How To Do A Separate Screen On Krita: The Ultimate Multi-Monitor And Split-View Guide

To display a separate screen in Krita, navigate to the main menu and select Window, then choose New Window to open a fully independent application window that you can drag to a secondary monitor, or select Window, then New View to display a real-time cloned view of your current canvas on another screen. For advanced workflows, switch your interface mode from tabbed to subwindows under Settings, Configure Krita, General, Window, allowing you to float and position multiple document frames across your entire desktop real estate.

Configuring Krita to run across a separate screen—whether you are displaying a live zoomed-out reference thumbnail of your canvas, splitting your tools from your workspace, or working on two documents simultaneously—dramatically optimizes your digital painting ergonomics. This guide covers every configuration layout available within Krita to maximize your screen space and resolve common multi-monitor pen calibration and performance bottlenecks.

Pre-Configuration Checklist for Multi-Monitor Digital Painting

Before adjusting Krita’s internal canvas and window settings, you must verify that your operating system and hardware are configured to handle extended display environments. If your operating system is mirroring your displays instead of extending them, Krita will not be able to utilize your secondary monitor as a separate screen.

• Primary Display Device: A pen display (e.g., Wacom Cintiq, Huion Kamvas, XP-Pen Artist) or a dedicated drawing tablet mapped to a specific monitor screen.
• Secondary Display Device: A color-accurate desktop monitor or laptop screen used for reference images, dockers, and tool palettes.
• Operating System Configuration: Set your system display settings to Extend these displays. Avoid duplicate or mirror modes, which force both screens to show identical resolutions and layouts.
• Graphics Interface Settings: Ensure your dedicated GPU drivers (NVIDIA, AMD, or Intel) are updated to the latest stable release to manage dual OpenGL/Direct3D canvas rendering pipelines without lag.
• Estimated Configuration Duration: 10 to 15 minutes.
• Required Budget: $0 (utilizing existing hardware and Krita's built-in open-source toolset).

Step-by-Step Configuration to Split and Separate Screens in Krita

Krita offers multiple pathways to achieve a separate screen setup. Depending on your artistic goals, you may want to view the same canvas from two different zoom levels simultaneously, split different documents across separate physical screens, or drag your brush presets and color selectors to a secondary monitor.

Step 1: Open a Second Independent Window for Multi-Monitor Setups

If you want to span Krita across two physical monitors where one screen holds your active canvas and the other holds your reference imagery or alternative documents, you must generate a new operating system window.

1. Launch Krita on your primary drawing monitor and open your active project file.
2. Navigate to the top menu bar and click on Window.
3. Select New Window from the drop-down menu. A secondary, fully functional Krita application window will open directly on top of your primary window.
4. Left-click and hold the title bar of the newly created Krita window. Drag it across the boundary of your primary monitor onto your secondary screen.
5. Maximize the second window on your secondary monitor.

Warning: Do not use your graphics card's driver software to force span a single Krita window across both monitors. This stretches the interface elements, breaks your tablet's aspect ratio mapping, and dramatically decreases viewport rendering performance.

Step 2: Display a Real-Time Split-View of the Same Canvas (New View)

One of the most powerful workflows for digital painters is having a zoomed-in view for fine detail work on a pen display, while a secondary monitor displays the entire canvas zoomed out to monitor overall composition, values, and color balance.

1. Ensure you have opened a second window on your secondary monitor as detailed in Step 1.
2. In either of the two open Krita windows, go to the top menu and select Window.
3. Hover your cursor over New View. You will see a list containing the name of your currently active open document.
4. Click on the name of your active document.
5. Krita will now render a live, synchronized clone of your project inside the second window.
6. Zoom in to work on intricate details in your primary window. The secondary window will remain at your chosen zoom level (e.g., fit-to-screen), updating instantly with every brushstroke you make.

Step 3: Switch from Tabbed Mode to Subwindow Mode

By default, Krita organizes multiple open documents using a tabbed system similar to a web browser. If you prefer to arrange multiple canvases side-by-side or stacked vertically on a single screen, you must enable Subwindow Mode.

1. Go to Settings in the top menu and select Configure Krita (or Krita Preferences on macOS).
2. In the preferences window, click on the General category on the left-side panel.
3. Select the Window tab at the top of the General settings pane.
4. Locate the Window Mode section and change the selection from Tabbed to Subwindows.
5. Click Apply and then OK to save your changes.
6. Open two or more image files. You will now see that each document is contained within its own resizable window inside the main Krita background frame.
7. Click Window in the top menu and choose Tile to automatically arrange your open documents side-by-side, or select Cascade to stack them diagonally.

Pro-Tip: In Subwindow Mode, you can manually drag, minimize, maximize, and resize each canvas frame. To quickly expand a subwindow to fill the entire workspace, click the standard maximize button on the document's internal window frame.

Step 4: Detach and Move Dockers to a Secondary Screen

To maximize your painting canvas area, you can peel away Krita’s utility panels (known as dockers), such as the Advanced Color Selector, Layers panel, Tool Options, and Brush Presets, and place them onto a separate screen.

1. Locate the docker panel you wish to move (for example, the Layers docker on the right side of the screen).
2. Locate the two small overlapping square icons (the float/detachment button) in the upper-right corner of the docker panel, right next to the close button (X).
3. Click the float button. Alternatively, click and hold the title bar of the docker and drag it away from the side dock.
4. Once the docker is floating freely over your canvas, drag it over to your secondary monitor.
5. Position and resize the floating dockers on your second screen. You can stack them or dock them together on the second screen by dragging them near each other until they snap into cohesive floating groups.

Step 5: Save Your Custom Multi-Screen Workspace

Once you have arranged your dual-screen windows, subwindows, and floating dockers exactly where you want them, you must save this configuration so you do not have to manually set it up every time you open Krita.

1. Look at the very top right corner of the main Krita window, directly above your toolbars.
2. Click on the Workspace Chooser button (it typically displays the name of your current workspace, such as Default or Big_Paint).
3. Type a unique name for your new dual-screen configuration in the text field (such as Dual_Screen_Layout).
4. Click the Save button.
5. If your dockers ever get misplaced or closed by accident during a painting session, simply click the Workspace Chooser again and select your saved layout to instantly restore your custom separate screen environment.

Krita Screen Separation Modes and Technical Specifications

Choosing the correct multi-screen configuration depends heavily on your system hardware capacity and your specific painting needs. The table below outlines the performance trade-offs, target configurations, and primary use cases for each separation method.

Common Multi-Screen Alignment Issues & Technical Fixes

Running multiple displays on a single computer often introduces scaling, driver conflicts, and pointer alignment issues. Below are the most common technical failures encountered when configuring separate screens in Krita, along with their step-by-step resolutions.

Stylus Cursor Offset or Mismatch on the Second Screen

• Root Cause: The operating system's display scaling (DPI) does not match between the two monitors, or the drawing tablet's driver is mapped to the entire virtual desktop instead of being restricted to the drawing screen.
• Actionable Fix: First, open your tablet’s driver control panel (such as Wacom Tablet Properties or Huion Tablet Utility). Locate the Mapping tab. Ensure the pen is mapped strictly to the display monitor you are drawing on, rather than "All Displays." Second, if the cursor still drifts or jumps, go to your operating system's Display Settings and set the scaling percentage (DPI) of both monitors to the same value (e.g., both at 100% or both at 150%). Alternatively, go to Krita's Settings, Configure Krita, General, Window, and toggle the Enable HiDPI support option on or off to match your operating system's display behavior.

New View or New Window Menu Options Grayed Out

• Root Cause: No active document is open in Krita, or Krita has run out of temporary scratchpad memory space allocated in your preferences.
• Actionable Fix: Create a new document or open an existing file first. Krita’s view and window management tools require a primary document to anchor to before they can clone the canvas viewport or spawn secondary project views. If the options remain grayed out with a document open, go to Settings, Configure Krita, Performance, and increase the Memory Limit slider to allow Krita to allocate more RAM for managing multiple concurrent window buffers.

Floating Dockers Disappear Behind the Main Window

• Root Cause: The operating system window manager treats the floating dockers as lower-priority background processes when you click back onto the main Krita drawing canvas.
• Actionable Fix: In Krita, go to Settings, Configure Krita, General, Window. Look for the setting titled Dockers and make sure that you check the box for Hide dockers on secondary screen or adjust the window flags so that floating dockers are pinned to the top of the screen hierarchy. Additionally, ensure you are running Krita in Windowed Maximized mode on your primary monitor rather than true Fullscreen Mode (which you toggle via Ctrl+Shift+F), as true fullscreen mode overrides floating operating system panels.

Severe Performance Lag When Drawing in Dual-View Mode

• Root Cause: Your computer's graphics card is struggling to render your canvas strokes twice at the same time across different screen refresh rates or resolutions.
• Actionable Fix: Go to Settings, Configure Krita, Display. Under the Canvas Acceleration settings, ensure that OpenGL or Direct3D (via ANGLE) is enabled. If it is enabled and lag persists, try lowering your canvas preview scaling filter from High Quality (Bicubic) to Bilinear. You can also improve rendering times by closing any unnecessary background programs or lowering the resolution of the canvas preview in your secondary window.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I run Krita on a tablet and a computer monitor at the same time?

Yes. By connecting your drawing tablet to your computer as an external monitor, extending your desktop, and using Krita's New Window or New View commands, you can draw directly on the tablet while viewing reference materials or a zoomed-out canvas on your desktop screen.

How do I return Krita to its normal single-screen layout after detaching everything?

To quickly restore Krita to its default single-screen configuration, go to the top right corner of the window, click on the Workspace Chooser button, and select the Default workspace. This immediately snaps all floating dockers back to their original positions and collapses all floating windows back into a single frame.

Will using a separate screen in Krita drain my computer's RAM?

Using a separate screen for dockers does not noticeably affect your RAM. However, using the New View feature to render a second live view of your canvas does increase GPU utilization and RAM consumption, as your computer must calculate and render your brush strokes twice simultaneously.

Why does my brush stroke lag only when I draw on my secondary screen?

This lag is usually caused by mismatched display refresh rates (for example, a 140Hz primary monitor paired with a 60Hz pen display) or because your graphics driver is prioritizing the primary monitor for hardware acceleration. Ensure both monitors are plugged directly into your dedicated GPU rather than your motherboard, and check that canvas acceleration is enabled inside Krita's Display settings.

Optimize Your Digital Painting Environment

Transforming your digital workspace with an organized multi-monitor layout removes visual clutter and allows you to focus purely on the creative process. Customize your custom separate screen layouts in Krita today to unlock a smoother, faster, and more professional drawing experience.