Pixia is a

freeware Freeware is software, often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for the free ...

raster graphics editor A raster graphics editor (also called bitmap graphics editor) is a computer program that allows users to create and edit images interactively on the computer screen and save them in one of many raster graphics file formats (also known as bitmap ...

program for

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

, created by . It was originally designed for the

anime is a Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, , in Japan and in Ja ...

manga are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long history in earlier Japanese art. The term is used in Japan to refer to both comics ...

community but has also been used in other branches of art. A successor to ART/fw, a full-color graphics tool developed for

Windows 3.1 Windows 3.1 is a major release of Microsoft Windows. It was released to manufacturing on April 6, 1992, as a successor to Windows 3.0. Like its predecessors, the Windows 3.1 series run as a shell on top of MS-DOS; it was the last Windows 1 ...

, ver. 0 was released in the fall of 1998 and celebrated its 15th anniversary in 2013. The program is still being upgraded at a high frequency. In addition to Pixia, other versions were developed under the names A/PIXIA and Phierha to enhance functions, but they were never officially released. After reviewing those versions, Pixia ver. 5 was released in 2009. Ver. 5 also features significant changes in interface design, among others. Although ver.4 continues to be supported for users who prefer the conventional interface, the focus of development has shifted to ver.6, resulting in the existence of two series of Pixia.

Overview and features

The program has a layer function, masks, blending planes, and transparent color planes (filter required). It supports external plug-ins to add data read/write formats and to expand functionality such as integration with other software. Filters and plug-ins are created and published by volunteers on many sites. Some attempts were made to mutually use

Adobe Photoshop Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Inc., Adobe for Microsoft Windows, Windows and macOS. It was created in 1987 by Thomas Knoll, Thomas and John Knoll. It is the most used tool for professional digital ...

and Pixia filters. For a long time, Pixia could not manage

GIF The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF; or , ) is a Raster graphics, bitmap Image file formats, image format that was developed by a team at the online services provider CompuServe led by American computer scientist Steve Wilhite and released ...

files by default because the software was developed before the GIF patent expired. However, since ver. 4 released after the expiration of the GIF patent, GIF files have been available as a standard feature. There were also multiple language versions for the program, including Japanese, English, French, German, Spanish, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Chinese (simplified and traditional), and Korean, but only the Japanese and English versions have been released since ver. 4. In addition to the freeware version, there is also a paid version of the software that comes with

Wacom is a Japanese company headquartered in Kazo, Saitama, Japan, that specializes in manufacturing graphics tablets and related products. As of 2012 Wacom generated sales of approximately 40.7 billion yen with 785 employees. The company's shares ...

and other tablets with additional material data, among others. Paid filters and downloads with support are also available.

Reception

A CNET Editors' Review in January 2011 called Pixia "one of the most capable and professional Photoshop alternatives we've tried."

References

External links

* Raster graphics editors 2000 software {{graphics-software-stub

Overview and features

Reception

See also

References

External links