Paint.NET

Paint.NET, as its name bears is a free digital painting software for Windows. It is built based on the existing Microsoft Paint by some college students in US. The development project itself is advised and assisted by Microsoft as a mean to be an extended version of Microsoft Paint. Again, as it name bears, the software is built on Microsoft .NET Framework, thus requires the .NET installed to use it. Windows Vista should come with .NET and Windows XP user may download it from Microsoft website.

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As an ‘extended version’ of Microsoft Paint, Paint.NET is a more polished software with a set of tools not available for the former, such as layering capability. The interface is clean and looks pleasing, especially those inactive floating windows that changes transparency/opacity on mouse hover. This is good to make sure the hidden part of the working document remains half-visible when covered by those floating windows, eliminating the need to constantly move/close those windows just to see how things are going beneath them.

Yes, this software DO have layering capabilities, but it only supported on the *.pdn file format since it can’t handle any Photoshop *.psd files or at least the VESA standard *.svg files that is used by Inkscape, the free-opensource illustration software. Anyway, it still handles the legacy Windows Bitmap (*.bmp) files well just like the original Microsoft Paint. The Tools, on the other hand only offers very slight or almost no enhancement over the original ones. For example, the Line and Curve tool is now shares the same button but the Curve can only be edited once as in the original Paint, except in this software it allows you to move the control point as much as you want, as long as the curve is still selected/active. Once you deselect it, there is no turning back. This is funny as it shows that the developer could make it similar to the Path/Pen tool but surprisingly or mysteriously, they didn’t and they choose to go the lame and annoying old-school way. Even the vertical scrollbar also works funny. You may scroll smoothly using the mouse scroll button but when you drag the scroll control button, the document remain static until you release the mouse button to see how much you have scrolled. This is the most unacceptable aspect of this software considering that we are no longer in the days of Windows 9x.

Truly, this software is more towards the fun compared to other free tools like Artweaver. Not really recommend but it’s worth a try.

Get Paint.NET here:
http://www.getpaint.net/download.html

Artweaver

Artweaver is a free digital painting software for Windows. It has been around for about a year and is currently in version 0.5.

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Artweaver is one of the best available alternative for Microsoft Paint, as it offers more brush control as well as layering capability, great for those who like to paint separate and manageable elements. The interface shares much similarities with Photoshop, especially the Tools, Preview, Layers and Color palette. The Brush control window somehow offers much more control compared to Photoshop. Even the layer blending mode also matches Photoshop capabilities, if not better.

Artweaver has its own layer-enabled file format, Artweaver Document (*.awd) and it also can handle Photoshop’s *.psd files well without a glitch. However, opening a large (1024×768) PSD file seem to take a long time as if opening it on Photoshop itself, despite this program’s small footprint (approx. 25 MB when installed). Upon creating 10 layers, it only occupies roughly 70 MB of system memory, compared to 150 MB required when opening the same file using Photoshop CS4. The software didn’t crash during the test although there seems to be some minor bugs that preventing the document window to be resized once in a while.

Artweaver is truly a painter tools since it offers nothing more but a full set of brushes to meddle with. There is no path/pen tool to be expected; a common disability often found in free graphic software or rather a mistake that should have not been committed by any free graphic software developer. It is quite a shame for such good graphic software does not have this tool but given the great effects achievable using the brushes alone, any artist have to bear with this unavailability.

Overall, Artweaver is good though it might be better if the developer could incorporate the path/pen tool. It works great for those who have graphic tablets like those of Cintiq or Wacom. For those who only have the mouse would find it hard though.

Get Artweaver here:
http://www.artweaver.de/index.php?downloads_en