Joined pictures

A joined picture is made from several square Pixls. You can build a wide scene while each tile remains an individual artwork with its own layers, frames and saved drawing.

There are two useful ways to work: grow a joined editing board with its edge buttons, or arrange saved Pixls on a canvas and Stitch them into a group.

Add a neighbouring Pixl#

On a desktop, a plain artwork in Pixl Studio has Add canvas above, Add canvas below, Add canvas left and Add canvas right buttons around the board.

1. Draw something in your starting Pixl.
2. Press the plus on a free side.
3. If asked, choose Save and continue to save changes before growing the picture.
4. Draw on the new tile that appears beside it.
5. Save the picture’s changed tiles.

A new starting drawing is saved before a neighbour is made. A saved drawing with unsaved changes asks first because saving changes its existing uses. A blank starting drawing asks you to draw something first.

Neighbours are offered for ordinary Pixls, rather than avatar, cursor or direct-placement work. Their edge buttons are hidden on the phone layout. A picture can grow to at most 16 tiles across and 16 down. A side already inside the picture is taken; choose a free outside edge.

Draw across seams#

The board displays the tiles together. Select a tile to make it active. The editor keeps the working tools, colours and zoom as you move between tiles.

Drawing strokes can cross the seams. Each affected tile keeps its own pixels, and undo links the parts of that stroke so a single Undo takes it back across the tiles together.

Frames, layers and ordinary transformations apply to the active tile. A grid resize reaches the board’s tiles together. Tiles are still separate Pixls, so changing one tile’s frame timing does not set a shared timeline for the whole picture.

The size line makes the distinction visible: 32 × 32 × 2 means two 32-pixel tiles. It does not mean a single Pixl has acquired a non-square grid.

The normal Save action saves changed tiles in a joined board. If one fails, read the message and keep working from the retained drafts; do not assume every tile reached the same saved state.

Place the growing picture#

When the starting artwork is already on the current canvas, saving its neighbour can join them there. If the starting Pixl has not been placed, the new artwork can save while waiting for that placement. The message says Saved. It joins the picture once the Pixl beside it is placed on the canvas.

The board relationship and the canvas placement are different. A folder in Media tells you which tiles belong to a picture; it does not prove the picture is currently on this canvas.

Make a 3×3 starting grid#

The 3×3 grid preset in the Pixl tab makes eight blank drafts around a saved Pixl placed loose on the current canvas. The existing Pixl is the centre.

The centre must be placed first and must not already belong to a stitched picture. Open the surrounding drafts, draw and save them, then stitch the nine saved placements. The preset creates working drafts with their intended positions; it does not instantly fill the eight squares with saved artwork.

Stitch existing Pixls#

Select at least two loose Pixl placements on the same canvas and choose Stitch, whose label includes the selected count. Up to 256 Pixls can be selected for a stitch, within the picture’s 16 × 16 grid.

The Pixls must use the same underlying pixel size and form a complete rectangle when their positions snap to the grid. A non-Pixl selection, a different size, two tiles on top of each other or a gap prevents stitching. The message names the problem.

Once stitched, they are one picture placement. Its menu includes Unstitch, Lock in place, Use as background, Crop and shape… and, for a background, Move and resize. Unstitch returns the tiles to individual placements without deleting their artwork.

Folders and tile deletion#

Media folds a picture into a folder. Expand it for its tiles, open it in Pixl Studio or place the complete picture as one group. Missing or unavailable tiles can prevent placing the full picture.

Right-click a tile on a joined editing board to open Delete pixl. A right drag still draws with the secondary colour. The delete confirmation distinguishes a draft from saved artwork. Removing a tile closes the board’s gap and keeps the editor on a remaining tile.

If the saved tile belongs to the picture placed on the current canvas, the editor attempts to take it out of that picture before deleting the artwork. Other placements, worn uses or someone else’s saved use can still prevent deletion. Read the refusal; the draft is kept when deletion cannot complete.