PsPixel

Professional Pixel Art Editor
Built with Qt6 • Cross-platform • Open Source

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Features

Drawing Tools — Brush, Eraser, Line, Rectangle, Circle, Paint Bucket, Eyedropper, Select/Move. Hold Shift on Rectangle and Circle for filled shapes.

Layers — Add, remove, duplicate, reorder. Per-layer opacity and visibility. Bulk export all layers as individual PNGs.

Mirror / Symmetry — Horizontal and vertical symmetry modes for drawing sprites. Toggle with Alt+H / Alt+V.

Canvas Transforms — Flip horizontal/vertical, rotate 90 CW/CCW. Canvases up to 4096x4096.

Undo / Redo — Photoshop-style operation history with visual history palette. 50 undo levels.

Copy / Paste — Select a region, Ctrl+C to copy, Ctrl+V to paste as a movable selection.

Keyboard Shortcuts — Photoshop-style defaults (B Brush, E Eraser, V Select, etc). Fully customizable via Settings menu.

Auto Updater — Checks GitHub releases on startup. One-click download when a new version drops.

MCP Server — AI-driven pixel art creation via Model Context Protocol. Let Claude draw for you.

Project Files — Save/load .pspx projects. Export to PNG.

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Install

Download

Grab the latest from Releases:

Platform	Package
Windows	PsPixel-Setup.exe or Portable.zip
Linux	.AppImage, .deb, .rpm, or .tar.gz
macOS	.zip (contains .app bundle)

Build from source

Requirements: Qt6, CMake 3.16+, Ninja

# Linux (Fedora)
sudo dnf install qt6-qtbase-devel qt6-qtnetwork-devel cmake ninja-build

# Linux (Ubuntu/Debian)
sudo apt install qt6-base-dev libqt6network6 cmake ninja-build

# Then build
git clone https://github.com/thejacedev/PsPixel.git
cd PsPixel
./dev.sh

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Keyboard Shortcuts

Key	Tool
V	Select / Move
B	Brush
E	Eraser
I	Eyedropper
G	Paint Bucket
L	Line
R	Rectangle
O	Circle

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl+Z	Undo
Ctrl+Y	Redo
Ctrl+C	Copy selection
Ctrl+V	Paste
Ctrl+S	Save project
Ctrl+E	Export PNG
Ctrl+Shift+E	Export all layers
Ctrl+Shift+H	Flip horizontal
Ctrl+Shift+V	Flip vertical
Alt+H	Toggle mirror horizontal
Alt+V	Toggle mirror vertical
Ctrl+Scroll	Zoom in/out
Middle Mouse	Pan canvas
Shift+Drag	Filled shape (Rectangle/Circle)

All shortcuts are customizable via Settings > Keyboard Shortcuts.

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MCP Server

The mcp/ directory contains a Model Context Protocol server that lets AI assistants create pixel art programmatically.

cd mcp
npm install
npm run dev

16 tools available: create_project, draw_pixel, draw_line, draw_rect, draw_circle, flood_fill, clear_canvas, add_layer, set_active_layer, list_layers, set_layer_visibility, set_layer_opacity, export_png, export_all_layers, get_canvas_info, list_projects

Add to your Claude config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pspixel": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["path/to/PsPixel/mcp/dist/index.js"]
    }
  }
}

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Project Structure

PsPixel/
├── desktop/          # Qt6 C++ desktop application
│   ├── CMakeLists.txt
│   ├── include/      # Headers (constants, canvas, mainwindow)
│   ├── src/          # Source code
│   │   ├── ui/
│   │   │   ├── tools/    # Drawing tools (brush, eraser, line, etc)
│   │   │   ├── layers/   # Layer system
│   │   │   ├── history/  # Undo/redo
│   │   │   ├── start/    # Start screen
│   │   │   └── top/      # Dialogs (save, keybinds, updater)
│   │   └── fileformat/   # .pspx project format
│   └── assets/           # Icons (Lucide)
├── mcp/              # MCP server for AI integration
└── dev.sh            # Build & run script

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License

MIT — see LICENSE.txt

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Made by Jace Sleeman