Krita: the drawing app that reinvents itself with Qt6 and Wayland

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The simultaneous arrival of Krita 5.3 and Krita 6.0 marked a turning point This is not a minor update for this well-known digital drawing and painting application powered by the KDE community. It's a technical and functional leap that affects the graphics engine, color management, text handling, and compatibility with Wayland and Qt6, especially in GNU/Linux environments.

The curious thing is that, despite sharing virtually the same code and functions, Each version is designed for a different type of userKrita 5.3 is based on Qt5 and is recommended for stable production, while Krita 6.0 adopts Qt6 and focuses on Wayland, HDR, and new color management capabilities, but with a more experimental approach. If you work in digital art, comics, design, or pixel art, here's a thorough, no-nonsense overview of everything that's changed.

Krita 5.3 and Krita 6.0: two versions, one code

The development team has opted for an unusual strategy: publish two branches with identical functional updatesBut they are compiled on different versions of Qt. Krita 5.3 is based on Qt5, a thoroughly tested technology, and is the recommended edition for professional work where stability is a priority. Krita 6.0, on the other hand, is built on Qt6 and opens the door to modern Linux features, especially on Wayland, in exchange for accepting more bugs and immature behavior.

Both versions They share almost exactly the same source code and features.The new text engine, revamped filters, vector tools for comics, brush improvements, HDR support, advancements in formats like JPEG-XL and Radiance RGBE, an expanded Python plugin API, and optimizations to the recording system and Docker containers. The difference lies not so much in what you can do, but in the underlying technology on which each branch runs.

The developers themselves warn that Krita 6.0 carries over both the potential errors of 5.3 and those specific to Qt6Therefore, unless you specifically need its new capabilities (for example, Wayland color management with true HDR or 10-bit display), it's wiser to stick with 5.3 for everyday use. You could say that 5.3 acts as a stable transitional version while the entire architecture of the 6 branch is being finalized.

Another key detail is platform compatibility: Qt6 is not yet ready in a stable version for Android or ChromeOSTherefore, Krita 6.0 is not officially offered for these systems. Instead, users of those platforms will continue with the 5.x line, and more specifically with 5.3, which inherits much of the work done for 6.0 but maintains Qt5 as its base.

For those who want to try both editions on desktop, Krita distributes AppImage packages, installers for Windows and macOS, and source code in tarball format.Flatpak and Snap packages also exist in Linux, although in many cases they are maintained by community members and may be somewhat behind the official versions.

Jump to Qt6 and Wayland support: color management and HDR

The major technical innovation of Krita 6.0 is that It is now built on Qt6, the same base that supports KDE Plasma 6This is not just any internal detail: it has direct implications for performance, for modernizing the interface and, above all, for native support of Wayland, the graphics protocol that is replacing X11 in most GNU/Linux distributions.

One of the areas where Wayland was most lacking until now was the Advanced color management, something critical in a professional paint applicationWith X11, Krita could accurately identify which monitor the image was displayed on and associate the correct color profile with each screen. With Wayland, that information wasn't as readily available, making it difficult to offer reliable, integrated color management, especially when working with calibrated monitors, HDR streams, or wide color spaces.

To solve this, Krita 6.0 has implemented a complete integration of Wayland's color management protocol, known as color-management-v1Thanks to this support, Krita can retrieve all the necessary data from the compositor to display color-managed images, including the precise parameters for HDR rendering. In this way, the program takes a leap from "it looks more or less okay" to a truly controlled color environment, as required by any professional workflow for illustration, concept art, or advanced photography.

However, the developers clarify that This color management protocol is still very new and not all Wayland compositors support it equally well.For now, official and recommended compatibility is limited to KWin version 6.4.4 and up; if you use another compositor and something goes wrong, the project itself recommends checking if the problem occurs in KWin first before reporting it.

The adoption of Qt6 and the new protocol also opens the door to other important advantages: Correct fractional scaling on HiDPI displays, true 10-bit color depth, and authentic HDR renderingThis translates into sharper interfaces on high-pixel-density laptops, much smoother gradients without banding, and the ability to take advantage of modern HDR monitors without having to resort to workarounds.

Completely revamped text engine

If there's one thing the team's long-term work has shown, it's that The text tools have been redesigned from top to bottomThe old experience based on floating dialog boxes is a thing of the past, and finally, text is edited directly on the canvas in a way similar to what you see in applications like Illustrator or other vector editors.

This new system allows create text areas that automatically adjustYou can drag a simple rectangular area or use complex vector shapes to make the content flow within it, respecting area additions and subtractions as defined in the SVG 2 specifications. That is, you are not limited to a rigid box, but can compose layouts with gaps and irregular shapes, perfect for comic book pages, posters, or editorial design.

Furthermore, the text can follow vector paths, allowing you to place words and phrases along curves and contoursThis opens up very useful creative possibilities for lettering, logos, or more graphic effects, something that many users missed compared to tools more focused on design.

At the typographic level, the following has been added Full support for the OpenType standard and most writing systemsThis includes selecting alternative glyphs via a dedicated palette. The text style panel allows you to edit over 50 properties at once, both on the current object and on multiple selected objects simultaneously, and to save reusable preset styles. This makes it much easier to maintain typographic consistency in large projects.

The text properties docker has also been revamped, so that You are no longer required to modify each frame separately.You can select multiple objects with the shape tools and apply global changes to font, size, line spacing, or alignment. Additionally, a new Type Settings Mode is introduced, enabling direct editing of key properties on the canvas itself, streamlining the fine-tuning of layouts.

Vector tools and comic panel

The workflow for comic artists, narrative illustrators, and page designers receives a very important boost with the new comic book editing panelThis vector tool is specially designed to divide, cut, and merge panels extremely quickly, replacing processes that previously required external programs or a lot of manual work with rulers and guides.

Within that same field appears the new knife tool for vector objectsThis tool allows for precise geometric segmentation and joining of shapes. For those who design comics, manga, or webtoons, this means being able to rearrange panels, adjust margins, or redefine page layouts without disrupting other elements.

Regarding transformation tools, Krita introduces the possibility of independently rotating the bounding box with respect to the contentThis makes it easier to manipulate already tilted objects, because you can orient the transformation frame in the same direction as the element, making scaling and deformations more intuitive.

They have also been added shortcuts and improvements to speed up handlingFor example, you can now apply quick rotations using combinations like Ctrl + Alt, and the "Liquify" transformation mode has been optimized for much faster performance. These changes aren't immediately obvious, but they make a noticeable difference every time you adjust a character, tweak a pose, or correct volumes.

In parallel, specific adjustments have been made to selection tools, such as an improvement in the number and clarity of the shade selection optionsas well as a smarter filling tool, which now incorporates a mode to close small gaps in the inking and prevent the color from leaking through open areas.

Improvements to brushes, smoothing, and pixel art

Krita's heart has always been its paintbrushes, and in these versions Special attention has been paid to making the layout more natural and controllable.The stabilizer for the freehand drawing tool has become adaptive: it increases the level of smoothing when you move slowly to counteract hand tremor, and reduces it when you draw quickly so you don't feel excessive latency.

For those who work with pixel art, it introduces a stabilizer specifically designed for pixel art that guarantees crisp, single-pixel linesThis avoids strange stepping or small artifacts that appeared when anti-aliasing was combined with low resolutions. This makes Krita more competitive as a sprite and retro graphics tool.

The following has been added within the brush engine a soft texture mode in the pattern optionThis feature allows you to apply textures with less aggressive transitions, ideal for shading surfaces or adding grain without creating an overly obvious mosaic effect. In addition, the ability to "automatically reverse" patterns used as erasers makes it easier to create eraser brushes with more controlled behavior.

Another interesting novelty is the Marker type blending modeDesigned to simulate the behavior of physical markers, this mode prevents the opacity from accumulating uncontrollably when you go over the same area multiple times within the same layer, allowing for smoother gradients and a look closer to that of paper.

Finally, the multi-brush support has been reinforced with a new way to copy translations of the intervalsIn other words, it is easier to repeat strokes distributed in patterns or complex symmetries, which is very useful in ornamental illustration, pattern design, or the creation of repetitive backgrounds.

Filters, layers and HDR: more control over color

In the filters and layers section, Krita 5.3 and 6.0 incorporate Tools designed to clean edges, improve transparencies, and work reliably in HDRThe new Color Propagate filter allows you to extend colors into transparent areas, which is very useful for removing halos, filling small empty areas, or adjusting contours after cropping processes.

Alongside him is introduced the transparency reset filterThis process resets the color channels of all completely transparent pixels to zero, forcing them to become transparent black. This helps reduce artifacts when exporting, especially in formats where residual color data can create strange edges or unexpected transitions.

It has also been added a quick color overlay maskDesigned to expedite global corrections across a single area using a single mask channel, all blending modes have been verified to perform correctly in HDR environments. The goal is to ensure predictable results even when working with wide dynamic range and advanced monitors.

In terms of productivity, transformation shortcuts now They can be applied simultaneously over several layers.This greatly simplifies things when you have characters, effects, and backgrounds distributed across different layers but need to scale or rotate the whole thing without grouping it or destroying your hierarchy.

For document management, the grid and guide support is maintained and extended with New modes such as isometric and the ability to save configured colors within the Krita file itselfThis way, each project can maintain its own guide configuration, useful if you alternate between technical work, comics, concept art, or interfaces.

Dockers, interface, and real-time recording

Krita's interface has also been polished to be faster to use on a daily basisOne of the most visible new features is the floating toolbar that appears automatically when you make a selection, offering shortcuts to the most common actions without having to go to menus or side panels.

Docking panels gain flexibility, since Now you can add certain Dockers to the famous circular popup palette. which appears when you right-click on the canvas. This allows you, for example, to have color palettes, brush panels, or text settings readily available without taking up fixed screen space.

Another strengthened feature is the recording panel (Recorder Docker), which It now implements real-time capture using separate threadsIn practice, this allows you to record time-lapses or videos of your painting process without the drawing engine lagging or losing fluidity. This improvement is especially interesting for content creators who upload their workflow to video platforms.

In the area of ​​drawing assistance, the configuration of assistants has been made easier and new features have been introduced. a new curved-linear perspective assistant, designed for scenes with more complex perspectives than the typical one or two points, helping to maintain proportions without sacrificing dynamic effects.

The general idea behind all of this is that The interface should cease to be an obstacle and become an ally.reducing clicks, mouse movements and secondary windows, and bringing the flow closer to what anyone who uses Krita daily for hours would want.

File formats and interoperability with other programs

To ensure that Krita fits well into mixed workflows, The support for formats has been significantly expandedFirstly, support for Radiance RGBE (.hdr) is added, allowing you to open and save high dynamic range HDR images without having to convert them to other intermediate formats.

On the other hand, JPEG-XL support has been substantially improved: In addition to the format's advanced quality and compression, documents with multiple layers and pages are now supported.This makes JPEG-XL a real option for complex projects where previously only formats like PSD, TIFF or Krita's own files were considered.

Regarding the relationship with Photoshop, a very important step has been taken: Krita is able to load text objects from PSD files as editable textnot only as rasterized layers. Furthermore, it can save some typographic information back to PSD format, although with some known limitations. Importing vector shapes, guides, and masks has also been improved, making it easier to switch between the two programs when the project requires it.

All this is completed with More robust interoperability in the handling of HDR resources and color profilesThis, combined with the new color management support in Wayland, allows Krita to better coexist with pipelines that include other editors, 3D engines, or post-production tools.

Python plugin API and new extensions

While it may not be the most visually striking feature for the average user, the team has dedicated a key effort to Extending the plugins API in PythonThis is the foundation upon which the community can build advanced extensions. Among the new features is the ability to programmatically generate brushstrokes from scripts, opening the door to smart brushes, automated assistants, and generative painting tools.

They have also been added new interface elements accessible from Python and additional methods for existing classes, giving plugin developers more control over how they integrate their tools into the Krita experience. This includes everything from custom dialogs to controls embedded in dockers or toolbars.

Along with the expansion of the API, New Python plugins developed by the project itself are arriving.These extensions serve both as additional functionalities and practical examples of what can be done. For studios or artists with very specific needs, this ecosystem of extensions is what allows Krita to be adapted to very specific workflows.

The philosophy behind these changes is clear: to make Krita not just a closed application, but an extensible platform, capable of evolving with the needs of its community without depending exclusively on the central development team.

Installation, downloads and usage recommendations

In practical terms, those who work with Linux have several ways to install Krita. In Ubuntu and its derivatives, it is common to use specific PPA repositories. (like the one traditionally maintained by the project for stable and test versions), from which you can obtain the updated packages with a few commands in the terminal.

For those who prefer not to fill the system with external repositories, The AppImage format remains a very convenient option.Simply download the corresponding file, grant it execution permissions, and launch it directly, without any formal installation. However, some distributions are starting to phase out AppImage support, so it's likely that in the future the project will have to further strengthen its Flatpak or Snap approach.

On Windows and macOS, Krita is distributed via traditional installers and portable ZIP versions.In the case of portable ZIP files, you only need to extract the folder to a convenient location and run the binary, sharing resources and settings with the normal installation but without interfering with it.

For Android and ChromeOS, the picture is somewhat different: Krita 6.0 is not available due to the instability of Qt6 on those platformsTherefore, the 5.x branch (and specifically 5.3) is still considered the production base. On Android tablets, Krita is still marked as beta and is not offered for phones, as the interface requires a minimum screen size.

In any case, the developers insist on a clear message: if you don't explicitly need the advantages of Qt6 and Wayland in Krita 6.0It is best to work with version 5.3 for production and reserve version 6.0 for testing, exploring new features, or collaborating on bug detection.

Ultimately, the real leap in quality is not solely determined by the tool, but the time you spend thoroughly learning its options, brushes, shortcuts, and workflowsConstantly switching software in search of the "ultimate application" is usually more of an excuse than a solution; Krita has been powerful enough for some time now that the bottleneck is usually you, not the program.

With all these changes—dual Qt5/Qt6 branching, advanced color management in Wayland, a new text engine, comic tools, smarter brushes, refined filters for HDR, support for modern formats, and a richer Python API—, Krita is establishing itself as one of the most complete and flexible digital painting suites in the free software ecosystem., capable of competing head-to-head with commercial options in illustration, comics and concept art while continuing to evolve at the pace set by its community.