Paint (software)

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Paint

Paint in Windows Vista
Developer:	Microsoft
Latest release:	6.0.6000.16386 / November 8, 2006
OS:	Microsoft Windows
Use:	Graphics software
License:	Proprietary EULA
Website:	Windows Vista Help: Using Paint

Paint (formerly Paintbrush for Windows) is a simple graphics painting program that has been included with almost all versions of Microsoft Windows since its first release. It is often referred to as MS Paint or Microsoft Paint. The program opens and saves files as Windows bitmap (24-bit, 256 color, 16 color, and monochrome, all with the .bmp extension), JPEG, GIF (without animation or transparency), PNG (without alpha channel), and TIFF. The program can be in color mode or two-color black-and-white, but there is no grayscale mode.

1 History
2 Features
3 Support for indexed palettes
4 Criticism
5 Variations
6 Versions
7 See also
8 Notes and references
9 External links

[edit] History

The first version of Paint was introduced with the first version of Windows, Windows 1.0. This version only supported the MSP file format. This format is no longer supported by newer versions of Paint, along with PCX and RLE. Older versions cannot open or edit PNG files, and can only open GIF, JPEG, and TIFF files with a graphics filter for the specific file type.

In Windows 95, a new version of Paint was introduced. The same icons and color palette continued to be used through Windows XP.

In the Windows 98, Windows 2000 or Windows Me versions of Paint, images could be saved in JPEG and GIF formats if the necessary Microsoft graphics filters were installed, usually by another Microsoft application such as Microsoft Office or Microsoft PhotoDraw. Also, the canvas size was expanded automatically when larger images were opened or pasted.

In Windows XP and later versions, Paint is based on GDI+ ^[1] and therefore, images can be natively saved as JPEG, GIF, TIFF and PNG without requiring additional graphics filters. However, alpha channel transparency is still not supported because the GDI+ version of Paint can only handle up to 24-bit depth images. Also, since another accessory, Imaging, was discontinued in Windows XP, support for acquiring images from a scanner or a digital camera was also added to Paint. However, the tertiary color function, used for creating GIF files with a transparent background, was removed. Also, the ability to save and load palette colors to and from .pal files was removed.

In Windows Vista, the toolbar icons and default color palette have been updated. Also, unlimited undo levels, a zoom slider, and a crop function have been added.

[edit] Features

Recent versions of Paint allow the user to pick up to three colors at a time: the primary color (left mouse click), secondary color (right mouse click), and tertiary color (control key + any mouse click).

The program comes with the following options in its Tool Box:

Free-Form Select
Select
Eraser/Color Eraser
Fill With Color
Pick Color
Magnifier
Pencil
Brush
Airbrush
Text
Line
Curve
Rectangle
Polygon
Ellipse
Rounded Rectangle

Paint does not have the ability to automatically create color gradients.

The Image menu offers the following options: Flip/Rotate, Stretch/Skew, Invert Colors, Image Attributes, Clear Image, and Draw Opaque. The "Colors" menu allows the user to Edit Colors (only menu option under Colors). The Edit Colors dialog box shows a 48-color palette and 12 custom color slots that can be edited. Clicking "Define Custom Colors" displays a square version of the color wheel that can select a custom color either with a crosshair cursor (like a "+"), by Hue/Saturation/Luminance, or by Red/Green/Blue values.

The default colors in the Color Box are the following: Black, White, Gray, Silver, Maroon, Red, Olive, Yellow, Dark Green, Green, Teal, Cyan, Navy blue, Blue, Purple, Magenta, Old Gold, Lemon Yellow, Slate grey, Kelly green, Dark Carolina blue, Aquamarine, Midnight blue, Periwinkle, Violet-blue, Coral, Brown, and Pumpkin orange. A color palette is also available.

Paint also has a few hidden functions not mentioned in the help file: a stamp mode, trail mode and 10x zoom. For the stamp mode, the user can select part of the image, hold the control key, and move it to another part of the canvas. This, instead of cutting the piece out, creates a copy of it. The process can be repeated as many times as desired, as long as the control key is held down. The trail mode works exactly the same, but it uses the shift key instead of the control key. 10x zoom can be accessed by clicking on a horizontal line of about 2 pixels right below the 8x zoom button.

The user may also draw straight horizontal, vertical, or diagonal lines with the pencil tool, without the need of the straight line tool, by holding the shift key and dragging the tool. Moreover, it is also possible to thicken (control key + +) or thin (control key + −) a line simultaneously while it is being drawn. To crop whitespace or eliminate parts of a graphic, the blue handle in the lower right corner can be clicked and dragged to increase canvas size or crop a graphic.

Older versions of Paint, such as the one bundled with Windows 3.1, allowed controlling the drawing cursor with the use of arrow keys as well as a color-replace brush, which replaced a single color underneath the brush with another without affecting the rest of the image. In later versions of Paint, the color erase brush may be simulated by selecting the color to be replaced as the primary color, and the one it will be replaced with as the secondary color, and then right-click dragging the erase tool. The drawing cursor can also be controlled with arrow keys in current versions of Paint if Mouse keys under Accessibility options is enabled and configured appropriately.

[edit] Support for indexed palettes

By default, almost all versions of Paint create 24-bit images and are generally unable to properly downgrade them to indexed palettes using less than 24 bits per pixel. This means that when saving images in any of the supported formats specifying a format that uses indexed palettes with less than 24 bits per pixel instead of true color formats, a warning message is displayed about possible loss of quality. In fact, Paint lacks any form of binary, color or gray scale dithering or palette optimization, and the image will be saved with usually irreversibly scrambled colors, potentially ruining one's work. For example, a typical Windows screen will change the buttons and menu bar from grey to khaki green when saved as an 8-bit BMP or in GIF format.

Paint is, however, able to correctly load and save indexed palettes in any of the supported formats if an image is opened as an 8-bit or otherwise indexed palette image. In that case, the image's palette will be preserved when saving. However, there is no way to see the actual palette, and color choices for brushes, text and erasers as well as user-defined colors will be limited to the closest available color in the indexed palette.

[edit] Criticism

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This monster (named "The Gunk" by the artist) is an example of pixel art drawn solely with Paint

Because of its simplicity and the fact that it has been bundled with every version of Windows to date, Paint is usually associated with the concept of a newbie or otherwise inexperienced or clueless user, and images and drawings of poor quality are usually labelled as made with Paint in a somewhat derogatory manner. In the past, there have been shareware Windows programs featuring graphics drawn with Paint, which were easy to recognize because of their rough outlines and flat coloring with no gradients or color smoothing, typical of Paint drawings made in a hurry, since those effects are not automated. Intentionally horrible images are also considered to be Paint creations, although the connotation is more lighthearted and humorous. Despite its simplicity, Paint is still widely used, especially for oekaki, paintmashes, and pixel art, since these forms of art require minimal resources. Also, being a relatively lightweight application, it's usually more suitable for minor retouching and simple drawings than more powerful applications.

[edit] Variations

Not originally intended as a free replacement for the Paint software, Paint.NET offers greater functionality, as in the more advanced, commercial graphical editors, such as Adobe Photoshop and Corel Paint Shop Pro, and the open-source software image editor GIMP.

[edit] Versions

Microsoft Windows Paint in Windows 1.0 and 2.0	Paintbrush in Windows 3.0	Paint in Windows 95	Paint in Windows 98
Paint in Windows XP	Paint in Windows Vista