Learn StylusX,
one stroke at a time.

Welcome to StylusX

StylusX is a painting and drawing app for Windows. It is built for the pen first, then for touch and the mouse, with Surface tablets as a key target. It handles very large canvases and many layers, and it opens and exports Photoshop files.

How StylusX is put together

StylusX has two places: the gallery, where your artworks live, and the canvas screen, where you paint.

• The gallery (Home page): create a new artwork, open or import files (images, Adobe® Photoshop® PSD and PSB), and organise your work into groups and favourites. See The gallery.
• The modes bar chooses what the canvas is doing right now: Draw for normal painting, Select for making a selection, Transform for moving, scaling, distorting or warping, Liquify for pushing and twirling the paint, and Drawing Assist for grids, symmetry, 3D perspective and pattern. Settings and Home sit on the same bar.
• The tools bar chooses what a stroke does in Draw mode: Brush, Eraser, Smudge, Blur, Eye Drop, Color Select, Fill Color, Line Width, Clone Stamp, Healing and Pick Layer. When another mode is on, the same bar turns into that mode’s bar.
• The windows hold the Layers and Brushes pages. Each page can be a tab or a window of its own. Windows snap to the screen edges, fold into an edge, stack in a column or go into the Hide the windows button. Smaller windows open over your work for settings, menus, effect settings, brush settings and the timeline.
• The colour pilot is a round colour controller with a hue arc, history beads and a colour box with your palettes.
• The canvas pilot is a small round navigator. It zooms and rotates the canvas, carries the size and opacity sliders and turns into a face of shortcut buttons.
• The corner buttons give you undo, redo and hiding the interface.

What you can make

• Layers can be normal layers, groups, effect layers or colour adjustment layers, with masks, clipping, 27 blend modes, opacity and label colours.
• The brush engine goes deep: path, shape, texture, wetness, mixing, randomness and pressure, tilt and speed curves, plus an optional second brush mixed with the first (dual brush).
• Animation gives you a timeline with frames, holds, onion skin and playback, exported as GIF or MP4.
• Recording captures a video of your painting session, exported in full or as a short video.

How this documentation works

The chapters follow an artwork from start to finish: open StylusX, find your way around the canvas screen, paint with the tools and brushes, build layers and effects, use the modes, mix colours, animate and record, and tune the settings.

• Press Ctrl+K or / to search every article and section.
• Use ← → or [ ] to move to the previous or next article.
• The timeline at the bottom of the screen shows where you are in the documentation. Tap the article name in it to see all contents.

Good to know before you start

A few rules work the same way everywhere in StylusX. Learn them once and the rest of the app feels familiar.

A tap closes, a drag draws

When a small window or menu is open over the canvas, one tap on the canvas only closes it. A press that turns into a drag closes it and draws your stroke as usual. The brush shapes and textures gallery follows the same rule.

Modes are not tools

Gestures meant for drawing work only in Draw mode, such as the one-finger drag that changes brush size and opacity. In Select, Transform, Liquify, Drawing Assist and Crop they do nothing.

Everything you place is remembered

StylusX remembers where you put the windows and bars, which tabs are open, and your tool and brush choices, across restarts.

Large files stay workable

Big canvases with many layers are kept in tiles that move between graphics memory and RAM. Opening a Photoshop file shows a progress bar with one step per layer.

One undo history

Undo covers drawing, layers, transforms and liquify in one history. Tap with two fingers to undo and with three fingers to redo. Hold them to keep going.

Words used in this documentation

Opening StylusX

What you see while StylusX starts, the welcome card on your first start, and what happens if the last session ended unexpectedly.

The start screen

StylusX opens on a light page with its logo: a glass tile holding the purple mark, the STYLUSX wordmark and a slim loading bar.

• The entrance takes about a second. The tile grows in, a light runs once around its glass rim, the mark turns into place and the name rises in.
• The entrance plays before StylusX starts loading, so it never stutters, and loading never waits more than four seconds for it.
• The loading bar shows real progress. It slows near the end and fills when the main screen is ready, then the start screen fades out.
• The logo has the same physical size on every screen.
• If StylusX needs to show a message while it starts, for example about a data error, the start screen steps aside so the message is never covered.

The welcome card

The first time StylusX starts on a device, the Welcome to StylusX card opens over the gallery. It waits until StylusX has finished its first-start work, so it opens smoothly and every tap registers.

What a crash report contains

You can change your choice at any time in Settings › Help › Send Crash Reports Automatically.

When the last session ended unexpectedly

If StylusX closed without saving last time, it offers to recover your session.

• Open Recovery reopens the artwork that was open.
• Skip Recovery discards the recovery data.

Until you choose, nothing else opens: dropped files, files opened with StylusX from Windows and the Open File shortcut all wait.

The gallery

The gallery, or Home page, is where your artworks live. Sizes stay the same on every screen, so a bigger screen simply shows more columns. On a Surface you see six artworks in a row, or the create card and five groups.

Layout, top to bottom

The bottom bar

In select mode the bar narrows to three buttons, side by side in the centre:

Artwork cards

Each card shows the artwork’s preview, which fills the card, and under it the artwork’s name, its date and an Options button (⋮).

• Date: “Today: HH:mm”, “Yesterday: HH:mm”, otherwise “dd.MM.yyyy”. It is when the artwork file was last saved.
• Favourite badge: a small star in the top-left corner of the preview.
• Hover and press: the card grows a little under the pointer and dips when pressed.
• Tap a card to open the artwork. The opening animation starts from the card.

The Options menu

The open artwork card

When you go back to the gallery while an artwork is open, its preview card stays at the bottom right. It is a little larger than the grid cards and shows no name.

• Tap the card to go back into the artwork.
• X (Close) in its top-right corner closes the artwork. If it has unsaved changes, StylusX asks first.

About and Exit

• About StylusX opens the version information, with a short animation.
• Exit quits StylusX. You may be asked to confirm.

Groups, favourites and order

Groups are the gallery’s folders. A new gallery starts with one group, and favourites give you a second way to find your best work.

Groups

• Create Main Group (“Organize your artworks”) adds a new group. The groups strip then scrolls to its end so you can see it.
• A group card shows the latest artworks inside it as one to three pictures of different sizes, newest first. With fewer artworks it shows fewer pictures, never empty frames. It also shows the group’s name and a count, such as “1 artwork” or “12 artworks”.
• Tap a group to select it. It grows a little and gets a purple frame, and the grid shows that group’s artworks. The strip scrolls so the whole group is visible.
• Options (⋮ on a group) offers Rename, right on the card, and Delete, in red. A group’s pictures always come from its own artworks.

Favourites

Tap the star in the bottom bar to show only favourites. The groups row slides away and the artworks move up. Tap the star again to see everything.

Select several artworks

Tap Select in the bottom bar. A round check appears on every card. Tap cards to select them: a selected card gets a purple ring and a filled check. The Options buttons are hidden while you select.

Drag and drop

Hold a card still for about 0.3 seconds, then move it. If you move sooner, the gallery scrolls instead, and a quick press stays a tap.

• Among artworks: the other cards make room, and you drop it where you want it.
• Onto a group: the group lights up, and the artwork moves into it when you let go.
• In select mode, every selected artwork moves together. A purple badge on the dragged card shows how many.
• In the Favourites view, only the dragged artwork moves, and only within the favourites order.
• Groups: drag a group along the row and the others make room.
• Near the edges of the area, the view scrolls by itself while you drag. A drop that changes nothing does nothing.

Scrolling

Drag, or use the mouse wheel, on the artworks grid to scroll up and down, or on the groups strip to scroll sideways (flick to throw it). The grid bounces softly at its ends.

Deleting

• An artwork, from its menu or in select mode: choose Gallery to remove it from the gallery only, so the file stays on your PC, or Gallery & PC to remove it and delete the file. Cancel keeps it.
• A group: StylusX asks you to confirm with Yes or No.

Create a new artwork

Tap the large + (New artwork) in the gallery’s bottom bar. The Create new artwork window opens with an animation, and shrinks to fit on a small screen.

Size presets

The presets sit at the top, five per row. When the window opens, Screen Size is selected.

Tapping a preset fills in every setting below. A preset stays highlighted only while all its values still match; change one and no preset is highlighted.

Settings

Colour profiles

RGB

CMYK

Lists open as a pop-up with a check beside the current choice. Number fields use StylusX’s number input, and with the Numpad setting on, the on-screen numpad opens for them.

Create or cancel

• Create (right, purple) closes the window and creates the artwork. A new card appears in the gallery and the artwork opens straight away on a white canvas, while the real canvas and layers are prepared behind it. If another artwork was open, it closes at the same time; with unsaved changes, StylusX asks first.
• Cancel (left) closes the window. A tap outside the window closes it too, except while the numpad is open or for half a second after it closes.

Open and import files

Bring images, StylusX artworks and Photoshop files into StylusX. Only one import runs at a time, and the interface waits while it does.

Ways to bring a file in

What each file becomes

• A StylusX artwork (.stlx) opens as an artwork and gets a card in the gallery. If it is already the open artwork, StylusX simply returns to it. If it is already in the gallery, its existing card is used.
• An image becomes a new artwork named after the file. The canvas has the image’s size in pixels, the DPI is read from the file (72 if it has none), and the artwork is RGB. If the image can’t be read, StylusX tells you it is unable to load the image.

Adobe® Photoshop® PSD and PSB files

StylusX reads Photoshop files with its own reader. A progress bar shows the build, one step per layer.

• Low memory: large files are loaded in pieces. If the computer runs short of memory, StylusX frees what it can. If there’s still not enough, the import stops cleanly and keeps the layers it already made, instead of closing the app.

Adjustment and fill layers

Photoshop adjustment and fill layers become StylusX colour adjustment layers, keeping their masks, opacity, visibility and clipping.

The canvas screen

When an artwork is open, the canvas fills the screen and the interface floats over it.

The default layout. The colour pilot sits at the top left, the canvas pilot at the bottom left, and the layers and brushes at the top right. You can move almost everything.

Where everything sits

• The tools bar at the top centre.
• The modes bar at the bottom centre.
• The canvas pilot at the bottom left.
• Undo, redo and the window buttons in the top-right corner.
• The colour pilot at the top left.
• The Layers window at the top right, with the Brushes under it.

One rule holds for everything: no two pieces of interface sit on each other. Bars, windows, the pilot and the corner buttons keep a small gap between them. While you drag something it can pass over the others; when you let go, it settles into a free place.

The modes bar

Seven buttons, from left to right:

The mode that is on is lit: a purple icon, a tinted button and a ring around it.

Switching modes

• A tapped mode lights up at once. The interface swaps first, with the old mode’s bars and windows leaving and the new mode’s arriving. The mode itself switches about a quarter of a second later, so the animation stays smooth.
• If you tap several modes quickly, only the last one counts.
• The tools bar is hidden in Transform and Drawing Assist, and stays in Select.

Drawing inside a selection

Make a selection, then tap Draw: the selection is kept and the brush paints only inside it. Two small buttons appear over the Select button, each in a dashed frame:

• Reselect goes back to the selection.
• Cancel Selection removes the selection and returns to normal drawing.

The settings bar

Tapping Settings opens the Settings window above the modes bar, or below it when the bar is at the top. The five mode buttons are replaced by five actions, and Settings and Home stay where they are.

Pressing anywhere outside the Settings window, or pressing Esc, closes it, and the bar turns back into the modes bar. The window itself is explained in The Settings window.

Move the bars

The tools bar and the modes bar go wherever suits your hand. Each has a small handle: a pill on the side facing the middle of the screen.

Drag the handle

Drag the handle to move a bar anywhere. While you hold it, the bar lifts, its shadow grows and it tilts slightly with your speed. Let it go away from a magnet and it stays where you put it, kept inside the screen.

Top and bottom magnets

Near the top centre or bottom centre of the screen, a bar is pulled in and snaps into place, and a soft glow shows on that edge. You can also throw a bar and it settles into the magnet. In the lower half of the screen, the tools bar’s handle moves to its top side.

Swap the bars

Move one bar into the magnet where the other bar sits and the other bar flies to the opposite edge, top to bottom or bottom to top. It happens as soon as the moving bar gets close.

Stand a bar on a side edge

• Drag a bar close to the left or right screen edge, within about 150 units. It turns 90° and sticks to that edge, standing upright, and you can slide it up and down along it.
• Pull it more than about 260 units away from the edge and it turns back.
• The icons stay upright, and the handle faces the middle of the screen.
• Both bars can share one edge if they fit; otherwise the second one is refused.
• Side middle magnet: on the left or right edge, the bar is pulled to the middle of the free room on that edge.
• Swap from a side edge: when you swap the two bars, the other bar goes to the edge and height that the dragged bar came from.
• A window can fold against an upright bar as if the bar were the screen edge.

Small screens and windows

• On a narrow window the tools bar shrinks to fit, never below 30 %.
• When a window and the tools bar are both at the top of the screen in the same columns, the window sits under the bar and gets shorter, so it never covers the tools. The same applies at the bottom.

Remembered

Each bar’s place is kept across restarts: snapped or free, top or bottom, side edge and position. A bar that was last put on the same edge as the other one starts on the opposite edge.

Corner buttons

The top-right corner holds quick controls for undo, the windows and the interface.

The top-right buttons

Five round buttons, from left to right:

• Undo and redo work inside Liquify too, and still reach the steps from before you started liquifying.
• Before an undo or redo, StylusX checks the step. A step that belongs to a layer that no longer exists, such as a liquify step on a layer you have since merged, is skipped with a message.

Stroke-mode circles under the active tool

There is no longer a row of circles at the top left. Put-away windows go into the Hide the windows button, and the stroke modes show under the tool they belong to. See Perfect Shape.

Full screen

Use the Full Screen button in the Settings window, above Exit, or the Switch Full Screen shortcut, F by default. It switches between a borderless full-screen window and a normal window.

Canvas Menu

A right click on the canvas brings the circles that are showing, such as the active tool’s mode circles, to a ring around the pointer.

Open the ring

• Right click on the canvas, without moving.
• Click the pen’s barrel button.
• Double tap with a finger, when Settings › Touch › Double Tap is set to Canvas Menu.

Use the ring

• While the ring is out, the brush cursor is hidden.
• Canvas Menu is the default double-tap option for new users. Existing users keep their setting.

The canvas pilot

The pilot is a round controller for moving, zooming and rotating the canvas. It also carries the size and opacity sliders, and turns into five shortcut buttons.

By default it sits at the bottom left, above the modes bar if the bar is under it, and it is shown while Settings › Interface › Stylus Navigator is on. The canvas ignores presses on the pilot’s disk, sliders and handle.

Move, zoom and rotate

The two arc sliders

Two curved sliders wrap around the disk. What they control depends on the tool:

• Drag along an arc to change it. The change is relative to where you start, and it gets finer the further your pen moves away from the arc.
• Tap a slider (size and opacity, and the Line Width, Clone Stamp and Healing sliders) to open it over the length of both arcs. Tap again on the open slider to jump to that point. A press anywhere else closes it.
• A value pill follows the slider while you use it.
• Size and opacity snap to their pins.
• In Auto Select, changing the tolerance updates the current selection live, and the value is kept for the next selection.

The stamp preview

While you change size or opacity, a stamp preview buds off the disk like a dividing cell. It shows the brush stamp at its real size and opacity, and goes back in when you let go. While it is out, the pilot is drawn above the windows.

The shortcuts face

• Tap the handle to turn the pilot into the five shortcut buttons, and tap it again to turn it back.
• Dragging the handle only moves the pilot. It never switches the face.
• The face you last used is remembered.

Copy and Cut work when the current layer is a normal, editable layer, and Paste also needs something copied. Buttons you can’t use right now are faded.

Move the pilot

• Drag its handle, under the disk, to move it anywhere.
• The screen’s corners and edges pull it in like a magnet, on both axes. An edge it is stuck to stays stuck when the screen size changes.
• When the pilot crosses the middle of the screen, the arcs turn so they always face the inside of the screen, and the handle moves to the free side.
• Its place is kept across restarts.
• Default place: the bottom-left corner.
• It keeps clear of the colour pilot, the bars and the corner buttons, the same way it keeps clear of the windows.

Windows and tabs

The Layers and Brushes pages live in floating windows, and every page can go in any window. Colours are picked with the colour pilot.

On first start, the Layers window sits at the top right with the Brushes under it. No window is special: they all behave the same way.

Tabs

A window with two pages shows a row of tabs at its top, in the order Layers, Brushes. A window with a single page shows no tabs.

• Tap a tab to switch the window to that page, with a swipe. The active tab is highlighted and its icon turns purple.

Tear a page off

Press a tab and drag. After a short pull it lifts and becomes a small card. Once your finger leaves the window, the card becomes a real window of its own, which you are now moving by its handle. Let go over its old window and the tab pops back into place.

Put a window into another

Drag a window by its handle, or a torn-off tab, until your finger or the middle of the dragged window is over another window. That window’s tabs row opens a slot. Let go and the window flies into the slot, and its pages join that window. Nothing else moves while you drag; the other windows adjust when you let go.

The handle

Every window has a handle on its side.

How a gesture decides

• The first clear motion decides whether a gesture folds or moves. One gesture never does both.
• A window moved in from elsewhere only stops at the edge. Put it down there, and the next pull past the edge folds it.
• When you let a fold go, the window ends open or folded depending on your speed, and then on how far it was folded.

Move a folded window up or down

A folded window can be moved up and down by its handle, without opening it.

• Press the handle and pull up or down. The window moves up or down only. It stays folded and on its edge.
• Press the handle and pull sideways, away from the edge, to open it, as before.
• The first clear motion decides which one happens. It is never both in one pull.
• This works for every window: the main one and the side windows, such as Brushes.

Tools and mode windows

• No window hides for a tool any more. Changing tools never hides the layers, colours or brushes.
• Mode windows are fixed at the top right: Selection, Liquify settings, Transform options and every Drawing Assist window (2D, Symmetry, 3D, Pattern). They sit under the corner buttons, on the right edge.
• They have no handle, so you can’t drag, fold or magnet them.
• The colours page is now the colour pilot. See The colour pilot. The old Colours window doesn’t open in the new interface.

Edges, columns and pop-ups

Windows look after their own place on screen. They snap to the edges, share columns and step aside when a mode needs the canvas.

The edge magnet

• Windows are pulled to the left and right screen edges. Near the edge the pull grows quickly; the window is sucked in and sticks with a small knock and wobble.
• As a window comes close, a soft glow and two tongues of light, one from the screen edge and one from the window edge, meet in the middle.
• To pull a window free you work against real resistance, and then it lets go suddenly.
• A window that starts on the edge and is pulled inward shows no glow.
• The handle switches sides as a window crosses the middle of the screen. In the left half the handle is on the right, and the window folds from right to left.

Stacking in a column

Windows on the same side stack one above the other, with a small gap between them.

• StylusX works out how many windows fit in a column on your screen. Each window counts at its smallest height: Layers with its header and two rows, Brushes with its header and one row, and Colours at full height. On a Surface that means two windows per column.
• A window you let go into a column with no room, or touching another full column, goes back to where you took it from.
• A window that opens and finds no room goes to the other side. If both sides are full, it goes to a free spot near the middle of the screen.
• After a swap, the window that ends on top moves up into the room above.

A tap on the canvas closes pop-ups

With any of these open, a tap on the canvas closes them and draws nothing. A press and drag closes them and draws your stroke.

The side windows (Layers, Colours and Brushes, and the mode windows) aren’t closed this way. Esc closes the Settings window, layer pop-ups, effect pop-ups and menus.

When Transform or Drawing Assist is on

Entering Transform or Drawing Assist quickly fades the windows, Brush Settings included, toward their screen edge and fades the tools bar away. When you leave, everything comes back exactly where it was.

Remembered across restarts

Which page is in which window, each window’s place, its fold, whether it is put away and the tab it shows.

Canvas view and actions

The top row of Settings › Canvas holds quick actions for the canvas and the way you see it.

Canvas tiles

Rotate the canvas

Rotate with the pilot’s arrow (a double tap on it resets the rotation), with two fingers, or with the keyboard: hold R to rotate and press Shift+R to reset.

View shortcuts

Change them in Settings › Advanced › Keyboard Shortcuts. Every default is listed in Keyboard shortcuts.

The drawing board

The area around the canvas is a light board with a dotted grid, dark in the dark theme. Settings › Interface › Background Grid turns the grid on or off.

Messages, tool tips and progress

StylusX tells you what’s happening with small messages, explains its icons with tool tips, and shows progress for long jobs.

Action messages

Short messages such as “Undo” or “Copied” appear as a small pill. It sits at the top centre between the corner buttons, below any interface that is there, or at the bottom centre when the top is taken. It never takes a press.

• Turn these messages on or off in Settings › Advanced › Actions Messages.
• A message that says you can’t draw, because the layer is hidden or locked or you are on a group, the background, a hidden effect or a mask, has an Open Layers button that opens the Layers window.

Tool tips

• Hold the mouse or a hovering pen over an icon for 0.4 seconds to see its name. The tip is a plain pill with no arrow, above the icon, or below it when there is no room. On an upright bar, the tip shows beside the icon.
• It hides when you press, when the pointer leaves and when StylusX loses focus. After a press it doesn’t come back until the pointer leaves that icon.
• Tool tips are translated into every language, and the gallery shows the same style of tip.
• Turn them on or off in Settings › Interface › Tool Tips.

Progress

• Long jobs show a progress bar: opening an artwork, importing a Photoshop file (one step per layer) and saving.
• While a save or another long job runs, the interface waits for it. As a safety net it is released after five minutes at most.

Reference window

Open a reference window with Reference Window on the settings bar. Up to two can be open; the second one opens in the emptiest part of the screen.

A reference window is a side window like the others: it has the same handle, magnet and stacking rules, and its place is kept for each side. The picture sits in a rounded area inside it.

Buttons

Tap the picture to show its buttons. A press outside the window hides them again.

Zoom and pan

• Zoom with the mouse wheel over the picture, by dragging a pen up to zoom in or down to zoom out, or with a two-finger pinch. Zoom always centres on the point under the pointer.
• You can zoom from the whole picture up to 6×.
• When zoomed in, drag sideways to move the view. A single finger only moves a zoomed view; it doesn’t zoom.
• A new picture, a turn or switching to Canvas starts whole again.

Resize

After you tap the window, an accent arc appears at its bottom corner, the one toward the middle of the screen. Drag it to make the window lower, or higher again up to the picture’s own height. The picture always stays whole.

Crop and resize

Open Settings › Canvas › Crop & Resize, or press C. The crop frame shows on the canvas and the tools bar turns into the crop bar, in the same place, with the same handle and style.

The crop bar

From left to right:

During the crop, only the crop bar and its tool tips are shown. Everything else is hidden, so every other press goes to the crop frame. The size and opacity sliders aren’t part of the crop bar.

The tools bar

The tools bar sits at the top centre by default. It holds eleven buttons in four groups, split by thin separators.

The four groups

The tools

With a stroke mode on, the tool tip adds it after a dot: “Brush · Perfect Shape”, “Brush · Reshape Stroke”, “Fill Color · Close Gaps”.

When the screen is narrow: More Tools

• When there is no room, the three retouch tools go into the More Tools button.
• This also happens on an upright bar when its edge is too short.
• Tap More Tools to open a small row of the hidden tools under it (above it when the bar sits at the bottom). Tap a tool to take it, and the row closes. A press anywhere else closes it too.
• The More Tools button is lit (tint and accent ring) while the tool in use is one of the hidden ones.
• The buttons glide to their new places, and the bar narrows or widens with them.

How the buttons look

The active tool’s button gets a light tint, an accent ring and an accent icon. With a mouse or a hovering pen, a button lightens a little under the pointer and shows its tool tip. A tap plays a small ripple and makes the icon hop.

The size and opacity sliders aren’t on the tools bar. They are the two arcs of the canvas pilot, and what they control depends on the active tool. To move the bar, see Move the bars.

When the bar changes or goes away

• Transform and Drawing Assist: the tools bar fades out and takes no presses, so the canvas gets them. It stays visible while Select is on.
• Liquify: it turns into the liquify bar in the same place.
• Crop: it turns into the crop bar.
• Tapping a tool while Select, Transform or Drawing Assist is on closes the mode first, exactly as the Draw button would (a transform is completed, an assist is applied or closed, select is turned off), and then takes the tool. One exception: with a selection, Brush, Eraser, Smudge, Fill Color and Eye Drop work inside the selection and keep it, and Color Select keeps it too.
• Select, then Transform: with a selection made, choosing Transform moves only the selected part, not the whole layer.

Tool shortcuts

• A tool shortcut works like tapping the tool’s button. If the tool is already on, it stays on; the shortcut doesn’t turn it off.
• The two on or off shortcuts switch their option each time you press them.
• The shortcuts from Clone Stamp down are listed under More Tools in the shortcut settings. They don’t work while you type text, on the Home page, during Liquify or Crop, while renaming, or while StylusX is busy.

Change any shortcut in Settings › Advanced › Keyboard Shortcuts.

Brush, Eraser, Smudge, Blur

The four painting tools. Each uses its own brush from the Brushes window, with the size and opacity sliders on the canvas pilot.

Size and opacity

• On the pilot, the side arc is Size in pixels and the top arc is Opacity in percent. Their ranges come from the brush; see Customize.
• Tap an arc to open it along the full length of both arcs, with the stamp preview.
• Size and opacity snap to their pins.
• On the keyboard, ] and [ change the size, and Shift+] and Shift+[ change the opacity.
• A second tap on the active Brush, Eraser, Smudge or Blur shows its stroke modes under the tool. See Perfect Shape.
• By default the Eraser, Smudge and Blur follow the paint brush. See Eraser, Smudge and Blur brushes.

The brush as eraser

The Brush can erase with exactly the same brush: the same shape, size, opacity and every other setting.

• Turn it on with the shortcut The Brush As Eraser, Shift+B. If another tool is on, the shortcut takes the Brush first.
• What you see: the Brush button’s pen icon turns over in a half turn and becomes an outline pen, and its tool tip reads Eraser.
• Turn it off by tapping the Brush button (that tap only turns erasing off), pressing the shortcut again, or taking any other tool.
• If you switch it while the pen is on the canvas, the change applies from the next stroke.
• While it erases, Perfect Shape and Reshape Stroke are off for the brush, and their circles are hidden.
• The normal Eraser and your pen’s eraser end are unchanged.

Blur Tool

The Blur tool softens the drawing under your stroke, the way Smudge pushes it.

• It uses the current brush’s shape, texture, pressure, size and opacity, so a textured brush blurs with its texture.
• It only changes what is under the stroke.

Blur Strength

• A row in Brush Settings, under the Smudge settings, from 0 to 100 %.
• It has its own preview strip, and you can type its number.
• Reset gives the brush’s original value.

Other details

• Follow Paint Brush: Blur has its own switch, on by default.
• Remembered: Blur keeps its own last brush, size and opacity.
• Stroke modes: Perfect Shape, Reshape Stroke and Join Strokes work with Blur, as with the other brush tools.

Perfect Shape

Turn a hand-drawn stroke into a clean line, arc, circle or other shape the moment you lift the pen.

Stroke modes

Tap the active Brush, Eraser, Smudge or Blur a second time. A row of three circles opens under the tools bar, or over it when the bar is at the bottom:

Using the row

• Tap a circle to turn that mode on. The row closes.
• Active modes stay under the tool. When the row is closed, the modes that are on stay as small circles under the tool’s button.
• Tap a small circle to turn its mode off.
• Tap the tool again to see the full row.
• Closing the row: a press anywhere else, changing tools, or the bar going away.

Rules

• Each tool keeps its own modes. Brush, Eraser, Smudge and Blur are separate, and Join Strokes is per tool too.
• Join Strokes and the others: turning Join Strokes on turns off that tool’s Perfect Shape and Reshape Stroke.
• Remembered: each tool’s Join Strokes switch is kept after a restart.
• Icons: the tool buttons keep their normal icons. The circles under the tool show what is on.
• Hidden: the circles hide while the interface is hidden, during Transform and Drawing Assist, and while the brush erases.

Draw a perfect shape

1. Draw a stroke and lift the pen or mouse. There’s no need to hold.
2. The stroke turns into a perfect shape: a line, an arc, a circle and so on. Four small sparkles and a soft ring flash where you let go, for about 0.6 seconds.
3. Two buttons show beside the shape, to its upper right or wherever there is room.
4. The buttons stay pinned to the shape when you pan, zoom or rotate the canvas.
5. Press anywhere else on the canvas to finish the shape and draw on.

• Using Move Shape hides the two buttons.
• Edit Points mode was removed.

Reshape Stroke

Bend, thicken and recolour a stroke after you’ve drawn it. It stays a real pixel stroke, drawn again live with its own brush.

Turn it on with the Reshape Stroke circle under the active Brush, Eraser, Smudge or Blur. In earlier versions it was called Vector Line.

Edit the stroke

When you lift the pen, a thin accent guide line appears inside the stroke, with a white edge so it shows on any colour. Until the editing ends you can:

With a mouse or a hovering pen, points and handle tips grow a little under the pointer. The stroke is drawn again live in pixels, spaced so it never shows gaps.

When the editing ends

The editing ends, and the stroke is drawn for real, when you:

• press away from the stroke (that press starts a new stroke),
• tap with a finger away from it,
• change the brush or its settings,
• save, undo or run a layer operation,
• turn the mode off or take another tool.

Join Strokes

Put the pen down at the end of your last stroke and keep drawing: the two become one continuous stroke.

Turn it on

Tap the active Brush, Eraser, Smudge or Blur a second time, then tap the third circle, after Reshape Stroke. While it is on, a small circle stays under the tool; tap it to turn Join Strokes off.

Join a stroke

1. Draw a stroke and lift the pen.
2. Put the pen down again close to the end of that stroke (within about 24 screen pixels of its last part) and keep drawing.
3. The new stroke carries on from the old one as one continuous stroke: no seam, no overlap, no double transparency. The brush’s taper, texture and pressure flow on as if you never lifted the pen.

How it works

• Its last part. You can join anywhere on the last part of the stroke: the last 150 screen pixels of it, or its last 30 % if that is longer. The new stroke goes on from the point nearest to where you put the pen down.
• Smooth hand-over. A short curve bridges the old stroke’s end and your pen. The pressure eases from the old value to your new one, so the line width changes gradually and never jumps.
• Pen only. It works with the pen tip. The mouse, a finger, and the pen’s eraser end always start a new stroke.
• Same conditions only. A stroke joins only on the same layer (and the same mask), with the same brush, tool, mode and colours. If anything changed, the new stroke starts on its own.
• Far away means a new stroke. Putting the pen down away from the stroke’s end simply starts a new stroke. The last one is final from then on.
• When the last stroke becomes final. It is drawn for good, and can no longer be joined, when you start a stroke elsewhere, change the layer, the brush, the tool or its settings, make a selection, turn mirror drawing on, use the mouse or a finger, or tap.

Eye Drop

Pick any colour from the canvas, or from a reference picture.

• Tap the Eye Drop button, then tap the canvas to pick a colour. Tapping the button again while it is on goes back to your last brush tool.
• The cursor is a circle with two rings. The outer ring is your current colour, the inner ring is the colour under the cursor (the one you’ll pick), and the centre dot is the exact spot. Thin light-grey lines separate the rings.
• From Color Select: if you started the Eye Drop from Color Select, Color Select comes back on by itself after the pick.
• Both pilot arcs are dimmed while Eye Drop is on.
• It can also pick colours from a reference window.

Shortcuts

Press I for the tool, or hold Left Alt for a temporary eye drop.

Pick Layer

Pick Layer finds a layer by its drawing. Point at a drawing on the canvas and its layer lights up. Tap it to make that layer the active layer.

Pick a layer

1. Tap the Pick Layer button. It shows a tinted circle with an accent ring while it is on.
2. With a mouse or a hovering pen, move over the canvas. The pointer is the app’s own arrow, in dark.
3. The top layer with paint under the pointer lights up: the whole screen goes black at 60 % except that layer’s drawing.
4. Tap a drawing. Its layer becomes the active layer, as if you tapped its row: its closed groups open, and the Layers window scrolls to its row.
5. The tool turns off by itself, and you are back on the tool you had before (for example the Brush).

How it works

• No drawing while it is on. A tap or press on the canvas only picks; the brush draws nothing. Two fingers still pan and zoom.
• The top layer wins. Where several layers overlap, the highest one that has paint at that point is picked.
• What counts as paint: an alpha of at least 5 %, counting the layer’s opacity and its clipping base.
• Skipped: hidden layers (and layers in a hidden group), layers at 0 % opacity, and effect and adjustment layers.
• A tap where no layer has paint turns the tool off and changes nothing.
• With a finger there is no hover: a tap picks the layer straight away.
• Turn it off with its button again, Escape, another tool, a mode (Liquify, Crop …), or by hiding the interface.
• Layer masks are not counted yet. A part hidden by a mask can still pick that layer.
• Any number of layers: only one pixel of each layer is read under the pointer, so it stays fast with 70 or more layers.

Color Select

Draw a loop around an area and it fills with the current colour.

• Tap to turn it on, and tap again to go back to the brush tool you used last.
• Auto close: when your stroke ends near where it began, the extra tail is trimmed so the shape closes cleanly.
• Smooth edges: the line you draw is anti-aliased.
• With a selection: Color Select works inside a selection you keep, and the colouring is clipped to it. Tapping Color Select again goes back to the selection, and the selection stays.
• With a pen, the shape ends where the pen last touched, not where it jumped as you lifted it, so it closes cleanly.

Pilot sliders

Shortcut: Shift+C.

Fill Color

Fill an area with one tap, tune how much colour counts as the same area, and close small gaps in your line art.

• Tap the Fill button to turn the fill on. It stays on, so you can fill area after area by tapping the canvas.
• A second tap on the active Fill shows its modes under the tools bar: Gradient and Close Gaps. Active ones stay under the tool, and you tap one to turn it off.
• Inside a selection the fill stays inside it and keeps the selection.
• Hold for the colour picker: a held finger on the canvas picks a colour, and then you’re back to the fill. The same applies to Color Select’s auto select.
• The fill reads its boundaries from the Reference layer if you set one. See Layer options.
• Shortcut: D.

Pilot sliders

The live re-fill only works while that fill is still the last undo step, on the same layer, with Fill still on. Otherwise the slider sets the value for the next fill.

Gradient and Close Gaps

While Fill is active, a second tap on its button shows two circles under the bar:

How Close Gaps works

• It is a switch and stays as you set it when you change tools. Shortcut: Shift+D.
• Gaps up to about twice a gap radius are closed. The radius is the artwork’s shorter side divided by 90, between 8 and 48 px. On a 2048 px canvas that’s about 23 px, which closes gaps up to about 46 px.
• Narrow corners are still filled. If anything goes wrong, the normal fill is used.

Gradient fill

With the Gradient circle on, tapping an area fills it with a gradient you can keep shaping right on the canvas.

By default a gradient runs from your current colour to your second colour, left to right across the area. While that fill is still editable, meaning it is the last undo step and Fill and Gradient are both on, an editor shows on the canvas.

The gradient editor

The editor is an accent line with a round colour point at each end and at any inner stops. Between each pair of points there is a small square.

Points and squares grow under the pointer. Over a point or square the pointer becomes an arrow; over the line it becomes a +, meaning you can add a point.

Line Width

Make existing lines thicker or thinner by tracing over them.

1. Take Line Width (Q). A circle cursor follows the pointer on the canvas. It is measured in the image’s pixels, so it follows zoom and rotation.
2. Trace over a line. The traced band shows see-through: violet when thickening, red when thinning.
3. Let go. The lines under the band grow or shrink by the amount. The change is full in the middle of the circle and fades to its edge, and it fades in and out smoothly at the start and end of the stroke.

Pilot sliders

Messages

Clone Stamp

Copy one part of the picture onto another, live, from the layer you’re on.

1. Take Clone Stamp (K). A message says “Clone: press where to copy from”.
2. Set the source. Your first press puts a + mark there. Alt + press puts the + anywhere, at any time. You can also drag the +: with touch at any time, with a mouse or pen before your first stroke.
3. Paint where the copy should go. The circle cursor shows the stamp size.
4. Aligned: your first stroke after placing the + fixes the distance between the + and the brush. Later strokes keep that distance, and the + follows the circle.
5. Tap the Clone Stamp button again while it is on to pick a new source.

Pilot sliders

Messages

Healing

Paint over a blemish and it is replaced with matching texture from nearby.

Healing traces like Line Width: a circle cursor and a see-through green band. It applies when you let go, and strokes are applied in order. Shortcut: J.

What happens when you let go

1. StylusX searches around the area, up to about 1.5 times its size away, for the spot whose surroundings look most like the area’s surroundings.
2. It brings in that spot’s texture and blends the colour and light so they match where you painted.
3. It mixes the result in with soft edges.

Pilot sliders

Messages

Fingers and pen

How a finger and the pen behave while you draw.

Change size and opacity with a finger

When Settings › Touch › Finger Action is on and set to Brush Size & Opacity, a one-finger drag on the canvas doesn’t draw. Instead:

• Drag right or left to make the brush bigger or smaller.
• Drag up or down to make it more or less opaque.
• The first 10 px of movement decide whether the drag changes size or opacity. A drag of about 640 units covers the whole range, and values snap to pins.
• The pilot shows its stamp preview while the value changes. If the pilot is hidden, a preview box shows by the tools bar instead.
• It works in Draw mode only. In Drawing Assist, Liquify, Transform, Select or Crop the drag does nothing.
• On first start, Finger Action is on, set to Brush Size & Opacity.

The pen

• The pen draws with pressure and tilt. Pressure first goes through StylusX’s overall pressure curve, then through the brush’s own curves; see Curves.
• Fast strokes keep their shape. With the default Windows pen input, every pen position the system reports while the tip is down is used, not just one per frame. Fast circles stay round even when StylusX is busy, with the pressure blended between samples.
• WinTab pens, the mouse, a finger, Drawing Assist strokes and perfect shapes use one sample per frame.
• Choose the pen driver in Settings › Advanced › Input Device.
• Hovering with the pen shows tool tips and the brush cursor, depending on the cursor settings.

Every gesture is listed in Touch, pen and mouse.

The Brushes page

Pick, browse and manage your brushes. The Brushes page is one of the window pages, next to Layers.

Reach it with its tab or its corner button. Like the other pages, it can be torn off into a window of its own. Anything that asks for the brushes panel, such as a shortcut, simply switches the window to this page.

Layout

Each brush card shows the brush’s stroke preview, its name, and a small heart in the top-left corner when it’s a favourite. The active brush has an accent ring around its card. Cards are white in the light theme and dark in the dark theme, with the stroke drawn in the card’s ink colour.

Brush Groups

• A container above the brush cards shows the current group: its icon and name.
• Tap it to open the list of groups. Recent and Favourites are pinned at the top, and the groups scroll under them.
• Tap a group to choose it. The list closes.
• Tap the current group for its options. A group’s options have no opacity.
• Dropping brushes on a group: drag a brush card onto the container and hold it there for a moment. The list opens, so you can drop the card on a group.

Group names

• The ten built-in groups have their own names in every language: Drawing, Sketch, Brush, Calligraphy, Stone, Paint, Airbrush, Sprayer, Shadetone, Elemental.
• Your own groups keep the names you gave them.

Recent and Favourites

• When the window is open, they are at the top left of the window.
• When it is folded, they are in the groups list.
• Recent keeps up to 12 brushes.

Folded window

• Two columns of cards, without names: only the preview and the favourite mark.
• The groups list also shows two columns of icons.
• Hovering shows the group or brush name as a tip.

Scrolling

Drag up or down on the grid to scroll the brushes. Both have a soft rubber edge and keep a little momentum after a flick. The mouse wheel scrolls whichever column the pointer is over.

Tap a brush

• Tap a brush to make it the active brush. It shows as active immediately, and StylusX switches to it a moment later.
• Tap the active brush to open its brush menu. To open its settings, use the gear.

The brush menu

The menu opens beside the Brushes window, titled with the brush’s name. Items appear only when they apply.

Organise and import brushes

Create brushes and groups, import Photoshop and StylusX brushes, and drag brushes where you want them.

The top buttons

The Add menu

Brush file formats

Select mode

• Every card shows a round check in its top-right corner. Tap a card to select or deselect it; selected cards turn lavender.
• Delete with the + button, now a bin. This works only in a normal category.
• Long-press one of the selected brushes and drag to move all of them together. A small accent badge on the dragged card shows how many. Drop them on a category or on the Favorites heart.
• Leave select mode with the X.

Reorder and move brushes

1. Press and hold a brush card, without moving, until it lifts.
2. Drag it. Inside the grid the other cards open a gap where it will land: let go to reorder. Over a category button the category lights up: let go to move the brush there. Over the Favorites heart the heart lights up: let go to add it to Favorites.
3. Near the top or bottom of the grid, the grid scrolls by itself.

• A brush you created is moved to the other category. A built-in brush stays where it is, and a copy goes into the other category.
• Inside Favorites you can reorder, but not drop on other categories. Inside Recent you can’t reorder or drop.
• Letting go of a lifted brush without moving it does nothing.

Recent and Favorites

• Recent, the clock icon: the brushes you used most recently, newest first, up to 12.
• Favorites, the heart icon: the brushes you marked as favourite.
• They aren’t listed with the categories; you reach them by their icons. Tapping the group that’s already open does nothing.

Categories

Tap a category to open it; the grid scrolls back to the top. Tap the open category to open its menu:

Eraser, Smudge and Blur brushes

By default the Eraser, Smudge and Blur use the same brush as painting, at the same size and opacity. You can give each its own brush whenever you like.

Follow Paint Brush

• While the Eraser, Smudge or Blur follows the paint brush, changing the size while you erase also changes it for painting.
• Tap a different brush while the Eraser, Smudge or Blur is the current tool, and that tool gets its own brush from then on, with its own size and opacity.
• While the current tool has its own brush, a Follow Paint Brush chip shows on the window’s top bar, left of the settings button. Tap it, and the tool takes the paint brush again and follows it.
• The choice is kept separately for the Eraser, Smudge and Blur, and remembered across restarts. The default is to follow.

The Brush Settings window

Change how the active brush paints. Every change applies live, so you see it in your next stroke.

Open and close

• Open: tap the gear on the Brushes page. It edits the active brush. Creating a New Brush opens it too.
• Inside the brushes window: the Brush Settings open as the Brushes window’s own content, at the same height, and scroll inside it.
• Tabs stay visible: if the window also holds other pages, their tabs stay on top while the settings are open. Tap a tab to close the settings and show that page.
• Close: the back button at the top right, Close. The settings fold back into the Brushes window and the brush is saved. Esc also closes and saves.

No Save, no Cancel

• Every change applies to the brush live, and closing always keeps your changes. A brand-new brush is kept too.
• The window doesn’t block anything. You can keep drawing, pick colours, undo and redo, and use the timeline and the pilot while it is open. Your strokes use the brush exactly as it is being edited.
• It closes by itself, and saves, when you take Transform or Liquify, or a tool without brushes: Line Width, Fill Color or Color Select.
• If you move to another page with a handle swipe or a corner button, the settings wait. The window shows that page, and when you come back to the Brushes page the settings come back. Nothing is applied or closed meanwhile.
• Ctrl+E while the settings are open exports the brush.
• Type a value: tap a slider’s number to type it on the number pad.

Move and size

• Drag the handle sideways to move the window; the screen edges attract it. A vertical swipe on the handle changes page. A long press on the handle picks the window up so it can move freely in any direction. When Brushes is in a window of its own, the handle moves that window.

The top of the window

From left to right:

Below the buttons:

• The stroke preview: the brush’s stroke, the same picture as its card. With a dual brush, two previews side by side.
• The + button on the right of the preview adds a second brush; see Dual brush. When the second brush is selected, it becomes a red bin that removes it.
• The tabs: eight tabs in two rows of four. The open tab is wide and shows its name; the others show only their icon. Hover for the name.

The eight tabs

Path opens first. The last tab you opened is kept while StylusX runs.

Sliders, curves and the Test Pad

Brush settings are grouped in rounded blocks, one setting per row. Here’s how each kind of row works, and how to try your brush as you go.

Sliders

• A row shows its name and a small slider with its value, such as 35 %, 90° or 200px.
• Drag sideways on the row to change the value. The drag is relative: the value moves with your finger from where it was, rather than jumping to where you pressed.
• Fine control: while dragging, move your pen or finger away from the row, up or down. Beyond a short distance the value follows more and more slowly.
• Tap the row and the slider grows to the full width of the row, the name fades, and a reset button appears at its right. The reset button is dimmed when the value is already the default. The slider shrinks back about 2.6 seconds after you stop using it.
• Values move in whole percent, whole degrees or whole pixels.
• Signed sliders run from −100 % to +100 % with 0 in the centre. They fill from the centre and snap to 0 near the middle.
• Dragging up or down on a row scrolls the list instead.

Other kinds of row

Resetting one row brings that setting back to the brush’s own default: the value the brush came with, or the one saved with Save As Default Settings. Switches, lists and images have no reset of their own per row; images have their own reset circle.

Curves

Every pressure, tilt and speed setting is a curve row.

• The weight slider, from −100 % to +100 %, says how strongly the input acts on the setting. 0 % means no effect, and negative values reverse it.
• Tap the curve icon to open the curve below the row. The row grows into a large square and the icon turns accent. Tap it again to close it.
• The square has a grid and a faint diagonal, the straight 1:1 line. Across is the input, pressure, tilt or speed; up is how much of the effect you get.
• Add a point: press on the curve line. A point appears there and you can drag it at once.
• Move a point: drag it. Points keep a small distance from each other sideways.
• Delete a point: double-tap it. At least two points always stay.
• Pressing elsewhere in the square scrolls the list. The row’s reset button resets both the weight and the curve.

The Test Pad

A square drawing surface that opens beside the settings window, on the side away from its handle, or on the other side when there’s no room.

• Draw on it with the brush you are editing, with your pen’s pressure and tilt. Dual brushes draw combined.
• It paints with the current primary and secondary colours of the colour picker, at the middle of the brush’s Min–Max size range and at full opacity.
• Clear: the eraser button in its top-right corner wipes the pad.
• Resize: drag the accent arc on its outer bottom corner, from about 330 to 980 units, within the screen.
• The drawing isn’t kept. It exists only while the pad is open, and the pad closes with the settings window.

Dual brush, More and Reset

Mix a second brush into every stamp, copy settings between brushes, export them, and reset a brush to its defaults.

Add a second brush

• Tap + on the right of the preview block. A second brush with default settings is added and selected. Both are drawn together in every stamp and mixed with a combine mode.
• Two previews show side by side. The selected one is wider with an accent outline; the other is dimmed.
• Edit one of them: tap the other preview to select it. Every setting in the tabs then edits only the selected brush, primary or secondary.
• Combine mode: tap the selected preview again to open the combine list. A new second brush starts at Normal.
• Remove: select the second brush and the + becomes a red bin. Tap it, and the second brush is removed straight away.
• The + is hidden while the primary brush of a dual brush is selected.

Combine modes

Shared between the two brushes: size and opacity, the colours, and the Stamp Preview switch. Everything else is set for each brush.

The More list

Reset Brush Settings

The reset button at the top resets the whole brush to its defaults: how a built-in brush shipped, or, for your own brushes, their Save As Default state or how they were created. It happens straight away with no confirmation, and it is saved immediately, even before you close the window.

What is saved, and when

Path and Shape settings

Path decides how the stroke follows your hand. Shape decides the tip that is stamped along it.

“Default” below is the value a new brush starts with; built-in brushes have their own values. Settings apply to the selected brush, primary or secondary.

Path

Shape

The first block holds the shape image tile and the rotation and roundness pad.

The shapes and textures gallery

• Open it: tap the shape image in Shape, or the grain image in Texture. The gallery opens beside the settings window, next to the test pad if it is open, titled with the tab’s name.
• It shows the built-in pictures, two per row, and scrolls. Tap a picture to use it on the selected brush, live.
• + (Import): pick an image file. It becomes a greyscale brush image (shapes are scaled down to fit 500 × 500 px) and is used on the brush. It isn’t added to the gallery. If the file can’t be read, StylusX tells you it is unable to load the image.
• X closes the gallery. Tapping the same image tile again also closes it; tapping the other image tile switches the gallery to that library.
• A press anywhere on the settings window, except an image tile and the handle, only closes the gallery. On the canvas, a tap closes it and a longer drag draws and closes it. A press on the bars or another window closes it at once.
• The reset circle on an image tile puts back StylusX’s default. For the grain, the default is no texture, and the tile shows plain white.

Texture and Visibility settings

Texture adds grain inside the stroke, like paper or canvas. Visibility decides how the paint lands on the layer.

Texture

Texture blending modes

Visibility

Blending modes

Brush Appearance

Water Mix and Randomize settings

Water Mix lets paint run out, mix with the canvas and gather at the edges. Randomize adds controlled variation to every stroke or stamp.

Water Mix

Randomize

Every setting runs from 0 to 100 % and starts at 0, meaning no randomness. Stroke settings change once per stroke; stamp settings change for every stamp.

The secondary colour is the second colour of the colour picker.

Sensitivity and Customize settings

Sensitivity ties the brush to pen pressure, tilt and drawing speed. Customize sets the size and opacity ranges the pilot’s sliders work within.

Sensitivity

Three titled blocks: Pressure, Tilt and Speed. Every row is a curve row with a weight from −100 to +100 % and its own curve. Row names leave out the block’s word, so Pressure Size shows as Size.

Pressure, pen only

Tilt, pen only

Tilt is how far the pen leans.

Speed, pen, mouse and touch

Pressure Pigment and Pull Pressure stay in the Water Mix tab.

Customize

The pilot’s size and opacity sliders work inside these ranges, so the same slider position gives different sizes on different brushes.

The Layers window

The Layers window lists every part of your artwork, from top to bottom. Open it with its tab, its corner button or Ctrl+L.

Four kinds of row

Effects such as blurs, shadow or film grain aren’t rows of their own. They belong to a layer and are listed under it; see Add effects and adjustments.

The list scrolls with the mouse wheel or by dragging with a finger or pen, and a scroll bar fades in while it moves. It stays fast with very long files of around a hundred layers: rows far outside the visible part are only drawn when you scroll near them. StylusX sets no fixed layer limit, but each layer uses memory.

The top bar

From left to right:

In selection mode the three pills swap their icons with a little spin, and a pill whose action isn’t possible right now is faded. When the window is folded, the left buttons hide and each row shows only its preview.

Adding layers

• Every press of + counts. Quick presses are queued, up to ten, and added one at a time as soon as StylusX is ready. An eleventh press while ten are waiting is dropped.
• A new layer goes just above the active layer, inside the same group.
• If the active layer is a clipping base, or a clipping mask that isn’t the top of its stack, the new layer becomes a clipping mask in that stack.
• If the active layer is hidden inside a closed group, the new layer goes to the top of the list.
• With an animation frame shown, the new layer goes into that frame.
• The row grows in from above with a small bounce, and its preview pops in a moment later.
• Shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+N.

Layer rows

Each row shows what’s on a layer, and its state, at a glance. The active layer’s card is drawn in the accent colour, with white text and icons.

Parts of a row

Tap a row

• Swipe sideways on the two previews of a layer with a mask to switch between painting on the layer and on the mask.
• Ctrl + tap adds a layer to the selection or removes it, entering selection mode when needed. Shift + tap selects every layer between the active one and the one you tapped. With Ctrl or Shift held, the options don’t open.

Select, reorder and swipe

Work with several layers at once, change their order, and reach common actions with a swipe.

Selection mode

• Tap the Select Layers tick in the top bar, or Ctrl + tap or Shift + tap rows.
• Every row except the Background gets a small round bubble. Tap rows to pick or unpick them; a check fills the bubble and the card gets an accent outline.
• The top bar becomes Merge, Group and Delete, and Lock locks all picked layers.
• In the layer options, Color Label applies to every picked layer and Delete deletes the picked layers.
• A long press on a picked layer moves all picked layers together.
• Leaving with the X brings back the layer that was active before.

Reorder

• Press and hold a row for about 0.38 seconds, then drag it up or down. The card lifts and the other rows open a gap where it will land.
• Near the top or bottom of the list, the list scrolls by itself.
• Drop onto a closed group’s header to put the layer inside that group, at its bottom. Drop just under an open group’s header to put it inside; past the group’s last row it goes outside.
• An open group can’t be lifted with a long press; close it first. The Background can’t be moved.
• In selection mode, the long-pressed layer takes all picked layers with it, and they all land next to the drop place.
• If the dragged layer disappears during the drag, for example through undo or a merge, the move simply ends.

Swipe left for actions

Swipe left on a layer, adjustment or group, but not the Background, to reveal two buttons on the right of the card:

• Let go after about half the reveal width, or flick quickly, and the buttons stay open. A short swipe snaps back.
• Swipe far, past about 72 % of the card, to delete in one go: the red button stretches over the others and the row is deleted when you let go.
• The last drawing layer can never be deleted. Its swipe shows only Clear, and a long swipe just resists.

Swipe right for a clipping mask

Swipe right on a layer or colour adjustment, outside selection mode, to turn its clipping mask on or off. The card stretches like a rubber band and a clip badge grows behind it. Past a short distance the badge arms with a small bounce; let go while it is armed.

Alt + click between two layers

Hold Alt and hover the mouse or pen over the line between two layers. A purple line appears across the gap with a clip badge at the pointer. Click to turn the upper layer’s clipping mask on or off. Holding Alt is also the Clipping Mask hold shortcut.

Groups and the Background

Groups keep related layers together. The Background is the paper under everything.

Groups

• A group row has a chevron, Open / Close Group. Tap it to open or close the group. When it opens, the chip turns accent, the chevron turns over, the group’s layers fade in below it one after another, and an accent outline surrounds the group with three dots under its last row.
• Drag the three dots up to fold the group closed with your finger. A quick upward flick closes it; let go before it is mostly folded and it opens again.
• Groups can be nested. A group inside a closed group stays hidden with it.
• Make a group from selection mode with the Group pill, or press Ctrl+Shift+G.
• In a group’s options, Fill Layer is replaced by Place Layers Out, which moves the group’s layers out of the group.
• Effects can’t be added to a group.

The Background

• It is always the last row, named Background. It can’t be renamed, moved, swiped, grouped or deleted, and it has no layer options.
• Its eye shows or hides the paper.
• Its preview shows the paper colour. Tap the preview to change it in a floating colours window.
• When the Background is active, it has its own opacity, set with the slider under its card.

Layer options

Tap the active layer to open its options. They open beside the Layers window, on its left or on its right when there’s no room, lined up with the row, and they follow it as the list scrolls.

Opening the options closes the Effects and Adjustments menus, and they are drawn above the other windows. Esc closes them.

Blend mode

The top row shows the current blend mode, Normal by default; its tool tip reads Blending Modes. Tap the row to open the list over the options, and tap again to close it. The list scrolls with the wheel or a drag. Tap a mode to apply it: the name updates and the list closes a moment later. The current mode has an accent ring.

Opacity

A slider from 0 to 100 %, with the value in the middle. As you drag, the row’s preview fades with it and the slider under the active row follows. Changes made elsewhere, such as an undo, show here at once.

Tools

Buttons in rows of three. A button you can’t use right now is faded and does nothing, and the options follow that live.

Label colours

Color Label dims the tools and shows ten circles. The current colour has an accent ring. Tap a colour to set it, on every picked layer in selection mode; the circles close and the colour shows as a strip on the card’s left edge. Tapping elsewhere on the options closes only the circles. Labels are saved with the artwork and follow undo.

Masks

A mask hides parts of a layer without erasing them. A layer or colour adjustment can have one mask; paint on it to hide and reveal.

Work with a mask

• Add one with Mask in the layer options, or with the Mask tile in an effect’s or adjustment’s settings. You can also turn a selection into a mask with Mask Select in Select.
• Paint on it: tap the mask preview, or swipe sideways on the two previews. The active preview is the big one, and whatever you paint goes on it. Tap the layer preview to paint on the layer again.
• The mask pop-up: tap the mask preview while it is the active one.

With the Layers window folded, only the active preview shows, and a small half-circle dot on the card’s left edge tells you the layer has a mask.

Add effects and adjustments

Effects belong to a layer and stay editable. Colour adjustments are rows of their own that change everything under them.

The Effects menu

Tap the Effects pill, the spark, in the Layers window. The menu opens beside the window. Tap an effect to add it to the active layer; you go straight into its settings and the menu closes. If the active row is a group or a colour adjustment, the item shakes and nothing is added.

The effects list under a layer

Every effect appears in a list under its layer’s card. The spark button next to the eye opens or closes the list. Each effect row shows the effect’s icon, its name, an eye and, if it has a mask, a mask preview to the right of the icon.

A second tap on what the small pop-up is showing simply closes it.

The Color Adjustments menu

Tap the Adjustments pill, the sun. Each item adds a new colour adjustment layer and goes straight into its settings. If there’s nothing that can take one, the item shakes.

A colour adjustment is a row of its own. You can move it, group it, hide it, clip it to the layer under it (swipe right, Alt + click or Clipping Mask), give it a mask, and set its own opacity and blend mode.

The settings page

• In: tap an effect row or a colour adjustment row, or add a new one from a menu. The Layers window morphs into the settings page, with the same window and animation as Brush Settings; if Brush Settings is open, it folds back first.
• Out: the Back button. The page morphs back into the layers, and the effect’s own layer becomes active again, so your strokes go on the layer. If you added a mask from the settings, that new mask is made active instead.
• If the effect or adjustment is undone, or another one becomes active while the page is open, the page follows without closing.

How the controls work

• Effect sliders work like the brush settings sliders: drag to change. Tap a small slider to grow it; a grown slider shows a reset button on its right that goes back to the value in the Reset to column of each table.
• Colour adjustment sliders have a colour track and a round knob in the colour under it. Drag, or tap the track to jump there. Double-tap to reset.
• Chips offer two or three choices in one row. Tap one and a pill slides to it.
• Action rows, such as Preset or Add Focus Point, open a list or do the row’s action.
• Every drag, chip, preset pick and point change is one undo step. Effect values are saved in the artwork, and undo and redo restore them.

Gaussian, Perspective and Motion Blur

Three classic blurs. Each can turn bright points into bokeh on effects created in recent versions.

Gaussian Blur

Shortcut G.

Perspective Blur

Shortcut P.

Its centre point stays as a handle on the canvas while the settings are open. Drag it to move the blur’s centre.

Motion Blur

Shortcut Shift+M.

Lens Blur (AI)

Keep a subject sharp and blur everything behind it with a real lens look and depth. An AI finds the exact shape under your focus point.

The AI uses image segmentation, and optionally a depth model, to find the shape. If the AI isn’t available, Lens Blur falls back to a soft round focus around the point.

Settings

On the canvas

While its settings are open:

• The focus point is a ring. Drag it: everything except the found shape is darkened so you see what is picked, and the AI follows the point. Let go and the blur comes back. The ring breathes while the AI works. Each drag is one undo step.
• Alt + press on the canvas adds a focus point there, and you can drag it right away. Alt + press on an extra point, or a double click on it, removes it. The main point can’t be removed.
• Ctrl + Alt + press adds an exclude point, a red ring with a minus. Alt + press or a double click on it removes it.
• When the picture has changed since the AI last looked, because you drew on it or another effect changed, it looks again by itself when the settings open or when you take the point.
• The AI’s results are saved inside the artwork, so the file opens with the blur exactly as it was.

Noise, Sharpness and Bloom

Add grain, sharpen detail and make bright areas glow.

Noise

Shortcut N.

Sharpness

Shortcut Shift+S.

Bloom

Shortcut Ctrl+B.

3D Light (AI)

Light the drawing as if it had depth. The AI estimates the picture’s depth, and a finer depth of the subject such as a face’s nose and eye sockets, and a point light falls on it.

If the AI isn’t available, the surface is treated as flat; Detail and the light still work.

Settings

On the canvas

• The light is a glowing disc, bigger the higher it is. Drag it to move the light; it can go outside the picture by up to half the picture’s size.
• The mouse wheel over the light raises or lowers it (Height). It becomes one undo step once the wheel rests for half a second.
• The subject point, a smaller ring, shows only with Subject Only. Dragging it darkens everything except the found shape while you pick.
• Ctrl + Alt + press adds an exclude point, with Subject Only. Alt + press or a double click on it removes it.

Shadow, Stroke Outline and Halftone

Drop a shadow, draw an outline around a layer’s shape, or turn its colours into comic-print dots.

Shadow

Stroke Outline

An outline around the layer’s shape.

Halftone

Turns the colours into comic-print dots: one dot per grid cell, as big as the colour there is dark, on white paper. The layer’s own outline, its transparency, is kept.

Film Grain

Photo grain, old-film colours, light leaks, dust and scratches. Unlike Noise, the grain is organic and clumped, strongest in the mid tones and fixed in place.

Settings

Preset values

Colour adjustments

Seven colour adjustments, each a layer of its own that changes the colours of everything under it.

Colour adjustment sliders have a colour track and a round knob in the colour under it. Drag, or tap the track to jump there; double-tap to reset.

Color Hue

Hue, saturation and brightness.

Color Balance

Brightness

Curves

• Chips choose the curve you edit: Gamma, Red, Green or Blue. The curve’s title shows the channel.
• In the open curve pad, drag a point to move it, tap on the curve to add a point exactly on it, and double-tap a point to delete it. Two points always stay.

Gradient Map

• Each gradient map is a card with its name and its gradient strip. The chosen map has an accent ring.
• Tap a card to use that map. Tap the chosen card again to edit it.
• +, at the top, makes a new map, puts it at the top of the list and opens it for editing.
• While a map is edited, the + becomes an accent Apply button (a check) and a Cancel button (an X) appears. The map shows its colour points: drag a point to move it; drag a point up or down out of the strip to delete it, though two points always stay; tap the strip to add a point there, up to 8; tap a point to choose its colour in the colours window.
• Options, the two short lines at the card’s top right, offer Duplicate, plus Delete for your own maps or Reset for the built-in StylusX maps.
• Leaving the page while a map is being edited keeps your changes.

Black & White

Turns the picture grey, with control over how light each colour becomes.

Invert

Inverts the colours. It has no settings, only the tiles at the top: hold to preview, Mask and Delete.

How modes work

Draw is where you paint. Select, Transform, Liquify and Drawing Assist change what the canvas does, and only one mode is on at a time.

Switching

• Tapping another mode first finishes the one that is on: liquify is applied, a transform is completed, select is turned off and an open assist editor is applied. Then the new mode starts.
• If StylusX is still finishing the last switch, the new mode waits for it, up to about six seconds, and then starts by itself.
• Tapping Draw always brings you back to drawing.
• Gestures meant for drawing, such as the finger size and opacity drag, work only in Draw mode.

Tool windows

Each mode except Liquify shows its options in a tool window. It opens on the side of the screen opposite the main window the moment you tap the mode. Drag it by its handle; it stays where you put it, and its place is remembered. Liquify keeps its own bar instead.

Select

Tap Select on the modes bar. The tools bar stays, and the selection window opens. While Select is on, windows that don’t hold the Layers page are hidden.

Add or subtract

Exactly one of the two is lit at a time.

Selection type

Exactly one of the four types is lit.

Selection options

These tiles show only while a selection exists.

Auto Select tolerance

The tolerance is set with the canvas pilot’s slider and starts at 3 %. Right after an auto selection, moving the slider remakes the same selection live at the new tolerance. When you let go, the value is kept for later auto selections and remembered across restarts.

Draw inside a selection

Switch to Draw while a selection exists and the selection is kept: the brush paints only inside it. Two buttons appear beside the Select button on the modes bar:

• Reselect goes back to editing the selection.
• Cancel Selection drops the selection and returns to normal drawing.

Brush, Eraser, Smudge, Fill Color and Eye Drop work inside a kept selection, and Color Select keeps it too.

Good to know

• How strongly the area outside a selection is tinted is set in Settings › Advanced › Selection Mask Visibility.
• Ctrl+T transforms the selection. See Transform.

Transform

Tap Transform. The windows and the tools bar slide away, a transform box appears around the active layer’s content, or around the selection, and the transform window opens.

Transform type

While Warp is on, a Grid slider sets the number of points per side, from 2 to 10, starting at 4. Each change of the grid size is one undo step. The grid is drawn with solid lines and white points at the same size on screen whatever the zoom, and the point you are dragging is filled.

Actions

Handles and gestures

• Drag the box handles to scale or distort. Drag inside the box to move.
• The rotation handle is a circle just above the top middle handle, with a white rotate icon and no connecting line. It grows when you hover it. While you rotate, the angle snaps to the nearest 90° when it comes within 1.5° of it.
• Two fingers placed inside the box move, scale and rotate the content together. Two fingers placed outside the box move the canvas as usual.

Apply and undo

• The transform is applied when you leave the mode, by tapping Draw or another mode. A transform where nothing changed leaves no undo step.
• Inside Transform, undo and redo first step back through the transform’s own changes. When those run out, the next undo completes the transform, undoes the step before it and turns Transform back on, with its window as it was. The undo buttons, the keyboard and finger taps all work this way.

Shortcuts

You can also start a temporary layer transform by holding a finger on the canvas; see Touch settings.

Liquify

Tap Liquify. The tools bar turns into the liquify bar. Only the Layers page stays available: the Brushes window goes back to the Layers page. The Liquify settings window is fixed at the top right.

The liquify bar

You can liquify with the pen, the mouse or a finger. A finger drag starts after a small movement. The effect stops exactly where you lift.

The liquify settings window

• Reconstruct is a switch. While it is on, the brush paints the original picture back in.
• Reset brings back the whole picture as it was when Liquify started, with a short animation. It is an undo step of its own.

Each slider row has its own reset button, which returns it to its default.

How it works

• There are no Apply or Cancel buttons. Everything is applied when you leave Liquify through the modes bar.
• Liquify stays on when the layer changes. If you add or pick another layer, liquify is applied to the old layer and turned back on, on the new one. It stays on until you leave it, start another mode or close the artwork.
• One undo history. Inside Liquify, undo first steps back through liquify strokes. When those run out, the next undo applies liquify (an untouched session leaves no undo step), undoes the step before it and turns Liquify back on. Redo works the same way.

Drawing Assist

Tap Drawing Assist. The tools bar slides away and the assist window opens. Its first block always shows the four kinds of guide.

Tapping a kind only shows its window. Nothing turns on by itself.

Activate, Done, Turn Off

• While a kind is off, its window shows only the kinds and one button, Activate. Activate turns the kind on with the type and values you used last, and its settings appear.
• While a kind is on, two buttons appear. Done keeps the guide as you see it and takes you back to Draw. Turn Off switches the guide off and keeps you in the assist window.
• The 2D grid and the 3D grid are never on together: activating one turns the other off. Symmetry and Pattern can be combined with either grid.

How it works

• There is no Apply button. The guide is kept exactly as you see it when you tap Done, leave the mode or switch to another kind.
• The values you last set for each kind are remembered across restarts.
• While the assist window is set up, the pen and mouse draw nothing, and no brush cursor is shown.
• Fingers can still pinch to zoom, move and rotate the canvas. A single finger draws nothing here.
• Reference windows are hidden while Drawing Assist is on.
• Perfect Shape doesn’t run while a guide is on, and Reshape Stroke isn’t available with guides.

2D Assistant

Exactly one of Move and Rotate is always on. Show / Hide and Snap only work on a guide that is on.

Symmetry

Mirror every stroke across up to twelve lines. Open it from the Drawing Assist window and tap Activate.

How the line count works

• 1, 2 and 4 lines use the classic symmetry modes: Line, Quadrant and Radial.
• Every other count repeats each brush stamp into all the mirrored sections that fall inside the canvas.

3D Assistant

A 3D perspective grid to draw in. Open it from the Drawing Assist window and tap Activate.

While you edit the camera, the canvas pilot drives it: the knob moves it, the ring zooms and a double tap resets it.

Pattern

While Pattern is on, the canvas repeats around itself as live copies, and you can draw across its edges. Open it from the Drawing Assist window and tap Activate.

The colour pilot

The colour pilot takes the place of the Colours window. It is a round controller like the canvas pilot, and by default it sits at the top left.

The old Colours window doesn’t open in the new interface.

Face 1: the colour disk

Face 2: sliders

• Tap the handle to switch between the disk and the sliders.
• The sliders face has arc sliders for HSB, RGB or CMYK. Tap the middle circle to cycle through them.
• Drag the handle to move the pilot. It has the same magnet as the canvas pilot.
• The arcs turn with the screen zone, so they always face the inside of the screen.

The colour box

Tap the disk to open the colour box. It opens to the width of the windows and sits above everything. From top to bottom:

1. The square, with a hue bar under it. Tapping the hue bar’s knob also toggles the sun lock.
2. Two colours side by side, primary and secondary. The active one is bigger; tap the other one to make it active.
3. The hex pill. Tap the icon to copy the code. Tap the code to paste, or long press the pill.
4. The colour mode button, beside the hex pill. It opens the colour mode list: hue, saturation, green and so on.
5. Recent: your last 16 colours in one row. Swipe the row sideways to see them all. Long press it for Delete color history.
6. Palettes, with a + menu: Create New Palette, Extract Color From Image, Import Palette. Each palette is a card with its name and an options button. Only the palette cards scroll; the two colours, Recent and the Palettes row stay fixed.

Where the box opens

• When the pilot is in the upper half of the screen, the box opens downward.
• In the lower half, it opens upward and the order is reversed: the box sits by the pilot, and Recent and the palettes go above it.
• A tap on the canvas closes the box without drawing. A drag closes it and draws.

Palettes

Keep your colours in palettes in the colour box, pin the ones you use most, and switch between your two colours.

Palette cards

• Options menu: Edit, Rename, Pin to Top or Unpin, Duplicate, Export, Delete.
• Pinned palettes move to the top and show a pin icon to the left of their name. You can pin several. Unpin puts a palette right under the pinned ones.
• Reorder: long press a card, then drag it. A pinned card moves only among the pinned ones, and an unpinned card only below them. Hold the card near the top or bottom edge and the list scrolls.
• Hover and press: a palette colour widens under the mouse or pen, and a Recent square grows.

Edit a palette

• Tap a colour to remove it.
• The + tile adds the current colour. It shows only in edit mode, up to 10 colours.
• Done and Cancel are at the top right of the card.
• Only one palette can be in edit mode at a time.

Your two colours

The primary and secondary colours show side by side in the colour box. Tap the other one to make it the active colour, or press X to swap them. The secondary colour is also used by gradients, Stroke Secondary Color and the secondary colour curves of a brush.

The floating colours window

Tapping the Background layer’s preview, a gradient map point, the onion skin colour, or a Shadow or Stroke Outline colour opens the same Colours page in a small window of its own, beside what it belongs to. It edits that item’s colour. A tap outside it closes it; a drag on the canvas still draws.

The animation timeline

Animation mode is turned on and off from the modes bar, through Settings.

Turning animation on

1. Tap Settings on the modes bar. The icons on the bar change, and the settings icons appear in their place.
2. Tap Animation, the icon at the far left of the bar. Animation turns on, and the Settings window closes.
3. To turn animation off, open Settings the same way and tap Animation again.

Whether animation is on is remembered across restarts.

Frames are your layers

The animation has no separate drawings of its own: the frames are your layers. Every top-level row of the Layers window becomes one frame, read from the bottom up.

• A single layer is a frame with one drawing.
• A group is a frame made of several layers, so you can paint one frame on many layers, such as line art, colour and shading.
• The Background is never a frame. It stays behind every frame.
• A top-level adjustment layer isn’t a frame either. It colours every frame.

What you see while animating

• The Layers window shows only the active frame. For a group frame, its layers appear flat from the top, without the group’s header row, so the window feels like “this frame’s layers”. Dragging a layer inside the window keeps it inside the frame.
• + in the Layers window adds a layer into the active frame. A one-layer frame turns into a group of two.
• The canvas shows only the active frame, plus the Background, top-level adjustments and any frame set to In every frame.
• The other frames are hidden quietly. The hiding adds nothing to undo and doesn’t interrupt your drawing. Each layer’s own eye setting is remembered, and the eye on a row always shows that setting, not the temporary hiding.
• Choosing another frame, by tapping its card, swaps what you see in the Layers window and on the canvas at once.

Editing a frame is editing layers

• Reordering cards reorders the layers and groups themselves, and renaming a frame renames its layer or group. Duplicate, Clear and Delete frame act on that layer or group.
• Whatever you draw, mask, clip, blend or add effects to inside a frame is ordinary layer work. Playback and export show each frame with its effects, adjustments, masks, clipping and blend modes.
• Saving while animating is safe. StylusX remembers, for each artwork, which frames it hid, so a file saved with animation on opens the right way. Holds and In every frame are remembered for each artwork too.

The timeline bar

While Animation is on, a timeline appears at the bottom of the screen and the other bars move up above it. Windows keep clear of it, the way they keep clear of a bar.

• Frame cards. Each frame is a card with a preview and its name at the bottom left. The active frame has an accent border. A frame with a hold longer than 1 shows “×N” and is drawn slightly wider. When there are more cards than fit, they scroll sideways with a drag or the mouse wheel.
• Choosing a frame. Tap a card to make it the active frame.
• Reordering. Long-press a card, for about 0.4 seconds, to lift it, then drag it sideways and drop it in a new place.
• Adding. + on the bar adds a new frame: a new layer above the active frame. Quick repeated taps are queued, and all of them are added.
• The timeline strip is 25 % bigger.
• Hold and fps sliders: a tap puts the value under your finger, and a drag changes it relative to where you started. The further your hand moves from the slider, the finer the change.

The strip above the cards

From left to right:

When the bar is narrow, the empty space goes first, then the three pills shrink, to 75 % at most, and then the whole strip scales down.

Playback modes

Turning animation off

Tap Settings on the modes bar, then Animation at the far left of the bar again.

• Playback stops, and the timeline bar, its settings card and the frame options close.
• Every frame comes back exactly as it was. Each layer and group gets back its own visibility, the eye you set, so the canvas shows all your layers stacked as ordinary layers again. Nothing stays hidden behind your back.
• The Layers window shows the whole stack again, with groups as normal groups and their header rows.
• Nothing is deleted or merged. The frames simply go back to being layers. Turn animation on again and the same layers are the frames again, in the same order, with their holds and In every frame choices.
• The onion skin disappears, and its settings are kept.
• An undo after leaving the timeline can’t leave a frame hidden: StylusX guards the frames’ visibility.

Onion skin and export

Onion skin shows earlier frames faintly behind the one you draw. When the animation is ready, export it as a GIF or an MP4.

The onion skin card

The onion skin is drawn under your drawing, hidden wherever the current frame already has paint, from your first touch.

How playback works

• Playback frames are prepared (“Preparing frames…”) at up to 2048 px on the long side. A frame is prepared again only after it changes.
• Effects, adjustments, masks, clipping and blend modes are all included.
• Playback speed, playback mode, the onion skin settings and whether animation is on are remembered for StylusX. Holds, In every frame and the frames hidden by the timeline are remembered for each artwork.
• If you leave the timeline and then undo, layers aren’t left hidden: the frames’ visibility is guarded.

Export

In Settings › Save & Export, choose Animation GIF or Animation MP4. A save dialog opens. Then:

• Frames are rendered at up to 4096 px on the long side.
• They follow the playback mode: Ping-pong adds the way back, and Reverse plays backwards.
• Each frame is repeated for its hold.
• The file plays at the timeline’s speed. A GIF loops forever.

Messages you may see

Recording

Recording captures a video of your work while you paint, separately for each artwork.

Start or stop it with the Recording switch in Settings › Recording, or with the Recording button on the settings bar.

• If no video encoder is available, the switch is greyed out and a message tells you recording can’t start.
• The video is recorded at about 28.7 frames per second, at up to about 2 megapixels per frame.

Recording settings

Exports show a progress bar, and the interface waits until they finish.

The Settings window

Tap Settings on the modes bar. The bar turns into the settings bar and the Settings window opens above it: below it when the bar is at the top, or beside it when the bar stands upright on a side edge.

• The section buttons are a column on the left, and the open section’s content is on the right.
• The window opens on the section you used last.
• To close it, tap anywhere outside it (a tap on the canvas closes it, while a drag still draws), tap Settings again, or press Esc.
• Hovering a section button or an icon tile shows its name.

The settings bar’s own buttons are described in The canvas screen.

Sections

Canvas: tiles

Canvas: artwork information

A row of action tiles follows: Undo, Redo, Cut, Copy and Paste.

Touch settings

Choose what a single finger does on the canvas. If your screen has no touch support, this section reads “Your screen doesn’t support touch”.

Finger Action

The options of Action:

On the very first start, Finger Action is on with Brush Size & Opacity. See Fingers and pen.

Finger Hold

Finger Hold does nothing while Fill Color is on, or while a window that blocks the canvas is open.

Double Tap

A double tap means two taps within 0.2 seconds, very close together.

Interface and Advanced settings

The Interface section changes how StylusX looks. The Advanced section fine-tunes how it responds.

Interface

Adaptive Glass

• The look: soft frosted, milky glass in both the light and the dark theme, with a wide blur, a light milk tint and a very fine grain.
• Active items: buttons and selected or hovered items show as a brighter pane of glass. The accent colour stays on their icons and text.
• Pattern mode: the glass also blurs the pattern copies around the canvas, not only the canvas itself.
• Cost: with the switch off, the glass costs nothing.

Interface Layout

Advanced

Save, export and help

Save your artwork, export it in the format you need, and get help.

Save & Export

• Save saves the artwork. The first time, it asks where. Shortcut Ctrl+S.
• Save As saves a copy under a new name or place. Shortcut Ctrl+Shift+S.
• Export to any of these formats:

Animation GIF and Animation MP4 are explained in Onion skin and export. Recordings are exported from Settings › Recording.

Help

Found a problem? You can also report it here.

Keyboard shortcuts

Every default shortcut in StylusX. All of them can be changed, except the mouse rows.

Change a shortcut

Open Settings › Advanced › Keyboard Shortcuts.

• Back and Reset Defaults are at the top; Apply and Cancel at the bottom.
• To change a shortcut, tap its row and press the new keys. Modifier keys can be combined with one other key. Caps Lock, the Windows key and the menu key can’t be used.
• Tap the row again to cancel the edit.
• If the keys are already used, “This shortcut is already assigned” offers Replace, which takes the shortcut from the other command, or Cancel.
• Changes take effect only after Apply. Cancel throws them away, and Reset Defaults restores every default.

General

Undo and redo

Tools

More Tools

• A tool shortcut works like tapping that tool’s button. If the tool is already on, it stays on.
• These shortcuts are ignored on the Home page, while Liquify is on, while the crop bar is open, while you are renaming something, or while StylusX is busy.

Selection

Transform

Brush and colours

Canvas control

Layers and effects

Lens Blur, 3D Light, Shadow, Stroke Outline, Halftone and Film Grain have no default shortcut.

Other keys

• Esc closes the Settings window, the layer options, effect pop-ups and open menus, and cancels a rename. It also closes Brush Settings and saves the brush.
• Enter confirms a rename.
• Ctrl + click on a layer row adds it to the selection or removes it; Shift + click selects a range.
• Alt + press with the Clone Stamp sets the copy source. With Lens Blur and 3D Light, Alt + press adds a focus point and Ctrl + Alt + press adds an exclude point.
• Ctrl+E exports the brush while Brush Settings is open.
• No shortcut fires while you are typing in a text field.

Touch, pen and mouse

Every touch, pen and mouse gesture StylusX reacts to on the canvas.

Touch

Pen

• The pen draws with pressure and tilt.
• Pen barrel button, a click without dragging: opens the Canvas Menu ring.
• The pen driver is chosen in Settings › Advanced › Input Device: the default Windows pen input, or WinTab. With the default input, every pen sample between frames is used, so fast curves stay smooth.
• Hovering with the pen shows tool tips and the brush cursor, depending on the cursor settings.

Mouse