Best Free Paint Program

 
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Introduction

Although they overlap in function, paint programs are really a different class of product: From raster editors such as Adobe Photoshop, and the GIMP, which apply artistic filter effects to photos to look like works of art. To vector-graphics drawing software, such as CorelDRAW and Inkscape, which are programs that have freehand illustration tools with the ability to render images at any sizes. Even traditional 2D animation programs like Toon Boom Studio and Pencil that use both raster/vector imaging are more concentrated in the animation than paint manipulation.

A paint software application is supposed to mimic traditional painting mediums and effects more than just a bitmap drawing program like Microsoft Paint. My only two requirements are graphic tablet support and the feel of natural paint on a digital canvas. All artists at one time or another dream of doing a comic book and cartoon animation, so if it supports animation or booklet pages, it's a plus. WOW, these free paint programs are truly a fantastic work of art.  Any one of these will definitely satisfy the inner artist in you. Listed in favorite order:

Discussion

Project Dogwaffle ScreenshotProject DogWaffle is surprisingly full featured. It has a comprehensive set of tools, including fully customizable brushes, lots of filters and effects, multiple color selection options, a good set of color gradients, animation aids and more. On the downside the program runs slowly on older PCs, has limited layer support, has a clunky cut and paste mechanism and only handles BMP and Targa files. Don't let its appearance or unfamiliar menu controls fool you, this is a great totally artistic program to get.

Twistedbrush screenshotTwistedBrush has one of the most versatile and powerful brush engines in existence, yet it was designed from day one to be easy to use. “Simplicity without sacrifice, powerful enough for the professional artist, yet simple enough for the novice” as noted on their web site, the quick start guide is a nice intro to the programs abilities. TwistedBrush Open Studio is designed for all realms of digital art including natural media fine art even with all the great features of TwistedBrush Pro Studio but just a handful of the very fine brushes included and without brush editing ability.

Artrage ScreenshotArtRage is an amazing natural paint program that allows users to achieve realistic paint effects without the messy cleanup. The user interface is a wonderfully designed and simple to use tool that will suit the young adult through the experienced artist. Even in its limited version its an amazing program and if you do grow out of its limitations you will at least have built a firm and affordable foundation from which to move on. Bottom line is that you can concentrate on your creativity, rather than wrestle with menus.

Pixia screenshotPixia is the English version of a popular Japanese painting and retouching software for full color graphics. It supports masks, layers and many other editing functions. You can use your own customized brush tips and even use an image file as a brush tip to create unique effects. With the new engine the paint feels smooth like ArtRage. It has lots of free plug-ins, and filter downloads thant make this program to be quite unique and different from other tools. This is well worth picking up for painting on photographs.

MyPaint screenshotMyPaint is a fast and easy graphics application for digital painters. It lets you focus on the art instead of the program. It comes with a large brush collection including charcoal and ink to emulate natural painting. If you want to look deeper, MyPaint is built around a highly configurable brush engine. This allows you to experiment with your own brushes and with not-quite-so-natural painting.

 

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Quick Selection Guide

Project DogWaffle Free Edition    Rating 8 of 10

Pros   realistic paint effects and frame-based animation tool
Cons   support for only Targa/BMP file formats, lacking only the advanced layer and scripting tools, unappealing interface
Developer Home Page   http://www.dogwaffle.info/
Download link   http://www.dogwaffle.info/dogwaffle/free/mirrors.html
File Size   4.3 MB   Version 1.2   License Type Restricted Freeware (full commercial version available)   Installation Requirements Windows 98/ME/NT/2000/XP
Info   released in 2004, a subset of the PD2-would like to see a more recent free version, the commercial version is now at 4.

TwistedBrush Open Studio    Rating 7 of 10

Pros   Quick Start Guide, Sketchbook, Full Features!
Cons   No brush editing ability (which is understandable)
Developer Home Page   http://www.pixarra.com
Download link   http://www.pixarra.com/download.html
File Size   12.1 MB   Version 16.0x  License Type Restricted Freeware (full commercial version available)   Installation Requirements 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP/Vista
Info   Love what the company has done to get this program to mass market.

ArtRage Starter Edition    Rating 6 of 10

Pros   realistic paint effects, appealing user interface, great program for young artist
Cons   limited tools, no layers or stencil/ruler creation found in the commercial version
Developer Home Page   http://www.ambientdesign.com/artrage.html
Download link   http://www.ambientdesign.com/artragedown.html
File Size   7.8 MB   Version 2.5   License Type Restricted Freeware (full commercial version available)   Installation Requirements 2000/XP/Vista and Mac OSX 10.3.9 or Later
Portable version available   Portable version available
Info   love this program and is cheap enough to buy full version

Pixia    Rating 5 of 10

Pros   custom brushes, numerous layers as the PC memory lasts, popular format even PSD (photshop), language support
Cons   does not support GIF, the handling Mask/Layer, unconventional tools
Developer Home Page   http://www.ne.jp/asahi/mighty/knight/
Download link   http://www.ne.jp/asahi/mighty/knight/download.htm
File Size   4,768KB   Version 4.3d   License Type Unrestricted Freeware   Installation Requirements Me/2000/XP/Vista
Info   Many fans has aggressively raised its popularity.

MyPaint    Rating 5 of 10

Pros   Multiple platform, extensive brush creation and configuration options, support for pressure sensitive graphic tablets, unlimited canvas
Cons   no layers (work in progress), no filters/plug-ins, BMP only format, basic artistic tools
Developer Home Page   http://mypaint.intilinux.com
Download link   http://mypaint.intilinux.com/?page_id=6
File Size   7.98 MB   Version 0.7.1   License Type Unrestricted Freeware   Installation Requirements 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP/Vista and Linux
Info   A very nice program for almost anything.
4.24138
Average: 4.2 (29 votes)
Your rating: None

i need a program like or exzactly Paint for windows but for a Ubuntu/Linux computer.
(Paint for Linux)

GNU Paint (gpaint) is a simple, easy-to-use paint program for Ubuntu/Linux.
GIMP is more for advanced users.

More? See the list.

how do i dowmload it

click on the house icon

i need something where i can draw manga/anime cats not realistic but fun anime like the kind Demonslayer from youtube uses. I've tried pencil and it drive me crazy how it so hard to erase my sketch but i can't go back to paint where is so hard to blend highlights. the program has to be free or atleast cheap so my parents will buy it :D

Try Paint Tool Sai
you can see videos of it on youtube

Hey everyone.

All of these paint programs seem cool, except I want to draw Anime. I'm getting tired of MS paint, because I have to shade in colours pixel by pixel and it makes a 20 minute sketch+color take over an hour, its ridiculous.
Anyways, I want something free and easy, not too complicated because I am not going to draw anything spectacular like Mona Lisa, or those random lines that are so epic that they become the worlds most famous painting. (for example go on youtube, im just going to draw a little like Jayhug or Chibigoth15 lol)
So yeah better than a promotional website, what do you think would be best? I am heading toward MyPaint for all the brush options lol, except I tried to look up example videos (which youtube users make to try out the programs) and it only had Ipod Touch drawings, which is kinda werid cuz..I dont have one of those ._.!

Try GIMP.. the best IMHO :-D

@ louis058
"Paint.NET is ... but ... emulate real-life painting and drawing well, Paint.NET doesn't do that."

You're just ...wit and don't know what you're talking about. Being not fond of .NET and tried some mentioned here, Paint.NET "still" beats 'em cos of expandability and the community behind it...

I'm actually delighted you love Paint.NET so much, but I've been a graphic artist/illustrator for over 20 years now and I know you have not put anytime into the programs mentioned above. Try them, I'm sure you will fall in love with at least one of them. You know, even professional software like Photoshop is limited to me, I have to go with plugins or software like Corel Painter or Autodesk Sketchup Pro to get my vision across. Well happy Painting. :)

Hi,Im Looking For A Paint Program Which I Can Do A Camp Site Lay-Out..Containers,Barracks etc... but need Icons Such As Trees And Taps etc... ANy Ideas??? Pls Help..

If you're looking to do a map of the camp that needs icons, then you might want to look into Tuxpaint, click here to download for Windows and the rubber stamp option which has a large library of stamp icons. You should be able to find something there. Otherwise, let me know.

What about paint.net? it has layers, transparencies, and a handful of FX.

Paint.NET is a great bitmap paint software, but this category is about programs that emulate real-life painting and drawing well, Paint.NET doesn't do that.

i am looking for a program that will let me draw comics, has translucent (sp) layers of color, bright dramatic colors that glow off the page, and then i'd like to be able to animate it. what would be the best one?

Ah. You're referring to Vector 2D Animation like Adobe Flash and ToonBoom where it gives you clean lines and bright colors. And even thou Project Dogwaffle can accomplish this, is a raster program where digital pixel gets mix and dirty.

The best free 2D vector animation right now is Pencil at www.pencil-animation.org. No scripting thou but who needs it, this program is easy to use and install, highly recommend it.

Happy animating. :)

thanz i love it

Why isn't Paint.net located at http://www.getpaint.net/
on this list? It seems to be like Artweaver but without the bugs.
The present version is 3.36.
Here's what's said about it:
It started development as an undergraduate college senior design project mentored by Microsoft, and is currently being maintained by some of the alumni that originally worked on it. Originally intended as a free replacement for the Microsoft Paint software that comes with Windows, it has grown into a powerful yet simple image and photo editor tool. It has been compared to other digital photo editing software packages such as Adobe® Photoshop®, Corel® Paint Shop Pro®, Microsoft Photo Editor, and The GIMP.

Paint.NET can be found at Digital Editor and Artweaver has moved to that category.

is this good for making comic bok coulers blend in and stuff ?

TwistedBrush has a very nice page explorer where you can keep track of all your comic book pages and view them in a pdf slide show. It has one of the best blends and color management palettes around. Plus if you don't have a tablet board you can apply your scan image to a tracing paper. Totally recommended for overall comic book development.

I have tried the other programs you've listed but you have missed the best freeware paint program of all: DEEP PAINT. It's a serious 58MB program created by Right Hemisphere - BUT the freeware version is being replaced by a shareware version. Use Google to find a website where the freeware version is available.

It is a real paint program with lots of brushes, surfaces, textures, angles of light & layers.

Deep Paint is NOT a drawing program - Inkscape is the best freeware Drawing program - I prefer it to GIMP.

Thou DEEP PAINT can be found and download for free on various site, the program isn't distribute by its developers at Right Hemisphere and I hate to promote a product that is no longer supported and may get obsolete. I will keep these comments for anyone who want to try out the program.

what about photofiltre? it is great

Check out photofiltre, It's in our Best Free Digital Image Editor Category mimics an old version of Photoshop, very light and easy on resources.

Is there any free painting software for kids? My little boy currently try Creative Painter. It works pretty fine and completely compatible with Vista.

release began 2100 partners points economists

Project DOgwaffle 1.2 is the free version, see http://www.dogwaffle.info/dogwaffle/free

They might enjoy more painting with particle brushes, as in PD Particles - www.dogwaffle.info/pdp

Or PD Artist - www.dogwaffle.info/pda

These and v2.1 can be had for free if you need something else such as a NetFlix subscription, an antivirus or other products and survices, available thrlough TrialPay: buy something else and they'll pay for your Dogwaffle ;-)

One of the better ways to see how to use it and what it can be used for (painting, animation, special fx, painting with video on video,...)
is through the many tutorials at www.dogwaffle.info/dogwaffle/tuts

Creative Painter looks like a great kids program but is not free. Several of our readers recommended Tux Paint with is one of the best drawing for kids program I've ever gone through with my five years. If you do download it, recommend you download the rubber stamp option as well.

Tux Paint is an free, open source program designed for children 3-12 that has received many good reviews:
http://www.tuxpaint.org/

Another great program is Pencil which is allows to draw vector images, exports to Macromedia Flash SWF format and create cartoon animation. It worth a try. Here is the URL:
http://www.les-stooges.org/pascal/pencil/

I really love this programs simplicity. The big thing in a paint program is where one manipulates paste and color to get an effect. I don't consider an illustrator to be a painter (picasso/van gogh) but a sketch artist/inker. If you're looking to cartoon this is a great pickup. Thanks.

Try Tux Paint:

"Tux Paint is a free, award-winning drawing program for children ages 3 to 12 (for example, preschool and K-6 in the US, key stages 1 & 2 in the UK). It combines an easy-to-use interface, fun sound effects, and an encouraging cartoon mascot who guides children as they use the program. "

http://www.tuxpaint.org

Thank you so much for this. My daughter just loves it!

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