Kooka Pictura kookaburra logo Kooka PicturaPhoto editor for Linux

Kooka Pictura · Free & open source

Your layers, your color, your canvas.

A layered photo editor for Linux, built to edit photos beautifully — and to read and write Photoshop PSD/PSB files faithfully.

Download for Linux View on GitHub
GPLv3 or later Rust engine · Qt 6 interface PSD · PSB · PNG · JPEG · TIFF · WebP
The Kooka Pictura kookaburra

The project

An editor that treats the file as sacred.

Kooka Pictura is an independent, from-scratch image editor for Linux. The engine is Rust; the interface is Qt 6. It is a working application, not a mock-up — it opens and saves PSD and PSB, composites layers on the CPU with an optional GPU path, and ships a large slice of the classic Photoshop tool, layer, adjustment and filter surface.

The goal is a photo editor that handles the editing workflow really well, not a clone of every corner of Photoshop. For what is in and out of scope, see the roadmap.

27Blend modes
6Color modes
GPUAccelerated
Independent by design — no Adobe code, no bundled Adobe assets. Just the formats, and the craft. From the project README

What it does

A deep slice of the classic studio.

From the file format up: layers, adjustments, selections, color and metadata — with the Photoshop file itself kept intact through every round-trip.

PSD/PSB round-trip

Reads and writes Gray, RGB, CMYK, Lab, Indexed and Bitmap at 8/16/32-bit, with raw, RLE and ZIP compression — preserving blocks the engine does not model.

Layers

Groups and nesting, raster and vector masks, 27 blend modes, layer styles and effects, fill and adjustment layers, locks, labels and filtering.

Smart objects

Embedded smart objects with a bundled, non-destructive editing flow — and smart filters that stay editable.

Pictura Raw

The built-in raw processor, filling the role of Camera Raw — reached through Filter › Pictura Raw.

Adjustments & filters

All the usual adjustment families plus the full classic filter set — blur, sharpen, noise, stylize, pixelate, distort, render and the artistic families — accelerated on the GPU.

Selections

Marquee, ellipse, lasso, magic wand and quick selection, with save/load to channels, selection-masked edits and content move.

Color management

ICC profiles, Assign and Convert Profile, and configurable handling of an incoming embedded profile.

Metadata

EXIF, IPTC and XMP reading and editing, File Info, and metadata templates.

In the studio

Built for the way you actually edit.

Open a file, paint, select, crop, stack adjustment and fill layers, apply filters, then save — and the round-trip keeps layers, effects, smart objects, metadata and profiles intact.

The Kooka Pictura workspace with a PSD open, a Curves dialog, and the layer and color panels docked
A PSD open in Kooka Pictura, with Curves applied
The Blur Gallery's Iris Blur applied to a mountain landscape in Kooka Pictura
Iris Blur, shaping focus across a mountain landscape
The Filter Gallery applying Poster Edges to a surfer riding a wave in Kooka Pictura
The Filter Gallery, applying Poster Edges
Painting with a chisel-tip brush, with the Brush and Clone Source panels docked in Kooka Pictura
Brush presets and Clone Source, painting with a chisel tip

Get Pictura

Download

Installers are built and attached to every release. Pick your platform — or compile it from source if you prefer.

Every build is attached to the latest release. Prefer to build it yourself? The steps are in DEVELOPING.md.

Kooka Pictura is currently in Beta-testing phase.

Open source

Made in the open — and with you.

Kooka Pictura is free software under the GNU GPL v3.0 or later, developed in the open on GitHub. Found a bug, have an idea, or want to contribute? The issue tracker is the front door.

Submit an issue Join the Discord Browse the code
Report a bugSomething renders or saves wrong? Tell us the steps to reproduce it.
Request a featureHave a tool or a workflow in mind? Open a request and make the case.
ContributeProvenance rules, the spec workflow and the build are all documented for newcomers.