This walks through one short edit end to end. It uses only things that are in the build, and every step is undoable.

1. Open a photograph

File ▸ Open (Ctrl+O), then pick a JPEG or PNG. The file chooser opens in whichever folder you were last working in, so the second time you do this it will already be somewhere sensible.

The photograph arrives as a single layer, named after the file, and the document is zoomed to fit.

2. Add an adjustment layer

Rather than changing the photograph’s pixels, put an adjustment above it.

Layer ▸ New Adjustment Layer ▸ Vibrance. A new layer appears at the top of the stack with an A badge, and the Properties panel switches to its single control.

Drag Amount to the right. The canvas updates as you drag, and the photograph underneath is untouched — hide the adjustment layer with its eye icon and the original is exactly as it was.

Adjustment layers apply to everything below them. Move one down the stack and it stops affecting the layers now above it. To confine one to a single layer, select it and use Layer ▸ Create Clipping Mask.

The other nine adjustments work the same way: Levels, Brightness/Contrast, Exposure, Hue/Saturation, Black & White, White Balance, Threshold, Posterize and Invert. See adjustments and filters.

3. Add a caption

Pick the Text tool (T) and click on the canvas. A new text layer appears with a T badge, and the Properties panel shows the Character controls.

Type the caption into the Text field at the top of that panel. Set the size, pick an alignment, and set the colour by typing a hex value into the Color field.

Text stays editable until you bake it. A text layer is re-editable indefinitely; it becomes pixels only when you choose Layer ▸ Bake Text. That is undoable too — undo brings the words back.

4. Move things around

Switch to the Move tool (V) and drag the caption where you want it. The options bar fills with align and distribute buttons: with one layer selected they align it to the canvas, and with more than one they align the layers to each other.

5. Look at the history

Open the History tab beside Layers. Every step you have taken is listed — opening the file, adding the adjustment, changing its amount, adding the text.

Click a step to go back to it. The steps after it stay in the list, dimmed, and clicking one of those walks forward again. Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+Shift+Z do the same thing one step at a time.

6. Save the document

File ▸ Save (Ctrl+S) writes a .ptx file — PhotoTux’s own format, which keeps every layer, mask and adjustment exactly as you left it. This is what you reopen to keep working.

7. Export a picture

File ▸ Export (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+W) writes a flattened image in whatever format the filename’s extension names — .png, .jpg, .webp, .tif, .bmp or .gif. This is what you send to somebody.

Save and Export are different things. Save keeps your layers. Export flattens them. Exporting a PNG and closing the document loses the layer stack, so do both.

What next