The most important palette in Pixelmator is the Tools palette. This palette allows you to choose tools to select, paint, draw, retouch, add text, move, crop, zoom, slice, and navigate.
Pixelmator includes over 30 tools for selecting, cropping, painting, retouching, drawing, typing, measuring, and navigating that can be added or removed from the tools palette.
Each tool has its own unique settings that change every time you switch tools. You can customize tool settings in the About the Tool Options bar.
Click a tool icon in the Tools palette.
Note: When you click a tool icon, it becomes larger, letting you know which tool is active.
Action |
Shortcut |
Description |
|---|---|---|
Basic tools |
||
| Move | (V) | Used to move layers or selections. |
| Zoom | (Z) | Used to magnify and reduce the view of an image. |
| Hand | (H) | Used to move an image within its window. |
| Eyedropper | (I) | Used to sample colors on an image. |
| Type | (T) | Used to add text on an image. |
| Crop | (C) | Used to trim images. |
| Slice | (K) | Used to divide an image into parts. |
Selection tools |
||
| Magic Wand | (W) | Use to select similarly colored areas. |
| Rectangular Marquee | (M) | Used to make rectangular selections. |
| Elliptical Marquee | (Y) | Used to make elliptical selections. |
| Column Marquee | Used to make column selections. | |
| Row Marquee | Used to make raw selections. | |
| Lasso | (L) | Used to make freehand selections. |
| Polygonal Lasso | Used to make straight-edged selections. | |
| Paint Selection Tool | Used to paint a selection with an adjustable brush tip. | |
Painting tools |
||
| Brush | (B) | Used to paint brush strokes. |
| Pencil | Used to paint hard-edged strokes. | |
| Pixel | (P) | Used to paint with pixel-perfect precision. |
| Paint Bucket | (N) | Used to fill similarly colored areas. |
| Gradient | (G) | Used to create linear, radial, or angle blends between colors. |
Retouching tools |
||
| Eraser | (E) | Used to erase portions of images. |
| Magic Eraser | Used to erase similarly colored areas. | |
| Clone Stamp | (S) | Used to paint with a sample of an image. |
| Smudge | Used to smear an area of an image. | |
| Dodge | Used to lighten different areas of an image. | |
| Sharpen | (O) | Used to sharpen soft areas. |
| Red Eye | (R) | Used to remove red eyes. |
Shape tools |
||
| Pen | Used to draw lines with precision. | |
| Freeform Pen | Used to create new shapes. | |
| Rectangular Shape | Used to draw rectangular shapes. | |
| Line Shape | Used to draw lines. | |
| Star Shape | Used to draw star shapes. | |
| Polygon Shape | Used to draw polygons. | |
| Ellipse Shape | Used to draw ellipses. | |
| Rounded Rectangle Shape | Used to draw rounded rectangular shapes. | |
SEE ALSO