A free, open-source image editor for Windows, macOS, Linux, and the browser. Built with a focus on accurate PSD compatibility, keeping text, vectors, masks, layer styles, and Smart Objects editable when working with layered Photoshop files.
Download · Try in your browser · Features · Full gallery
For bug reports and feature requests, please open an issue or post in Discussions. These are the best places to post because search engines can index them, helping others find the questions and answers. Want to chat? Join Seth's Discord.
Designed to feel familiar if you're used to Photoshop's workflows and keyboard shortcuts.
Latest release: 1.01 · September 29, 2026 · Release notes · All releases
Windows releases are code signed by Seth A. Robinson; the macOS app is signed and notarized (Robinson Technologies Corporation). Every release is published on the GitHub Releases page with SHA-256 checksums, and mirrored at rtsoft.com.
| Platform | Package | Download |
|---|---|---|
| Windows 10/11 (64-bit) | Installer | PatchyWindowsInstaller.exe (59 MB) |
| Windows 10/11 (64-bit) | Portable ZIP (no installer) | PatchyWindowsNoInstaller.zip (59 MB) |
| macOS 12+ (Apple Silicon) | DMG - drag to Applications | PatchyMacOS.dmg (64 MB) |
| Linux | Flatpak bundle | PatchyLinux.flatpak (31 MB) |
| Any modern browser | Nothing to install | patchyimageeditor.com or rtsoft.com/patchy |
Mirror: the same files are also at rtsoft.com/files
(PatchyWindowsInstaller.exe, PatchyWindowsNoInstaller.zip, PatchyMacOS.dmg, PatchyLinux.flatpak).
Linux one-line install (paste into a terminal; fetches the bundle and installs it for your user, pulling the shared KDE runtime from Flathub automatically, no root needed):
curl -L -o /tmp/PatchyLinux.flatpak https://github.com/SethRobinson/Patchy/releases/latest/download/PatchyLinux.flatpak && flatpak install --user -y /tmp/PatchyLinux.flatpakOptional: opening iPhone HEIC photos on Linux uses the shared Freedesktop codec extension, which bundle installs do not fetch on their own. Patchy will show this command if it is needed:
flatpak install --user -y flathub org.freedesktop.Platform.ffmpeg-full//24.08See it in action. Click an image for the full-size capture.
 Build up layer effects Layer styles with multiple effects, blending controls, and Photoshop-compatible presets. |
 Bring your old plug-ins Kai's Power Tools 5 running in its own window over Patchy. Classic 32-bit and 64-bit 8BF filters work on Windows. |
 Keep the original editable Warp a Smart Object while its embedded source stays available in another tab. |
 Edit the paths Editable paths, gradient and pattern paint, dashed strokes, rounded corners, and a Paths panel. |
 Give type its own voice Warped text, mixed fonts and styles in one paragraph, letter spacing, and vertical Japanese. All editable. |
 Shape the focus Tilt-Shift Blur with on-image controls and live preview in the Filter Gallery. |
See the full gallery for painting, palette mode, seamless textures, Camera Raw, long shadows, scripting, and more.
| Workflow | What you get |
|---|---|
| Layered Photoshop files | PSD and PSB, editable text, groups, masks, clipping, blend modes, and layer styles. |
| Non-destructive editing | Adjustment layers, embedded and linked Smart Objects, editable Smart Filters, and shared filter masks. |
| Paint and retouch | Pressure-aware brushes, Mixer Brush, stroke smoothing, healing, cloning, Patch, Remove Object, selections, and Liquify. |
| Text and vectors | Rich and vertical text, paragraph controls, Warp Text, Pen paths, shape layers, vector masks, SVG, and image tracing. |
| PDF documents | Import pages as editable text, vectors, and images on desktop; export single or multi-page PDFs with editable or flattened content. |
| Photos and other formats | Camera Raw development, HEIC/HEIF photos, layered Affinity import, and common image formats. |
| Pixel art and game assets | Named palettes, indexed export, seamless tiling, sprite sheets, image sequences, and animated GIFs. |
| Extend your workflow | Legacy Photoshop filters on Windows, JavaScript scripts, batch processing, command-line tools, and local MCP control. |
Full feature list and format support · Scripting guide · AI control setup
Local by design. No telemetry, tracking, or uploads of your images. The browser build runs the same editor locally through WebAssembly. Desktop builds have more memory available and add printing, scanner/camera import, and command-line automation. Optional update checks contact GitHub. Eight interface languages, dark and light schemes, and importable themes are included.
In the August 7, 2026 Testy run, Photoshop reopened all 64 Patchy saves, and
all 312 text objects stayed editable. Patchy's perceptual render match was
98.83% across 63 measured files, using commit 879a3a8.
These are dated, corpus-specific results. Read the full comparison and methodology for tested versions, per-file results, preservation checks, and limitations.
Know the limits: editing is RGB/RGBA 8-bit; there is no GPU acceleration or CMYK/Lab/16-bit/32-bit editing. Unsupported Smart Filters can remain preview-locked, and Affinity import has format-specific limitations. See current compatibility.
- UI themes! Dark, Light, seven bundled ones (Solarized, Nord, Dracula, Gruvbox and more) or make your own with a small
.patchythemefile. Big thanks to @lucastucious for the theme system - Classic Photoshop .8bf filter plug-ins now run on Windows, 32-bit and 64-bit (Filter Foundry, Mehdi's filters, even Kai's Power Tools 5 works). Drop them in the plug-ins folder and they show up in the new Plugins menu
- Scrubby labels: drag the label next to any number field to change its value, like Photoshop (issue 46)
- Right-click the gray area around the canvas to change its color (issue 47)
- Shift+letter cycles through a tool flyout, so Shift+M flips between the marquee tools and so on (issue 45)
- Canvas Size uses real units now
- Photoshop 5.x era text layers open as editable text instead of pixels
- Grayscale PSDs open as RGB instead of coming out garbled (issue 39)
- Duplicate Layer puts the copy directly above the original (issue 38)
- Layer effects on a clipping base draw over the clipped layers, the way Photoshop does it (issue 41), and size 0 Inner Shadow and Inner Glow render like Photoshop too
- Size sliders spend most of the track on the small values, so tiny brushes are easier to hit
- Better font matching for PSD text (fonts are looked up by their real names), and user-added fonts work on the Mac under their Windows names
- macOS: quitting no longer freezes when a network drive or a DNS lookup is stuck (issue 48)
- Progress dialogs always pop up centered on the window
- A lot of work on the text engine, better compatibility with Photoshop, a new "Paragraph" panel with indentation options
- New Paragraph panel (Paragraph... in the Type tool's options bar): alignment, first line and left/right indents, and space before and after, all of which round-trip to Photoshop
- Text options bar: font, size, face, smoothing, alignment, and color apply to every selected text layer without entering an edit session, and the Character panel edits all selected layers as one undo step (issue 31)
- Smart Objects: Layer > Smart Objects > Convert to Layers unpacks the contents into a group in the Smart Object's place (issue 35)
- Guide drags show their position in the ruler's unit (issue 36)
- Levels and Curves histograms are scaled the way Photoshop's are, so midtone peaks no longer get crushed under a clipping spike (issue 32)
- Filling a complex Magic Wand selection is much faster (issue 34)
- Filters and commands reach Photoshop's ranges: Gaussian Blur to 1000 px (with decimal radii), Box Blur and Motion Blur to 2000 px (and much faster at large sizes), Drop Shadow distance to 30000 px, Feather to 1000 px, Expand/Contract to 500 px, plus the full ranges of Wave, Mosaic, Color Halftone, Posterize, and Iris Blur. High Pass and Unsharp Mask sliders reach 100 px, and Filter Gallery fields accept any typed value in range
- PSD fixes for Photoshop: an opaque layer above the Background no longer hides everything under it, compound shapes (donuts, converted text) keep their holes, gradient fills no longer trigger Photoshop's "unknown data" prompt (older files heal on save), and saves after rasterizing or deleting a linked Smart Object open again in Photoshop 2026
- macOS: switching the interface language no longer crashes on the next window activation (issue 29)
- Blend mode menus step with the Left and Right arrow keys, and a run of blend changes from the Layers panel is one undo step
- Windows: launching Patchy while it is already running (or double-clicking a file) now brings the open window to the front instead of only flashing its taskbar button, and focuses any dialog that is open
- The recent files list no longer stalls startup or the File menu when entries sit on slow or disconnected network drives
- Scripting/MCP improvements: text layers with mixed fonts, sizes, and colors in one layer, paragraph boxes and alignment (
addTextLayer,textRuns,setTextRuns,textBox,textAlign,textParagraph),app.listFonts(), and headless runs see installed fonts
Choose Plugins > Open Plug-ins Folder, copy your .8bf files and their supporting
files into it, then choose Plugins > Rescan Plug-in Folders. Both 32-bit and 64-bit
filters appear under Plugins > Legacy Photoshop Plug-ins.
Filters run on the active pixel layer, respect the selection, and apply as one undoable step. A separate helper isolates plug-in crashes. Plug-ins still run with your user permissions, so install only ones you trust. KPT and other formerly full-screen filters get a bounded, movable window. Plug-in details.
See build instructions for the core, Qt desktop app, macOS, Linux, and Windows packaging. Contributors and automation tools should read AGENTS.md first.
Patchy is released under the MIT License. Third-party runtime notices are tracked in NOTICE-THIRD-PARTY.md.
Adobe and Photoshop are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe in the United States and/or other countries. Patchy is an independent project and is not authorized, endorsed, or sponsored by Adobe. References to Photoshop, its file formats (PSD, Smart Objects, Smart Filters) and its plug-in format (8BF) are only there to describe compatibility.
This project was developed with significant assistance from AI tools. I mean, you can still blame me (Seth) for bugs, but I just wanted to mention it.
Note: All included textures/materials are real images taken by humans, not AI generated
AI has reached the point where you can use your favorite AI to add the missing feature you want.
Just give it the link to this repo and say "Add .tiff support" and in about 10 minutes it will be done and working on your computer. Amazing, right?
I mean, that's kind of the power of open source.
Whatever AI you use, tell it (or more likely, it's reading this right now) to read AGENTS.md before doing anything else. It contains the build and repository-wide rules, then routes feature work to the relevant document under docs/.
There are 2200+ regression and benchmarking tests. AGENTS.md links agents to the testing guide that explains how to select and run them. Due to the size of some of the test files I use they aren't all included, it will skip tests that require missing files.
I probably don't want any major features coming from outside, as there are wrong and right ways to do things, some of it a bit subjective. Remember, you can always go crazy in your own fork, have some fun!
If you have a bug fix or feature you think fits this project's scope please open an issue or tweet/etc at me. If you want to submit a pull request, please look at the actual code and fully TEST IT YOURSELF before submitting, and if possible include screenshots of the actual changes so it's clear what you're doing. If you're using AI, use a good one (Fable/Astra+ class), we don't want barely working slop.
Don't trust AI to create and submit PRs with no oversight, I'll delete ones that have too much AI smell. Smell human. This is starting to sound weird but you know what I mean.
Also, note that certain features are crippled or not included due to Adobe patents. For example, our "quick select" tool doesn't update in realtime, you have to finish the stroke. We can revisit this around 2030 when the patents expire...
Created by Seth A. Robinson - Homepage | Blog | Twitter | Bluesky | Mastodon
Code contributions from mcapogna, csbun, ifloppy, and lucastucious
Photo "akiko_cycling_okinawa" (seen in the screenshots) by Seth A. Robinson