> and have yet to find a suitable replacement

There are a few, Kolourpaint is pretty much an MSPaint clone for KDE [1] and Paintbrush is the macOS equivalent [2]. There is also Gnome Paint [3], but hasn't seen any update in years. I suppose the closest would be Pinta [4], although that is slightly above MS Paint on the complexity level (probably more comparable to Paint.NET than MS Paint).

> I'm not sure how I feel about it being web-based

Personally i find it amusing and impressive that this implements a Win95-like GUI (i love Win95's GUI :-P) but at the same time the actual editing feels very slow - painting something takes almost a second to update with the brush being very jumpy, reminding me using ZSoft's PhotoFinish on Windows 3.1 on my 4MB 386:-P.

It is also nice that it has implemented the select+shift+drag brush feature that is ignored by almost every other clone i've seen over the years.

[1] https://www.kde.org/applications/graphics/kolourpaint/

[2] https://paintbrush.sourceforge.io/screenshots/

[3] https://launchpad.net/gnome-paint

[4] https://pinta-project.com/pintaproject/pinta/

> actual editing feels very slow - painting something takes almost a second to update with the brush being very jumpy, reminding me using ZSoft's PhotoFinish on Windows 3.1 on my 4MB 386:-P.

Works as fast as native paint on my laptop. What browser are you using?

Same here: no noticeable lag in Firefox on Ubuntu.

I'm guessing Safari on macOS?

no problem with Safari+Macos here

Firefox on Linux

> the actual editing feels very slow - painting something takes almost a second to update with the brush being very jumpy, reminding me using ZSoft's PhotoFinish on Windows 3.1 on my 4MB 386:-P.

It's completely and utterly indistinguishable from a native app on my PC (Firefox 57.0.4 (64-bit) on Windows 10). First thing I noticed was how smooth and flawless it was, even when I expand the canvas and go crazy with every single tool to make a big mess, it didn't slow down once.

Other than using 10x more resources than the original version.

computers have 1000x more capacity and throughput than the original 486's.

So a 10x bump in resource you say?! -- Hmmm not too shabby for such a faithful clone!

On my Macbook Air, with Chrome and High Sierra it managed to crash Chrome impressively and force quit and hitting restart failed to do much. I actually had to hit the power button which is kind of unusual on a Macbook.

> Paintbrush is the macOS equivalent

Not really. It has many issues.

The left toolbar is not dockable. I find it annoying that I have to do window management withing a single application.

That and the fact that it asks for the canvas size everytime I launch it.

Aren't Mac applications supposed to have their toolbars as separate windows? Pixelmator (at least the pre-App Store version i have) does the same, as did some other apps i've tried at the past.

This is very much on a case-by-case basis. Unless by toolbar you mean the menubar at the top of screen which changes for each application.

KolourPaint is very close. GIMP is great, but simple operations (ie. screenshot-crop-higlight-annotate) get complicated (layers, floating layers, text layers, alpha)

Lazpaint seems another handy option. I used it for years.

I can imagine that updates aren't really necessary in a simple image editor ;)

I'm not experiencing any of that. Works immediately for me at this time

No performance issue on iOS iPhone 7.

On Windows I've been using Paint.NET for years now. It's absolutely brilliant. Lightweight editing with quite a bit of extra features like properly working undo. Free, lots of updates, good UX. I use it at least few times a week.

Recently I've been on OS X a lot, and I wasn't able to find a suitable replacement. Like, nothing even remotely close. Quite a shame. Same story for Linux.

I've also switched to Paint.NET.

One thing that convinced me to switch was when MS Paint switched to the ribbon interface.

There is a Paint.NET remake on Linux called Pinta. Not quite as stable (it struggles with large images), but it has the exact same interface.

I've tried that, it was maybe 3~5 years ago, and it was quite bad in comparison. Not sure if there was a significant progress since.

Sadly, I find it struggles with small and medium images as well. But with some tlc, it could become the paint.net we are all hoping for...

I used to use GIMP, but could never figure out how to use it. Downloaded Paint.NET, it worked _exactly_ as expected. I was able to get running and perform the edits I needed to perform in seconds.

I've never had such a positive introduction to a piece of Software, it works _so well_!

On Mac, I personally like Pixelmator for pixel level editing. It feels a bit like the old versions of Photoshop which always did the job for me. At thirty bucks, it's also pretty affordable.

On OS X I really liked using Acorn a few years back.

Best feature of this app I feel is live sharing

like: http://jspaint.ml/#session:abc sessions are shared in real time

Careful: http://jspaint.ml/#session:abc not really work safe when I clicked on it

Spiritual successor to /r/place?

Interestingly, it seems to lose 1/3 of the inputs I'm trying to send...

Yeah, it's super half baked. I can tell you that as the developer. I plan to focus on collaboration in the successor to this project, Mopaint: https://github.com/1j01/mopaint

(Rather than adding it after the fact.)

How do you do it?

I've been an almost Linux/BSD user for more than a decade now, and I've always used 32-bit MSPaint from XP without any issue through Wine. Salvage the .exe from a Windows XP install and the necessary MFC .dll, and you're ready to roll.

I think with Wine you can only save in BMP and PNG? Last time I used Wine to emulate MSPaint, these were the only two formats for saving the files.

I mostly use Pixelmator for that sort of thing on OS X. It's like $20, but I also bought it about five years ago, so it's a sunk cost!

Pixelmator is crazy cheap for its features and polishness.

Edit: seems to be $60 now for "Pro" version, whatever that means, but still cheap. My only wish is svg export¹.

[1] http://www.pixelmator.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=7663...

The regular pixelmator is also available for half the price.

> I see there's a Chrome app, but the link is broken (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dgfedgcofbjmeohonb...)

I think Chrome apps were deprecated a few weeks/months ago.

Chrome apps are still a thing, chrome packaged apps were deprecated (unless you're on Chrome OS), so the type of chrome app that remains is essentially just a bookmark distributed through an app store.

You're not missing out on anything by that link being broken.

IMO the best painting/lightweight editing tool is paint.net. Since I moved to mac I moved to Gimp and it’s ‘fine’.. but paint.net is really the only tool I’m missing fron windows

Spend a little bit of money on pixelmator, you’ll be glad you did. If you can afford a mac you’ll find that buying pixelmator to replace gimp is worth it.

There are a few really good low-ish cost options on Mac. You should take a look at Pixelmator, Acorn and Affinity Photo. I think all have free trials. Out of those, Affinity is the one I use most, but that's because I also really like Affinity Designer (an Illustrator type application).

Although it's probably illegal, I've been waiting for a port for years. I'm sad the one that finally did it chose js.

Maybe there's some sort of connection? Like maybe the port happened because there was some sort of universal platform where a dedicated developer would be sure to get a large readymade, appreciative audience as opposed to a small group of highly vocal micro-critics. And maybe that was more important to them than whether the language adhered to some paradigm that's really important if you look at things always from a single point of view? I dunno where these thoughts come from...

Shouldn't be hard to turn it into an "application" using Electron or something

runs

    > I'm sad the one that finally did it chose js.

Look how easy it is to shed tears for free stuff you don't personally have the energy to do yourself: You didn't have to lift a finger but to write an internet comment.

Just wondering what you think it adds to the discourse.

I'm in the same boat. I often use http://kolourpaint.org/ in linux, and https://paintbrush.sourceforge.io/ in OSX.

I was in the same spot. A while ago I took an evening to try and learn doing basic edits in Gimp, and since then I have no trouble with it anymore. Not as bad as Vim, but there's indeed a learning curve to it. Now that I've learned it, though, I would never want Paint again.

I regularly use http://www.pixlr.com/editor/

I used pixlr a lot for a lot of minor editing, but with a new system on which I avoid flash like the plague, it turned out to be (arguably) the only webapp without a flash-free alternative.

Now I simply use Adobe Photoshop even for minor edits (Yes, it's bloated, but can't bring myself to install Flash just for one webapp)

Have you tried mtpaint?

http://mtpaint.sourceforge.net/

mtPaint has pretty poor usability compared to MS Paint.

ReactOS has its own Paint, I wonder... it may be simple to compile it through winelib, or just run it directly via Wine. That'd be a pretty quick and legal way to get a functionally-identical clone.

I think the non-web app that comes closest to MS Paint in functionality is GrafX2. Only other paint program I've seen that has selection-as-a-brush. http://pulkomandy.tk/projects/GrafX2

The interface is a bit different than MS Paint but it has these absolutely wild features, like colour cycling, where the colours can change while you're painting, which can be fairly psychedelic. GrafX2 is more of a clone of DeluxePaint for Amiga.

I'm no fan of mtPaint either.

I disagree about usability. Probably most people just used MS Paint first. MS Paint has different tools and different brush-tip (widths) for pencil/brush/spray-can/eraser that all do essentially the same thing (okay, the eraser's right click mode is different, but hardly anyone knows about it), and then the line/curve/box tools all have _their_ own width. This is all unified into one global brush/pattern option in mtPaint that everything uses. The zoom levels are better too. I think the only thing that's not obvious in mtPaint is the eyedropper.

The one thing I like in MS Paint is the controls to resize the canvas near its edges. Most other programs make you go through a dialog or select and then trim to selection.

Mmmm this works fine in MacOS (I did it years ago with the MS Paint binary).

Screenshot: https://rymc.io/mspaintosx.png

The MS version at least can be wined without issue.

However, there are tons of lightweight image editors that run as fast as MS paint and offer more features; have you tried Pinta ? or gnome-paint ?

I've been using an old version of Macromedia Fireworks for years now, and while maybe not totally 'lightweight' (you gotta wait for it to boot up), I've always found it intuitive to use for quick edits, while also having lots of other features if I feel like doing something more elabourate.

Yeah try Lazpaint: https://sourceforge.net/projects/lazpaint/

Can anyone suggest a small, OSX graphical editor? I really just need one specific thing: "making a negative image".

I have it on IrfanView, but I could not find a simple equivalent on MacOSX.

If all you need to do is create a negative version of pre-existing image, you can use ImageMagick on the command line:

$ converge in.png -negate out.png

I have IrfanView on Mac (via Wine project) and it works flawlessly. However, if you don't want to install Wine on your OSX, there are other alternatives, some mentioned here already. Personally, I like xnview - its free and probably includes everything you'd want (and supports making a negative image)

I solved my needs with https://www.xnview.com/en/xnviewmp/ and http://projects.apricus.be/en/xnconvert/ (looks like "negative" is not available in xnview, or I was unable to find it at least).

Thanks!

When you double click one of the images displayed in xnviewmp the image opens in a window and then under the 'Image' menu item, there is a submenu named 'Map'. Selecting the Map submenu opens a list of functions that can be performed on the image, and one of them is 'Negative'.

I only spent like five minutes with it and then I tried donwloading xconvert.

(I am part of the "read the docs only too late if ever" crew).

Thanks a lot!

Were you (or anyone) able to change the brush size? (I'm pretty sure it used to be + on Windows, but it's been a while)

It's Ctrl+NumpadPlus/Minus on mspaint, or just NumpadPlus/Minus on jspaint; no way to do it beyond the preset sizes without a numpad, so far, I'm afraid

shutter comes to my mind, I'm using it to annotate images and screenshots, it comes with a paint like edit modus (http://shutter-project.org/wp-content/uploads/key_feature_06...)

after years of searching for a low cost editor I can use on either mac or Linux I found these two. Pixelmator has tons of tutorials

pixelmator for OS X ($60)

pixeluvo for Linux ($35 only) but worth 10X that.

my first go to is pixeluvo since I use linux as my daily machine.

Pinta is a good alt for Linux.

Too bad it is built on mono. I'd have to install ~200MB of dependencies for a 2.5MB application.

I don't get this complaint. Do you have a 400MB HDD or something? 220MB of HDD or SSD probably cost less than a roll of toilet paper.

You're assuming that I have an infinite amount of disk space to dedicate to arbitrarily large frameworks that are 'required' by simple applications. If every app you used required 200MB of baggage to run, you'd quickly run out of disk space. I'd rather use my disks to store more valuable things, and, on another note, most definitely do not want to encourage the proliferation of .NET/mono.

Plenty of people have sub 200GB hard drives.

Visit your favourite website and have a look.

Here's a bunch of new products under 249 GB: https://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&I...

note that some of these only have 64 GB.

For these people every bit of storage is useful.

> (e.g. Preview

View > Show Markup Toolbar

Then it still is _very_ limited in what it can do, in my opinion. It's nice for very simple things, but it hasn't become a Paint replacement all of a sudden.

It doesn't take very long at all to get familiar with basic Gimp features. The investment in time is minimal and worth it. You could probably figure how to do everything you can do in MSPaint in Gimp in 20-30 minutes.

And then when you need it the next time 3 months later you need to invest the same 20-30 minutes to relearn how to use Gimp. It isn't only Gimp that have this problem, it is hard for power users to understand the problems casual users has with using software

Ya I agree I don't remember that YouTube tutorial I watched to figure out how to crop and paste

Yes, but it can take as much as a minute to open GIMP, which is a lot to ask when you can be working on the same task in MSPaint in a second or two.

Protip: get an SSD. It improves your life in many ways. Three examples I notice between my girlfriend's HDD-based laptop and my SSD-based one:

- A game, Factorio, takes literally 5 minutes for her to get to the main menu. For me it takes about 30 seconds.

- Using `time gimp` and hitting alt+F4 immediately, I get about 2.14 seconds. For my girlfriend this indeed takes a little bit, though not a minute.

- Booting up (from cold) is maybe 20 seconds for me. For her, this takes more than a minute on Ubuntu and more like 2-3 minutes on Windows (it boots in the same time as Ubuntu, but then programs need to load which make it slow for another 1-2 minutes).

Not everything benefits from it, like web browsing or email is not I/O-bound, but lots of things go a lot faster for the investment. Especially for laptops, it's also quieter, supposedly uses a little less power, and won't die as fast from dropping it. I'd highly recommend it.

I'm not putting off your computer as being the blame for GIMP being slow - indeed, it's kinda silly that it takes so long to start, especially the first time - but I just figured you had an HDD and think the vast majority of people will benefit from an SSD. Even my grandma got one a few weeks ago and is super happy with it.

I have SSDs, and GIMP for Windows starts up slower than Eclipse (!).

In my experience the Linux version starts up faster than the Windows one.

> the Linux version starts up faster than the Windows one.

Indeed. 4-5 secs to open GIMP on Linux here on HDD, and practically instant once cached. Maybe try and start with some command-line options. Useful ones in your case:

-d, —no-data

Do not load patterns, gradients, palettes, or brushes. Often useful in non-interactive situations where startup time is to be minimized.

-f, —no-fonts

Do not load any fonts. No text functionality will be available if this option is used.

-s, —no-splash

Do not show the splash screen.

https://www.gimp.org/man/gimp.html

Up to a minute with SSD? Okay that's odd. I totally see your point.

This is exactly 20-30 minute more than any sane person should waste on a image editor.

If you only use it once yeah. I'm super casual and just use it for cropping and resizing and whatnot, and have used it dozens of times. Worth 20-30 minutes.

I am a digital artist and I've been using Photoshop since 2000s. I still find it infinitely more comfortable to open mspaint and do quick resizing or image editing there.

When I forced to use gimp I simultaneously want to a) kill myself b) kill developers of gimp and their family members.

Well, it depends on what you're used to. Although I'm just a casual user, I've been using GIMP for years, and had similar feelings to yours when I had to use Photoshop once.

I can make my minor edits in MS Paint and be totally done then go get a coffee and when I get back to my desk Gimp may have finished loading.

Does paint dotnet work on Linux through Wine?

I'd be surprised. Very old versions did work on Mono, but by now it has accumulated quite a bit of code that uses not only Windows Forms, but also WPF, Direct2D and possibly a number of other newer Windows frameworks which I'm not sure Wine provides.