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We present new techniques in cooling 39K atoms using laser light close to the D1 transition. First, a new compressed-MOT configuration is taking advantage of gray-molasses–type cooling induced by blue-detuned D1 light. It yields an optimized density of atoms. Then, we use pure D1 gray molasses to further cool the atoms to an ultra-low temperature of . The resulting phase-space density is and will ease future experiments with ultracold potassium. As an example, we use it to directly load up to atoms in a far detuned optical trap, a result that opens the way to the all-optical production of potassium degenerate gases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]