From the gallery: A Little Sonic Doodle by T I K I

Tux Paint is easy to use, includes countless fun effects, and provides many configuration options.

Multi-Platform

Tux Paint works on Windows (Windows 7 through Windows 11), macOS (10.10 Yosemite and up), Android (including Chromebooks), Linux, and Haiku OS.

A number of useful drawing tools are made available. (See , below.)

The drawing canvas is a fixed size, so the user doesn't need to worry about 'pixels' or 'inches' when making a new picture.

The entire program fits on a screen as small as 640x480, and can be displayed full-screen, to hide the computer's underlying 'desktop' interface. (It defaults to 800x600 mode, but can run at larger sizes and in portrait or landscape mode, as well.)

Loading and saving of images is done using thumbnails, so no knowledge of the underlying operating system's filesystem structure is needed. Even filenames are unnecessary.

Images can be exported from Tux Paint (e.g., to your "Pictures" folder).

Fun sound effects are played when tools are selected and used.

A cartoon version of Tux, the Linux penguin, appears at the bottom to give tips, hints and information.

Paint brush

Various brushes available

Parents/teachers can add more brushes

Brushes can be animated

Brushes can change shape depending on the direction they're drawn

Brushes can point the direction that's being drawn

Brush spacing can be adjusted

Alternate color palettes can be created and used

Color picker, for choosing colors from a drawing

Keyboard shortcut for quickly invoking the color picker

Color mixer, for combining primary colors together

Rubber stamp

Hundreds of photographic and cartoon stamps images are available

Parents/teachers can add more stamps and create categories

Stamps can have descriptive text and sound samples (names, facts, etc.) and/or sound effects assigned to them

Stamps can be resized, flipped and mirrored

Rotate stamps

Raster bitmaps (Portable Network Graphics ("PNG")) with full-color and alpha transparency (32bpp RGBA) supported

Vector graphics (Scalable Vector Graphics ("SVG")) supported

Line tool

Uses Paint Brush's brushes

'Rubberband' shows where the line will be drawn as you move the mouse

Fill

'Flood-fill' an area with a particular color

Fill an area with a solid color

Fill an area with a radial gradient

Fill an area with a shaped gradient

Interactively fill an area with a linear gradient

Interactively fill an area with a solid color using freehand brushstrokes

Erase an area via flood-fill, to expose the background

Shape tool

Draw various filled and unfilled polygonal shapes

Rotate shapes

Draw shapes from the center, or from a corner

Text and Label tools

'Magic' (special effects) feature, with over 90 tools!

Magic tools are grouped into related categories (this can be disabled )

Distorts

Blur - blur parts of the picture using the mouse

Sharpen - sharpen the focus of the picture

Smudge - push the colors around as though smudging wet paint

Blocks - turn parts of the picture 'blocky'

Chalk - make parts of the picture look like a chalk drawing

Drip - make parts of the picture look like it's dripping away

Clone - clone parts of the picture; copy by painting ()

Distortion - slightly alters the position of the picture under the brush

Puzzle - shift parts of your picture around like it's a sliding puzzle

Circles - turn your picture into circular brush strokes

Rays - turn your picture into linear brush strokes

Edges - outline the edges of shapes in your picture

Emboss - gives the image's edges highlights and shadows

Silhouette - turn parts of your picture into a silhouette

Fisheye - view parts of your picture through a fish-eye lense

Ripples - rippled waves over your image

Glass Tile - see your drawing through glass tiles

Irregular Mosaic - turn your picture into a mosaic of shards

Hexagon Mosaic - create a pattern of hexagons

Square Mosaic - create a pattern of squares

Mosaic - make your picture into a mosaic of colors

TV - make your picture look like it's on a television

ASCII Typewriter - transform your picture into "ASCII art", typewriter-style

ASCII Computer - transform your picture into "ASCII art", computer terminal-style

ASCII Color Computer - transform your picture into colored computer "ASCII art"

Noise - add random noise to your picture

Halftone - turn your picture into newsprint

Color Filters

Negative - invert the colors of parts of the picture

Opposite - swap colors in the picture with their complementary colors

Saturate - increase color saturation of parts of the picture

Desaturate - reduce color saturation of parts of the picture

Darken - darken the colors of parts of the picture

Lighten - fade the colors of parts of the picture

Remove Color - desaturate of parts of the picture that match a chosen color

Keep Color - desaturate of parts of the picture that don't matching a chosen color

Tint - change the color of parts of the picture

Color & White - turn the picture monotone

Cartoon - make parts of the picture look like a cartoon

Color Shift - Jumble the colors of the picture

Dither - turn your drawing into a dithered pattern of dots

3D Glasses - separate red/cyan, or other color combinations (), to create anaglyphic viewable with 3D glasses

Color Sep. - separate color channels

Double Vision - simulate double vision

Xor colors - colors based on the position drawn on the picture

Bloom - add a glowing "bloom" effect

Picture Warps

Mirror - flip the image horizontally

Flip - flip the image vertically

Shift - move the entire picture around

Zoom - zoom your entire picture in or out

Tile Zoom - zoom your entire picture in or out, tiling the results when scaling down

Panels - divide and duplicate your drawing into a 2x2 grid

Rush - zoom your entire picture in or out, blurring the results

Perspective - bend your picture to view it from different perspectives

Reflection - create a reflection of part of your picture

Stretch - stretch and squash parts of the picture

Waves - wiggle your picture side to side

Wavelets - wiggle your picture up and down

Fold - fold down the corners of your picture

Kaleido-4, Kaleido-6, & Kaleido-8 - view your drawing through a kaleidoscope

Rotate - rotate your picture

Painting

Pattern Painting

Symmetry Left/Right - paint with reflective symmetry across the horizontal center of the image

Symmetry Up/Down - paint with reflective symmetry across the vertical center of the image

Kaleidoscope - four symmetric brushes

Pattern - draws a tiled pattern around the picture

Tiles - draws a symettric pattern around the picture

Rosette - three brushes that draw in a rosette pattern

Picasso - a triplet of brushes that paint in unison

Tessellation Pointy - draws a tessellation with a pointy-topped hexagon pattern

Tessellation Flat - draws a tessellation with a flat-topped hexagon pattern

Picture Decorations

Blind - pull window blinds down, or across, the picture

Checkerboard - fill the picture with a checkerboard pattern

Snow Ball - cover your picture in snowballs

Snow Flake - cover your picture in snowflakes

Projections

1-point Perspective - set a vanishing point and draw lines with 1-point perspective

2-point Perspective - set two vanishing points and draw lines with 2-point perspective

3-point Perspective - set three vanishing points and draw lines with 3-point perspective

Isometric - draw in an isometric projection

Dimetric - draw in a dimetric projection

Trimetric - draw in a trimetric projection

Oblique - draw in an oblique projection

Artistic

Flower - draws curvy-stalked flowers

Googly Eyes - add googly eyes to your picture

Real Rainbow - draw a colorful arc based on a real photo of a rainbow

ROYGBIV Rainbow - draw a rainbow arc of seven solid colors

Lightning - draw lightning bolts on your picture

Tornado - add a tornado funnel to your picture

Filled Polygon - create filled polygons by placing 3 or more points

String edges - draw string art around the edges of your picture

String corner - draw string art

String V - draw V-shaped string art

Epitrochoid - creates cyclical ("Spirograph"-like) patterns generated by a circle rolling on the outer edge of another circle

Hypotrochoid - creates cyclical ("Spirograph"-like) patterns generated by a circle rolling on the inner edge of another circle

Many magic tools offer multiple size options

Many magic tools work in both freehand and full-canvas modes

Some magic tools react to complexity (user "expertise-level") settings

... plus, programmers can easily and quickly create new 'Magic' tools using a plug-in interface!

Eraser

Square, round, fuzzy-edged, and transparent erasers of various sizes

Use to expose parts of the background color, Template, or Starter after drawing on it

Keyboard shortcut for quickly accessing a small eraser

Undo

Multiple levels of undo

Undo actions can themselves be undone with the 'Redo' button

New

Create a new drawing with a blank canvas, a pre-drawn backdrop, or a coloring-book-style outline

Save

Save a picture to the virtual 'picturebook'

One-click save: No file browser dialogs or filename prompts are used

If saving an opened picture, choose to save over it (like 'Save' in desktop programs), or save a new picture (like 'Save As')

Open

Open a previous drawing by selecting its thumbnail in a virtual 'picturebook'

Delete previously-saved pictures. On these platforms, images are moved to the 'Trash' or 'Recycle Bin':

Linux/Unix

Windows

macOS

Option allows reversing order of images in the Open dialog

Slides

View a slideshow of multiple saved drawings

Control the speed of playback; create class presentations or simple looping animations

Go forward or back using the arrow keys or mouse

Slideshows can be exported from Tux Paint as animated GIFs, for sharing on the Internet

Starters

Various coloring-book-style images included

Photographic scenes included, with foreground and background elements that you draw in between

Vector graphics (Scalable Vector Graphics ("SVG")) supported

Kid Pix templates ("KPX" files) supported

Templates

Photographic backgrounds that you can draw on; use the Eraser tool to reveal them

Turn your own pictures into a new Template right inside Tux Paint

Print

Print pictures on a printer

Parts of Tux Paint have currently been translated into the following languages: (129)

(You can even help translate it to your favorite language.)

Enter text in different languages using the Text tool:

Latin languages - Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, etc.

Japanese - Romanized Hiragana and Romanized Katakana

Korean - Hangul Bul-2

Thai

Traditional Chinese

Tux Paint provides a number of optional accessibiltiy enhancements, to help make the program more suitable in some circumstances.

Run Tux Paint in full-screen mode, or have it 'grab' the mouse pointer, to prevent children from accidentally accessing other programs or files on the desktop.

Sound effects can be deactivated.

The Print and Quit options can be deactivated.

Alternatively, the Print option can be limited to allow only one print every n minutes.

By default, Tux Paint cannot be launched more than once every 30 seconds, to prevent multiple copies from being run accidentally, due to over-eager mouse clicking.

The directories/folders where Tux Paint saves and/or exports files may be changed. This can allow saving pictures in a student's home directory on a network drive or shared drive, rather than locally on one particular workstation.

Stamps, starters and brushes are stored using popular open formats (PNG, SVG, Ogg Vorbis, etc.) allowing parents and teachers to create their own content for use at home or in the classroom - even using completely free tools.

The 'Tux Paint Config.' program allows parents, teachers, and school technicians to alter Tux Paint's behaviour using a simple, easy-to-use graphical interface. (It's separate from Tux Paint, to prevent children from changing things.)

... and much more!

🐻 Feature may be simplified or deactivated, simplifying Tux Paint to increase accessibility (e.g., for novice users).