Best Pixel Art Software for Mac of 2025

At the heart of nearly every creative endeavor lies the finest imaging and graphic design software, which encompasses a wide array of functions from photo retouching and compositing to digital artistry, animation, and graphic creation. Now, you can tap into the capabilities of Photoshop on both desktop and iPad, allowing you to create whenever inspiration strikes. With our advanced photography tools, you can effortlessly make routine edits or dramatically transform images across both platforms. You can crop, eliminate unwanted objects, retouch, and merge photographs, as well as experiment with colors and effects to revolutionize your photography. Whether you're designing posters, packaging, banners, or websites, all of your design ventures can begin with Photoshop. By merging images and text, you can fabricate completely new visuals, utilizing unlimited layers and masks for intricate designs. Furthermore, Photoshop is now accessible online, enabling Adobe to extend its functionality for sharing, reviewing, and light editing of cloud documents in the .psdc format. This allows collaborators to access your work directly in their browsers, provide insightful feedback, and perform basic edits without the need for downloads, making teamwork more efficient than ever before.

Welcome to the official site of the GNU Image Manipulation Program, commonly known as GIMP. This versatile image editing software is available across various platforms, including GNU/Linux, OS X, Windows, and additional operating systems. GIMP is open-source, which means you have the freedom to modify its source code and share your adaptations. Designed for a wide range of users like graphic designers, photographers, illustrators, and scientists, GIMP offers an array of advanced tools to achieve your creative goals. Additionally, GIMP enhances your efficiency through numerous customization options and support for third-party plugins. It equips you with the necessary tools for high-quality image editing, allowing for tasks ranging from retouching and restoration to imaginative composites, limited only by your creativity. Moreover, GIMP is widely utilized for creating icons, graphic design elements, and artwork for user interface components and prototypes. As a robust framework for scripted image manipulation, GIMP supports multiple programming languages, including C, C++, Perl, Python, Scheme, and more, making it a versatile choice for developers and artists alike. This flexibility ensures that GIMP can adapt to various workflows and project requirements seamlessly.

Krita is an advanced, completely FREE and open-source painting application designed for artists who believe in making artistic tools accessible to everyone. Developed by a community of artists, it features a user-friendly interface that seamlessly integrates into your creative process. The customizable dockers and panels allow you to tailor the workspace to suit your personal workflow preferences. Once you settle on a configuration, you can save it as your unique workspace for future use. Additionally, you can establish custom shortcuts for frequently used tools, enhancing your efficiency. With over 100 high-quality brushes available right out of the box, Krita provides an extensive array of effects for users to explore. If you struggle with unsteady hand movements, you can utilize a stabilizer feature to refine your brush strokes, as Krita offers three different methods for smoothing and stabilizing them. Moreover, the dedicated Dynamic Brush tool lets you incorporate drag and mass to your creations, adding an extra layer of control. For comic artists, Krita includes built-in vector tools that facilitate the design of comic panels. You can easily select a word bubble template from the vector library and drag it onto your canvas, allowing for immediate customization by adjusting anchor points to craft your own unique shapes and libraries, making it an incredibly versatile tool for various art forms. The program's robust features cater to both novice and experienced artists, ensuring a rich and fulfilling creative experience.

Pixel art editor for iPad and iPhone. Solid alternative to Pixaki and Pixel Studio. Resprite is your mobile pixel artist studio, whether you're on the couch, camping in tents, lounging on the beach or waiting at the airport. You can manage complex projects with desktop-level animated timeline forms. Quick switching between animation paragraphs and efficient positioning of animation frames. To improve efficiency, reduce the distance between the panel and the finger. You can arrange colors as you wish and adapt to different working styles. It includes all the standard editing tools and an easy-to use dithering style tool. This allows for free transformation, shading, and dithering styles.

Pyxel Edit is a specialized pixel art software tailored for creating and manipulating tiles. Users can arrange tiles to construct levels, modify them in real-time to observe their interactions, and subsequently export both the tileset and level information for integration into their games. The application allows for flipping and rotating tiles, ensuring that they remain editable and synchronized with the overall design. This innovative feature draws inspiration from notable programs like Pixothello and Cosmigo Pro Motion, enhancing the user experience even further. Additionally, Pyxel Edit offers capabilities for animation creation, enabling users to export their work as sprite sheets or animated GIFs. Originally launched as a free application, it still provides a free version; however, significant updates aimed at enhancing its functionality will require a purchase. To facilitate this transition, a discounted beta version will initially be offered, allowing early supporters to access future standard-priced updates without incurring additional costs. Furthermore, this model not only supports the ongoing development of the application but also ensures that users can enjoy the evolving features as they become available.

Pixquare, a powerful iPad pixel art application, is available. Pixquare has a simple interface, a smooth workflow, and advanced pixel art features. Pixquare has many features, including: Apple Pencil Optimization, Timelapse Recording, Advanced Mode for Experienced Artists, and Smooth Sketching powered by Apple MetalKit. It has convenient features such as manual and automatic saving modes, keyboard shortcuts and quick sliders for size, opacity and integration with Lospec color palettes. Discover additional functionalities such as symmetry, reference pictures, and versatile file export/import options to create a seamless pixel-art experience.

GrafX2 is a bitmap painting application that draws inspiration from the Amiga software Deluxe Paint and Brilliance. It is tailored for creating 256-color artwork and boasts an extensive array of tools and effects, making it ideal for pixel art, game graphics, and intricate graphics created using a mouse. Primarily developed for Haiku, Linux, and Windows, the program also offers portability across various other platforms. Its versatility and comprehensive features make it a popular choice among digital artists seeking to create detailed pixel-based images.

Aseprite is a powerful tool designed for crafting 2D animations specifically tailored for video games, allowing users to create everything from sprites to pixel art and graphics inspired by the nostalgic 8-bit and 16-bit gaming eras. The software features a color mode that specifies the number of colors that can be used in an image, and it enforces a strict rule: all images within a sprite must be in the same mode, meaning you cannot combine RGB images with Indexed images. It also provides a series of layers accessible through the Timeline, with a crucial distinction between two types of layers: a single background layer meant for opaque sprites and multiple transparent layers that can coexist within the same sprite. Furthermore, Aseprite includes animation frames, each defined by a duration that determines how long it appears on screen during playback. To enhance your workflow, Aseprite can be integrated into your asset pipeline through its command-line interface (CLI), allowing developers to efficiently store multiple animations within a single texture atlas and streamline the animation process. This makes it an invaluable resource for anyone looking to produce engaging and visually appealing 2D animations for their projects.

Pixen is a professional pixel art editor designed for working with low-resolution raster art, such as those 8-bit sprites found in old-school video games. Take advantage of Pixen's wide array of tools when composing pixel art such as Pencil, Eraser, Brightness, Text, Eyedropper, Zoom, Rectangular Selection, Magic Wand, Lasso, Move, Fill, Line, Rectangle, and Ellipse. Compose your artwork with layers, taking advantage of the flexibility layers provide when working with complex pixel art. Change opacity, blending modes, and more to compose creative effects. Use filters to adjust colors, create effects, and post-process your artwork. With Pixen, you can add and organize commonly-used colors into palettes. Create and arrange image frames in the filmstrip view to piece together animations. Pixen can import animations from animated GIFs, animated PNGs, and even sprite sheets! It can also export animations as animated GIFs, animated PNGs, movies, and sprite sheets. Take advantage of Pixen's grid tools to guide you in placing pixels just where you want them. Define custom patterns to use while drawing with the Pencil, Line, or Eraser tool (instead of a single pixel).

Innovative image tools designed for modern professionals. This all-in-one platform provides a variety of popular image functionalities in an effortlessly simple format. With just a click, we enhance your images for easy sharing and saving, all while maintaining their original quality. Our secure cloud server compresses your images and ensures they are deleted after your download. Compatible with all devices and operating systems, our tool effectively optimizes images across various platforms. Featuring an intuitive user interface, you can transform any image into ASCII art in just three straightforward steps. Simply drag and drop your image, and you'll receive the converted file immediately on your device. A web-based image splitter is also available for diverse devices, whether you're on an Apple iPhone, Android smartphone, or using Windows, Mac, Linux, PC, tablet, or laptop; it operates seamlessly across all platforms without any delays. Additionally, our user-friendly interface simplifies the pixel art conversion process, allowing you to upload, wait briefly, and then download your pixel art with ease. Overall, this platform revolutionizes image processing for professionals by combining efficiency and simplicity.

In contrast to bitmap drawing programs that concentrate on modifying individual pixels, vector design employs the use of paths and objects to create images. These vector paths, made up of points, lines, and curves, can be filled and painted in various ways. By combining multiple paths, one can design intricate and detailed objects, which can then be organized into larger designs. Importantly, vector images maintain their clarity and sharpness when scaled up, unlike bitmap images that suffer from quality loss upon enlargement. Upon your initial launch of Graphic, the Documents Browser will greet you with sample documents; simply tap on any document to view it. As you select different objects, the fill and stroke color wells will reflect the colors currently applied to those objects. Adjusting the fill or stroke colors while an object is selected allows you to instantly modify its appearance. In addition to colors, gradients, and patterns, you can also fill objects with images, offering further creative flexibility; remarkably, even text objects can be enhanced with image fills, expanding the possibilities for unique designs. This versatility makes vector graphics an appealing choice for designers looking to create high-quality visuals.

PikoPixel is a free and open-source application designed for Mac that allows users to create and modify pixel-art graphics. It features user-friendly controls, offers unlimited undo options, enables the use of multiple layers, provides a customizable canvas background, includes hotkey-accessible popup panels, allows for the export of upscaled images, and supports color blending in linear (gamma-correct) space. Additionally, its intuitive interface makes it accessible for both beginners and experienced artists alike.