A pixel art editor in the browser, no download / Galactrex

The short answer

Open BeforePixel in your browser and start drawing. There is nothing to install. A free Galactrex account gives you every still-art tool and 3 PNG exports a day. Essential removes the daily limit, and Creative adds animation.

Draw your first sprite

Pick a small canvas, add a background layer and keep the subject on its own layer. Use pencil, fill, shapes and selection to build it. Mirror drawing helps with symmetric sprites, and tile preview shows the edges of a repeating pattern.

Check the art at its real pixel size as well as zoomed in. A big preview can hide a weak outline.

Save and export

Save a .beforepixel project to keep the palette, layers and timing, and keep a copy outside the browser. Browser recovery helps after a crash, but clearing site data can remove it.

Export PNG for still art. Drawing, PNG import and export run in your browser, and your canvas is not stored in a Galactrex cloud service.

Limits to know

The canvas goes up to 512 by 512 pixels, with 32 layers and 240 frames. Animation, onion skin, sprite sheets and GIF export need Creative. GIF uses up to 256 colors, has no partly see-through pixels and needs at least two frames.

This is the lighter web edition of BeforePixel. For a desktop pixel workspace on Windows, see BeforeEdit.