PhotoFresco

Getting started

A tour of the PhotoFresco editor — the toolbar, options bar, panels and canvas — plus how to open, edit and save your first image.

PhotoFresco is a free, Photoshop-style image editor that runs entirely in your browser. There is nothing to install and no account to create: open photofresco.com/app/, and the editor is ready in seconds. Everything — rendering, brushes, filters, file handling — happens on your own machine.

Open the editor

Head to the editor. You'll land on the start screen, where you can:

PhotoFresco's start screen, with New file, Open, presets and recent files
PhotoFresco's start screen, with New file, Open, presets and recent files
  • Create a new document — pick a size and background in the New Document dialog (also File ▸ New later).
  • Open a file — PSD files and regular images (PNG, JPEG, and other browser-readable formats) via File ▸ Open.
  • Reopen recent work — File ▸ Open Recent remembers what you had open.
  • Browse My Documents — a built-in library (File ▸ My Documents…) that stores documents in your browser, so they survive closing the tab.

Opening a file is a local read: the image goes from your disk into the tab, not to a server. See the FAQ for the details of the privacy model.

The interface at a glance

The layout mirrors what you know from desktop editors:

The New Document dialog over the PhotoFresco workspace, showing the toolbar, canvas, options bar and right-side panels
The New Document dialog over the PhotoFresco workspace, showing the toolbar, canvas, options bar and right-side panels
  • Menu bar (top) — File, Edit, Image, Layer, Type, Filter, Select, View, Window, Plugins and Help. If you're hunting for a command, it's here.
  • Toolbar (left) — the tools, grouped Photoshop-style. One button per group; press the group's key letter to switch to it, press Shift + the letter to cycle within a group, or long-press / right-click the button for the fly-out list. The foreground/background color chips sit below the tools (X swaps them, D resets to black & white), with the Quick Mask (Q) and screen-mode (F) toggles at the bottom.
  • Options bar (under the menu) — settings for the active tool: brush size and hardness, selection feather, wand tolerance, type controls, and so on.
  • Panels (right) — Layers, Properties, Adjustments, History, Color, Brushes, Channels, Paths, Navigator and more. Toggle any panel from the Window menu; drag tabs to rearrange, or tear a panel out into a floating window. View ▸ Workspace can save or reset your arrangement.
  • Canvas (center) — your document, in tabs when several are open. View ▸ Arrange offers side-by-side layouts.
  • AI prompt box (bottom) — type a prompt, pick a model, and generated images land in your document as layers. See AI generation & credits.

Your first edit

A quick loop to get a feel for the app:

  1. Open an image (File ▸ Open).
  2. Press B for the Brush and paint a stroke — size and hardness live in the options bar, [ and ] change the size as you work.
  3. Press M and drag a rectangular selection, then apply an adjustment — Image ▸ Adjustments ▸ Curves affects only the selected area.
  4. Made a mess? ⌘Z / Ctrl+Z undoes; the History panel (Window ▸ History) shows the whole trail — the last 64 steps are kept.
  5. Add a layer in the Layers panel and try a blend mode from its dropdown.
  • Zoom — ⌘+ / Ctrl++ and ⌘− / Ctrl+−, ⌘0 / Ctrl+0 to fit the document on screen, ⌘1 / Ctrl+1 for 100%. The Zoom tool is Z.
  • Pan — hold Space and drag, or use the Hand tool (H).
  • Rotate the view — Shift+H cycles to Rotate View; double-click its toolbar button to reset.
  • Rulers, guides and grid — ⌘R / Ctrl+R toggles rulers; guides, smart guides, grid and pixel grid live under View ▸ Show, with snapping under View ▸ Snap To.

Saving your work

PhotoFresco's native format is PSD — the same layered format Photoshop uses.

The Export As dialog, with PNG, JPEG and WebP format choices and scaling controls
The Export As dialog, with PNG, JPEG and WebP format choices and scaling controls
  • Save / Save As (⌘S / Ctrl+S) writes a .psd file to your machine with layers, masks and styles intact.
  • File ▸ Export ▸ Export As… produces a flattened PNG, JPEG or WebP — with a quality slider for JPEG/WebP and 0.5×/1×/2× scaling. Quick Export as PNG skips the dialog.
  • Save to My Documents keeps a copy in the in-browser library so it's there next visit, even offline.

Unsaved work is autosaved to your own device as you edit — if the tab crashes or closes, the next visit offers to recover your document with pixels, layers and masks intact (and it never left your machine). Undo history doesn't survive a closed tab, though, so ⌘S / Ctrl+S is still the habit worth keeping.

Where to go next

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