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Pixsama user guide

How to create pixel art and animation in Pixsama.

This guide walks through the Android app from creating a canvas to exporting finished artwork. It covers drawing tools, layers, palettes, sprite animation with tags and linked cels, selections, gestures, saving and recovery.

Create a project

From the gallery, choose + New. Name the project, set its width and height, then pick a transparent or solid background and an RGBA or indexed colour workflow. The preview beside the size fields shows the exact canvas you are about to create.

Pixsama new project screen with canvas size, background and colour mode options
New project: size presets run from 16 × 16 to 512 × 512, or type an exact size.

Animation is not a decision you make here. Any project becomes animated the moment you add a second frame, so start with a single canvas and grow into a timeline if the artwork calls for one.

Indexed vs RGBARGBA stores a direct colour per pixel. Indexed links every pixel to a palette entry, so editing a palette colour recolours all the artwork using it. Choose per project, and see indexed colour.
Free edition limitFree canvases go up to 128 × 128, whether created or resized. A larger existing project stays fully editable at the size it already is.

The workspace

The canvas stays central. Tools sit along the top, brush controls and history run down the left edge, and the palette, timeline, preview and reference windows float as panels you can move, resize, dock or minimise.

The full Pixsama editing workspace with canvas, tool strip, palette and timeline
Full workspace: tool strip top right, brush and history rail left, palette right, timeline below.

Left rail

The vertical sliders set brush size and opacity, with the current brush previewed between them. Undo and redo sit below, followed by the symmetry and grid toggles.

Vertical brush size and opacity sliders with undo, redo, symmetry and grid buttons
Brush and history rail: size, opacity, brush preview, undo, redo, symmetry, grid.

Panels

Every floating window works the same way. Drag the grip to move it, drag a corner to resize, use the arrow tab to collapse it to a dock label, and use the padlock to pin it so it cannot be moved by accident.

Preview

The preview shows the whole sprite at a readable size while you work zoomed in. It pans and zooms independently of the canvas, and the rectangle inside it marks the part of the artwork you are currently viewing.

Pixsama preview panel showing the whole sprite while the canvas is zoomed in
Preview: the outlined rectangle is the region visible on the canvas.

Reference image

Load a photo or another sprite to work from. The reference window zooms and pans on its own, can display smooth or pixel-sharp, and you can tap it to pick a colour straight out of the reference into your active swatch.

Pixsama reference image window with import, fit, remove and lock buttons
Reference: import, fit, remove and lock, with tap-to-pick colour sampling.

Tools

Every main tool is one tap away in the top strip. The two overlapping squares on the right are the foreground and background colours. Tap either one to make it active.

Pixsama tool strip: pencil, eraser, line, shape, selection, fill, eyedropper, more, colour swatches
Tool strip: pencil, eraser, line, shape, selection, fill, eyedropper, more, then the colour swatches.
PencilDraw freehand with a square or circular brush. Add pressure-sensitive size, Pixel Perfect, contour fill, Quick Shape draw-and-hold recognition, or four levels of stroke smoothing.
EraserRemove pixels back to transparency with the current brush size and shape.
LineDrag between two points to draw a straight line. Long-press the tool to switch to Curve.
CurveDrag to set the endpoints, release, then drag again to shape the curve. Release once more to place it.
ShapeDraw an outlined or filled rectangle or ellipse, from a corner or from the centre.
SelectionSelect pixels with a box, ellipse, lasso, polygon or magic wand. Long-press to choose the type.
FillFill a connected area with a solid colour, linear gradient or radial gradient. Gradients can be dithered with a Bayer pattern.
EyedropperPick a colour from the canvas into the active swatch.
Long-press for variantsTools with more than one mode (line, shape, selection and fill) open a compact settings menu when held.

Tool settings

Holding a tool opens its settings directly under the button, so you can change how it behaves without leaving the canvas. The shape tool switches between rectangle and ellipse, locks to a perfect ratio, fills the shape, and draws from either the corner or the centre.

Shape tool settings: rectangle or ellipse, perfect ratio, filled, drag from corner
Shape settings: opened by long-pressing the shape tool.

The other tools follow the same pattern: the line tool offers straight or curved, the fill tool offers bucket, linear gradient and radial gradient with a dithering choice, and the selection tool offers its five selection shapes. Pencil settings contain Pixel Perfect, pressure-sensitive size, contour fill, Quick Shape, smoothing and the square or circular brush choice.

Free edition limitGradients dither with a Bayer 2 × 2 pattern in Free. The 4 × 4 and 8 × 8 patterns are Pro.

Brush & canvas

Brush size and opacity apply to the pencil, eraser, line and shape tools. Pixel-perfect mode removes the doubled corner pixels that freehand strokes normally leave, which keeps outlines clean at small sizes. It can also be combined with contour mode.

  • Square and circular brush shapes.
  • Optional stylus pressure control over brush size.
  • Off, Low, Medium and High smoothing; High gives the pen a strong trailing response for deliberate curves.
  • Quick Shape turns a rough held stroke into a clean line, circle, ellipse, rectangle or square, then lets you resize it before release.
  • Contour mode closes and fills an outline drawn in a single stroke.
A pixel art dachshund sprite on the Pixsama canvas over the transparency checker
Canvas: the transparency checker stays neutral grey in every theme so it never tints your colours.

Symmetry & grid

Symmetry mirrors every stroke as you draw. Turn on the vertical axis for faces and characters, the horizontal axis for reflections, or both together for tiles and ornaments. The guides appear on the canvas so you can see where the mirror line falls.

The grid overlays the canvas with a cell size you choose. Width and height are set independently, which is useful for tile sheets where cells are not square. The grid is a guide only and never appears in an export.

Both toggles live on the left railThe bottom two buttons on the brush and history rail switch symmetry and the grid on and off. Grid cell size is under Settings › Canvas.
Free edition limitFree draws with horizontal symmetry. The vertical axis and both axes together are Pro.

Tiled mode

Tiled mode repeats the canvas around itself so you can draw a seamless pattern and judge the join while you work. Strokes, brush overhang and flood fills all wrap across the seam, so a line drawn off the right edge continues from the left. Contour fills also close across horizontal and vertical seams, including when Pixel Perfect is enabled.

OffA single canvas with hard edges.
BothRepeats horizontally and vertically, for full tiling textures.
XRepeats horizontally only, for side-scrolling backgrounds.
YRepeats vertically only, for columns and waterfalls.

Tiled mode is switched from the Additional tools menu, described under canvas operations.

Pro featureTiled mode is part of Pixsama Pro. Free draws on a single canvas with hard edges.

Layers

Layers live in the timeline panel. Each row carries a visibility eye, a lock, the layer name and its cel for the current frame. A hidden or locked layer cannot be painted on by accident.

Layer controls: add, duplicate, remove, move up, move down, group, flatten
Layer controls: add, duplicate, remove, reorder, group and flatten, above the layer rows.
1Tap a layer row to make it active.
2Use add or duplicate to create another.
3Toggle the eye or lock beside its name.

Double-tap a layer name to rename it. Drag the square handle on a row to reorder layers. Merge down combines a layer with the one beneath it, and flatten collapses everything into one. Both are undoable.

Free edition limitFree projects support up to 3 layers. Reaching the limit shows the Pro explanation without losing any work.

Layer groups

Groups keep a busy timeline readable. Collect related layers, say a character’s body, its outline and its shadow, into one group, then collapse it to a single row while you work elsewhere.

  • Hiding or locking a group applies to every layer inside it.
  • Drag a layer onto a group to move it in, or out to return it to the top level.
  • Dragging a collapsed group moves the whole block together.
  • Group structure is preserved when a project is saved and reopened.
Selecting a groupTapping a group selects the group itself rather than a layer inside it, so an action such as ungroup applies to what you expect.

Animation

Frames run along the timeline. The transport row moves between them, plays the loop, and controls onion skinning and playback speed.

Animation transport: first, previous, play, next, last, onion skin, frame rate
Transport: first, previous, play, next and last frame, then onion skin and frame rate.
The Pixsama timeline panel showing a seven-frame animation tagged Turntable across shark, shadow and background layers
Timeline panel: transport, layer controls and layer rows, movable and resizable like every panel. Here a seven-frame turntable: the tag spans the range, and the joined dots on the lower rows are linked cels.

Every layer holds one cel per frame, so adding a frame extends the whole project rather than a single layer. The transport button changes from play to stop while the animation is running.

  • Add, duplicate, delete and drag frames into a new order.
  • Long-press a frame number to edit that frame’s duration.
  • The frame rate field sets the default speed for the whole project.
  • Drag across a row of cels to select a range and open the cel actions.

A longer animation is easier to work on in named pieces. Once you have more than one action in the same project, see animation tags for splitting it up and linked cels for reusing a drawing instead of copying it.

Free edition limitFree projects support up to 6 frames. Per-frame duration editing and the full animation export set are part of Pro.

Animation tags

A tag names a range of frames, such as walk, idle or attack, so one project can hold every animation a character needs instead of one project per action. Tagged ranges appear as coloured bars above the timeline, and the frames belonging to the selected tag are highlighted.

1Drag across the frames you want on a layer row.
2Release, then choose Create tag.
3Name it, set its range and direction, pick a colour.

Each tag carries its own playback direction: forward loops the range, ping pong plays it out and back, and once stops at the end. Playback can follow the whole timeline, the tag you have selected, or whichever tag contains the current frame, so you can watch one action on loop while the rest of the project stays where it is.

Long-press a tag bar to open its properties. Beyond renaming and recolouring, a tag can be split at the current frame, merged with its nearest neighbour, duplicated or deleted. Tags are saved with the project and survive a round trip through the Aseprite format.

Tags cannot overlapOne frame belongs to at most one tag. Creating a tag across frames that already belong to another replaces the tags it covers, which is what makes split and merge predictable.
Pro featureAnimation tags, tagged playback ranges and loop modes are part of Pixsama Pro.

Linked cels

A linked cel is one drawing appearing in several places on the timeline. The frames do not hold copies of it. They hold the same pixels, so editing any one of them updates all of them at once. A held pose, a background that never moves, or the return half of a ping-pong cycle costs one drawing rather than six.

Drag across the cels you want and release to open the cel actions, then link them. The earliest cel in the selection is the source, and the rest become references to it.

Link selectedPoints every selected cel at the first one’s pixels.
Unlink selectedGives those cels their own copy again, so they can diverge.
Duplicate as linkedAdds a frame that shares the current cel instead of copying it.
Select all linkedHighlights every cel across the project sharing this drawing.
Check before you editIf a change appears in a frame you were not working on, the cels are linked. Use select all linked to see the full set, then unlink the one you want to change on its own.
Pro featureLinking and unlinking cels is part of Pixsama Pro. A project that already contains linked cels still opens, plays and draws in Free, and edits go on reaching every cel in the link, since that is what the artwork was built to do.

Onion skinning

Onion skinning draws the neighbouring frames faintly behind the current one so you can line up a movement without flipping back and forth. It affects the canvas only and never appears in an export.

Use it for spacing, not detailOnion skins are most useful for checking how far something travels between frames. Turn it off when you are working on the detail of a single frame.

Selections

Long-press the selection tool to choose box, ellipse, lasso, polygon or magic wand. Once an area is selected, marching ants mark its edge and drawing is limited to the selected pixels.

A rectangular selection on the canvas with marching ants and transform handles
Active selection: the outline and its handles stay attached to the artwork as you transform it.

The context strip beside the canvas acts on whatever is selected. Invert swaps the selected and unselected pixels, clear erases inside it, and copy and cut move pixels to the clipboard, which is shared across layers, frames and open projects.

Selection actions: invert, clear, copy, cut, flip horizontal, flip vertical
Selection actions: invert, clear, copy, cut and flips, with more when pixels are floating.
BoxA rectangle dragged from corner to corner.
EllipseAn ellipse inscribed in the area you drag.
LassoA freehand outline that closes when you release.
PolygonTap corner after corner; the shape closes on the last point.
Magic wandSelects a connected area of similar colour, with a tolerance setting.

Transforms

Dragging a selection lifts those pixels into a floating selection. While it floats you can move, scale and rotate it, and nothing is written back to the layer until you confirm, so you can cancel and leave the artwork untouched.

The handles switch between scale and rotate. Scaling uses nearest-neighbour so edges stay hard. Rotation to a quarter turn is lossless; any other angle is resampled with an algorithm built for pixel art, which never introduces a colour that was not already in your artwork.

Rotate from the originalA free-angle rotation resamples the pixels. Rotating the same selection over and over compounds that, so return to the original and rotate once by the angle you actually want.
Pro featureScaling and rotating selected pixels are part of Pixsama Pro.

Canvas operations

The … button on the tool strip opens the additional tools menu, which acts on the whole image rather than a single stroke. Every operation here is a single undo step and applies across all layers and frames.

Additional tools menu: clear canvas, outline, replace colour, select all, resize, crop, flip, rotate, tiled mode
Additional tools: whole-image operations, tiled mode and workspace toggles.
Resize canvasChange the canvas size with a nine-way anchor that decides which edge the artwork stays against.
Crop to selectionTrims the canvas down to the current selection.
Flip X / Flip YMirrors the whole image horizontally or vertically.
Rot 90Rotates the image a quarter turn. Quarter turns are lossless.
Clear canvasEmpties the current layer back to transparency.
Fit canvasResets zoom and pan so the whole canvas is in view.
No-UI modeHides the interface so you can see the artwork on its own.
Free edition limitResize can shrink any canvas in Free, and grow one up to 128 × 128. Growing past that is Pro. An already larger project keeps every other operation.

Palette

The palette panel holds the colours for the current project. Tap a swatch to make it the foreground colour, and use the buttons along the top to load a built-in or saved palette, save the current one, or reach the rest of the palette options.

The Pixsama palette panel with a grid of colour swatches
Palette panel: load, save, more options and a position lock, above the swatch grid.
  • Add a colour with the + swatch at the end of the grid.
  • Drag a swatch to reorder it within the palette.
  • Palettes import and export as Lospec-compatible text.
Free edition limitFree includes one saved custom palette of up to 16 colours. Pro unlocks palette import and export, more palettes and larger colour sets.

Colour editor

Tapping an already-selected swatch a second time opens the colour editor. Set the colour by red, green, blue and alpha channels, or read and edit its hex value directly, then apply the change back to the palette.

Pixsama colour editor with hex value and red, green, blue and alpha sliders
Colour editor: hex readout with RGBA channel sliders.
Alpha is a real channelLowering alpha stores a genuinely semi-transparent colour rather than a lighter opaque one, which matters when the sprite is composited over a background in a game engine.

Indexed colour

In an indexed project every pixel points at a palette entry instead of storing its own colour. Editing a palette swatch instantly recolours all the artwork using it, which makes palette swaps and colour ramps quick to explore.

  • Drawing snaps to the nearest palette entry, so the artwork can never drift off-palette.
  • Transforms, pastes and merges all stay palette-safe.
  • Palette remapping is undoable like any other edit.
  • PNG export writes real indexed PNG8 data rather than a flattened copy.
Which mode should I pick?Choose indexed when the palette is part of the art, as it is for game sprites, tilesets and anything with a fixed colour count. Choose RGBA when you want gradients, soft alpha and freedom to use any colour.

Outline & replace colour

Both of these live in the additional tools menu and preview live on the canvas before you commit, so you can judge the result and cancel if it is wrong.

Outline artwork

Draws an outline around the artwork on the current layer. You can place the outline outside or inside the shape, choose which neighbouring pixels count, and pick the outline colour.

Replace colour

Swaps one colour for another across the layer. It shares its tolerance behaviour with the magic wand, handles the transparent colour as a real target, and lets you hold a palette swatch to sample from the canvas.

Importing

Pixsama imports ordinary images, animated GIFs, sprite sheets, Aseprite projects and its own project archives from the gallery.

ImagesPNG, JPEG, WebP and anything else Android can decode become editable RGBA projects.
Animated GIFFrames, transparency and timing are preserved as editable timeline cels.
Sprite sheetsA live grid preview lets you set tile size, offsets, spacing, row or column order and playback speed before the frames are created.
Aseprite projects.aseprite and .ase files open as editable projects, keeping layers, groups, frames, timing, tags, linked cels and the palette.
Project archivesPixsama project files restore layers, frames, timing and palette exactly.
Pro featureImporting and exporting .aseprite and .ase projects is part of Pixsama Pro. Every other import works in Free.
Large imagesImports are checked against the device’s memory limits and can be cancelled while they run. A very large photo is better resized before import than worked on at full resolution.

Exporting

The export panel picks the format first, then shows only the settings that format actually uses, with a live preview of the file you are about to write. Everything scales by a whole number from 1× to 8× so the pixels stay square, and transparent edges can be trimmed on the way out.

PNGA single still image. Indexed projects write genuine indexed PNG8 data.
Sprite sheetAll frames on one image, with row or column packing, independent X and Y gaps, scale and a live grid preview.
PNG sequenceOne numbered file per frame, for engines and video tools.
Animated GIFA looping animation that respects each frame’s duration.
Animated WebPSmaller than GIF with better colour, where the destination supports it.
Aseprite / ASE projectAn editable project for Aseprite and the tools that read its format, carrying layers, groups, frames, timing, tags and linked cels.
Project archiveThe native format. The only export that preserves layers, frames, timing and palette.

Images land in Pictures/Pixsama. Project files, both the native archive and Aseprite, land in Downloads/Pixsama. An export is a real file you can hand to another app, not something locked inside Pixsama.

Free edition limitFree exports PNG at 1×, 2× and 4×, plus the native project archive. Sprite sheets, sequences, GIF, WebP, Aseprite projects and the other scales are Pro.

Saving & recovery

Projects are saved locally on the device, and Pixsama keeps autosave recovery data as you work. If it finds newer recovery data when a project opens, it asks whether to recover that work or open the last normal save.

1Recover, to continue from the autosaved state.
2Last save, to discard the autosave and open the saved file.
3Cancel, to leave the project closed and decide later.

Gestures

One finger always draws. Everything that moves the view uses two, so a stroke is never mistaken for a pan.

Two fingersPan the canvas, pinch to zoom, and rotate the view.
Draw, then holdWith Quick Shape enabled, hold at the end of a rough line, circle, ellipse, rectangle or square to clean it up. Keep dragging to resize it before lifting.
Long-press a toolOpen that tool's variants and settings.
Hold on the canvasSample the colour beneath your finger without changing tool.
Stylus hoverA hovering pen highlights the pixel it is pointing at before you commit.
Stylus pressureOptional pressure control over pencil size.
Barrel buttonActs as a modifier on pens that report one.
Eraser tipFlipping a supported pen erases for as long as the tip is down.
Back during a curveCancels the pending curve before it is committed.
Left-handed layoutsSettings › Interface mirrors the workspace so the tool strip and context menus sit under your other hand.

Themes

Settings groups everything into Drawing, Gestures, Canvas, Themes, Interface, Performance and Projects. The Themes category switches the chrome between Studio, Light and Slate; the choice is remembered between launches.

Pixsama settings panel with the themes category showing Studio, Light and Slate
Settings › Themes: Studio, Light and Slate, applied immediately.
Your artwork is never tintedThemes only recolour the interface. The transparency checker stays the same neutral grey in every theme so it cannot mislead you about a colour.

Free vs Pro

The Free edition is a complete small studio rather than a timed trial. Reaching a limit shows an explanation and leaves your work untouched.

CanvasFree creates new projects up to 128 × 128. Existing larger projects stay editable.
LayersUp to 3 in Free.
FramesUp to 6 in Free.
PalettesOne saved palette of up to 16 colours in Free.
TransformsScaling and rotating selected pixels are Pro.
Tags & linked celsNaming frame ranges and sharing one drawing between cels are Pro.
AsepriteImporting and exporting .aseprite and .ase projects is Pro.
ExportFree exports PNG at 1×, 2× and 4×, plus the native project archive. The rest is Pro.

See the full comparison →

Troubleshooting

A tool will not drawCheck the layer is visible and unlocked. A hidden or locked layer ignores every drawing tool, and locked groups lock the layers inside them.
The colour is wrong in indexed modeIndexed projects snap every colour to the nearest palette entry. Add the colour to the palette first, then draw with it.
Nothing happens outside the selectionAn active selection limits drawing to the selected pixels. Deselect from the selection menu, or tap outside it with a box selection.
The canvas will not panOne finger draws. Use two fingers to pan, pinch and rotate.
A rotation looks softOnly quarter turns are lossless. Any other angle resamples the artwork, so rotate from the original rather than repeatedly.
Two cels changed at onceThose cels are linked, so they share one set of pixels by design. Select either one and unlink it if you want them to differ.
Still stuck?The support page covers the most common questions and explains what to include when reporting a problem.