Palette

• Click or tap a color to paint with it. Right click or long press sets the secondary color.
• Drag across colors, or Shift+click, to select a range. On iPad, turn on Range mode and each tap extends the range.
• Double click or double tap a color to edit it.
• Gradient, Reverse and Add cycle work on the selected range. All times copies it to every time-of-day palette.
• Stencil limits painting to the range, or protects it, judged by what was on the canvas when the stroke began.
• Arrow keys move the primary color through the palette.
• Import colors loads a palette from Lospec (paste its link or name) or from a .hex, .gpl, .pal or PNG file. Put it at the selected slot or range so your cycles elsewhere stay as they are, or replace the whole palette. Undo brings the old colors back.

Cycles

• A cycle rotates the colors in a palette range. Set its speed in steps per second, its direction and its mode: Step, Blend (smooth), Ping-pong or Ping-pong blend.
• Click a cycle to select its range for the ramp brush, Wave bands or darker copies.

Layers

• The top of the list is the top layer. Drag rows to reorder, double click a name to rename, click the dot to hide (Option+click shows only that layer).
• The layer Dither mask is in the Masks section.
• Shortcuts: Shift+Cmd+N new, Cmd+J duplicate (or layer via copy with a selection), Cmd+E merge down, Shift+Cmd+E merge visible, Cmd+[ ] reorder, Option+[ ] pick the layer below or above.

Selection

• M marquee, L lasso, Shift+L polygonal lasso. Shift adds to a selection, Option subtracts.
• Cmd+C, X, V copy, cut and paste (onto a new layer). Cmd+A selects all, Cmd+D deselects, Delete clears, Option+Delete fills with the primary color.
• V moves the selection. Option+drag duplicates, arrow keys nudge.
• On iPad, tap Deselect in the top bar, or tap outside the selection with the marquee or lasso.

Water & effects

1. Build a ramp of light and dark water colors in the palette and press Add cycle.
2. Select where the water goes, click the cycle, and press Fill with wave bands. Do a second strip on another layer with another ramp and speed.
3. Give the two layers opposite checkerboard Dither masks and Merge.
4. To shade it from light to dark, select the water layer, click its cycle, and press Shade.
5. Recolor moves a copy onto another ramp, for darker edges or reflections.

Brush (B, then Shift+B): like the ramp brush, but paints the single primary color through the dither Pattern, with Pencil pressure for density.

Ramp brush (G, then Shift+G twice): paints through the selected palette range as you drag, one step every Step pixels. Pick a dither Pattern to paint only some pixels, so the ramp dithers into what is already there, and with Apple Pencil press harder for a denser pattern. Lasso and polygon fill with Fill set to Ramp use the pattern too. While a ramp tool is active, tapping a palette color selects its whole band: the cycle it's in, or the run of colors around it. Drag or use Range mode for a custom range.

Remap brush (R): paint over water to shift its colors onto another ramp by Shift slots, through a dither Pattern (solid, checker, 25/50/75%, rows, columns, diagonal, noise). It keeps the pattern of the water, so it keeps cycling in step. Hold Option/Alt, or press ±, to shift back. With Apple Pencil, pressing harder makes it denser. Only range limits it to the selected cycle. The Fade tool set to Remap does the same as a dithered gradient.

The Tutorial walks through all of this.

Masks

• Stencil: select a palette range, pick "Paint only on the range" or "Protect the range", and press Use range. Paint then only lands on (or avoids) those colors, judged by what was there when the stroke began.
• Layer dither mask: select a layer and choose a pattern. Checkerboard A on one water layer and B on another weaves them pixel by pixel. Merge bakes it in.
• Blend mask: press Add a Blend mask layer, paint light and dark on it, then select the water layer and press Shade with "Darker toward" set to Blend mask layer.
• Gaps (top bar) makes Dither leave pixels untouched instead of painting the secondary color, so paint and the eraser dither into what is there.

Time of day

• Drag the time slider in the top bar, open Palettes next to it, and press Add palette here to add a palette for that time, then recolor it. The scene blends between palettes.

Tools and keys

• B pencil (Shift+B brush), E eraser, R remap brush, G bucket (Shift+G fade and ramp), U shapes (Shift+U rectangle, ellipse, line, lasso fill, polygon fill), I eyedropper, H or Space hand, Z zoom.
• Hold Option for the eyedropper. Shift+click draws a straight line. X swaps colors, D resets them. [ ] brush size.
• Cmd+Z undo, Shift+Cmd+Z redo, Cmd+0 fit, Cmd+1 100%, Cmd+' grid, Tab hides panels.
• Options for the current tool show in the top bar, next to its name.

iPad and touch

• Pinch to zoom in or out (down to 12.5%), drag with two fingers to pan. The − and + buttons in the top bar zoom too, and the Zoom tool's Tap option switches it to zooming out.
• Tap with two fingers to undo, three to redo.
• Turn off Finger paints to draw only with Apple Pencil.
• Pick a color with Apple Pencil: hold the tip still on the canvas for half a second (keep dragging to pick another), or tap the same pixel twice. A ring by the tip shows the new color on top and the old one below, and the color swatch and palette slot pulse when you lift. This works with the brush, pencil, eraser, bucket, ramp and remap brushes. iPad doesn't let web apps see the Pencil's barrel double-tap or squeeze.