Microsoft Paint
| Microsoft Paint
|
|
|---|---|
|
|
 Microsoft Paint from Windows 8 |
|
| Basic data
|
|
| developer | Microsoft |
| Publishing year | 1985 |
| Current version | see Microsoft Windows |
| operating system | Windows |
| category | Graphics software |
| License | proprietary |
| windows.microsoft.com | |
Microsoft Paint (MSPaint.exe, also known as Paint , formerly Paintbrush ) is graphics software integrated in Microsoft Windows that allows simple creation and editing of raster graphics .
Paint has been part of Windows since the first version. Only for Windows 3.x Paint was Microsoft Paintbrush replaced. It is a licensed version of PC Paintbrush from ZSoft , which was previously sold in a package with the Microsoft mouse . For Windows 95 , Paint was then completely reprogrammed based on the Paintbrush model and is now part of Windows again. Since Windows 7, Paint resembles the first original version again.
In July 2017, Microsoft declared the program out of date. The integration into future updates of Windows 10 and even possible new versions of Windows is questionable. However, it should continue to be offered in the Microsoft Store . In May 2019, however, new functions were added as part of the May 2019 update (19H1) and the note that the app would soon be relocated to the Microsoft Store was removed . Microsoft's Senior Program Manager Brandon LeBlanc then said that Paint would remain in Windows 10 for the time being.
Versions
- Paint from Windows 1.0 and Windows 2.x is black and white and can only save in its own MSP format.
- Paintbrush from Windows 3.x has a different surface, supports color and the then new BMP format. Text can be provided with effects.
- Windows 95 Paint was rewritten by, modeled on Paintbrush. In addition to BMP, it also supports the PCX and RLE file formats . The drawing area can be enlarged if you try to insert an image that is larger than the drawing area. The option of adding effects to written text has not been adopted. A bug in black and white mode leads to drawings when using the spray can without pressing the mouse button.
- Windows 98 Paint can simultaneously stretch and tug in height and width. It only supports BMP images by itself, but can use Office graphics converters for other formats.
- Windows ME's Paint removed the prompt to enlarge the drawing area if a larger picture was inserted; the drawing area is now always enlarged. For the first time, images can be saved in JPEG format.
- Paint in Windows XP supports the JPEG, GIF, TIFF and PNG formats by default, which were previously only supported by installing Office graphics converters. A bug of this version is that areas in monochrome bitmaps cannot be filled with a grid fill pattern from the color palette.
- Paint for Windows Vista got a redesign and some new features, such as: B. Zoom factors below 100%.
- In Windows 7 , Paint got the ribbon interface known from Microsoft Office 2010 and some new functions and form templates.
- In Windows 8 and 10, no external changes were made to Paint.
- In Windows 10 (Version 1703, Creators Update), the successor Paint 3D was created for 3D image processing. Support for the original paint has been discontinued until further notice.
- In the Windows 10 May 2019 Update (19H1), Paint surprisingly received an update that added keyboard support for drawing.
Formats
The program can load and save the graphic formats Bitmap (.bmp), JPG , PNG , GIF and TIFF . The old formats MSP, PCX and RLE are no longer supported in newer Paint versions.
Bitmaps can be monochrome, with 16 or 256 colors or with 24-bit color depth and saved as JPG, GIF or PNG.
Tools
The drawing tools include a pen, a fill tool, an eraser, a line function, a curve with two-fold curvature (cubic Bézier curve ), a cutout tool (rectangular or freehand), a pipette for taking color values, a magnifying glass to enlarge or reduce the display (since Windows Vista additionally in the form of a slider, before that with the help of selectable magnification factors), a brush with several options for drawing lines, a spray can, a text input tool and various geometric figures (rectangle, ellipse, arrows, stars) are available .
The width of lines and outlines is determined by setting the line thickness in a separate selection before using a tool.
You can choose whether or not areas created with geometric tools are outlined and given a fill color. The borders and fillings can be equipped with different textures (colored pencil, highlighter, oil paint, pencil, water color). A color palette is also available from which the foreground and background color (1st and 2nd color) for the tool can be determined with the mouse . When moving and inserting sections, the 2nd color can be used as the transparent color.
Paint allows the tools to be guided with the right mouse button, so that the 2nd color is used as the foreground color and the 1st color as the background color. Before Windows 7, the background color could still be selected from the palette with the right mouse button.
Image attributes can be set (number of horizontal and vertical pixels), the colors specified in the color palette can be changed, marked image sections can be rotated (90 degree angle, no free rotation). It is possible to compress and stretch marked areas, whereby details are lost when the pixel graphics are compressed, while stretching not only enlarges the selected detail but also the system-related surrounding display errors - there is a clear step effect .
When saving, you can choose between bitmap formats of different color depths. Saving in a lower color depth often leads to unwanted color loss, since when converting to 16- and 256-color format only standard colors are converted, regardless of the colors actually used. Alternatively defined color palettes are retained when saving, but cannot be defined in Paint. When saving in GIF format, including existing graphics, only other standard colors are supported in newer versions; single-colored areas in other colors (including all colors specified by Paint) are converted into dot grids (which cannot be edited with the filling tool), which also leads to significantly larger files. The PNG format does not have this problem.
In early versions (Paintbrush) it was possible to move objects pixel by pixel with the arrow keys on the keyboard, without this option pixel-precise control can only be achieved with a correspondingly sensitive mouse.
corrections
Paint does not treat the structures in the picture as individual objects (circles, rectangles or even texts), but - similar to a mosaic - as a collection of pixels to form an entire (raster) graphic. Once details have been created, they can no longer be marked separately and subsequently changed, but have to be removed with tools such as the eraser or by covering them with new layers of paint - as is usually the case when working with pencil and paper. Each time a tool is used, Paint saves the previous state of the graphic internally to be on the safe side. If an operation is undone by the user (" Undo "), the program discards the change and falls back on the backup. Before the introduction of Windows Vista, the backup took place in the form of the whole image. This method differs from modern methods, which only note changes and reset them if necessary, and is very memory-intensive, so that a maximum of three successive decline steps were possible. In newer versions, a different number of versions can be called up depending on the use of tools.
Web links
- A picture blog with paint pictures
- "At the end of the graphics program 'Paint'": "The latest craze" . “Microsoft will no longer develop 'Paint'. Fans mourn the trash aesthetic - it even offered potential for participation and emancipation. ”In: Die Tageszeitung (taz) , July 28, 2017, p. 13
Individual evidence
- ↑ Microsoft is discontinuing development after 32 years . Spiegel Online ; Retrieved July 25, 2017
- ↑ MS Paint can continue to live in the Windows Store . heise.de
- ↑ Süddeutsche de GmbH, Munich Germany: MS Paint remains part of Windows 10 for the time being - knowledge news. Süddeutsche Zeitung , April 26, 2019, accessed on August 25, 2020 .
- ↑ Brandon LeBlanc: New Microsoft Paint Accessibility Features. May 15, 2019, Retrieved May 26, 2019 (American English).