ToolbarsThis section describes &krita;'s toolbars. By default, the
Krita toolbar is located to the left of the drawing area,
while the others can be found at the top, below the menu bar.You can customize your toolbars by choosing
SettingsConfigure
Toolbars... or by clicking with the &RMB; on a
toolbar and choosing Configure Toolbars....The File ToolbarThe File toolbarThe File toolbar
The File toolbar
This toolbar contains actions for working with files. In &krita;'s
default, there are five buttons on this toolbar: New,
Open, Save, Print
Preview, and Print.These actions all correspond to entries in the File menu.The Edit ToolbarThe Edit toolbarThe Edit toolbar
The Edit toolbar
This toolbar contains editing actions. With default settings this
toolbar offers four buttons: Undo,
Redo, Cut, and
Copy.These actions all correspond to entries in the Edit menu.The Navigation ToolbarThe Navigation toolbarThe Navigation toolbar
The Navigation toolbar
This toolbar offers easy access to navigation actions. The two
default actions available are Zoom In and
Zoom Out. With Zoom In, the zoom
level is increased. You will see less, but in higher detail. With
Zoom Out, the zoom level is decreased, so that you see
more at less detail. The Krita ToolbarThe Krita toolbarThe Krita toolbar
The Krita toolbar
This toolbar contains painting operations and tools, as well as editing and
selecting tools. The available actions and some controls are listed below. You
can change the behaviour of most tools (and with that, usually the resulting
effect) by setting their options.
Brush
With this tool you can paint freely. Click the &LMB; to paint a
single instance of the currently selected brush, or hold the &LMB; and drag
your mouse around to paint. The mouse movements you make are directly used for
painting.
Line
This tool is used to draw lines. Click the &LMB; to indicate the first
endpoint, keep the button pressed, drag to the second endpoint and release the
button.
Use &Shift; while holding the mouse button to restrict drawing to only
horizontal or vertical lines. You can press &Alt; while still keeping the &LMB;
down to move the line to a different location.
Rectangle
This tool can be used to paint rectangles. Click and hold the &LMB; to indicate
one corner of the rectangle, drag to the opposite corner, and release the
button.
If you hold &Shift; while drawing, a square will be drawn instead of a
rectangle. Holding &Ctrl; will change the way the rectangle is constructed.
Normally, the first mouse click indicates one corner and the second click the
opposite. With &Ctrl;, the initial mouse position indicates the center of the
rectangle, and the final mouse position indicates a corner.
You can press &Alt; while still keeping the &LMB; down to move the rectangle to
a different location.
You can change between the corner/corner and center/corner drawing
methods as often as you want by pressing or releasing &Ctrl;, provided that you
keep the &LMB; pressed. With &Ctrl; pressed, mouse movements will affect all
four corners of the rectangle (relative to the center), without &Ctrl;, one
of the corners is unaffected.
Ellipse
Use this tool to paint an ellipse. The currently selected brush is used for
drawing the ellipse outline. Click and hold the &LMB; to indicate one corner of
the bounding rectangle of the ellipse, then move your mouse to
the opposite corner. &krita; will show a preview of the ellipse using a thin
line. Release the button to draw the ellipse.
If you hold &Shift; while drawing, a circle will be drawn instead of an
ellipse. Holding &Ctrl; will change the way the ellipse is constructed: instead
of two corners, the initial mouse position indicates the ellipse center, and the
final mouse position indicates one of the corners of the bounding rectangle.
You can press &Alt; while still keeping the &LMB; down to move the ellipse to a
different location.
You can change between the corner/corner and center/corner drawing
methods as often as you want by pressing or releasing &Ctrl;, provided that you
keep the &LMB; pressed. With &Ctrl; pressed, mouse movements will
affect all four corners of the bounding rectangle (relative to the center),
without &Ctrl;, the corner opposite to the one you are moving remains still.
Polygon
With this tool you can draw polygons. Click the &LMB; to indicate the
starting point and successive vertices, then double-click or press &Enter; to
connect the last vertex to the starting point.
Polyline
Polylines are drawn like polygons, with the difference that the double-click
indicating the end of the polyline does not connect the last vertex to the
first one.
Star
This tool creates star-shaped objects. Press the &LMB; to indicate the center,
and drag the mouse to change the size and rotation of the star.
You can press &Alt; while still keeping the &LMB; down to move the star to a
different location.
Bezier
You can draw Bezier curves by using this tool. Click the &LMB; to indicate the
starting point of the curve, then click again for consecutive control points
of the curve.
Drawing a Bezier curveDrawing a Bezier curve
Drawing a Bezier curve
&krita; will show a blue line with two handles when you add a control point.
You can drag these handles to change the direction of the curve in that point.
Modifying a Bezier curveModifying a Bezier curve
Modifying a Bezier curve
You can click on a previously inserted control point to modify it. With an intermediate
control point (&ie; a point that is not the starting point and not the ending
point), you can move the direction handles seperately to have the curve enter
and leave the point in different directions. After editing a point, you can
just click on the canvas to continue adding points to the curve.
Pressing Delete will remove the currently selected control
point from the curve. Double-click the &LMB; on any point of the curve or
press &Enter; to finish drawing, or press &Esc; to cancel the entire curve.
You can use &Ctrl; while keeping the &LMB; pressed to move the entire curve to
a different position.
A finished Bezier curveA finished Bezier curve
A finished Bezier curve
Duplicate
You can use this tool to duplicate parts of an image. Press &Shift; and click
with the &LMB; on the location you want to duplicate from. &krita; will
indicate this location by an outline of your current brush. Then click with
the &LMB; to designate the location where you want to duplicate to, and drag
with the mouse. You will then duplicate whatever is at the source location to
the current (destination) location.
While you are painting the duplicate, both your cursor in the destination
location and the brush outline in the source location will move, in order to
give you visual feedback.
You can also use this tool to correct colors in a part of the image: use the
Healing option for that.
Paint with
filters
This tool allows you to pick a filter and draw with it. The image below shows
the effect of using a large circular brush and painting with, from left to
right, the Maximize Channel, Minimize Channel, Invert, and Desaturate filters.
Painting with filtersPainting with filters
Painting with filters
Crop
With this tool you can crop a layer or an image to a certain rectangular area.
Click and drag with the &LMB; to define an area. This area is designated by an
outline with 8 handles. You can then use the handles to change the size of the
area which the image or layer is to be cropped to. You can also click and drag
inside the area to move the outline in its entirety.
Double-click outside the area (i.e. on a part of the image that is to be removed)
to confirm the cropping operation.
Move
With this tool, you can move the current layer or selection by dragging the
mouse.
Transform
With this tool you can quickly transform the current selection or layer.
Handles will appear at the corners and sides, with which you can resize the
selection or layer. You can perform rotations by moving the mouse above or to
the left of the handles and dragging it. You can also click anywhere inside
the selection or layer and move it by dragging the mouse.
Perspective Transform
This tool allows you to change the perspective of an image. Designate the area
which should become the new image by clicking at its top-left, top-right,
bottom-right and bottom-left corners. The area given by these four corners
will then be transformed so that the given corners become the corners of the
actual image.
Contiguous Fill
Use this tool to fill a contiguous area of one color with the current
foreground color or a pattern. Simply click to fill up the area.
Gradient
This tool fills the current layer or selection with the currently selected
gradient. Click the &LMB;, hold it, and drag the mouse to define two endpoints.
The gradient will be drawn along this line. If the line does not extend to the
border of the selection or layer, the color at the corresponding endpoint of
the gradient will be used to fill up the rest of the area at that side.
Text
With this tool you can add simple text to your image. Click the &LMB; on the
location at which you want have the text. Then enter the desired text in the
dialog window that appears. The text will be horizontally centered on, and
the top of the text will be at the same height as, the chosen location.
Color Picker
With this tool you can find the color values of a point. Click the &LMB;
somewhere in the image to see color information about that point in the
Control box.
Pan
This tool can be used to navigate through your image. Click and hold the &LMB;
and move the mouse to scroll in a certain direction.
Zoom
Use this tool to zoom in and out. Click the &LMB; to increase the zoom by
a factor 2 (e.g. 1:1 to 2:1), click the &RMB; to decrease the zoom by a factor
2 (e.g. 1:1 to 1:2).
Perspective Grid
You can create and edit a perspective grid with this tool. Click the &LMB; and
drag the mouse to indicate the first two corners of the grid, then click for
the third and fourth corners. The outline of the grid is now shown and you can
edit it if you are not completely happy. When you switch to a different tool,
the perspective grid will be subdivided and shown as thin gray lines.
If you only see three corners instead of four, you probably
clicked instead of dragging initially. In this case you can still click the
handle of your now combined first and second corners and drag it to get four
separate corners.
Clicking the Perspective Grid tool again later will allow
you to modify the grid. You can hide or remove the grid by choosing the
Hide Perspective Grid or Clear
Perspective Grid options from the View menu.
Paint Selection
This tool can be used to select custom areas. The currently selected brush is
used to select areas: instead of painting on the image, the area is selected.
For more information on selections, see the Selections chapter.
Erase Selection
This tool works almost the same as the Paint Selection
tool, but a selection, if it exists at the mouse location, is removed instead
of created.
Select Rectangular
You can use this tool to select rectangular areas. Operation is similar to the
Rectangle tool, and &Shift;, &Ctrl; and &Alt; can be used
like when painting rectangles.
Select Elliptical
You can use this tool to select elliptical areas. Operation is similar to the
Ellipse tool, and &Shift;, &Ctrl; and &Alt; can be used
like when painting ellipses.
Select
Polygonal
You can use this tool to select polygonal areas. Operation is similar to the
Polygon tool, and &Shift;, &Ctrl; and &Alt; can be used
like when painting polygons.
Select
Outline
You can use this tool to select custom outlined areas. Click the &LMB; and drag
with your mouse, like when painting with the Brush tool,
to define the outline. When you release the mouse button, the outline will be
finished with a straight line between the current position and the start
position.
Select Contiguous
With this tool you can select contiguous areas of a color. Click with the
&LMB; to select an area.
Select Similar
With this tool you can select multiple areas with the same color. Detection is
done the same as with the contiguous fill, but the areas do not need to be
adjacent.
Magnetic Selection
With this tool you can easily select a visually distinct area. Click with the
&LMB; and move the mouse around the area that you want to select. If the area
has a well enough defined boundary, the selection will be drawn nicely around
it. You will see a number of control points appear, which connect the various
parts of the selection boundary.
If you want more control over the area that is selected, press &Ctrl; to
switch to manual mode. You will now have to click for each control point.
In manual mode, you can also move control points by clicking on them with the
&LMB; and dragging with the mouse.
When you want to return to automatic mode, simply press &Ctrl; again. You can
switch between these two modes as often as you like.
Select Bezier
With this tool you can select an area by drawing a Bezier outline. See the
description of the Bezier tool for details.
The Brushes and Stuff ToolbarThe Brushes and Stuff toolbarThe Brushes and Stuff toolbar
The Brushes and Stuff toolbar
This toolbar contains dropdown palettes in which you
can choose brush shapes, gradients, and fill patterns. It also contains a
dropdown box for painter's tools, and a tablet pressure setting.Brush ShapesThe Brush Shapes paletteThe Brush Shapes palette
The Brush Shapes palette
In the Brush Shapes palette, you can choose
which brush to paint with. This brush is used for painting operations
like Freehand, Rectangle,
Ellipse, etcetera. You can choose a predefined
brush (in the Predefined Brushes tab, shown above), or
customize or create one.The Brush Shapes palette with the Autobrush tabThe Brush Shapes palette with the Autobrush tab
The Brush Shapes palette with the Autobrush
tab
The Autobrush tab allows you to create a customized
rectangular or ellipsoid brush. You can set its height and width using
the Size spin boxes. The link icon controls whether
the height and width are forced to be the same or not. If a connected link
picture is shown, changing one value will automatically change the other one
as well. A disconnected link indicates that both values can be set
independently. The fuzziness of the brush can be set with the
Fade spin boxes. Again, horizontal and vertical values can
be allowed to differ or not, depending on the state of the link button.The Brush Shapes palette with the Custom Brush tabThe Brush Shapes palette with the Custom Brush tab
The Brush Shapes palette with the Custom Brush
tab
The Custom Brush tab of this palette lets you
use the current image as a brush. With the Add to
Predefined Brushes button, you can save it for later use.GradientsThe Gradients paletteThe Gradients palette
The Gradients palette
In the Gradients palette, you can choose a gradient
to paint with using the Gradient tool. Clicking once on a gradient in the
palette will show a larger preview. Click it again to make it the current
gradient.You can create your own gradients with the Custom
Gradient button.PatternsThe Patterns paletteThe Patterns palette
The Patterns palette
The Patterns palette allows you to choose a pattern
for operations like Pattern fill. Click a pattern to see a preview at
actual size, then click it again to select it.The Patterns palette with the Custom Pattern tab selectedThe Patterns palette with the Custom Pattern tab selected
The Patterns palette with the Custom Pattern tab selected
You can also create a custom pattern, as is shown above.Painter's toolsWith the Painter's tools dropdown box, you can
select the tool your painting operation should simulate. For example, you can
paint with a normal brush, an airbrush, or a filter.Pressure variationThis setting allows you to change &krita;'s behaviour when you use a
tablet to paint with. When you change the pressure on the tablet, you can
choose between changing the line width (size), the
opacity, and the darkness.