Tools

The toolbar on the left contains 58 tools in 20 groups. Here you'll learn what each tool is for, which options the options bar shows for it, and how to use it with clicks, drags and modifier keys.

Choosing and setting up tools

Each button in the toolbar stands for a group of related tools. A click selects the tool of the group you used last. You reach the other tools with a right-click on the button: a list with all the tools in the group and their shortcuts drops down.

Above the canvas is the options bar. It shows the name of the active tool on the left, followed by its settings. To the right of these, a short usage hint appears in gray text – it's worth a look when you use a tool for the first time.

Keyboard shortcuts

• A letter selects the main tool of its group, e.g. B the Brush.
• ⇧ + letter selects the second tool in the group; if a tool of the group is already active, it cycles to the next one (e.g. ⇧ M through all the marquees).
• ⌥ J selects the Patch tool directly, ⌥ O the Sponge.
• [ and ] make the tool tip smaller and larger.
• The number keys 1 … 9 set the opacity to 10 … 90%, 0 to 100%.
• D resets the foreground and background colors to black and white, X swaps them, Q turns the Quick Mask view on and off (see Selections).
• Holding down the Space bar lets you pan the view with any tool.

All tools at a glance

Move

The Move tool (V) moves the selected and linked layers. If there is a selection, it moves only the selected pixels. Layer masks move along with their layers, and a selected group moves all its layers. Type, shape and Smart Object layers are always moved as a whole.

• Dragging moves; holding ⇧ while dragging keeps the movement horizontal or vertical.
• Holding ⌥ while dragging (without a selection) moves copies of the layers; the originals stay where they are.
• If guides are shown and not locked, you move them with this tool.

The options bar contains buttons for aligning the selected layers (left, center, right, top, middle, bottom) and for distributing them (horizontal and vertical centers, horizontal and vertical spacing). More on this in the chapter Layers.

Selection tools

The selection tools are explained in detail in the chapter Selections. Here is a summary of how to use them.

All marquee, lasso and Magic Wand tools have the buttons New, Add, Subtract and Intersect in the options bar, plus the Feather field (0–250 px). Instead of using the buttons, you can also hold keys: ⇧ adds, ⌥ subtracts.

Rectangular Marquee and Elliptical Marquee

Drag out a rectangle or an ellipse. The Single Row and Single Column tools select, with one click, a row one pixel high or a column one pixel wide across the whole image.

Lasso, Polygonal Lasso and Magnetic Lasso

• Lasso: Drag freely around the area you want; when you release, the shape closes.
• Polygonal Lasso: Each click sets a corner; the edges between them are straight.
• Magnetic Lasso: Click on the edge of an object and guide the pointer along it; the line follows the strongest edge nearby.

With the Polygonal and Magnetic Lasso, Return closes the shape, ⌫ takes back the last corner and Esc discards the outline.

Object Selection, Quick Selection and Magic Wand

• Object Selection: Drag a rectangle around an object; Chromatelier selects the object inside it. With the Object Finder option, a local AI model outlines the objects it recognizes, and a click selects one of them (you install the model under Preferences › Local AI, see AI on Your Computer). Sample All Layers takes the whole image into account instead of only the active layer.
• Quick Selection: Paint over the area; the selection grows to similar colors and stops at edges. ⌥ subtracts. You set the Size in the options bar or with [ / ].
• Magic Wand: A click selects similar colors. Tolerance (0–255) determines how similar; Contiguous limits the selection to connected pixels; Sample All Layers reads the composite image.

Crop, Slice and Frame

Crop

With the Crop tool (C) you drag out the area you want to keep. Outside it, the image is darkened. Holding ⇧ while dragging forces a square. You apply the crop with Return, a double-click inside the frame or the ✔ Apply crop (Enter) button; Esc or ✖ Cancel (Esc) discards it.

When Content-Aware is turned on, you may drag the frame beyond the edge of the image (up to twice the image size). The new edges are then filled in from the image.

Perspective Crop

This tool straightens a rectangle photographed at an angle – a sign, a picture on the wall, a facade. First drag out a rectangle, then drag its four corners onto the corners of the object. A grid shows the perspective. The options bar gives the size of the result in pixels; Return applies, Esc cancels.

Slice

The Slice tool divides the image into pieces for the web. Drag a rectangle for each slice; ⌥-click deletes the slice under the pointer. The options bar shows the number of slices, creates a grid from the existing guides with Slices From Guides and removes all of them with Clear Slices. File › Export › Save for Web… then writes one file per slice (see Saving, Export & Printing).

Frame

The Frame tool (K) draws placeholders that you put an image into later. In the options bar choose Rectangular Frame or Elliptical Frame and drag it out. An image goes inside when you drag a file onto the frame, or when you choose Layer › Frames › Place Image in Frame… with the frame active. More commands are under Layer › Frames (see Layers).

Eyedropper, Ruler, Count and Note

You write the text of a note in the Window › Information › Notes panel; there you can also page between the notes with ◀ and ▶. The measurement scale, scale markers and recording measurements are under Image › Analysis.

The brush engine

All the painting tools – Brush, Pencil, the erasers, the stamps, History Brush, the healing brushes, Blur Brush, Sharpen, Smudge, Dodge, Burn, Sponge and others – share the same brush engine and the same basic options in the options bar:

A ⇧-click connects the clicked point to the end of the last stroke with a straight line.

Brush Settings

You open the Brush Settings window with F5, the Brush Settings… button in the options bar, or via View › Show › Brush Settings. At the bottom, a preview shows what a stroke looks like with the current settings.

Brush Tip Shape: Size (up to 5000 px), Hardness (for a round tip), Angle (−180° to 180°), Roundness (1–100%) and Spacing (1–1000%). If a sampled tip is active, Use a round tip brings back the round one.

You switch the following sections on with the checkbox in front of their names:

Each jitter value has a Control: Off, Pen Pressure, Fade (over a number of dabs you choose) and, for the angle, also Direction (the tip turns with the direction of the stroke).

Pressure sensitivity with a pen

With a graphics tablet or a pressure-sensitive pen, Chromatelier reads the pressure. With a mouse, every stroke paints at full pressure. You decide what the pressure controls in the Brush Settings: for Size Jitter, Opacity Jitter or Flow Jitter, set the Control to Pen Pressure. The presets Hard Round Pressure Size, Soft Round Pressure Opacity and Airbrush Soft are already set up this way.

Brush presets and ABR brushes

The Window › Brushes panel shows the presets as stroke previews. A click makes a preset the current brush. Among the included presets are Hard Round, Soft Round, Calligraphic Flat, Chalk, Spatter, Scattered Leaves and Grass.

• New Preset saves the current brush with all its settings.
• Import… loads brushes from an .abr file; the status bar reports how many were added.
• Settings… opens the Brush Settings.
• You delete presets of your own with a right-click › Delete Brush.

To create a brush tip of your own from the image, use Edit › Presets › Define Brush Preset: the selected area (or the whole image) becomes the tip, and dark pixels paint.

Healing tools

The healing group (J) removes spots, distractions and red eyes. Other retouching commands such as Content-Aware Fill are described in the chapter Retouching & Transforming.

Brush, Pencil and related tools

• Brush (B) paints soft or hard strokes with the foreground color.
• Pencil (N) always paints with a hard edge, without anti-aliasing – good for pixel art.
• Color Replacement replaces the hue, saturation, color or luminosity of similar pixels under the tip with the foreground color (Mode). Tolerance sets how similar; with Sample Once, only the color at the first click counts.
• Mixer Brush mixes the foreground color with the color in the image: Wet (how much image color is picked up), Load (paint supply) and Mix, each in percent.
• Adjustment Brush paints an adjustment into the image: the first stroke creates an adjustment layer with a black mask, each stroke paints the mask white, with ⌥ black. Under Adjustment you choose Brighten, Darken, Increase Contrast, Decrease Contrast, Saturate, Desaturate, Warm, Cool, Black & White or Invert. Afterwards you change the layer's values in the Properties panel.

Clone Stamp and Pattern Stamp

The Clone Stamp (S) transfers parts of the image from a source to another spot without adjusting the color. The Pattern Stamp (⇧ S) paints a pattern that you choose in the options bar under Pattern; you create patterns of your own with Edit › Presets › Define Pattern….

History Brush and Art History Brush

The History Brush (Y) paints an earlier state of the image back in – namely the state you marked with 🖌 in the History panel. This lets you take back a filter in individual spots.

The Art History Brush paints stylized strokes in the colors of that state. Style offers Tight Short, Tight Medium, Tight Long, Loose Medium, Loose Long, Dab, Tight Curl, Tight Curl Long, Loose Curl and Loose Curl Long; Area (1–500 px) determines how far the strokes spread, Tolerance (0–100%) where painting happens.

Erasers

• Eraser (E) makes pixels transparent. It has the same options as the Brush, including Smoothing and Symmetry.
• Background Eraser erases only pixels that resemble the color under the center of the tip – ideal for separating a subject from a plain background. Options: Tolerance, Sample Once.
• Magic Eraser erases all similar pixels with one click, the way the Paint Bucket fills. Options: Tolerance, Opacity, Contiguous, Sample All Layers.

Paint Bucket and Gradient

Paint Bucket

The Paint Bucket (G) fills similar pixels with the foreground color in one click. Options: Tolerance (0–255), Opacity, Contiguous and Sample All Layers. For fills with a pattern or a content-aware fill, use Edit › Fill….

Gradient

With the Gradient tool (⇧ G) you drag a line: its start and end determine where the gradient begins and ends. ⇧ keeps the line in 45° steps.

The Gradient Editor

Clicking the gradient field opens the Gradient Editor window. The Presets are at the top; a click applies one of them. Below them you edit the current gradient:

• Gradient Type: a gradient made of color stops, or Noise – a random gradient with Roughness, Color Model with ranges, Restrict Colors, Add Transparency and Randomize.
• Below the color ramp are the color stops. A click below the ramp adds one, dragging moves it, dragging it down and away removes it.
• For the selected stop you set the Color (Foreground, Background or Custom), Location and Opacity. Delete Stop removes it (at least two remain).
• With Name and New you save the gradient as a preset. You delete presets of your own with a right-click › Delete Gradient.

Blur Brush, Sharpen and Smudge

• Blur Brush (R) softens the areas you paint over.
• Sharpen increases sharpness there – use it sparingly, or noise appears.
• Smudge smears the color in the direction of the stroke; Strength (0–1) determines how far.

All three have the basic options of the brush engine.

Dodge, Burn and Sponge

• Dodge (O) lightens the areas you paint over.
• Burn (⇧ O) darkens them.
• Sponge (⌥ O) reduces saturation.

The Exposure option (0.01–1) determines how strongly each stroke works. A low exposure and several strokes give the most natural results.

Type, pens, path selection and shapes

These tools create type, shape and path objects that stay editable. They are described in detail in the chapter Type, Shapes & Paths:

• Type, Vertical Type, Horizontal and Vertical Type Mask (T)
• Pen, Freeform Pen and Curvature Pen (P)
• Path Selection and Direct Selection (A)
• Shape (U) with rectangle, rounded rectangle, ellipse, polygon/star and line

Hand, Rotate View and Zoom

• Hand (H): dragging pans the view. With the Space bar held down, this works with any tool.
• Rotate View (⇧ H): dragging rotates the view like a sheet of paper on a drawing table – the image itself stays unchanged. ⇧ rotates in 15° steps. In the options bar you enter the exact Rotation Angle; Reset View or Esc straightens it again.
• Zoom (Z): a click zooms in at the clicked spot, ⌥-click zooms out. ⌘ + scrolling or the two-finger gesture also works everywhere.

You'll find more about navigation in the chapter Interface.