01
Gather your references
Drop images, video and screenshots onto an infinite board. Files already on your disk are referenced where they sit, not copied into a library.
Palma Canvasv1.3.0
Your reference board, finally alive.
Drop every image, clip and screenshot onto an infinite board. Mark them up, sort them into focus zones, cut them into a storyboard, and export a moodboard to send. It runs on your own machine.
Windows · Free, forever · Runs entirely on your machine
01
One infinite surface
Images, video and screenshots all live on the same board. Pan, zoom, and drop a new reference anywhere.
02
Video stays playable
Reference footage doesn't become a thumbnail. Park it on the frame you want and lift the still out in place.
03
Notes sit beside the board
Draft the brief where the references are, instead of in a document that forgets what it was about.
New in 1.3.0
Now introducing Storyboard.
Plan a motion project in one place. Go from brainstorming on the board to a storyboard in the same project — the references you collected become the panels.
Sent from the board
Select references on the Dump Board and press Ctrl B. Each one is added to the end of the sequence.
One frame shape
Set the board's frame once — 16:9, 2.39:1, 9:16. Every panel uses it, and Ctrl-drag moves the picture inside the frame.
Durations add up
Each panel takes an action, a camera move and a duration. The header shows the total.
Gather, curate, sequence, export.
Four boards in one project, in the order you tend to use them.
02
Sort what matters into Focus
Send the ones worth keeping into named zones — colour, texture, motion. Each zone packs its own grid, and a reference leaves the queue once you place it.
03
Sequence it in the Storyboard
Send shots over and they land in order. One frame shape for the whole board, numbered, each with its action, camera move and duration.
04
Export it for a client
PNG or PDF, light or dark — the board as it stands, or a process brief carrying your notes and comments. No account, nothing uploaded.
Everything lands on one surface.
Images, video, screenshots and notes share a single board — the same board at the top of this page. These three are cropped straight out of it.
Big references stay big
A card is the file at the size you gave it, not a thumbnail standing in for one. Zoom in and there is more of the picture, not less.
As much as you can throw at it
Thirty-six items on one surface, at 40% zoom, still readable. The board grows with the project instead of asking you to file things first.
A note is just another thing on the board
Write the direction where the references are. It moves, resizes and exports alongside them, instead of living in a separate document.
Both apps work the same way.
They’re built on the same handful of rules. Neither one has an account screen, a sync indicator, or plans to grow one.
Local-first, by design
Everything is stored on your machine. Offline on a plane or off the grid for a week, both apps open exactly the same as they did yesterday.
No cloud, no account, no AI
Nothing to sign up for and nothing uploaded. There's no server on the other end, so your work stays where you put it.
Free, forever
No subscription, no seats, no tiers, no paid version coming later. You download them once and they're yours.
Built for one person first
I made both of these for my own work, and I use them every week. Things get added when I need them, not to reach more people.
v1.3.0 · August 2026
What’s new
A storyboard, GIFs you can pause, and images that save at full size.
New
- Storyboard: a new board where references become an ordered sequence of shots. Send them over with Ctrl B and each one lands as the next panel.
- GIFs play on the board with a real transport — pause holds the exact frame you were looking at, and you can scrub to a frame and drop it onto the board as a still.
Refined
- Drag a corner to scale a reference (never stretched), Ctrl-drag to crop it, and Ctrl-drag the picture to choose what stays in frame.
- Six resize handles — four corners and both sides — each holding the opposite edge still, so you can size a card against its neighbour in one move.
- Zoom now runs 10% to 800%, with a menu for Zoom to fit and Zoom to selection, and Ctrl 0 / 1 / 2 to go there instantly.
Fixed
- Images saved from Pinterest and the rest of the web now arrive at full resolution instead of the small version the page happened to be showing — and clips that used to fail outright now save.
- Ctrl 0 and Ctrl +/− zoom the board, not the whole app. An accidental Ctrl-scroll can no longer leave the interface stuck at the wrong size.
Windows · v1.3.0
Download Palma Canvas. It's free, forever.
No account required · Nothing uploaded · Runs entirely on your machine.