Not to be confused with Kirta.
Krita
ScreenshotKrita 5.0.0 screenshot.png
DeveloperKrita Foundation, KDE
Released21 June 2005 (age 21)
Programming languageC++, Qt
Operating systemLinux, macOS, Windows,[1] Android, ChromeOS,[2][3] Haiku
PlatformIA-32 and x64
Size111–201 MiB (varies by operating system)
GenreRaster graphics editor
LicenceGPL-3.0-only[4]
Websitekrita.org

Krita (/ˈkɹiːtə/ KREE-tə)[5] is a free and open-source raster graphics editor designed primarily for digital art and 2D animation.

Originally created for Linux, the software also runs on Windows, macOS, Haiku, Android, and ChromeOS, and features an OpenGL-accelerated canvas, colour management support, an advanced brush engine, non-destructive layers and masks, group-based layer management, vector artwork support, and switchable customisation profiles.

The software is also available as paid software, distributed on Microsoft Store, Steam, Epic Games Store, and Mac App Store. Payments support the development of the software. The paid version has automatic updates.

Name

The project's name "Krita" is primarily inspired by the Swedish words krita, meaning "crayon" (or chalk), and rita which means "to draw" as well as Sanskrit कृत (kṛta) which means "made"/"done".

History

Early development of the project can be tracked back to 1998 when Matthias Ettrich, founder of KDE, showcased a Qt GUI hack for GIMP at Linux Kongress. The idea of building a Qt-based image editor was later passed to KImage, maintained by Michael Koch, as a part of KOffice suite. In 1999, Matthias Elter proposed the idea of building the software using CORBA around ImageMagick. To avoid existing trademarks on the market, the project underwent numerous name changes: KImageShop, Krayon, until it was finally settled with "Krita" in 2002. The first public version of Krita was released with KOffice 1.4 in 2004.[6][7][8] In years between 2004 and 2009, Krita was developed as a generic image manipulation software like Photoshop and GIMP.[9]

A change of direction happened to the project in 2009, with a new goal of becoming digital painting software like Corel Painter and SAI. Also from that point, the project began to experiment with various ways of funding its development, including Google Summer of Code and funded jobs for students. As a result, the development gained speed and resulted in better performance and stability.[10]

The Krita Foundation was created in 2013 to provide support for Krita's development. It collaborated with Intel to create Krita Sketch as a marketing campaign and Krita Studio with KO GmbH as a commercially supported version for movie and VFX studios. Kickstarter campaigns have been used to crowdfund Krita's development since 2014.[citation needed]

TimeVersionRaisedKickstarter campaignStable release
July 20142.9.x€19,955Faster development, better PSD support, layers, masks, brush, resource manager, display, etc.February 2015
May 20153.0.x€30,520Better performance, animation support, layer, workflow, transform, filter, brush, etc.May 2016
May 20164.0.x€38,579Better text tools and vector art capability, python scripting support, etc.March 2018[11]
5.0.XBrushes, Gradients and Pallets get revamped, animation system improvements, screen recorder.[12]December 2021

On May 23, 2020, the beta version of Krita was released for Android and ChromeOS.[13][14][15]

Design and features

The current version of Krita is developed with Qt 5 and KDE Frameworks 5. It is designed primarily for concept artists, illustrators, matte and texture artists, and the VFX industry. It has the following key features:[16]

User experience design

Krita's UX was designed with graphics tablet users in mind. It uses a combination of pen buttons, keyboard modifiers and an icon-based HUD to ensure frequently-used functions can be accessed by fewer clicks, without the need to search through text-based menus.

Most-used drawing commands can be accessed via touch by combining keyboard modifiers with pen/mouse buttons and gestures:

CommandInput
Brush size ±Shift + Pen drag
Pick colourCtrl + Pen tap
PanPen button + Pen move
ZoomCtrl + Pen button + Pen move
RotateShift + Pen button + Pen move

Pop-up Palette is Krita's right click HUD. It enables instant access to the following functions:

BrushColourView
10 loaded brush presetsColour ring selectorZoom
Load other preset groupsFG/BG colour displayRotate
Brush size, opacity, flow, spacing, angleRecent colourMirror

Painting tools

Krita's core digital painting tools include:

BrushesDrawing assistantsSelection toolsTransformation tools
Graphics tablet supportAdjustable interference intensityRectangleFree position
9 different brush enginesInfinite and parallel straight rulersEllipseRotate
Modelled after real toolsSplines (curves)Freehand (lasso)Scale
Highly adjustableEllipsesPolygonShear
Remembers settings for each physical penPerspectiveOutlinePerspective
Pen stabilizerVanishing pointFillWarp
Multibrush painting supportFish-eye pointColorCage

Animation tools

Krita's animation tools are designed for frame-by-frame raster animation. They have the following features:

InterfaceImportExport
Similar interface to Adobe AnimateBatch import of framesRender with FFmpeg
Timeline controlsOutput to individual frames
Real-time animation playback controlsOutput to GIF, AVI, MP4, etc.
Onion-skin display

Vector tools

Krita uses vector tools for non-destructive editing of the following objects:

  • Path
  • Selection
  • Text (artistic, multiline, calligraphy)
  • Vector art
  • Fill and gradient

Layers and masks

Krita's layer and mask features include:

Layer managementMask applies toNon-destructive layersNon-destructive masks
Multiple-level layer groupsRaster layersClone layersTransparency masks
Select multiple layersVector layersFilter layersFilter masks
Drag-and-drop layersLayer groupsFill layersColourise masks
Layer highlightingNon-destructive layersFile layersTransform masks

Customisation

Krita's resource manager allows each brush or texture preset to be tagged by a user and quickly searched, filtered and loaded as a group. A collection of user-made presets can be packaged as "bundles" and loaded as a whole. Krita provides many such brush set and texture bundles on its official website.

Customisable tool panels are known as Dockers in Krita. Actions include:

  • 2 customisable toolbars
  • Toggle display of each docker
  • Attach any docker to any sides of main window, or detach to float free
  • Buttons to collapse/expand each docker panel
  • Group dockers by tabs

Customisable Brushes and Brush Engine[17] allows advanced users to create custom scripts on brush behavior, patternlike textures, geometrically shaped brushes and simulated blending through programming, most notably via Python[18] plugin support however, other programming languages are also supported like Lua.

Workspaces allow UI customizations for different workflows to be saved and loaded on demand.

Display

OpenGL accelerated canvas is used to speed up Krita's performance. It provides the following benefits:

  • Better framerate and response time: pen actions can be reflected without delay
  • Better-quality, fast and continuous zooming, panning, rotation, wrap-around and mirroring
  • Requires a GPU with OpenGL 3.0 support for optimal experience. In the case of Intel HD Graphics, that means Ivy Bridge and above.

Full colour management is supported in Krita with the following capabilities:

  • Assign and convert between colour spaces
  • Realtime colour proofing, including colour-blind mode
  • Colour model supported: RGBA, Grey Scale, CMYKA, Law, YCbCr, XYZ
  • Colour depth supported: 8-bit integer, 16-bit integer, 16-bit floating point, 32-bit floating point

Filters

Krita has a collection of built-in filters and supports G'MIC filters. It has real-time filter preview support.

Filters included in a default installation: levels, colour adjustment curves, brightness/contrast curve, desaturate, invert, auto contrast, HSV adjustment, pixelise, raindrops, oil paint, gaussian blur, motion blur, blur, lens blur, colour to alpha, colour transfer, minimise channel, maximise channel, top/left/bottom/right edge detection, sobel, sharpen, mean removal, unsharp mask, gaussian noise removal, wavelet noise reducer, emboss horizontal only/in all directions/(laplacian)/vertical only/with variable depth/horizontal and vertical, small tiles, round corners, phong bumpmap.

File formats supported

Krita's native document format is Krita Document (.kra). It can also save to many other file formats including PSD.

File formats
Save toKrita Document, OpenRaster document, PSD image, PPM, PGM, PBM, PNG, GIF, JPEG, JPEG XL, Windows BMP, XBM, XPM, TIFF, EXR, Gimp image, WebP, SCML, ICO, TGA, CSV, QML
Import onlyODG draw, Krita Flipbook, Adobe DNG, Camera RAW, JPEG 2000, PDF, SVG, XML, XCF

Sprint events

Krita sprints are events during which Krita developers and artists get together for a few days, exchange ideas and do programming face-to-face, in order to speedup development and improve relationships between members.

YearDatePlace
2005[19]Deventer, Netherlands
2010[20]26 February to 7 MarchDeventer, Netherlands
2011[21]20 to 22 MayAmsterdam, Netherlands
2014[22]16 to 18 MayDeventer, Netherlands
2016[23]23 to 24 JanuaryDeventer, Netherlands
2016[24]26 to 28 AugustDeventer, Netherlands
2018[25]17 to 21 MayDeventer, Netherlands
2019[26]5 to 9 AugustDeventer, Netherlands

Variations

  • Krita Gemini: optimised for tablets and touch interaction.[27]
  • Krita Studio: commercially supported version for movie and VFX studios.[28]

See also

Similar programs

References

  1. ^ "Krita Desktop". Krita Foundation. Archived 24 June 2020 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 2016-05-30.
  2. ^ "First Krita Beta for Android and ChromeOS in Play Store". Krita. 2020-05-23. Archived 15 August 2020 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 2020-09-17.
  3. ^ "Krita - Apps on Google Play". play.google.com. Archived 22 June 2020 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 2020-09-17.
  4. ^ "Update the licensing info: Krita is effectively GPLv3-only". GitHub. Archived 5 January 2022 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 8 June 2021.
  5. ^ "r/krita - How do you pronounce "Krita"?". reddit. 8 December 2018. Archived 2 September 2021 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 2020-11-13.
  6. ^ "History | Krita". Krita. Archived 29 December 2019 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 2017-07-22.
  7. ^ Brempt (2004-09-27). "First Krita Preview Release". KDE.news. Archived 2025-01-25 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 2026-03-21.
  8. ^ HILZINGER, MARCEL. "OFFICE HELP » Linux Magazine". Linux Magazine. Archived 2026-01-14 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 2026-03-21.
  9. ^ Foundation, Krita (16 July 2014). "History | Krita". krita.org. Archived 29 December 2019 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 2023-06-15.
  10. ^ "History | Krita". Krita. Archived 29 December 2019 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 2017-07-22.
  11. ^ "Krita 4.0 Now Available for Open-Source Digital Painting - Phoronix". Archived 7 July 2019 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 22 March 2018.
  12. ^ Foundation, Krita (2021-12-23). "Krita 5.0 released!". Krita. Archived 11 January 2022 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 2021-12-28.
  13. ^ "Krita, a FOSS digital drawing app, is now available for Android tablets and Chromebooks". xda-developers. 2020-05-25. Archived 29 September 2020 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 2020-09-17.
  14. ^ "First Krita Beta for Android and ChromeOS in Play Store". Krita. 2020-05-23. Archived 15 August 2020 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 2020-09-17.
  15. ^ "Krita - Apps on Google Play". play.google.com. Archived 22 June 2020 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 2020-09-17.
  16. ^ "Highlights | Krita". krita.org. Archived 25 January 2021 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 2017-07-22.
  17. ^ Wang, Lu (2 August 2022). "[proof-of-concept] Scriptable Brush". Krita Artists. Retrieved 18 October 2024.
  18. ^ "How to make a Krita Python plugin — Krita Manual 5.2.0 documentation". docs.krita.org. Retrieved 2024-10-17.
  19. ^ Boudewijn Rempt (2005-07-30). "And on the fifth day...". valdyas. valdyas.org. Archived from the original on 2011-07-25. Retrieved 2011-06-20.
  20. ^ Boudewijn Rempt (2010-03-15). "Second Krita Sprint Ends With Tea". KDE. Archived 23 November 2020 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 21 May 2011.
  21. ^ Boudewijn Rempt (2011-06-02). "What happens When Artists and Developers Come Together: The 2011 Krita Sprint". KDE. Archived 12 November 2020 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 4 June 2011.
  22. ^ "2014 Krita Sprint in Deventer, Netherlands". KDE.news. 2014-06-04. Archived 3 December 2020 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 2016-07-16.
  23. ^ "Kicking off 2016 — the first Krita Sprint". krita.org. 25 January 2016. Archived 24 September 2020 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 2017-07-23.
  24. ^ "2016 Krita Sprint: Day 1". krita.org. 26 August 2016. Archived 26 September 2020 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 2017-07-23.
  25. ^ "2018 Krita 2018 Sprint Report". krita.org. Archived 2 August 2019 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 2017-07-23.
  26. ^ "2019 Krita 2019 Sprint". krita.org. 12 August 2019. Archived 29 November 2019 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 2019-08-12.
  27. ^ "Krita Gemini". krita.org. Archived from the original on 9 August 2017. Retrieved 2017-07-23.
  28. ^ "Krita Studio" (in fr-FR). krita.org. Archived 15 August 2020 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 2017-07-23.