Pixen is an innovative graphics editor for the Mac. It's designed from top to bottom for pixel artists—people who make low-resolution raster art like the sprites you see in old video games. But it's great for artists of all arenas: Pixen is like a very powerful MSPaint or a simpler, more agile Photoshop. And best of all, it's Free!

Layers of detail

Layers allow you to take control of your image's composition and encapsulate its components for efficient editing. Keep shading separate from colors; keep hair separate from the rest of a character's head. And Pixen's the only pixel editor that'll let you do it.

Get animated

Pixen allows you to create animations just as easily as you would single images. It's just drag and drop, then you've got an animated GIF, a QuickTime movie, or even a sprite sheet on your hands.

A powerful palette

If you're working on a sprite for a cell phone game, you know what it's like to work with restricted palettes. Pixen understands your pain. Its palette features allow you to edit, reuse, share, quantize, and otherwise manipulate your palettes. And it supports Adobe's, Microsoft's, and Jasc's palette formats natively!

No more missing the forest for the trees

If you're working on tiles for a game or a background, you have to be sure that it looks good when it's repeated over and over again. Pixen's tile view allows you to check out your seams in realtime—without limiting your editing abilities in any way.

See the final cut

Pixen's extensive background tools let you see your image just as it will appear in-game: you can draw Ralph the Crusader over that rugged grass tile. Alternately, you can work on a traditional transparency indicator and have Pixen draw a different background when your mouse is outside the window to quickly get another perspective on your work.