Getting Started

Paint Forge is a professional online photo editor with a comprehensive set of drawing, editing, and compositing tools. It runs entirely in your browser — no installation required.

Opening the Editor

Click Open Editor to launch the photo editor. You can also access it from the home page. The editor loads with a blank canvas (1200 × 800 pixels by default) ready for you to start working.

Interface Overview

The editor interface is organized into several main areas:

• Menu Bar (top) — File, Edit, View, Image, and Help menus with access to all features
• Tool Options Bar (below menu) — Context-sensitive settings for the active tool
• Main Toolbar (left) — over 50 drawing, selection, and editing tools organized into four colour-coded groups (navigation & utility, raster, vector, and layer transforms). New projects start from one of 11 project-type templates (General, Photo Editing, Digital Illustration, Comic, Pixel Art, Graphic Design, UI Design, Logo Design, Social Media, Animation, Advanced) that pre-select a recommended tool set and default tool.
• Canvas (center) — Your workspace with rulers, guides, and status bar
• Right Sidebar (right) — Six tabbed panels: Layers, Colors, Objects, Library, Canvas Settings, and Slices. (Undo History lives in a top-bar dropdown, and the Animation timeline opens as a bottom dock — see below.)
• Animation Panel (bottom, on demand) — Full timeline with keyframes, frame groups, audio track, markers, and graph editor. See the Animation docs for the complete tour.

The Status Bar at the bottom displays the active tool, current layer, cursor coordinates, color under cursor, canvas dimensions, zoom level, rotation, and more.

Use Ctrl+K to open the Command Palette for quick access to any feature by name.

Quick Start

1. Select a tool from the left toolbar (or press its keyboard shortcut)
2. Draw on the canvas — shapes and text create vector objects, brushes paint on the raster layer
3. Use the Layers panel to manage multiple layers with blend modes and masks
4. Apply filters from the Properties panel or add non-destructive adjustment layers
5. Export your work via File > Export (Ctrl+Shift+Alt+S), or use Quick Export (Ctrl+Alt+E) to re-export with your saved settings

Saving Your Work

Paint Forge auto-saves your work to your browser's local storage every 10 seconds. If you sign in with an account, your projects are also saved to the cloud automatically every 30 seconds. Session snapshots are created automatically when loading projects, and before destructive operations like Flatten and Merge Visible, for an extra safety net.

Mobile & Touch Support

Paint Forge is fully responsive and works on phones, tablets, and desktops. On touch devices, a floating toolbar provides quick access to undo/redo, layer cycling, zoom, and the active tool. A configurable hotbar lets you place your most-used tools for one-tap access. Pinch to zoom, two-finger pan, and two-finger rotate are all supported.

Explore the Documentation