How to use Impasto, from installing it to writing add-ins. Hover over any button or field in the app to see a tooltip that says what it does.
Start here
- Getting startedInstall Impasto on Linux, Windows, or macOS, open your first image, and learn the parts of the window: canvas, toolbox, tool options, and the docked pads.
- Install on LinuxFlatpak, AppImage, and portable zip builds of the Impasto paint app for Linux, with the GTK 4.18 and glibc requirements that decide which one you want.
- Install on WindowsDownload and run the Windows build of Impasto, including how to get past the SmartScreen warning on the unsigned release.
- Install on macOSInstall the macOS build of Impasto on Apple Silicon or Intel, and clear the Gatekeeper warning that unsigned builds trigger.
- The interfaceHow the Impasto window is laid out — the toolbox, tool options bar, and the layers, history, palette, and images pads — and which parts you can move, hide, or restyle.
Tools
- Toolbox overviewA reference for every tool in the Impasto toolbox, the shortcut key that selects it, and the options each one puts on the tool options bar.
- Selection toolsRectangle, ellipse, lasso, and magic wand selections, the union/exclude/xor/intersect combine modes, and how to move a selection outline versus the pixels inside it.
- Paint toolsThe freehand painting tools in Impasto: brush width and blend modes, the pixel pencil, eraser modes, paint bucket tolerance, and the gradient tool.
- Shape toolsDraw rectangles, ellipses, freeform shapes, and lines or curves that stay editable — move their control points, restyle the outline, and re-edit after you come back.
- Text toolPlace text on the canvas, change the font, size, alignment, and outline, and come back later to re-edit the words because text stays an editable object.
Working with images
- Layers and objectsAdd, reorder, merge, and blend layers; keep shapes and text as editable objects inside a layer; and move an object from one layer to another.
- Undo historyEvery edit in Impasto is a history step you can walk back and forward, including edits to individual shape and text objects.
- Canvas and zoomResize the image or the canvas, crop to a selection, auto-crop, flip and rotate, and control zoom, rulers, and units.
- Snapping and guidesSnap what you draw and what you move to the canvas grid, to ruler units, and to the canvas edges and centre lines, with a guide drawn while you drag.
- Color and palettesPick primary and secondary colors, work with the palette pad, and load or save palette files in the formats Impasto supports.
Effects and files
- AdjustmentsBrightness and contrast, curves, levels, hue and saturation, black and white, sepia, posterize, and the other adjustments, with what each control does.
- EffectsEvery built-in effect in Impasto grouped by menu, with its parameters and the live preview, repeat-last-effect, and random-seed behavior of the effect dialogs.
- File formatsWhich image formats Impasto reads and writes — including layered OpenRaster (.ora) and PDN files — and the options each format offers when you save.
Customizing
- Keyboard shortcutsThe default keyboard shortcuts in Impasto and how to rebind any of them, including where the custom keybindings file is stored.
- Add-insExtend Impasto with add-ins that add tools, effects, or file formats: install them from the add-in manager, or build your own from the sample project.
- FAQIs Impasto free, how does it relate to Pinta and to Paint.NET, does it work offline, and what does it send over the network?