polygon. Each click places a corner, and the shape always closes back to the first one; pressing and dragging places two, where you pressed and where you let go (Aseprite's way). Double-click or press `Enter` to finish. Options: **Outline** or **Filled**. ## Line tools ### Line Shortcut: `L`. On the toolbar's Line / Curve button, with Curve. Drag to draw a straight line; Shift snaps it to the pixel-art angles and Ctrl (Cmd on Mac) draws it from its middle. Hold `Shift` to snap to 16 angles (0°, 90°, 45° and 5:2 / 2:5 for 22.5° / 67.5°; an isometric grid adds its own slope), with even pixel steps, and `Ctrl` or `Alt` to draw from the middle: the point you pressed becomes the line's midpoint. Option: **Width**, 1 pixel by default; wider lines get round ends. ### Curve Shortcut: `Shift+L`. On the toolbar's Line / Curve button, with Line. Click to place corner points, drag to place smooth ones, and drag a placed point or handle to reshape it; click the first point to close the path, or press Enter or double-click to finish it open. Draws a path through as many points as you like, like a pen tool: - **Click** to place a corner point. Two corner points in a row are joined by a straight line. - **Press and drag** to place a smooth point: the drag pulls out its handles, which bend the path on both sides. Hold `Alt` while dragging to move only the outgoing handle, for a sharp turn. `Shift` snaps a handle, or the next point, to the pixel-art angles. - **Click the first point** to close the path (it turns green when the pointer is over it). Drag there to shape the closing curve. - `Enter` or a double-click finishes the path open; `Backspace` removes the last point; `Esc` throws the path away. Until you finish it, the path stays editable. Press on a point you've already placed to change it instead of adding a new one: - **Drag a point** to move it; its handles come with it. Hold `Ctrl` to move the first point (a plain click there closes the path). - **Drag a handle** to reshape the curve. The handle on the other side turns with it so the point stays smooth; hold `Alt` to move one handle on its own. Drop a handle on its point to remove it. - **Alt-click a point** to make it a sharp corner, or **Alt-drag** it to pull out new handles. Zoomed out, a press only grabs a point within two pixels of it, so you can still place points close together. Options: **Width** (shared with the Line), **Pixel perfect** (on by default: removes the L-shaped corners a 1-pixel curve picks up), and **Outline** or **Filled**, which fills a closed path. ## Adjusting tools ### Blur Shortcut: `R`. On the toolbar's Blur button, with Jumble and Dodge/Burn. Brush over pixels to soften them, averaging each with its neighbours. Each pixel is softened once per stroke. **Strength** (1 to 4) sets how far it looks for neighbors. ### Jumble On the toolbar's Blur button, with Blur and Dodge/Burn. Brush over pixels to scramble them with colors from nearby pixels. Each pixel the brush touches takes the color of a random nearby pixel. **Strength** (0 to 100%) is the chance that a pixel changes. ### Dodge/Burn Shortcut: `O`. On the toolbar's Blur button, with Blur and Jumble. Brush over pixels to lighten them, keeping their hue; right-drag darkens them instead. Drag to lighten (dodge) the pixels under the brush; right-drag to darken (burn) them. By default it changes perceptual (OKLCH) lightness only, so hue and saturation hold steady instead of washing out to gray, and transparent pixels are left alone. Each pixel changes once per stroke: stroke again to push it further. **Strength** (1 to 100, default 25) sets how far: 100 moves half way from black to white, 25 about one step of a typical ramp. **Hue shift** (0 to 60 degrees, default 0 = off) shades the way pixel artists do: lightening turns the hue toward warm yellow and softens the color, darkening toward cool blue and deepens it, never past those hues; gray pixels stay gray. With **Show Brush Preview** on, the cursor shows the result before you click (hold the right button to see the burn). On an indexed sprite the result snaps to the nearest palette color, so a low strength may not change anything. ## Ruler and text ### Ruler Shortcut: `Shift+R`. Drag to measure between two points: the length, angle and offsets show in the info bar and nothing is painted; Shift snaps the angle. Drag between two points to measure them. The info bar shows the length in pixels, the angle (counter-clockwise from the right, so up is 90°) and the horizontal and vertical offsets, and a line with two handles marks the span. Nothing is painted and nothing goes on the undo stack. The measurement stays after you let go until you press again to start another, press `Esc` or switch tool; `Shift` snaps the end to the 16 pixel-art angles. ### Text Shortcut: `T`. Click and type; Mod+Enter or a click outside lands it on a new text layer. Click text later to edit it. Click where the text should start and type. The text appears as you type, in the foreground color, inside a dashed box with a caret. `Enter` starts a new line, and the arrow keys, Home and End move the caret as in any text field. Click inside the box to move the caret there, or drag the box to move the text. Press `Ctrl+Enter`, or click outside the box, to finish: the text lands as one undo step on a new **text layer** directly above the active layer, named after its first line. Switching to another tool lands it too. `Esc` drops it at any point before it lands. **Editing text.** Click text on a text layer with the Text tool to open it again: its words come back in the box with the caret at the end, and its font, size, style, spacing, alignment and color come back into the options and the foreground color. Change any of them and finish to redraw it; delete all of it to clear the layer's cel. Text layers show _letter T icon_ in the timeline. Use the Move tool to move a text layer's cel: it stays editable. A text layer is ordinary pixels to everything else: it exports, merges and blends like any layer, in `.aseprite` files too. Painting on it, or anything that changes its pixels (a transform, a color-mode change, resizing the sprite), turns it into plain pixels, which you then edit like any drawing; undoing back to the drawn text makes it editable again. Text keeps the name of its font, not the font itself, so text drawn in a font you loaded opens only in a browser where that font is loaded too. **Fonts.** Six pixel fonts come with pxstud.io: Tom Thumb (a tiny 4x6), Spleen 5x8, 6x12 and 8x16, and Scientifica in regular and bold. Bitmap fonts are drawn exactly as designed, the same on every device, and **Scale** makes their pixels bigger by whole steps. **Load font...** adds a font file from your computer: a bitmap font (`.bdf`) or an outline font (`.ttf`, `.otf`, `.woff`, `.woff2`). Outline fonts are drawn at the **Size** you choose without anti-aliasing, so every pixel is solid. Each line is shaped as a whole, so kerning, ligatures and scripts that join letters (Arabic, for example) come out as the font intends; the exact pixels can differ slightly between browsers. Pixel fonts sold as TTF look right at their design size or a whole multiple of it. A loaded font stays in this browser only: it doesn't sync, and the trash button next to the font list removes it. **Bold** and **Italic** use a loaded font's own bold and italic (or ones the browser makes from it). A bitmap font gets them from its own pixels: bold doubles every pixel to its right, and italic shifts rows right a pixel at a time going up, leaving the baseline where it is. The bundled fonts' authors and licenses are listed on the editor's [Open-source licenses](https://app.pxstud.io/licenses) page. Options: font, scale or size, letter spacing, line spacing and alignment.