For anyone curious about exactly why the brush tool comes up short:

http://i.imgur.com/E0LdU.png

It relies on a stamp-like drawing method of copying the brush at time intervals, and simply can't do it fast enough for even moderately quick drawing.

Odd. I thought the general algorithm was to record a number points where the user traced, interpolate between them (so you don't end up with giant discontinuities), and THEN rubber stamp on the full list. That drawing looks like my attempt a pencil tool when I was using BASIC back in the day.

Of course, if the program can't keep up with that, then the drawing would appear to lag behind the pen.

If I had to guess, I'd say that the pencil uses solid brushes and the "right" algorithm because it performs acceptably in that case, while the brush tool stamps instead because it can't keep up using that algorithm with an antialiased brush.

Interestingly, the pencil tool doesn't have this limitation. Even when turning the size up.

I can see what they're trying to do, but they're both unusably horrible on this machine (dual quad Xeon Dell T5500 running Fedora, Chrome 17). The pen / path tool just didn't work for me in Picozu, and the smudge tool in pixlr stutters and locks up the whole interface (presumably while it pushes pixels around).

I can't say I'm convinced by web paint programs. Maybe OK for a trivial "fix-my-redeye" case on something you've already uploaded. I also wish these things would stop claiming to be Photoshop clones, when they're really just MS Paint++. I used to use PS professionally (ie. I've earned money with it to easily justify the initial outlay and upgrades from 6 thru CS5) and there really is nothing to compare it with.

Pixlr is Flash, though, not HTML.

I love pixlr, it works wonderfully. I used to run contests for a team at work and I would make odd and funny custom wallpapers for the winner. My department doesn't have access to any fancy image editing software, so I would use pixlr.

That said, this is impressive, and different given it uses HTML5

You can use this : http://pinta-project.com/ on Windows/Linux/OSX (if you don't like GIMP) and there's also Paint.NET for Windows.

I'm sure your department can use Gimp ;-)

nobody can use gimp

what are you even saying