Native pixel art editor with tons of features
Requires macOS Monterey 12.4 or later
CG Course: What Is Pixel Art?
What is a pixel? Imagine the tiniest square of colour you can see on your screen. Now imagine painting an entire world out of nothing but those squares, one by one, dot by dot. That is pixel art, and it is one of the most exciting forms of digital creation happening right now!
An App for Pixel Art: Hello, Dottie!
Dottie is a brand-new native Mac application built from scratch to make pixel art feel as natural as picking up a pencil. Forget clunky web apps and awkward Windows ports. Every tool has been designed to feel right at home on your Mac: trackpad gestures, keyboard shortcuts, and a thoughtful interface that stays out of your way while you create game sprites, icons, portraits, or whatever. It feels good to draw!
-
Drawing ToolsPencil, pen, airbrush, smudge, fill, eraser, line, etc
-
Layer SystemFull layer support with opacity, onion skin modes
-
AnimationFrame-based animation with FPS speed and live preview
-
Custom PalettesUse presets, create your own, or import from Lospec
-
Brush SettingsMultiple shapes, sizes, dither, pixel perfect mode
-
Selection ToolsMagic wand, marquee, lasso, and polygon selections
-
Import & Export20+ import formats, export PNG, GIF, SVG, sprite sheets
-
Multiple PreviewsFloating or docked previews with their own settings
-
Apple NativeMulti-window, Dark Mode, Quick Look, Univeral App
Drawing Tools
Your creative journey starts here! Every tool is assigned to a single key so your hands never leave the keyboard.
| Tool | Key | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Pencil | N | Toggle-style classic Mac drawing |
| Pen | P | Smooth strokes |
| Airbrush | A | Soft spray for shading |
| Smudge | B | Blend adjacent pixels together |
| Fill | K | Flood fill with multiple variants |
| Eraser | E | Remove pixels in a single stroke |
| Line | L | Perfect geometric shapes |
| Rectangle | R | Perfect geometric shapes |
| Oval | O | Perfect geometric shapes |
| Eyedropper | D | Pick any colour from your canvas |
Selection Central
Selecting parts of your artwork is just as important as drawing them!
| Tool | Key | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Magic Wand | W | Select areas of similar colour |
| Rectangle Marquee | M | Precise rectangular selections |
| Oval Marquee | I | Circular and oval selections |
| Freehand Lasso | U | Draw your own selection boundary |
| Polygon | Y | Click point by point around complex shapes |
Brush Collection
Here is where things get really interesting!
- Shapes—Circle, Square, Diagonal
- Sizes—1 to 8 pixels (keys 1–8 for instant selection)
- Dither—17 levels (0 to 16)
- Pixel Perfect mode—Toggle with F, automatically cleans up jagged corners
Palette Organiser
Colour is everything in pixel art!
- Three active colours: Primary, Secondary, Eraser
- Quick switch with X and Shift+X
- Built-in presets including GB Studio, PICO-8, Playdate, and Macintosh
- Gradient generation, Lospec import, and custom palette management
- Multiple sorting modes including hue, brightness, and usage
Layer System
Layers are the secret weapon of serious pixel artists!
- Per-layer visibility and opacity (0–100%)
- Modes: Normal, Onion Skin, Solo
- Duplicate, merge, rename, centre, and reorder
- Auto-generated thumbnails
Canvas & Transform
Start with any canvas size you like!
- Resize canvas with 9-position anchoring
- Scale image up or down
- Custom pixel aspect ratios for authentic retro looks
- Flip horizontally or vertically
- Rotate left or right
- Nudge layers pixel by pixel with arrow keys
Animation Fun
This is the really exciting part!
- Frame-based animation where each layer is one frame
- Configurable FPS with live preview
- Sidebar and floating preview windows
- Export as sprite sheet or animated GIF
Import & Export
Dottie speaks every format you need!
- Import—PNG, JPEG, AVIF, BMP, GIF, HEIF, ICNS, ICO, PSD, TGA, TIFF, WebP, PEP, Piskel, and more
- Export—PNG, BMP, GIF, TIFF, SVG, XPM, PEP
- Sprite sheets—All layers composited into a single PNG
- Native share sheet and Open With support
macOS Integration
Dottie is a true Mac application!
- Document-based multi-window architecture
- Full Screen and Dark Mode support
- Quick Look previews and thumbnails for .dottie and .pep files
- Window position and zoom restored per document
- Full AppleScript support for automation
Optimised
- Less than 3 MB app file size
- Less than 120 MB base memory footprint
- A professional pixel art studio that fits on a floppy disk!
How It Compares
Here’s how this app compares to other similar apps.
| Dottie | Pixen | Aseprite | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Native Mac app | ✓ | ✓ | Hybrid |
| Animation | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Layers | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Onion skinning | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Sprite sheet export | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Custom palettes | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Lospec import | ✓ | – | – |
| Tile map editing | – | – | ✓ |
| Scripting | AppleScript | – | Lua |
| App size | < 3 MB | ~20 MB | ~70 MB |