Download PhotoCraft for Linux: AppImage, deb, rpm, Flatpak

PhotoCraft for Linux ships as an AppImage, a .deb, an .rpm, a Flatpak bundle and a plain tarball, each for x86_64 and aarch64 (ARM64). On Ubuntu or Debian the .deb is the simplest choice, on Fedora or openSUSE the .rpm, and the AppImage runs on almost any other distribution without installing anything. Every file in the table above links to the official GitHub release. PhotoCraft is early alpha software, so expect rough edges.

Which file should I download?

First check your architecture with uname -m. x86_64 means a normal Intel or AMD PC. aarch64 means a 64-bit ARM machine.

Format	Best for	Notes
.deb	Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, Pop!_OS, elementary	Menu entry, MIME types and icons; clean uninstall
.rpm	Fedora, RHEL and clones, openSUSE	Same as the .deb
.AppImage	Any distribution, no install, no root	Self-updates through the .zsync file
.flatpak	People who prefer sandboxed Flatpak apps	Needs the freedesktop runtime from Flathub
.tar.gz	Managing your own /opt or ~/.local	bin/ and share/ tree

System requirements. All Linux builds are compiled on Ubuntu 22.04 and need glibc 2.35 or newer: Ubuntu 22.04+, Debian 12+, Fedora 36+, RHEL 10 or openSUSE Tumbleweed. X11, Wayland, xkbcommon, Vulkan and EGL come from your system at runtime, and so does the GPU driver. The .deb and .rpm declare these as dependencies. The Flatpak gets them from its runtime. The AppImage and the tarball can't declare dependencies, so PhotoCraft checks for the libraries before it opens a window. If one is missing, it prints the package to install and exits instead of crashing. The canvas renders through wgpu on Vulkan, with GL and then a CPU renderer as fallbacks.

Install the .deb (Debian, Ubuntu)

sudo apt install ./photocraft-0.5.0-linux-x86_64.deb

The ./ matters: it tells apt to install the local file and pull in the dependencies. Start PhotoCraft from your app menu or run photocraft. The package installs /usr/bin/photocraft and /usr/bin/photocraft-cli.

Install the .rpm (Fedora, openSUSE)

sudo dnf install ./photocraft-0.5.0-linux-x86_64.rpm      # Fedora, RHEL
sudo zypper install ./photocraft-0.5.0-linux-x86_64.rpm   # openSUSE

Run the AppImage

chmod +x photocraft-0.5.0-linux-x86_64.AppImage
./photocraft-0.5.0-linux-x86_64.AppImage

The AppImage uses a static runtime, so it doesn't need libfuse2. Since v0.5.0 its first run also registers a launcher and icons in ~/.local/share, so PhotoCraft appears in your app menu and the Wayland dock shows its real icon instead of a generic one. If you move the AppImage, the entry is rewritten on the next launch. Set PHOTOCRAFT_NO_DESKTOP_INTEGRATION=1 to skip this.

Install the Flatpak bundle

The README's instructions are current for v0.5.0:

flatpak install --user photocraft-0.5.0-linux-x86_64.flatpak   # or -linux-aarch64
flatpak run ai.storyteller.photocraft

If the org.freedesktop.Platform//26.08 runtime is missing, flatpak offers to fetch it from Flathub. You may need to set up Flathub first. The sandbox allows Wayland with X11 fallback, the GPU, and read/write access to Pictures and Documents. Every other file goes through the file chooser portal. There is no network access.

Is PhotoCraft on Flathub? No. The project has a Flathub-ready manifest, but in #173 the maintainers said they were holding off until the app matures. #1411 (open) notes a change in Flathub's AI policy. A third-party repository, FlatPark (#322), packages PhotoCraft under the same app ID. It is not run by the PhotoCraft team, and photocraft.im doesn't recommend unofficial channels. Because the ID is shared, you have to uninstall the bundle before switching between the two.

Use the tarball

The tarball contains a folder with bin/photocraft, bin/photocraft-cli and a share/ tree (desktop entry, icons, MIME type). You can run it in place:

tar -xzf photocraft-0.5.0-linux-x86_64.tar.gz
./photocraft-0.5.0-linux-x86_64/bin/photocraft

or unpack it into ~/.local so the binaries land in ~/.local/bin:

tar -xzf photocraft-0.5.0-linux-x86_64.tar.gz --strip-components 1 -C ~/.local

Verify the download (SHA256)

Download SHA256SUMS.txt from the same release into the same folder and run:

sha256sum -c --ignore-missing SHA256SUMS.txt

Every file you downloaded should be reported as OK.

The command-line tool

photocraft-cli is bundled. With the .deb, .rpm or tarball it sits next to photocraft (/usr/bin/photocraft-cli for the packages). In the Flatpak, run it with:

flatpak run --command=photocraft-cli ai.storyteller.photocraft --version

The AppImage starts the GUI only. Use one of the other formats if you need the CLI.

Updating

• AppImage: AppImageUpdate, AppImageLauncher and similar tools read the update information built into the AppImage and download only the changed blocks. You can also just download the new file.
• .deb / .rpm: install the newer package with the same apt / dnf / zypper command.
• Flatpak: install the newer bundle with flatpak install --user.

PhotoCraft has no built-in update check as of v0.5.0. See the release notes.

Uninstalling

sudo apt remove photocraft                         # .deb
sudo dnf remove photocraft                         # .rpm (zypper remove on openSUSE)
flatpak uninstall --user ai.storyteller.photocraft # Flatpak

For the AppImage, delete the file, then remove the desktop integration:

rm ~/.local/share/applications/ai.storyteller.photocraft.desktop
find ~/.local/share/icons/hicolor -name 'ai.storyteller.photocraft*' -delete

Settings live in ~/.config/photocraft (or $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/photocraft).

Known issues on Linux

Drag and drop does nothing on Wayland — #386, open. The windowing library PhotoCraft uses has no Wayland drag and drop yet. Use File › Open, or copy the image in your file manager and paste it with Ctrl+V. To drag and drop, start PhotoCraft under XWayland:

WAYLAND_DISPLAY= photocraft
WAYLAND_DISPLAY= ./photocraft-0.5.0-linux-x86_64.AppImage
flatpak run --nosocket=wayland --socket=x11 ai.storyteller.photocraft

v0.5.0 shows the right command for your install in a notice. The main branch adds a Preferences › Performance option to use X11, expected in the next release.

Pen tablets on Wayland, and no pressure — on Wayland, some tablets give no pen input at all in 0.5.0 (#1781, open; #639, closed: a fix that opens the window through Xwayland when a tablet is attached is on main for the next release). Pressure and tilt are not delivered on Linux in 0.5.0, so strokes use full pressure (#79, open).

Won't start after upgrading (Arch and others) — #1461, open. After updating, some users get no graphics adapter found or Device(Lost). The reporter fixed it by clearing old settings. Move the folder aside rather than deleting it:

mv ~/.config/photocraft ~/.config/photocraft.bak

You can also force a backend with WGPU_BACKEND=vulkan (or gl), or start once with photocraft --safe-gpu for the CPU renderer.

Chinese menus show boxes in the Flatpak — #1152, closed. The 0.5.0 Flatpak can't see host CJK fonts. The fix was merged after 0.5.0. Until the next release, use the .deb, .rpm or AppImage with a CJK font installed.

Fixed in v0.5.0: endless key repeat in text fields on Wayland (#585) and the generic Wayland dock icon for the AppImage (#593). More fixes are in Troubleshooting.

FreeBSD

The release also has a FreeBSD 14 x86_64 tarball, laid out like /usr/local. Its binaries are not signed, so check it against SHA256SUMS.txt. The README's steps:

pkg install libxkbcommon wayland libX11 libXcursor libXrandr libXi libxcb mesa-libs vulkan-loader gtk3 fontconfig freetype2 alsa-lib
tar -xzf photocraft-0.5.0-freebsd-x86_64.tar.gz --strip-components 1 -C /usr/local
photocraft

Download only from GitHub

photocraft.im is an unofficial community guide. Every download link here goes to the official storytold/photocraft GitHub releases, which the project also links from the PhotoCraft page on getartcraft.com. Be careful with repackaged builds from other sources: they are not tested or published by the PhotoCraft team.