Microsoft’s more serious Paint 3D program aside, MS Paint remains a favorite graphics program of mine for creating crude sketches and quickly cropping or resizing photos on a budget.
If Cortana is enabled, navigate to the Start menu and type Cortana before saying “Open Paint.” This will launch the application.
Basics
Paint is one of the core programs included on Windows computers, offering users a straightforward experience for editing images with tools like fill and crop. In addition, users have access to an assortment of brushes and shapes with which they can draw. Finally, this program includes options for blurring and sharpening to further improve images. Paint makes an excellent tool for anyone just beginning digital art as an introduction or for practicing new creative projects.
Microsoft Paint is used by people of all backgrounds – from professional artists and hobbyists, to casual gamers and students. While more experienced digital artists may prefer programs like Photoshop, many on a tight budget or limited time find benefit in using this free software included with every Windows PC – its simple tool with its easy user interface makes Microsoft Paint accessible for anyone interested in trying their hand at digital art and graphic design.
Though MS Paint can limit one’s creative potential, there are a number of resources online that can help users to start making something unique with it. YouTube channel IamJagvinderSingh features tutorials on creating various pieces of art with this software as well as lifestyle and hobby related videos.
Microsoft Paint Blog offers another excellent resource for beginners looking to learn MS Paint, featuring tutorials on its various tools as well as tips and tricks for optimizing its use. Regular updates keep this resource fresh – an ideal way for digital art novices to begin.
MS Paint offers another useful feature – its grid feature, accessible by pressing Ctrl + G. It makes creating pixel art easier by making text or other elements easily movable without fear of overlapping pixels.
Tools
MS Paint offers an assortment of tools to modify images. This includes basic image editing functions like cropping, resizing and rotating as well as drawing and sketching tools, plus text insertion features. Its user interface offers tools down the left side and menus across the top with tooltips appearing when hovering the mouse over certain options for guidance.
Paint provides you with an intuitive user interface featuring selection tools for selecting portions of an image and cutting, copying or deleting it. Another tool called “Fill with Color” fills selected portions with particular hues instead of coloring by hand; and other tools allow for drawing shapes such as circles and squares as well as editing existing graphics.
Paint provides two tools that allow users to draw free-form lines, and one which lets you draw around objects to form simple shapes with simple contour lines. Both tools can be edited using click and drag mouse movements; additionally, the Tools section of the Home toolbar features an invert brush which produces photographic negative images of images.
Paint’s toolbar contains an eraser to help remove small sections from an image, as well as three levels of undo, so if anything changes unexpectedly you can reverse any action taken to an image if needed.
Microsoft’s iconic image manipulation program has been included with every version of Windows since 1985. Over time, it has undergone multiple upgrades as the operating system has developed, offering more sophisticated features as time passed.
Although many view MS Paint as outdated and limited in function, many digital artists continue using it because it’s inexpensive, easy to use and built right into Windows 10. While Microsoft no longer includes it with every installation of Windows OS, you can download it from the Microsoft Store in any edition of Windows 10. To avoid overwriting photos with changes made via MS Paint, always create a copy prior to editing them.
Shapes
MS Paint offers 23 shape tools ranging from simple lines to heart and lightning bolt shapes, all accessible from its toolbar at the top of your screen. Each shape can be selected by clicking it; its outline and interior may or may not be visible depending on window size; except lines, all shapes (other than lines) have fill options that determine their appearance – these may include No Outline Solid Color No Outline Oil Natural Pencil Watercolor as well.
To create a circle, select the Ellipse tool from the toolbar in the Shapes section and use your mouse to click-and-drag in the drawing space. You can force an ellipse into an exact circle shape by holding Shift after drawing it but before releasing your mouse button; this will cause its shape to snap back into a circular form matching its height.
As with drawing other shapes, drawing squares or rectangles requires selecting the Rectangle tool from the Shapes area toolbar in the same way, while drawing curves requires selecting Curve tool from there too. Or use Pencil tool for freehand drawings on white canvas areas – select this tool, move the pointer into drawing space and draw freehand on canvas area white surface area; to adjust width click pencil icon icon from toolbar then choose from among multiple thicknesses available to you.
Once you have created the desired shape, save it using File Save As… and selecting an area on your computer. Feel free to change its name if necessary – but keep this file separate from other images on the computer. Additionally, Edit Copy to Clipboard or right-clicking the shape directly can also help in maintaining a consistent style across images.
Text
Microsoft’s MS Paint program is a raster graphics editing tool included with every Windows operating system, offering powerful editing features at its fingertips but sometimes being difficult for newcomers to navigate. Microsoft is revamping this year to match Fluent and Mica design styles of Windows 11 OS by refining MS Paint interface to match these styles more closely.
One of the first tasks most users want to complete when first learning MS Paint is adding text. This can be accomplished by clicking on the “Text” button in the Home tab, which opens a dialogue box within your image for text entry and can be resized by dragging its edges.
Once text has been selected, options to bold and italicize are displayed in a dialog box. Additional options exist to underline and strike through it (though some fonts may not support these features). You may also adjust its color.
MS Paint does not support text wrapping or multiple layers, so for complex image editing tasks it may be beneficial to switch over to another image editor such as GIMP or Pixelmator. But for simple text addition, MS Paint works very easily.
Text can be aligned at the top, center or bottom of an image and its size adjusted by changing font size in the dialog box. Furthermore, transparent or opaque effects may be achieved using checkboxes at the bottom of this dialogue box.
Homestuck uses various fonts to convey its themes. Courier New is used as the main text font; other fonts may also be utilized when characters speak their lines and use various commands from within the story itself.
Windows 8 Paint now solves an annoying bug which prevented users from scrolling when editing text in zoom views greater than 100%, as well as providing the ability to paste texts even if there isn’t enough space available to display them all.
