An Overview of the Best Paint Al­tern­at­ives

The first version of the GNU Image Ma­nip­u­la­tion Program (GIMP for short) was released in 1998, quite a few years after the release of Microsoft Paint (1985). GIMP’s longer de­vel­op­ment period, however, gave it a decisive advantage: while Microsoft was resting on its laurels, GIMP was suc­ceed­ing in sur­pass­ing it with a much larger spectrum of functions. Thanks to the plug-in system, the program can be expanded as required, which has led to a constant increase in the range of functions over the years. GIMP became one of the most popular open-source graphic programs worldwide in a short space of time, making it a perfect al­tern­at­ive to Paint.

The menu bar provides you with all the functions you need for image pro­cessing. You can customise the interface according to your re­quire­ments and attach different toolbars. This will put all the tools you need within easy reach.

GIMP is easy to per­son­al­ise: once you have created your ideal interface, it is all auto­mat­ic­ally saved. Any toolbars you create can be found directly on the user interface after each startup.

GIMP’s per­form­ance spectrum is enormous: in just a few clicks, color dis­tri­bu­tion, sat­ur­a­tion, contrast or bright­ness can be corrected. There are also tools for trimming, scaling and rotating the images, as well as tools for manually editing in­di­vidu­al elements. The following filters and effects are available (among others):

• Enhance (e.g., fixing red-eye)
• Smoothing (e.g., pixelat­ing)
• Light and shadow effects (e.g., glitter, lens reflex)
• Artistic effects (e.g., canvas, oil painting)
• Dec­or­at­ive effects (e.g., coffee stains, round corners)
• An­im­a­tions (e.g., overlap, waves)

A further pro is the large selection of export formats they offer. With GIMP, you can choose from more than 30 different file formats: from typical image formats like .jpg, .gif or .bmp, to archive formats like .gz or .bz2, to web formats like .html or .xhtml – the software offers a lot of options. You can also create PDF documents using GIMP.

Dis­ad­vant­age: although GIMP has an im­press­ive range of painting tools and features, the program is actually quite complex to use. Compared to Paint, you will need much more design training and technical skills in order to achieve a decent end result.

When you are working with several image layers at the same time, the original image is not always there in the back­ground, as is the case with pro­fes­sion­al, paid image pro­cessing programs. This means that each pro­cessing step is an integral part of the change process. If you want to correct an error, you can only do so using the “Undo” function. However, if the error you want to change was several steps back, you will lose all sub­sequent changes too.

A further dis­ad­vant­age is that the software does not have an in­ter­me­di­ate function, making it not par­tic­u­larly well equipped to deal with crashes. In order to avoid losing your work, you should save your image pro­cessing on a regular basis.

Inkscape is an open-source vector graphics program that lets you create pro­fes­sion­al il­lus­tra­tions, icons, logos, diagrams, maps or even web graphics. The program uses the XML-based W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) and is free open-source software. Inkscape is used by pro­fes­sion­al and hobby designers worldwide as a promising al­tern­at­ive to Paint.

What makes Inkscape special is that it saves in­form­a­tion on images as vectors, rather than color points. These are simple graphical elements such as lines, circles, polygons, or curves that produce two- or three-di­men­sion­al images. A great advantage over the con­ven­tion­al pixel grid is the loss-free scalab­il­ity. Using Inkscape, you create images that can be enlarged or reduced as you wish – while retaining a high level of quality.

Inkscape allows for a precise, technical character with so-called paths. Various molding tools are available for this purpose, such as rect­angles, ellipses, polygons or spirals that you can manually change, move, scale, rotate or tilt. On this basis, you can design a wide range of vector graphics, combine them with other images or add an­im­a­tions. The painting tools, on the other hand, remain just as sparse as the ones on Paint. Only pencil, cal­li­graphy or filler tools are available for freehand drawing.

One area of dis­agree­ment regarding the program is its operation. Some users consider Inkscape to be one of the most user-friendly graphics programs on the market. On the other hand, some say that its operation is too com­plic­ated compared to other vector-based graphics programs. However, many users criticism is due to the fact they are used to other programs like Il­lus­trat­or, Sketch or CoreIDRAW, meaning that they had to adapt when they switched to Inkscape. On Inkscape’s Wikipedia page, there is a guide to the program for those have prior knowledge of Adobe Il­lus­trat­or.

The overall im­pres­sion that Inkscape leaves, is that it is a thorough, pro­fes­sion­al vector graphics software. Anyone who has ever worked with vector-based programs, or is at least familiar with image pro­cessing, in general, should work out how to use it fairly quickly, even if the nav­ig­a­tion and some commands are different to other graphics programs. Beginners in the field, however, could be quickly over­whelmed with the diverse functions and the sequences of the in­di­vidu­al design processes.

Inkscape supports all popular file formats (SVG, PNG, PDF, etc.), as well as royalty-free vector graphic program formats like Adobe Il­lus­trat­or (AI), and CoreIDRAW (CDR). As a result of this, you can process other formats of graphic program files with the open source ap­plic­a­tion, and vice versa for designs started with Inkscape.

Dis­ad­vant­ages: You need some prior knowledge of vectors in order to be able to work ef­fi­ciently with Inkscape. Beginners who have just worked with pixel graphics will often have a difficult, time-intensive training period. The software is also aimed towards technical drawing and is less suitable for freehand tags.

MyPaint has a wide range of functions that are almost un­beat­able: the basic version already has over 400 different pen and brush types available. You can also download countless other features, filters, and effects, some of which are provided by the MyPaint community. Customise your painting set and arrange your in­di­vidu­al toolbars easily on the user dashboard. This way, you will always have a good overview.

Just like their com­pet­it­ors, MyPaint allows you to work in layers which you can combine as you wish. In order to make as realistic a drawing as possible, you can also choose from different back­ground colours, and you can find more templates in the MyPaint community.

MyPaint also scores well in terms of user-friend­li­ness. Users can create their own paint set, making the software suitable for both beginners and advanced users. The toolbars can be placed anywhere on the program dashboard. The size of the dashboard is also ad­justable.

 Dis­ad­vant­ages: MyPaint is only available in the English language. Also, many users complain about dif­fi­culties using the mouse. It is easier to run using a graphics tablet.

Another drawback is that MyPaint only supports three file formats: the standard ORA file format, as well as the JPEG and PNG. You can also use a plugin to open ORA files in GIMP and then edit them further. File formats JPEG and PNG in MyPaint do not allow working with layers.

Once you get started with Paint.NET, you will quickly notice that it is very similar to GIMP in ap­pear­ance. The menu bar, in par­tic­u­lar, has clearly been inspired by the com­pet­i­tion. However, Paint.NET is more clean-cut and easier to use. This is mainly thanks to the man­age­able selection of tools and effects available to the user in the basic in­stall­a­tion. Microsoft’s Paint.NET does not really compete with GIMP’s wide range of functions but the basic package can be extended by numerous filters and effects.

The Basic Package contains all the tools that are available in Paint:

• Painting tools, e.g. paint brushes in a variety of thick­nesses and colors
• Rubbers
• Clone Stamps
• Geometric objects

Similar to Paint, you can crop, resize or even insert gridlines. In addition, Paint.NET provides a whole host of other op­tim­isa­tion tools and effects, including:

• Hue and contrast changes
• Red eye remover
• Softener and sharpener
• Black-and-white and sepia filters
• Spiral or arching effects
• Colour gradient generator, etc.

And that is by no means everything: like with GIMP, you can edit your images on multiple layers and create unlimited projects. However, the program – like its coun­ter­part – is de­struct­ive, so you change the original image with every action. Of course, you can still undo unwanted changes using the “undo” function. Another plus is the history, where you can look back and see all the changes you have made. When you are finished editing, you can save your results in eight different formats: PDN, BMP, PNG, GID, JPEG, TIFF, TGA, and DDS.

Dis­ad­vant­ages: In addition to the pre­vi­ously-mentioned dis­ad­vant­ages – such as being ex­clus­ively com­pat­ible with Windows, or the small func­tion­al scope in the basic in­stall­a­tion – it should be noted as a dis­ad­vant­age that Paint.NET does not save edited files in PDF format.

This program also allows you to work on different levels. Each level you create is kept in a history list where you can switch back and forth between in­di­vidu­al steps. The operation appears com­plic­ated at first glance but should not take long to fa­mil­i­ar­ise yourself with. This program is equally suitable for beginners as well as for advanced users. Thanks to the struc­tured design, you can easily keep track of all painting tools, effects, and filters. You can save the results of your editing in nine different formats: AWD (Artweaver), BMP, GIF, JPEG, PCX, TGA, TIFF, PNG, and PSD.

Something unique to Artweaver is that you can save your own painting process as a procedure “event” and then open and play it whenever you like. This allows you to present your own drawing style to other artists, from a blank image to a finished work of art. This function is available in both the paid and the free version.

Dis­ad­vant­age: If you are looking for a full painting kit that can be used to create pro­fes­sion­al images, look no further than the paid version: Artweaver Plus. The freeware, on the other hand, offers a limited number of brush types and features – however, both can still be con­sidered great al­tern­at­ives to Paint.

The ability to work in a team and work together with other artists to create images was dis­con­tin­ued on June 1^st, 2017. Another dis­ad­vant­age is the operating system: Artweaver – like Paint or Paint.NET- is only com­pat­ible with Windows. Fur­ther­more, PDF documents cannot be created either in the free or paid versions.