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Basic Usage

Create your first canvas, draw, and understand the core workflow.

This page walks through the core workflow: creating a canvas, drawing, and moving between frames.

The core workflow: create a canvas, draw with tools and palettes, add frames for poses and cycles, preview with FPS and onion skin, then export a sprite sheet or GIF.

Create a canvas

  1. From the gallery, tap New Canvas.
  2. Pick a preset size (8×8 up to 256×256) or enter a custom size. Free accounts are limited to 32×32; upgrade to Pro for sizes up to 256×256.
  3. Give the canvas a name and tap Create.

You can also start from a photo — see Import from Photo.

The toolbar

The toolbar runs across the top of the editor. Save writes the current canvas to your gallery, flashing a checkmark once the save lands. Undo and Redo step backward and forward through your edit history, and each one greys out when there’s nothing left to move through. The sidebar button on the right shows or hides the panels.

With a hardware keyboard attached, ⌘S saves, ⌘Z undoes, and ⇧⌘Z redoes.

The drawing tools

SpriteFrame has eight tools, selectable from the tools panel:

  • Pencil — draws pixels in the selected color.
  • Eraser — clears pixels back to transparent.
  • Fill — flood-fills a connected area with the selected color.
  • Replace — swaps every pixel of the tapped color for the selected color.
  • Line, Rectangle, Circle — shape tools you drag out between two points.
  • Move — pans the canvas without editing.

See Drawing Tools for the full breakdown.

Brush size runs from a 1–50px slider, with a numeric field next to it for exact values up to 512px.

Moving around the canvas

Pinch with two fingers to zoom, and drag with two fingers to pan. Both gestures work whatever tool is selected, so you can reposition the view without switching away from the pencil. The Move tool does the same panning with a single finger when you’d rather not use two.

Picking colors

  • Tap a swatch in the palette to select a color. Palettes are grouped into Basic, Classic, Modern, Themed, and Custom categories.
  • Tap the eyedropper icon next to the color section to pick a color directly from the canvas.
  • Add your own colors with Add Custom Color.

Working with frames

Each canvas can hold multiple frames for animation:

  • Tap + to add a new frame.
  • Tap a frame thumbnail to switch to it.
  • Long-press a frame thumbnail to select, duplicate, or delete it.
  • Drag a frame thumbnail onto another to reorder the sequence.
  • Use the animation controls (play button and FPS field) to preview the sequence.

Free accounts are limited to 8 frames per canvas; Pro removes this limit.

Layers

Each frame can have multiple layers:

  • Tap Add Layer to create a new layer.
  • Double-tap a layer’s name to rename it.
  • Tap the eye icon to toggle visibility.
  • Adjust the active layer’s opacity with the slider above the layer list.
  • Choose a blend mode (Normal, Multiply, Overlay, Screen) per layer.

At least one layer must remain — the last layer can’t be deleted.

Canvas transforms

The Canvas tab has flip and shift operations that rearrange existing pixels without redrawing:

  • Flip Horizontal / Flip Vertical — mirror the content.
  • Shift — nudge content up, down, left, or right. Turn on Wrap Around so content that leaves one edge reappears on the opposite side, which is handy for seamless tiles.
  • Pick the scope — Current Layer, Current Frame, or All Frames — before applying.

Exporting

Tap the export icon to open export settings. See Exporting your work for scale, layout, and format details.