Hell freezes over, MS Paint adds support for layers and PNG transparency

Better hold on to your pants, Photoshop. Here's the new contender!

Screw you Microsoft, I switched to Paint.net forever ago and I'll be long dead in the cold, cold grave before I recognize Missourah, I mean switch back to Paint.

Actually a truly useful update in a sea of bloatware crap.

Win11 exclusive? Welp, guess I'll never use it, then.

Those are great features and two of the biggest reasons I never bother with Paint. But locking them to Windows 11 and not putting them out on Windows 10 is some Grade A bullshit.

I'm a hobbyist digital artist and have had to do a handful of graphic design projects for my mundane, non-art-in-anyway job.

As our computers are locked down Windows PCs, I've had to manage with MSPaint. It's always taken me double the time as on any other program or app, and I have been wishing it had layers for years.

Since this update is Windows 11 only, I'll have to for my company to upgrade, so I can look forward to layers in maybe 5 years.

Excellent! Now I can draw things on the wrong layer in yet another program

Great. Now my customers are going to send me even worse art.

meanwhile, wordpad.. probably used by more people over the age of seven than paint is, getting axed.

microsoft has office subs to sell, but they do not have a photoshop or gimp or even a paint.net alternative to sell.

As someone who enjoys doodling in Paint, this is great

Huh.... I thought they discontinued this program.

I really do like it for something that I want to just add quick/small edits to, or something that can be slapped together quickly. But I do hope this isn't the start of a trend to bloat mspaint and aim to compete against more robust image editors.

The pessimist in me fears they're going to, and start slapping on AI data harvesting measures that they're integrating into Windows, like for training their own AI art generators. But this addition, in a bubble, is a welcome change.

Very cool.

I like Paint for its simplicity, and since I don't need all the extra bells and whistles most of the time, I've never bothered with learning how to use Photoshop or GIMP.

I've been using Paint.net for the last few years, but I'll try the new Paint features as well and compare them to see which one I find better.

I'll stick to good ol' https://jspaint.app/

Works on Linux too.

If it can pretty much do what I've been using paint.net for I'm sold.

I make all my memes with Paint(.)NET

https://www.getpaint.net/

But today Microsoft announced that it is finally adding two features that could make the app a bit more useful for power users: support for Photoshop-esque image layers and the ability to open and save transparent PNGs.

What kind of person is an MS Paint power user. I just use it to paste screenshots into if I'm not intending fine editing, otherwise it might as well not exist as a program.

The only person who seriously uses MS Paint for artwork is that one guy who recreated the Mona Lisa out of hundreds of pieces of variously burnt toast. Real, usable art tools would destroy the purpose and make that guy sad.

Really, if they kept this kind of momentum up for the next 20 years, it might put it on par with Fire Alpaca. It's an interesting move, they're just so incredibly late to the game that even other free programs are still leagues better than they are and no one will ever take them seriously again.

So many artists started with paint. I am really glad it is adding some features that are significant improvements that will help today's young artists even more.

I'm talking about kids, like an age before you're likely to become aware of other free tools... Wait. Fuck, do kids even use windows computers anymore or is the closest a chromebook?

What's the low-down on if extracting the EXE and putting it on Windows 10 works?

Didn't they say they were retiring ms paint in 2017 for some other program no one had heard of?

Sounds like a good little update, love seeing more default apps/programs getting new visual updates and helpful features

I use paint nearly every day to save something quickly. Glad to see it continue to be supported.

Does it still save in one of the most basic but still GIGANTIC file sizes?

This is the best summary I could come up with:

The venerable, equally derided and beloved MS Paint app has been on a roll lately, picking up a major redesign, dark-mode support, better zoom controls, and other fit-and-finish updates all within the last couple of years.

But today Microsoft announced that it is finally adding two features that could make the app a bit more useful for power users: support for Photoshop-esque image layers and the ability to open and save transparent PNGs.

In an image program without support for layers, adding new elements to an image like this is always destructive—you lose the ability to see and edit the part of the sky that is covered by the plane and the cloud, and the part of the plane that is covered by the cloud.

Support for creating, editing, and saving transparent PNG images goes hand in hand with support for layers, since it's useful to be able to pull a single object out of an existing image so you can put it in a new one.

Transparent PNG support goes well with the automated background removal button that Microsoft added to Paint builds earlier this month.

The redesigned Paint is rolling out to Windows Insider testers in both the Dev and Canary channels, the two bleeding-edge and less-stable versions of Windows 11.

The original article contains 388 words, the summary contains 213 words. Saved 45%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

I'd love to see KDE KolourPaint add these features

What stops them from bundling paintdotnet instead?

The license allows for redistribution

Developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers!

Do they have variable weight? Are they planning to add that? Because I'd really like that for quick sketching and doodling.