Download Pixen 5.0.2 (Mac) – Download Free

pickson is a lightweight and user-friendly pixel art editor that enables pixel artists to design and use low-resolution raster art similar to 8-bit sprites in old-school video games.

clean and intuitive interface

Pixen comes with a simple and user-oriented interface that provides quick and easy access to basic image editing tools, a built-in color palette system, and other useful tools. Additionally, Pixen allows you to create frame-by-frame animations and export your work as animated GIF files.

As shown below, you can create and order image frames in slide view, stitch them together and get the desired animation. Pixen also allows you to save animations as PXA files that you can share with other Pixen users.

left and right tool panels

When shaping and designing your work, you can take advantage of Pixen’s variety of tools, from the pencil, eyedropper, eraser, zoom and magic wand to move, lasso, selection, line, ellipse and rectangle.

The great thing about Pixen is that you can assign different tools to the left and right mouse buttons. So you can use the pencil while pressing the left button, and the eraser while pressing the right button.

Layer-based editor

When you start creating complex pixel art, you can easily improve your drawing experience and take advantage of the flexibility layers provide. Additionally, you can add and organize frequently used colors into user-definable color palettes.

Best of all, you can create personalized patterns that you can use later when drawing with a pencil, line or eraser. The canvas can be set as a flat, square or custom image on which you can start drawing.

Built-in preview window

Thanks to the grid and crosshairs, you can place pixels exactly where you want them, and use the preview window to view the canvas while working at high zoom levels or play animations before exporting them.

It’s worth mentioning that Pixen supports pressure-sensitive drawing tables, which map the opacity of a color to pressure. You can even use Pixen in full-screen mode and assign various keys to the tools you use most.