Delacroix User Manual

Delacroix is a native macOS application for painting, photo editing, vector design and pixel art. Its document format is GIMP's XCF: a file you save in Delacroix opens in GIMP 3.2, and a file from GIMP opens in Delacroix.

Under the interface is a vendored, GTK-free copy of the GIMP 3.2.6 engine over GEGL and babl, so pixels, layer modes and filters are computed the way GIMP computes them. Around it, the canvas, panes, menus and tools are written for the Mac in Swift, AppKit and SwiftUI, and the canvas is drawn with Metal.

This manual describes Delacroix 0.6.1.

Requirements

macOS 26 or later.
Releases up to 0.6.1 are built for Intel (x86_64). They also run on Apple Silicon Macs through Rosetta 2. A universal build is planned for 1.0.

Core Ideas

GIMP decides the pixels. Layers, groups, masks, layer modes, paths and text are stored as GIMP stores them. Features GIMP doesn't have are kept next to them in the file, and the status bar tells you how compatible a document still is (see Files and Formats).
A Mac application. Native menus and shortcuts, light and dark appearance, trackpad zoom and rotation, dockable panes, and SF Symbols for every tool and pane.
Drawn on the GPU. The canvas composites the layer stack on the GPU, so changing a layer's opacity, mode or visibility redraws at once. Brush dabs and gradient previews are drawn by the GPU while you work, and the engine renders the final result behind them. Settings ▸ Canvas ▸ Rendering ▸ Composite layers on the GPU turns GPU compositing off.
Editable for as long as you like. Filters can stay editable as layer effects, shapes keep their parameters until you convert them to curves, booleans can stay live as compounds, and masks and clipping are layers you can still move.

Workspace Tour

┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  [Raster | Vector | Liquify | Export | Pixel]              Context Toolbar   │
├──────┬────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┬──────────────┤
│Tools │                                                        │ Tool Options │
│      │                     Canvas                             │ Colour, …    │
│      │                                                        │ Layers, …    │
├──────┴────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┴──────────────┤
│  Status bar: Quick Mask · position · size · GIMP compatibility · zoom        │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Persona switcher (top left): changes the workspace for the kind of work you are doing. Each persona has its own tools, panes and layout. See Personas.
Raster (⌃1): painting, retouching, photo editing, selections and filters.
Vector (⌃2): the Pen, Node and Shape tools, booleans, artboards, symbols and SF Symbols.
Liquify (⌃3): warp brushes with a freeze mask and a live preview.
Export (⌃4): slices and the files made from them.
Pixel (⌃5): pixel art and icons, with whole-pixel tools and the working palette.
Context toolbar (top): the controls of the active tool and of what is selected, such as fill and stroke, booleans or the gradient type.
Tools (left): a vertical strip of SF Symbols. Tools that share a slot open from it with a long press or a right-click, and the slot shows the tool you last picked. Hover over a tool for its name and shortcut.
Canvas (centre): pan with two fingers or Space-drag, pinch to zoom, and rotate with two fingers (hold ⇧ to snap to 15°).
Panes (right): tabbed panes such as Tool Options, Colour, Swatches, Layers and Undo History. Every pane can be shown from Window ▸ Panes. See Panes.
Status bar (bottom): the Quick Mask button, the pointer position with its unit, the selection size, the image size and precision, progress, the GIMP compatibility badge, the message count and the zoom.

Finding Things

Help ▸ Search and Run a Command… (⌘/, or just / in the document window) searches every menu item and every tool by name. Press Return to run the highlighted one. Items you use often move up the list.
Settings (⌘,) has a page per subject: General, Canvas, Default Image, Input Devices, Colour Management, Folders, Resources and Shortcuts. The search field at the top of the sidebar finds a setting by name.
Settings ▸ Shortcuts changes any shortcut. Click a shortcut and press the new keys. Delacroix asks before taking a key that something else already uses. You can import and export your shortcuts there.

Sending Feedback

Help ▸ Send Feedback… (⌥⇧⌘F) takes a picture of the window as it is and opens it in a sheet:

Choose Rectangle, Freehand or Arrow and drag on the picture to mark something. Each mark is numbered.
Write a note for each mark, and an overall note if you like. Return starts a new line in a note.
Leave Include the image (XCF) on to send the document with it.
Click Save Feedback, or press ⌘Return.

Delacroix writes a .dlxfeedback bundle to ~/Library/Application Support/Delacroix/Feedback/ and shows it in the Finder. The bundle holds the screenshot, the marked-up screenshot, your notes, the app's state and log, and the image.

Help ▸ Copy Diagnostic Information copies details of your Mac and of this build, to paste into an issue report. Help ▸ Report an Issue… opens the issue tracker.

About Delacroix

Delacroix ▸ About Delacroix shows the version, the build number and the source commit, for example Version 0.6.1 (build 1022, commit 6fbec575861c). Below them it credits the bundled brushes, gradients, patterns and palettes by collection and author, with links and licences.

Delacroix is free software under the GNU General Public License, version 3 or later.

Personas: the Raster, Vector, Liquify, Export and Pixel personas.
Tools: every tool, its shortcut and how to use it.
Vector and SF Symbols: vector layers, the Pen and Node tools, live shapes, booleans, masks and clipping, and SF Symbols.
Panes: docking, and what each pane does.
Files and Formats: XCF, GIMP compatibility, SVG, and the formats Delacroix opens and exports.
Delacroix and GIMP: what is the same and what is different, for people coming from GIMP.