| I want to… | Do this |
|---|---|
| Fill in a big area quickly | Raise the size, or hold Cmd/Ctrl and click to fill |
| Paint and erase without switching tools | Paint with the left button, erase with the right (more) |
| Draw a straight edge | Hold Shift and drag |
| Use a color that's already on the chart | Hold Alt/Option and click it |
| Add half or quarter stitches | Pick the stitch in Stitch, and use Merge to combine them (more) |
| Make a mirrored design, like a mandala or border | Turn on Symmetry |
| Soften a flat area or blend two colors | Set Fill to Checkerboard (more) |
| Place single stitches exactly | Use the arrow keys (more) |
| Draw lines exactly one stitch wide | Use the Pencil |
Brush Tool
Paint and erase stitches with a round brush: block in shapes fast, add partial stitches, mirror your work with symmetry, scatter two colors, and draw with stylus pressure.
- Shortcut
- B
- Where to find it
- Left toolbar → Brush
Keyboard & modifiers
- WS
- Increase / decrease Brush size
- []
- Previous / next color in the palette
- E
- Switch to the Eraser
- X
- Swap primary (left mouse) and secondary (right mouse) colors
- D
- Toggle erase mode (paint vs erase)
- Shift
- Draw a straight line (hold while dragging)
- AltOption
- Pick color from canvas (set as Primary)
- CmdCtrl
- Fill area with Primary color
- ArrowsEnterDelete
- Precision mode: move with arrows, paint with Enter, erase with Delete
Basics
The Brush is how you paint stitches by hand: block in a shape, fix a stray color, add a border, or tidy up after a photo conversion. It paints a round patch of stitches as you drag, and the left and right mouse buttons each carry a color, so you can paint and erase without switching tools.
Every stroke is one undo step, so Cmd/Ctrl+Z takes back exactly what you just painted.
I want to…
Painting and erasing
The Brush always holds two colors: primary on the left mouse button and secondary on the right. Out of the box the primary is the color you picked in the palette and the secondary is the eraser, so left-drag paints and right-drag clears.
- X swaps the two, handy when you're shading back and forth between two threads.
- [ and ] step to the previous or next color in the palette.
- D flips between painting and erasing, useful on a tablet or trackpad where a right-click is awkward.
The secondary doesn't have to be the eraser. Set it to a second thread and you can paint a shadow with one button and the base color with the other.
Brush size
Size is the width of the brush in stitches, from 1 to 20 (it starts at 2). Change it with W and S, or the Size slider in the options bar.
- 1–2: edges, corners and cleanup. Zoom in to 200–400% for this.
- 3–6: blocking in shapes.
- 7–20: large backgrounds and rough silhouettes, then refine with a small size.
Stylus pressure
On a tablet with a pen, pressing lightly draws a thin line and pressing harder widens it, up to the brush size you set. It works with any stylus your browser reports pressure for: Apple Pencil on an iPad, the S Pen on an Android tablet, or a graphics tablet plugged into a laptop.
- It turns itself on the first time you draw with a pen, and the info bar at the bottom says so.
- Brush size is the widest it gets. Pressing as hard as you normally draw gives you the size on the slider.
- A mouse or trackpad always paints the full size, so nothing changes if you never use a pen.
To tune it, open Size in the brush options bar:
- Pressure: the on/off switch, with the current range beside it ("Pressure: 2–8 cells").
- Lightest touch: the thinnest line, in stitches. It can't go above the brush size; lowering the size narrows the range, and your setting comes back when you raise it again.
- Response: how hard you have to press to reach full size. Soft widens early, Firm stays thin longer, Even is in between. If pressure feels wrong, change this first.
To switch it off, turn Pressure off, or right-click (Cmd/Ctrl-click) the Size button. Your range is remembered for next time.
Pressure does nothing with the Pencil, which is always one stitch wide. If Lightest touch equals the brush size, the panel says "no range at this size".
On a tablet, also look at Settings → Stylus → Finger pans, pen draws: one finger then moves the chart instead of painting on it, so only the pen paints.
Lines, fills and picking colors
Hold a key to borrow another tool for a moment. Let go and you're back on the Brush.
- Shift: drag to draw a straight line.
- Cmd/Ctrl: click to fill an enclosed area with your primary color, like the Fill tool.
- Alt/Option: click a stitch to make its color your primary.
For lines of a set thickness, the Line tool has more options.
Partial stitches
Open Stitch in the brush options to paint something other than full cross stitches: half stitches in either direction, quarter and three-quarter stitches, and oblong half-square blocks (top, bottom, left or right). On a needlepoint canvas the choices are tent and petite stitches instead.
When a square already has a stitch in it, the same panel decides what happens:
- Replace (the default) clears the square and puts your new stitch in. Use it for full stitches, and whenever you want to redo a square from scratch.
- Merge keeps what's there and adds your partial beside it, so you can build one square from parts: a half stitch in green and a half in blue, or a quarter in two colors. If the two can't share a square, Merge replaces it instead.
If Merge seems to do nothing, the two stitches can't share a square, so the brush replaced it.
Symmetry
Symmetry repeats everything you paint around the center of the chart, so you draw one quarter of a mandala, a snowflake or a border corner and the rest appears as you go.
Open Symmetry in the options bar and pick:
- Mirror left–right or Mirror top–bottom for a design with one fold.
- Mirror 4 ways or Mirror 8 ways for mandalas, snowflakes and samplers.
- Rotate 2, 4 or 8 ways for pinwheels and motifs that turn rather than reflect.
The mirror sits at the center of the chart. To move it, click Set on chart… and click where you want it, or select an area and click Use selection to center on it. Reset puts it back.
Symmetry works with partial stitches, Merge and two-color texture, and the Line and Shape tools follow it too. Turn it off with No symmetry. The dashed mirror lines can be recolored or hidden from the same panel, or in View options.
Two-color texture
A large patch of one color can look flat, and blending two colors by hand, stitch by stitch, is slow. Open Fill in the brush options and choose Checkerboard: the brush scatters your primary color at the Density you pick (it starts at 50%) and fills the gaps with your secondary.
- Secondary is a thread: a two-color blend in one stroke. Good for faux shading, sky, grass or fur.
- Secondary is the eraser: the gaps stay empty, for a light, airy texture.
Solid puts the brush back to painting every stitch. Right-click (Cmd/Ctrl-click) the Fill button to switch between the two without opening it.
Precision keyboard mode
When the mouse is too jumpy, for example zoomed far in or tidying single stitches on a busy chart, press an arrow key. A crosshair appears with the square's coordinates. Arrow keys move it one stitch at a time, Enter paints, and Delete erases. Press Esc or click the chart to go back to the mouse.
Brush or Pencil
The Pencil is the Brush at one stitch wide, drawing clean single-stitch lines. Pick it for outlines and pixel-perfect detail, and the Brush for covering ground, plus Merge, symmetry and texture. To fill a whole region in one click, use the Fill tool.
Tips & gotchas
- Start the stroke to see the real result. The round outline only shows which squares the brush covers. With Merge, symmetry or texture on, the chart shows the actual stitches once you start dragging, before you let go.
- Moving fast won't leave gaps. The brush fills in between points on a quick drag.
- Merge is for partial stitches. For full stitches, Replace is simpler.
- Try a thread as the secondary. Shade with the right button, then X to swap.
- Texture plus symmetry gives a scattered look that still feels planned.
- Painting only inside a shape? Select it first: the Brush only changes stitches inside a selection.