diff --git a/pom.xml b/pom.xml
index fd3d780bf..439daf581 100644
--- a/pom.xml
+++ b/pom.xml
@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@
 
 	<groupId>org.janelia.saalfeldlab</groupId>
 	<artifactId>paintera</artifactId>
-	<version>0.17.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
+	<version>0.18.0</version>
 
 	<name>Paintera</name>
 	<description>New Era Painting and annotation tool</description>
@@ -251,7 +251,7 @@
 	<scm>
 		<connection>scm:git:git://github.com/saalfeldlab/paintera</connection>
 		<developerConnection>scm:git:git@github.com:saalfeldlab/paintera.git</developerConnection>
-		<tag>HEAD</tag>
+		<tag>paintera-0.18.0</tag>
 		<url>https://github.com/saalfeldlab/paintera</url>
 	</scm>
 
diff --git a/release.properties b/release.properties
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..89d3a99b0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/release.properties
@@ -0,0 +1,19 @@
+#release configuration
+#Tue Aug 06 14:06:53 EDT 2019
+project.dev.org.janelia.saalfeldlab\:paintera=0.18.1-SNAPSHOT
+scm.tagNameFormat=@{project.artifactId}-@{project.version}
+scm.tag=paintera-0.18.0
+pushChanges=false
+scm.url=scm\:git\:git\://github.com/saalfeldlab/paintera.git
+preparationGoals=clean verify
+project.scm.org.janelia.saalfeldlab\:paintera.connection=scm\:git\:git\://github.com/saalfeldlab/paintera
+remoteTagging=true
+projectVersionPolicyId=default
+scm.commentPrefix=[maven-release-plugin] 
+project.scm.org.janelia.saalfeldlab\:paintera.developerConnection=scm\:git\:git@github.com\:saalfeldlab/paintera.git
+project.scm.org.janelia.saalfeldlab\:paintera.tag=HEAD
+project.scm.org.janelia.saalfeldlab\:paintera.url=https\://github.com/saalfeldlab/paintera
+exec.snapshotReleasePluginAllowed=false
+exec.additionalArguments=-Dgpg.skip\=true  -P deploy-to-scijava
+completedPhase=end-release
+project.rel.org.janelia.saalfeldlab\:paintera=0.18.0