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Paint Forge includes over 50 tools for drawing, editing, selection, warping, and transformation. Tools are organized into four colour-coded groups in the left toolbar (navigation & utility, raster, vector, and layer transforms), and the visible set follows the active tool preset. Right-click a tool button to access variants. Most tools have a single-key shortcut — these are customizable via Preferences.
These tools let you select, move, resize, and rotate objects on the canvas, as well as pan around the viewport.
| Tool | Shortcut | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Select | V | Select and move objects on the canvas. |
| Hand | H | Pan the canvas by dragging. |
Select — Click to select objects, then drag to move them. Use the selection handles to resize or rotate. Hold Shift and click to add objects to your selection.
Painting tools draw directly onto the active raster layer. The Brush tool has 23+ stamp-based variants for traditional raster painting, and the Smart Brush adds 47 editable-vector variants (pencil, pen, ink, marker, neon, charcoal, watercolor, and many more) whose centerlines and per-vertex widths stay editable after the stroke is committed.
| Tool | Shortcut | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Smart Brush | Editable vector strokes with per-vertex variable width. | |
| Eraser | E | Erase raster layer content. |
| Smart Brush | — | Editable vector strokes: pencil, pen, ink, marker, neon, calligraphy-nib, wet-ink, dry-media, textured-marker, hatching. Centerline + per-vertex width remain editable after the fact. |
| Spray Paint | J | Scatter droplets within a brush radius with center-weighted falloff. |
| Calligraphy | — | Paint with an angle-sensitive calligraphy nib. |
| Fill | F | Edge-aware bucket fill of a raster region. |
Brush — Paints stamps directly onto the active layer's raster pixels — the dominant brush tool, matches Photoshop's mental model. Choose from 23+ stamp variants (soft, hard, flat, pixel, airbrush, charcoal, watercolor, scatter, stipple, bristle, crayon, chalk, splatter, sponge, fur, crosshatch, oil, pastel, ribbon, dots, galaxy, smoke, sand, and more). Destructive — finished strokes commit to the raster layer; use the Smart Brush instead if you want editable vector strokes. Stroke stabilization smooths input via a weighted ring buffer. Custom brush tips can be imported from image files via the Brush Tip dialog. The Smart Brush is a separate editable-vector counterpart described below.
Eraser — Erases raster layer content using destination-out compositing, making pixels transparent. Size and opacity respond to pen pressure when pressure sensitivity is enabled. Supports symmetry painting and pixel selection clipping. Like the brush,Alt+click samples a color instead of erasing.
Smart Brush — Paints editable vector strokes — each drag emits a single BrushStrokeObject whose centerline + per-vertex width remain editable after the fact (double-click to enter the centerline editor). Variants include pencil, pen, ink, marker, neon, calligraphy-nib, wet-ink, dry-media, textured-marker, and hatching, plus user-authored custom variants. Use the regular Brush instead if you want stamp-based painting committed to the raster layer. Each drag emits a single BrushStrokeObject whose centerline and per-vertex halfWidth stay editable after the fact. Double-click the stroke (with the Select tool) to enter the centerline editor.
Spray Paint — Scatters random dots within the brush radius. Higher flow produces denser coverage. Pen pressure modulates the brush size and/or opacity when enabled. Works with symmetry painting and pixel selection clipping.
Fill — Flood-fills a contiguous color region using a scanline algorithm. The tolerance slider (0-255) controls how many similar colors are included. The fill respects the active pixel selection mask, clipping the filled area to the selection. A liquid-fill animation radiates outward from the click point for visual feedback.
Calligraphy — Simulates a flat calligraphy nib whose stroke width varies based on the angle of movement relative to the nib angle. Moving perpendicular to the nib produces thick strokes; moving parallel produces thin strokes.
Shape and line tools create editable vector objects on the canvas. Hold Shift while dragging to constrain proportions.
| Tool | Shortcut | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Rectangle | R | Draw rectangles with optional per-corner border radius. |
| Ellipse | C | Draw ellipses and circles. |
| Line | L | Draw straight lines with configurable dash styles (solid, dashed, dotted). |
| Arrow | A | Draw straight lines with an arrowhead at the end. |
| Polygon | P | Draw regular polygons with 3 to 12 sides. |
| Star | S | Draw stars with configurable point count and inner radius ratio. |
| Gradient | G | Draw a rectangle filled with a linear or radial gradient. |
Draw rectangles, circles, polygons, stars, or gradient rectangles. Right-click the tool button to switch between shape variants. Shapes are created as editable vector objects.
Text tools create vector text objects with full font styling, letter spacing, and text transforms. Double-click any text object to re-enter editing mode.
| Tool | Shortcut | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Text | T | Add editable text to the canvas. |
| Textbox | — | Draw a text area with word wrapping. |
| Text on Path | — | Place text that flows along a bezier curve path. |
Text — Click anywhere on the canvas to place a single-line text object and begin typing immediately. The text object supports font family, size, weight, style, alignment, letter spacing, and text transform (uppercase, lowercase, capitalize). Double-click any existing text object with the Select tool to re-enter editing mode. Ctrl+B/I/U/Shift+X toggle bold, italic, underline, and strikethrough.
Textbox — Drag to define a bounding rectangle, then type word-wrapped area text. The textbox reflows content automatically when its width changes. Supports underline, strikethrough, line height, and all the same font controls as the Text tool.
Text on Path — Click to add anchor points along a curve (drag for bezier handles), then press Enter or double-click to finalize the path. Type your text and it will flow along the path. Supports letter spacing, text transforms, reversed direction, and baseline alignment (above, center, below the path).
Path tools create and edit vector paths made of anchor points and bezier curves. Paths can be combined with boolean operations (union, subtract, intersect, exclude).
| Tool | Shortcut | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Pen | Draw bezier curve paths with control handles. | |
| Freeform Polygon | W | Click to place vertices and draw a polygon. |
| Edit Path | — | Double-click a path in Select mode to drag-edit individual anchor points. Delete, insert, or toggle anchors between smooth and corner. |
| Edit Brush Stroke | — | Double-click a vector brush stroke to drag its centerline points and per-vertex widths, extend or split it, and reshape it without redrawing. |
| Edit Gradient | — | Double-click a gradient-filled object to drag its gradient geometry on-canvas — endpoints / angle for linear, center + radius for radial, plus each color stop along the line. |
Pen — Click to place straight anchor points; drag to create smooth bezier curves with symmetric handles. Hold Alt during a drag to break handle symmetry (asymmetric corner). Alt+click an existing anchor of the in-progress path to toggle it between smooth and corner. Click the START or END anchor of an existing open path to continue drawing it. New anchors snap to nearby anchors / guides / grid.
Edit Path — Double-click any path object while the Select tool is active to enter Edit Path mode. In this mode, individual anchor points and bezier handles are shown and can be dragged to reshape the path. Press Escape to exit Edit Path mode and return to the Select tool.
These brush-based tools apply localized effects to the raster layer by painting over areas. They support symmetry painting and pen pressure sensitivity.
| Tool | Shortcut | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Blur | Q | Brush-based blur with 11 modes on the raster layer. |
| Sharpen | N | Brush-based sharpening on the raster layer. |
| Dodge / Burn | O | Lighten (dodge) or darken (burn) areas. |
| Smudge | U | Smudge and blend pixels by dragging. |
| Liquify | — | Warp and distort pixels by dragging. |
Liquify — Drag to displace pixels via bilinear interpolation. Eight warp modes (push / bloat / pucker / twirl / push-left / mirror / erase-warps / forward-warp) plus freeze and thaw mask paint. A baseline snapshot at activation lets Alt+drag reconstruct toward the original; Restore Original reverts every warp from the session in one history entry. Bigger brushes use a WebGL fragment-shader pixel pipeline; small brushes stay on the synchronous CPU path. Hold Alt and drag to reconstruct (blend pixels back toward their original positions).
Retouching tools are designed for photo editing workflows such as blemish removal, color correction, and red-eye fixing.
| Tool | Shortcut | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Clone Stamp | K | Clone pixels from a source point with soft-edged brush controls and source transform. |
| Healing Brush | — | Texture-aware cloning for blemish removal. |
| Color Replace | Z | Replace one color with another by painting. |
| Red-Eye Removal | Y | Remove red-eye from photos. |
Clone Stamp — Alt+click to set a source point, then paint to copy pixels from the source location. The offset between source and destination is maintained across strokes. Opacity, flow, hardness, and spacing shape each stamp; pen pressure can modulate size and opacity; and the sampled source patch can be rotated, scaled, or flipped before it lands at the destination. The source point persists across tool switches. Enable “All Layers” to sample from the full composite instead of the active layer only.
Healing Brush — Alt+click to set a source point, then paint to blend the source texture with the destination luminosity. Produces smoother results than clone stamp for retouching skin and surfaces. Uses the source hue and saturation combined with the destination luminosity (HSL blending) for seamless results. The source point persists across tool switches. Enable “All Layers” to sample from the full composite.
Color Replace — Alt+click to sample a target color, then paint to replace matching pixels with the current brush color. Four Photoshop-style blend modes control which HSL channels get swapped: Color (default, preserves luminosity), Hue, Saturation, and Luminosity. The tolerance slider controls how closely pixels must match the sampled color before being replaced. Useful for selectively recoloring objects or correcting color casts in specific areas.
Red-Eye Removal — Click on red-eye areas in photos to automatically detect and desaturate red pixels while preserving luminosity. Uses flood-fill detection to find connected red regions. Uses flood-fill red detection followed by HSL desaturation to neutralize the red channel while preserving other colors. The correction radius adjusts how large an area is processed per click.
Pixel selection tools create selection masks that constrain painting and editing operations. All selection tools support modifier keys for combining selections: hold Shift to add, Alt to subtract, or Shift+Alt to intersect.
| Tool | Shortcut | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Rectangular Marquee | Select a rectangular pixel region. | |
| Elliptical Marquee | Select an elliptical pixel region. | |
| Lasso | — | Freehand pixel selection by drawing a boundary. |
| Polygonal Lasso | — | Click to place vertices for a polygonal pixel selection. |
| Magic Wand | — | Select pixels by color similarity. |
Marquee — Drag to create a rectangular or elliptical pixel selection. Selected areas can be deleted or used as a mask for painting operations. Supports feathering for soft edges. The selection mode (New/Add/Subtract/Intersect) can be set in the tool options or via modifier keys (Shift/Alt/Shift+Alt). Marching ants are color-coded by mode: blue = New, green = Add, red = Subtract, amber = Intersect.
Lasso — Draw a freehand selection boundary by dragging. The selection auto-closes when you release the mouse. Supports feathering for soft edges. Supports all four selection modes (New/Add/Subtract/Intersect). The resulting selection follows the exact shape you draw.
Polygonal Lasso — Click to add vertices one at a time, forming a polygonal selection boundary. Close the polygon by clicking near the first vertex, double-clicking, or pressing Enter. Supports selection modes and feathering. Each click adds a new segment. Close the selection by clicking near the first vertex, double-clicking, or pressing Enter. Press Backspace to remove the last placed vertex. Supports all four selection modes.
Magic Wand — Click to select all connected pixels that match the target color within the tolerance range. Use contiguous mode to select only connected areas, or disable it to select all matching pixels globally. Tolerance ranges from 0 (exact match) to 255 (select all). Supports all four selection modes.
Transform and utility tools handle canvas cropping, color sampling, distance measurement, whole-layer transforms, raster and vector warping, mask painting, callouts, and export slices.
| Tool | Shortcut | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Crop | — | Crop the canvas to a selected region. |
| Image Crop | — | Non-destructive crop for individual image objects. Activate via context menu or Properties panel. |
| Color Picker | I | Sample a color from the canvas. |
| Measure | Measure distance and angle between points. | |
| Perspective | — | True homography warp on vector objects and images. |
| Perspective Crop | — | Place 4 corner points to define a perspective region, then commit to warp and crop the result into a rectangular image. |
| Perspective Warp | — | Four-corner perspective warp on the active raster layer. |
| Mesh Warp | — | Grid-based image warping with control points. |
| Move Layer | — | Drag to move the active layer; raster + vectors travel together. |
| Free Transform | — | Modal tool with on-canvas handles for moving, rotating, and scaling a layer. |
| Transform Selection | — | Scale the pixel selection mask using 8 resize handles. |
| Vector Eraser | — | Brush-erase whole vector objects. |
| Slice | Draw + edit named rectangular export regions on the canvas. | |
| Callout | — | Draw a vector speech-bubble shape with a configurable tail. |
| Text in Shape | — | Click a shape to fill it with word-wrapped text. |
| Mask Brush | — | Dedicated brush tool for painting on layer masks. Automatically creates a mask if the layer does not have one. Reveal (white) or hide (black) mode with configurable size, opacity, and hardness. |
Crop — Draw a crop rectangle on the canvas, then confirm to trim the canvas to that region. Resize the crop area using the handles before confirming. Preset aspect ratios (16:9, 4:3, 1:1, etc.) and a custom W:H input are available in the tool options. Aspect ratio lock is enforced during handle drags.
Image Crop — A non-destructive crop for individual image objects. Activate it via right-click > Crop Image or from the Properties panel. Eight drag handles let you frame a region of the image without discarding any pixel data. Press Enter to apply the crop or Escape to cancel. The crop can be adjusted or removed at any time.
Color Picker — Click anywhere on the canvas to pick the pixel color and set it as the active brush color. Supports averaged sampling over a configurable area (1px, 3x3, 5x5, or 11x11). The sample size is configurable from 1×1 pixel to 11×11 pixel average. When “Capture Alpha” is enabled, sampling a semi-transparent pixel also sets the brush opacity. After sampling, the tool automatically returns to the previously active tool.
Measure — Click to set measurement points. In standard mode, click twice to measure between two points. In cumulative mode, each click adds a segment to a polyline with per-segment distances and a running total. Real-world units can be calibrated via the Scale Calibration feature in the tool options. Press Backspace to undo the last measurement point; press Escape or double-click to clear.
Perspective — Modal 4-corner perspective warp that applies a real DLT homography to the selected object(s). On activation, shapes (rect / ellipse / polygon / star / line / arrow / callout) auto-convert to paths and text auto-converts to outlines so they can be warped; brushstrokes warp their centerline; images warp their pixels in place via backward homography + bilinear sampling. Modes: Distort lets every corner move freely; Keystone mirrors the dragged corner to its same-edge neighbours for a vanishing-point look. Press Enter to commit one history entry; Escape to revert.
Perspective Crop — Click to place four corner points defining a perspective-distorted region. Drag the corners to align them with a flat surface in the image, then commit (Enter) to warp the content into a rectangular image using a backward homography transform (Direct Linear Transform). The result is cropped and corrected in a single operation. Backspace removes the last placed point; Escape cancels.
Mesh Warp — Creates a grid of draggable control points over the active layer's raster pixels. Drag points to warp the image. Uses backward mapping with bilinear interpolation for smooth results. Vector objects on the same layer are not affected — rasterize them first if you want them warped too. The grid density (N×N) is configurable. Press Apply to commit or Cancel to discard the warp.
Mask Brush — A dedicated brush tool for painting on layer masks. If the active layer does not have a mask, one is created automatically. Choose “Reveal” mode to paint white (makes areas visible) or “Hide” mode to paint black (makes areas transparent). Configurable size, opacity, and hardness. Pen pressure is supported. Activate via the mask editing UI in the Layers panel.
Move Layer — A non-modal move tool (Photoshop’s V). Drag anywhere on the canvas to translate the active layer’s content as a unit; clicking auto-selects the topmost visible layer under the cursor. Holding Shift axis-locks the drag, and the move honors snap-to-grid, snap-to-guides, and smart guides. When two or more layers are selected, a dashed bounding box previews the combined content that will move.
Free Transform — A modal transform box (Photoshop’s Ctrl+T). It renders an 8-handle bounding box plus a rotation handle around the active layer’s content. Drag inside to move; drag a handle to scale (Alt anchors to the center); drag the rotation handle to rotate (Shift snaps to 15°); Ctrl+drag a mid-edge handle to skew. Numeric X / Y / Rotate / Scale / Skew inputs are available in the tool options, and it works across multiple selected layers around a shared pivot. Press Enter to commit or Escape to revert.
Slice — Drag in empty space to create a slice. Click an existing slice to select it; Shift-click to multi-select; Shift+drag in empty space to marquee-select. Drag a selected slice to move (all selected slices follow, including any nested children). Drag a handle to resize (only when one slice is selected). Rounds 3-5 add rotation + numeric inputs + engine undo/redo + pre-export validation + per-slice background color/layer subset + CSS sprite-sheet/atlas export + cloud sync templates+ladders + per-slice animated export (GIF/WebM/APNG/Lottie) + SVG slice export + design-review notes + smart guides + mobile bottom-sheet panel + Spec mode (dimension/spacing/color overlays + PDF spec sheet) + PDF multi-page export + nested artboards (Sketch-style hierarchy) + layer-bound slices that auto-reflow + per-slice tags + bulk animated GIF bundle with cancellation. Slices power UI and game-asset workflows — auto-slice from layers or a grid, nest them into artboards, then export to sprite sheets, design tokens, animations, and spec sheets. See the Slices & Asset Export page for the full workflow.
Beyond the raster Mesh Warp above, Paint Forge has a family of vector warp tools that deform a selected object's geometry non-destructively (shapes and text auto-convert to paths on activation):
| Tool | Description |
|---|---|
| Vector Mesh Warp | Grid-based mesh warp for vector objects in the current selection. |
| Vector Cage Warp | Arbitrary-polygon cage warp for vector objects. |
| Vector Brush Warp | Drag-to-deform brush warp for vector objects. |
| Vector Puppet Warp | Pin-based puppet warp for vector objects. |
Warps are stored as a re-editable modifier stack on each object (managed in the Properties panel) — reorder them, toggle visibility, blend them, keyframe their strength, convert between warp types, or bake them down. Built-in and custom warp presets are available per tool.
When using a pen tablet, Paint Forge can modulate brush size and opacity based on pen pressure, pen tilt angle, or drag velocity. Each modulator is toggled per-tool in the tool options bar. Mouse users are unaffected — pressure defaults to 1.0, tilt to 0°, and velocity falls back to a constant width.
Supported tools: Brush, Smart Brush, Eraser, Spray Paint, Calligraphy, Healing Brush, Color Replace.
Symmetry painting mirrors brush strokes across one or more axes in real time. Configure the symmetry mode in the Canvas Settings panel. Guide lines are drawn on the overlay canvas to show the symmetry axes.
Modes: Vertical, Horizontal, Both (4-way), Radial/Mandala (3–32 fold).
Supported tools: Brush, Smart Brush, Eraser, Spray Paint, Calligraphy, Blur, Sharpen, Dodge/Burn, Smudge, Clone Stamp, Color Replace, Liquify.
Alpha Lock constrains painting so that only pixels with existing non-zero alpha are affected. This lets you paint within the boundaries of existing content without spilling outside shapes or strokes. Toggle Alpha Lock per-layer in the Layers panel.
All painting tools automatically clip their strokes to the active pixel selection mask. This means that if you have a marquee, lasso, or magic wand selection active, paint will only land inside the selected area. Feathered selections produce soft edges on the clipped strokes.