Drawing tools

The raster editor window uses the active drawing tool to modify the current image. The active tool receives commands given by the keyboard or using left mouse button (or tablet). The tool is responsible for displaying the preview of the outcome until the current action is finished (applied or canceled).

Drawing tools make use of fill styles.

Mode of operation

Most drawing tools are activated by the press left mouse button->move the mouse->release the button sequence. In some cases, only the last of the 3 actions is important.

Most drawing tools display control handles after the initial definition of the drawn shape and the control handles can be used to adjust the tool's function. There may be several classes of control handles, differentiated by color. Some control handles belong to fill styles (usually having purple color) and can be used to fine-tune gradients.

Selecting the active tool

The basic method for selecting a tool is to click its icon in the toolbar above the raster editor. This toolbar holds the frequently used tools, but not all available tools.

Drawing tool categories

Selection tools

• SELECT - modify selection by adding or removing rectangular areas.
• MAGICWAND - modify selection using a floodfill-like methods.
• TRANSFORM - apply transformation to selected area.
• MOVE - move the entire image(layer). Exterior can be either filled or the image can wrap.
• SIMPLESELECT - select rectangular area and more or resize it. The selected area act as a floating selection.
• VECTORSELECT - select objects in a vector layer, move, rotate and scale them.

Hand drawing

• PENCIL - draw arbitrary curves using a pencil with a configurable tip.
• BRUSH - a more advanced version of PENCIL tool with smoothing, more configuration options and tablet pen pressure support.

Text

• TEXT - draw a text using specified font.

Shape drawing

These tools can be used to paint basic shapes.

• LINE - draw solid or dashed poly-lines.
• CURVE - draw curves.
• STROKE - draw multi-part lines or curves.
• ELLIPSE - draw filled ellipses or ellipse outlines.
• LASSO - draw areas specified by their hand-drawn outline.
• RECTANGLE - draw rectangles with optional rounded corners.
• POLYGON - draw filled polygons.
• SHAPE - draw arbitrary shapes.

Photographic tools

Tools focused on retouching of photos.

• REDEYE - desaturate round area.
• CROP - cut a portion of an image.
• SHAPESHIFT - move or deform parts of image.

Miscellaneous drawing tools

• DROPPER - make the color of a clicked pixel the active color.
• PSHADOW - apply a projected shadow. The image must be transparent or the shadow will be hidden.
• FLOODFILL - fill an area with fill style.
• FILL - fill the entire image.

Specialized tools

• HOTSPOT - set the hot spot of a cursor.
• LUCE - add light rays to an image. This is a plug-in that must be installed before it can be used.

Meta-tools

Meta-tools modify behavior of other drawing tools.

• ALPHA - modify alpha channel instead of regular color channels; white = opaque, black = transparent (available since version 2009.1).
• BUBBLE - put the drawn shape into a comics-like bubble (available since version 2009.1).
• CLONE - copy pixels from one spot to another.
• ERASER - draw with transparent color and Replace blend mode.
• STYLIZE - add shadow or reflections to drawn shape, blur the background.
• RETOUCH - apply an effects like darken, sharpen, etc.
• SELECT - modify selection by adding or removing rectangular areas.
• RECOLOR - change color in the affected area from the initially clicked pixel to the selected color.

Due to the plug-in nature of the tools and the existence of meta-tools, the total number of available tools is much higher. Meta-tools like ERASER or SELECT can be combined with ordinary tools yielding dozens of possible combinations (retouching with pencil, selecting with brush, ellipse, or polygon, etc.). Defining your own tools is an advanced topic, but it increases the power of the application considerably, for example when creating beveled text, selecting with text tool is a fundamental part of the process.

Probably the easiest way of accessing the uncommon tools is by using the toolbar with custom presets. The custom presets not only allows you to add the specialized tools, but also allows remembering and activating selected drawing modes in one click.

Tips

Many drawing tools support temporary switch to the dropper tool to change current color by holding down the CTRL key.

There are a lot of ways how to finish and apply a tool:

• Press ENTER.
• Perform the apply mouse gesture (Down->Right).
• Switch to another tool (except the crop tool, which must be explicitly applied).
• Right click and select Apply from context menu.
• Click Apply button in toolbar or in main menu.
• Just start drawing another shape (only valid for shape-drawing tools).

Selection can be canceled by:

• Pressing ESC.
• Pressing undo button (Ctrl+Z, or the undo mouse gesture).