Help

Video Tutorial

This video quickly teaches you the most important features, including: paint bucket, import, saving as PSD, coloring an imported drawing, shortcuts, text tool, and more.

More Tools

Click on the arrow next to the paint brush to reveal more tools. These include: paint bucket, gradient, text tool, shape tool, select and transform.

Video: Accessing more tools

Shortcuts

Eyedropper

Right Mouse Button, or Alt + Mouse
Hand Tool

Middle Mouse Button, or Space + Mouse
Hand Tool

Arrow keys
Zoom

Scroll, or hold Z + drag horizontally
Zoom

+ in, - out
Rotate View

Hold R and drag (+ Shift for snapping)
Rotate View

Hold R and press ← or →
Reset Rotation

R + Up-Arrow
Fit Into View

Double click while using Hand Tool, or Home
Reset View

End
Undo

Ctrl + Z or ⌘ + Z
Redo

Ctrl + Y or ⌘ + Y
HUD Color Picker

Ctrl + Alt or ⌘ + Alt
Line Tool

Hold Shift while drawing
Change Brushsize

[ decrease, ] increase
Save Image

Ctrl + S or ⌘ + S
Save to Browser Storage

Ctrl + Shift + S
or ⌘ + Shift + S
Copy to Clipboard

Ctrl + C or ⌘ + C
Paste from Clipboard

Ctrl + V or ⌘ + V
Swap color

X
Paint Bucket

G
Gradient

G
Text Tool

T
Shape Tool

U
Last Brush

B
Eraser

E
Toggle Eraser (Chemy/Pixel brush)

Shift + E
Clear Layer

Delete or Backspace
Fill Layer

Enter
Relative Sliding

Drag with Right Mouse Button
Relative Sliding

Scroll-Wheel
Manual Slider Input

Double tap/click on slider
Finegrained Sliding

Pull pointer away vertically

Touch

Hand Tool

Drag/pinch/twist with 2 fingers
Fit Into View

Double tap with 1 finger
Undo

Tap with 2 fingers
Redo

Tap with 3 fingers

Show All Shortcuts

Video: Shortcuts

Saving Your Image

Click on File then Save. Your image will be saved on your device usually under Downloads.

Keeping All Layers

Save as PSD to save your image including its layers by clicking the dropdown underneath the Save button and selecting "Save PSD". Layers will be restored when you open a PSD file. You can also open these files in other software (e.g. Krita, Clip Studio).

Video: Save as PSD

Save As:

PNG - lossless image without layers
PSD - image including layer information (Photoshop format)
Layers - each layer saved as a separate PNG

Can't save?

Ensure you have enough disk space on your device. As an indicator: If your device can no longer install new applications then you likely have not enough space. Or if you have enough space, ensure your administrator allows your browser to download files.

Importing Images

Import images from your Desktop by dragging them onto the canvas. You can then use them as a new layer or start a new image with them. Alternatively use File > Import.

Supported Filetypes:
JPEG, PNG, PSD (with limitations), (SVG, WEBP, BMP, GIF)

Video: Importing images

Paint Bucket

To cleanly fill your drawing with colors (without white pixelated edges) do the following:

Draw your lines on a new layer.
Select the layer below.
Select the Paint Bucket and set "Grow" to a value greater than 0.
Fill.

Grow makes the filled area grow by the specified amount. Choose the right Grow amount depending on how thin or thick your lines are. You find the Grow dropdown at the bottom right of the Bucket Tool.

If areas get filled which you did not intend to fill, lower the Tolerance slider. If that doesn't help, check your lineart for small gaps. A 1 pixel gap is enough for paint to escape its enclosure.

Video: Paint Bucket

Browser Storage

With Browser Storage you can store a snapshot of your image including layers locally in your browser.

Important to note

Browser Storage does not replace the need to save your work on your computer. It may be cleared by the browser.
You need to manually store. It does not autosave

Tab Recovery

Kleki automatically stores a recovery of your drawing in the browser after 5 minutes, then updates it every minute. If a tab reloads, its recovery is automatically restored. You can also restore tabs manually and manage them via File > "Recover closed tabs".

Recoveries are only kept for a little while and are limited to 1 GB total.

This feature is intended to help prevent data loss but is not a full auto-save system!

Tab keeps refreshing

Chrome and some other browsers may have memory saver mode activated, which can destroy tabs upon switching between them, ultimately triggering a refresh.

To prevent this, go into Chrome settings (chrome://settings) and search for "memory saver". Then either toggle memory saver, or in the bottom right press "Add" and add "https://kleki.com". We recommend to add Kleki to the list, instead of turning off memory saver.

Pressure Sensitivity

If you use a stylus (Wacom tablet, Apple Pencil, ...) and your browser supports it, then Kleki offers pressure sensitivity. You can toggle it next to the brush sliders. That way your pen pressure can affect brush size and opacity.

Video: Pressure sensitivity

Input Devices

It is recommended to use a pen/stylus for drawing because it is by far the most fun, fast, and expressive tool for drawing. Touchpads/trackpads are not suited for drawing lines.

Use zoom and the stabilizer to increase the precision of your linework with any input device.

Stabilizer

Stabilization makes it easier to control your lines by lagging behind and averaging your drawing motion. This is mostly used to create clean final lineart. It can also help making drawing easier in general when you only have a mouse.

The responsiveness of no stabilization is desirable for fast sketching or for large brush sizes where jitter is less visible.

Video: Stabilizer

Failed to Initialize

If Kleki fails to initialize, one of these things might fix it:

Close the tab, clear your cache for Kleki.com, and reopen the page
Update your browser
Visit Kleki again later

If none of that works, please contact me.