Pixen

Pixen provides a native macOS environment for creating low‑resolution raster graphics such as 8‑bit sprites and other pixel‑art assets. Its interface supports high zoom levels, grid and alignment helpers, and a crosshair to ensure pixel‑perfect placement, while a range of drawing tools—including pencil, eraser, line, rectangle, ellipse and fill—can be assigned separately to left and right mouse buttons.

The editor includes layers with adjustable opacity and blend modes, as well as filters for color adjustments, dithering, sepia tone, and other post‑processing effects. Color management is handled through customizable palettes that can be imported or exported in formats like Adobe Color Table, Microsoft Palette, JASC Palette, and GIMP Palette, with built‑in operations for sorting and duplicate removal.

Animation capabilities are built around a filmstrip view where frames can be arranged, previewed, and exported as animated GIFs, APNGs, movies, or sprite sheets; animations can also be imported from those same formats. Additional features include iCloud document sync, Sidecar support, Apple Pencil input, dark mode, full‑screen operation, and hotkey customization, making it suitable for artists and developers working on retro‑style game graphics or any pixel‑based visual projects.