BMP2MC is a bitmap to C64-multicolor converter (16 colors or 5 grey / black and white, export to .prg).

Outputformat is standard "Koala" or ".prg" - further details can be found in the readme file included with the archive.

BMP2MC converts a bitmap image (bmp, jpg, png) to c64 multicolor (16 colors or 5 grey / black and white, export to .prg).  File created is a standard Koala or .prg.

With this little Windows & Linux tool you can simply convert bmp images to hires or multicolour sprites suitable for the C64.

Have you ever wanted to make some ASCII Art out of Commodore 64 semi-graphic (formal PETSCII Art)? Thanks to C64 AAE it is possible now! C64 AAE is a PETSCII Art editor different than any other! Like in professional graphic software - you can use multiple layers ;), you can make an frame-by-frame animation, export your Art to PNG / BMP / JPG / animated GIF / AVI video file!

C64 Graphics Maker by AGPX (2021) is a Windows based tools for creating various types of graphics for the Commodore 64.  The program is still in beta and has a few rough edges, but it seems quite capable and would be a good thing to have in your toolbox of utilities if you're into making games or demos for the C64.

Here is a link to the release page which has a LOT more information, including some links to YouTube videos the creator made.

Here is a link to the Lemon64 forum thread where it was announced.

CartographPC is a Windows application created to assist in designing tile-based datamaps. This devtool serves as a companion piece to our C64 native Cartograph devtool.

CartographPC is a Windows application created to assist in designing tile-based datamaps. This devtool serves as a companion piece to our C64 native Cartograph devtool. The original purpose of CartographPC was to enable us to take nice screenshots of our datamaps without having to take four or six screenshots of smaller windows and piece them together. CartographPC has since grown into a full editor with the benefit of being able to load datamaps created on the C64 directly into memory and edit, save, and move them back to C64 without much hassle.

CartographPC is a Windows application created to assist in designing tile-based datamaps. This devtool serves as a companion piece to our C64 native Cartograph devtool. The original purpose of CartographPC was to enable us to take nice screenshots of our datamaps without having to take four or six screenshots of smaller windows and piece them together. CartographPC has since grown into a full editor with the benefit of being able to load datamaps created on the C64 directly into memory and edit, save, and move them back to C64 without much hassle. 

CharPad is a free cross-development tool for designing character mode graphics and game maps for the Commodore 64 computer.

CharPad is a free cross-development tool for designing character mode graphics and game maps for the Commodore 64 computer.

General Program Features... 

- Design character sets, tile sets and maps. 
- Pixel level editing of whole tiles at once (OR do it the old-school way). 
- Edit character materials for collision detection purposes. 
- Load and save SEUCK (Shoot 'Em Up Construction Kit) compatible background files. 
- VICE Snapshot Ripper, extract level data from existing games. 
- Many useful operations such as scroll, flip, reflect and negative. 
- Multiple levels of undo/redo. 

CharPad is a free cross-development tool for designing character mode graphics and game maps for the Commodore 64 computer.

General Program Features... 

- Design character sets, tile sets and maps. 
- Pixel level editing of whole tiles at once (OR do it the old-school way). 
- Edit character materials for collision detection purposes. 
- Load and save SEUCK (Shoot 'Em Up Construction Kit) compatible background files. 
- VICE Snapshot Ripper, extract level data from existing games. 
- Many useful operations such as scroll, flip, reflect and negative. 
- Multiple levels of undo/redo. 

Improvements and changes in the latest version... 

Complete redesign/rewrite/overhaul using C++/.NET framework. 
Tile dimensions are now independently variable up to 8x8. 
New GUI format can show all project data on screen at once. 
Full screen map editing. 
Zooming and smoothing of displayed images. 
Bitmap import. 
De-tiling/re-tiling using any desired tile size. 
Improved compression algorithm. 
No more "per tile cell" colouring mode, replaced with "per character". 
New CTM5 project file format. 

ClipShop is a "Legacy Graphics" utility program which allows you to view, edit, save and print Old PrintShop, PrintMaster, and PrintPartner ClipArt.

ClipShop also supports viewing, editing, saving and printing of other older graphics and text file formats including BSaved, PCPaint Pictor PIC, PCX and BSV.

Apple II HIRES Images and many Commodore 64 Image Formats are supported as well.

The currently displayed ClipArt or graphic can also be copied to the Windows Clipboard to be used in other programs, to compose a new screen image, or converted to other formats like Windows BMP, Pictor PIC, PCX, or BSaved.

You can choose a copy command from a variety of 3 clipboard copy commands. Each of these 3 commands are used to get different proportions for the appearance of the ClipArt or graphic. Saving to BMP or other formats also supports this feature.

ClipShop supports both page size and "screen-scale" printing and Clipart catalog printing and saving to BMP is also provided.

Convertron v1.0 by fieserWolF released on April 18th, 2017 - This program for Windows is a graphics tool for converting graphics images (png, tif, gif, bmp, jpg) to Commodore 64 Koala or Hi-Res format.  There are lots of options for optimizing the image using various effects and palettes.  The results are impressive and with a handy preview feature it's easy to quickly try various configurations before saving.

FontForge for Windows is a tools for creating or editing TrueType fonts.  I'm posting this because I needed a TrueType font called "C64 User Mono" for CBMTransfer to display the contents of a .D64 image.  Style used to supply this font back in 2010, but has updated their release and the correct font is no longer available.  I used this tool to edit the name and description embedded in the newer font so CBMTransfer could identify the right font.

This is a free / open-source editor that has a bit of a clunky interface, but at least it isn't crippled like the other crap TrueType font editors (read BirdFont sucks).

HermIRES is a cross-platform hires bitmap editor for the Commodore 64.

HermIRES is a cross-platform hires bitmap editor for the Commodore 64.

HermIRES is a cross-platform hires bitmap editor for for the Commodore 64.

Multipaint 2018b by Tero Heikkinen - http://multipaint.kameli.net/

With Multipaint, you can draw pictures with the color limitations of some typical 8-bit computer platforms. The screen formats supported are Commodore 64 high resolution, Commodore 64 multicolor, Commodore Plus/4 Hires, Commodore Plus/4 multicolor, ZX Spectrum, MSX 1 and Amstrad CPC0.

Requires Java, but just having the ability to export your drawing directly to a .prg file that will run on a C64 makes it worth the sacrifice.

Multipaint 2020.2 by Tero Heikkinen AKA Dr. TerrorZ is an absolutely amazing graphics tool for Windows, Linux & Mac.  As described by the author:

With Multipaint, you can draw pictures with the color limitations of some typical 8-bit computer platforms. The screen formats supported are Commodore 64 high resolution, Commodore 64 multicolor, Commodore Plus/4 Hires, Commodore Plus/4 multicolor, ZX Spectrum, ZX ULAplus, MSX 1, Amstrad CPC mode 0/1 (and 0 with Overscan), Sinclair QL and Atari ST low resolution.

Please visit http://multipaint.kameli.net for the latest version and news.

PETSCII Compositor v1.10 by Jason Page (Released November 22,2022) - In a nutshell, this tool allows you to convert images (PNG, JPG, GIF) into C64 PETSCII and export to several formats inculding,  PETSCII Cola, C64 PRG, PETSCII .C, or a Bitmap, but there is so much more to this program.  Since straight conversion doesn't always get it perfect, you can break the picture up into frames in which each has it's own PETSCII settings, this way you can combine the best parts into the final image.

This program is just freakin' cool, easy to use and dosen't need to be installed, just extract to a directory and run the .exe.  There is full PDF documentation inside the archive.

What’s New  - V1.10
- (EXPERIMENTAL) Commodore Plus4 - Basic support added.
- Export to Image (PNG, BMP, GIF, JPG)
- Export to Petscii.c (For use in PETSCII tool by Markku Reunanen)
- Export to .PRG (C64 program file)

Pixel Polizei is a tool for the retro/scene/retroscene artist. It lets you automatically check whether an image conforms to the color limits of a particular oldschool platform and save the result in certain native formats. The underlying idea is that you can use whatever paint program you happen to prefer for creating the images and observe – almost real-time – if you’ve made a mistake somewhere. One more fundamental bit is that the tool is multiplatform unlike many others.

Inside the archive is the single web page pulled from archive.org and a pdf version for the site that no longer exists.

SpritePad is a free cross-development tool for designing sprite images and animations for the Commodore 64 computer. 

SpritePad is a free cross-development tool for designing sprite images and animations for the Commodore 64 computer. 

SpritePad is a free cross-development tool for designing sprite images and animations for the Commodore 64 computer. 

SpritePad is a free cross-development tool for designing sprite images and animations for the Commodore 64 computer. 

UltrafontPC is an application to assist in designing hires character sets for the Commodore 64. This Windows application is inspired by the c64 native Ultrafont by Charles Brannon.

UltrafontPC serves as a companion piece to our CartographPC, an editor used to create maps from hires character sets.

Inside the archive are 3 versions of the program.  Standalone x86 version and an installer version for X86 and X64.

VChar64 v0.0.10 by Ricardo Quesada and other contributors.  Nice little Windows program for creating custom character sets for you Commodore 64 programs.  Has several example character sets to try out.

VChar64 is yet another character editor for the C64.

Features:

Char editing:
- Clear, Copy & Paste
- Invert
- Flip Horizontally, Vertically
- Rotate
- Shift Up, Down, Left, Right
- Undo, Redo

Tile support:
- From 1x1 to 8x8
- Custom Distance in chars between tiles

- Imports CharPad 1.8 and 2.0 projects
- Exports to Raw and Prg
- Emulates different palettes: VICE, Pepto, Frodo, etc...
- xlink support. Video showing xlink in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaSR_mxRfmo

In version 0.0.11, Koala image import was added. Also includes map support and other features.

VChar64 v0.0.7 by Ricardo Quesada and other contributors is yet another character editor for the C64.

Note:  This is an old version but here for history

VChar64 v0.2.0 by Ricardo Quesada and other contributors.  Nice little Windows program for creating custom character sets for you Commodore 64 programs.

View64 can be used to view native C64 image files without firing up an emulator with the respective editor.  For realistic display it supports PAL/NTSC display with scanlines, shadow masks and other artifacts.

• Open source, mostly portable C using SDL2
• Separate library for image decoding (libview64)
• Supports lot of image formats (70+)
• Some image formats are recognized without extensions
• PAL/NTSC S-Video and RGB rendering
• Scanline, shadow mask, chroma leakage simulation
• Multicolor interlace de-interlacing
• Hardware window scaling (where available)
• Image saving to BMP