New image editing program
Printed From: Pixel Joint
Category: The Lounge
Forum Name: Resources and Support
Forum Discription: Help your fellow pixel artists out with links to good tutorials, other forums, software, fonts, etc. Bugs and support issues should go here as well.
URL: https://pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=6325
Printed Date: 18 March 2026 at 7:42pm
Topic: New image editing program
Posted By: Heptagonal
Subject: New image editing program
Date Posted: 07 April 2008 at 12:40pm
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Good evening, everyone. I like making tiny art, sometimes pixel art, sometimes not. However, I've yet to find a program that makes me completely happy. MS Paint comes close, but it has its flaws. Therefore, I've decided to have a go at making my own program. I have been a programmer for quite some time, and my hands are empty so I don't see why not. I don't want to make the next Photoshop. It takes a lot of time (even with unlimited time my skills wouldn't be sufficient anyways), and there are already several programs attempting to do that. This brings me to my question: what new features would you want added to "a new MS Paint"? Layers, better palette and color management in general? Multiple documents? Post away! Cheers, Martin |
Replies:
Posted By: BlackDragon
Date Posted: 07 April 2008 at 2:40pm
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Layers would be really nice.
One thing I've always wanted in MsPaint is a customizable palette. One that you can save and open when you are working on your project.
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Posted By: Metaru
Date Posted: 07 April 2008 at 8:12pm
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Keyboard Shortcuts for the tools and an improved Undo Feature. that's all it needs/lacks. seriusly. and to be able to properly save as GIF. do that and become our new jesus. ------------- I ate leel's babies |
Posted By: Hatch
Date Posted: 07 April 2008 at 9:59pm
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Features I would like to see in a pixel art program:
• A STANDARD code base that can be easily ported, or in many cases simply recompiled without changes (assuming it's open source) • Active palette editing (seeing changes to your piece actively as you move sliders around) • Palette sorting options, by hue, value, etc. • A Photoshop-esque history palette with history snapshots • Restriction check or restriction modes, that is, being able to use, say, C64 restrictions and make sure the image conforms. Somewhat related... • Pixel aspect ratios other than square, mainly doublewide and doubleheight. That's all I can think of at the moment :D ------------- |
Posted By: surt
Date Posted: 08 April 2008 at 2:34am
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If you are feeling brave you could try digging through my very crude list of ideas/plans for a pixel oriented raster editor, though almost all are very sketchy and many probably indecipherable: http://surtspixels.googlepages.com/painter_ideas.txt - painter_ideas.txt If you want anything specific elaborated on I'll give it a stab. ------------- 
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Posted By: Heptagonal
Date Posted: 08 April 2008 at 8:47am
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Thanks for the suggestions, everyone. Layers would be really nice.
One thing I've always wanted in MsPaint is a customizable palette.
One that you can save and open when you are working on your project. --- Keyboard Shortcuts for the tools and an improved Undo Feature. --- Active palette editing (seeing changes to your piece actively as you move sliders around) Palette sorting options, by hue, value, etc. A Photoshop-esque history palette with history snapshots Those are all interesting features I want to add. and to be able to properly save as GIF. I assume you mean animated GIFs? Animation would be a pretty low priority, but might be interesting to add later on. MS Paint's image quality is generally awful, and I'd like to solve that problem as well, if that's what you meant. A STANDARD code base that can be easily ported, or in many cases simply recompiled without changes (assuming it's open source) Open source? I wasn't planning that, but it's an interesting idea though. I've not yet decided what language to use yet -- I'm weighing between C# (managed) and C++ (unmanaged) at the moment. Using .NET would probably not work too well with your wish to make it portable, however it would take less time to see progress using it. I'm open to arguments. Restriction check or restriction modes, that is, being able to use,
say, C64 restrictions and make sure the image conforms. Somewhat
related... Might be added further on, however, it is not at the top of my to do list.
If you are feeling brave you could try digging through my very crude
list of ideas/plans for a pixel oriented raster editor, though almost
all are very sketchy and many probably indecipherable: http://surtspixels.googlepages.com/painter_ideas.txt - painter_ideas.txt Wow, that's a lot. I'll have a look at it later. If you want to be nice, you could summarize some of the important features here. I'm also considering scripting. Would this be over-kill for a simple pixel editor, or is it worth adding? |
Posted By: M.E.
Date Posted: 08 April 2008 at 12:29pm
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Hi Heptagonal, Hopefully you will actually finish this :) If you are interested in some Java + PHP + MySQL stuff that I made, but have put in the freezer since it involved too much work, I'll be happy to share it with you. Just PM me in case you want to take a look at it or want to use the code..... (badly formatted code!) In case you are only interested in what I want : - Keyboard control ( = cursor but also for color choice ) Would be really cool to not have to use a mouse or pen/tablet! - Animation with onion skins - Palette control like mentioned before. Changing all the occurances of a color in all layers / frames. Good luck to you! Best regards from M.E. ------------- http://www.kunststukken.nl - KunstStukken.nl M.E. Art |
Posted By: BlackDragon
Date Posted: 08 April 2008 at 1:15pm
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ONLINE CAPABILITIES :D
Like draw and edit with freinds.
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Posted By: Heptagonal
Date Posted: 08 April 2008 at 2:38pm
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Thanks for the offer M.E., however I won't be using any web technologies for this project. Animation with onion skins Onion skins? What's that?
ONLINE CAPABILITIES :D
Like draw and edit with freinds. Haha, not going to happen. |
Posted By: Larwick
Date Posted: 08 April 2008 at 2:52pm
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Onion skin is a feature in some animation programs that allows you to see the previous frame in low opacity in the frame you're working on, helping you to gauge how much you are changing between frames etc. :) Sometimes it'll make you cry. -------------  http://larw-ck.deviantart.com">
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Posted By: Heptagonal
Date Posted: 08 April 2008 at 2:58pm
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Ah, I see :) What are your preferences document layout; multiple windows as in Photoshop, a single picture at a time like MS Paint does it, or perhaps another model (tabs, for example)? Edit: I am leaning towards the MS Paint style. It's simple, it works. Any objections? |
Posted By: Monkey 'o Doom
Date Posted: 08 April 2008 at 3:24pm
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The MS paint model seems ideal to me. Most of the time I wouldn't think one would be drawing many things at once, and if you need to, I would hope the app would be lightweight enough to make opening a new window a good idea. Scripting sounds like overkill but fully customizable hotkeys (and mouse buttons, mayhaps?) are a must. By "proper GIF saving," what was meant was the ability to save to (static) GIF format without palette mangling. MS paint changes palletes without warning when you save as a GIF, and I don't think you can undo it if you hadn't saved previously.
If the language is still up for discussion, I would advise avoiding .NET if you can. There are a good number of Mac users about who also need a program like this, and the .NET framework has always struck me as annoying. I want to download an application, not a framework, and a lot of computers don't have the .NET framework. ------------- http://pixelmonkey.ensellitis.com"> 
RPG is numberwang. |
Posted By: Hatch
Date Posted: 08 April 2008 at 3:32pm
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Originally posted by Monkey 'o Doom
The MS paint model seems ideal to me. Most of the time I wouldn't think one would be drawing many things at once Speak for yourself :( EDIT: Clarification for this useless comment: I strongly prefer a Photoshop-style multiple-window paradigm (lol i'm smart) Originally posted by Monkey 'o Doom
There are a good number of Mac users about who also need a program like this, and the .NET framework has always struck me as annoying. I want to download an application, not a framework, and a lot of computers don't have the .NET framework. Holy cow, the Mac community thanks you, MoD. I'm not crazy about the .NET framework either, but I feel I should point out that any OS that is (mostly) POSIX compliant (*nix, Mac OS X, etc.) should be able to run any .NET program using http://www.mono-project.com/Main_Page - Mono . Do what you will with that information. ------------- |
Posted By: Heptagonal
Date Posted: 08 April 2008 at 3:45pm
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Mono is far from perfect though. I think I'll be staying away from .NET, however, I don't own a Mac nor a Linux box, so making it work on those platforms would be up to someone else. I'm still undecided about the document model though. |
Posted By: Monkey 'o Doom
Date Posted: 08 April 2008 at 3:47pm
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You do have a point, but I still think it would be optimal for the app to be standalone and not dependent on a framework, ported or no. Just my couple pennies, is all. ------------- http://pixelmonkey.ensellitis.com">
RPG is numberwang. |
Posted By: Hatch
Date Posted: 08 April 2008 at 3:51pm
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Oh, I agree 100%. I was just pointing it out for anyone who might not know about it. ------------- |
Posted By: Metaru
Date Posted: 08 April 2008 at 7:36pm
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The MS Paint style. i would focus the softeare to keep it as simple as posible. all we need is a software that could be used for the early steps of creation and desing(wich is for what MSpaint is most used because its simplicity), and then move to the more advanced steps without loosing the simpicity. Its all about being simple and useful. yet limited. ------------- I ate leel's babies |
Posted By: Heptagonal
Date Posted: 09 April 2008 at 4:26am
| MS Paint style it is, then. I've started coding now, using unmanaged C++. It's still very early in development, so if anyone has any feature suggestions, post now. |
Posted By: Aleiav
Date Posted: 09 April 2008 at 9:00am
| Make it available on Mac. Pixen is a kickass program but it quits for no reason sometimes. |
Posted By: Heptagonal
Date Posted: 09 April 2008 at 9:48am
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To quote myself: I think I'll be staying away from .NET, however, I don't own a Mac nor
a Linux box, so making it work on those platforms would be up to
someone else. It's not just a matter of clicking a button to make it cross platform, but I'm trying to keep the platform specific parts as separated as possible. |
Posted By: M.E.
Date Posted: 09 April 2008 at 12:28pm
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Hi Heptagonal, If you would code it in Java, I will test on both Linux and MAC. And I would be able to help you code it or change the code to at least make it run on those platforms. Best regards from M.E. ------------- http://www.kunststukken.nl - KunstStukken.nl M.E. Art |
Posted By: Heptagonal
Date Posted: 09 April 2008 at 1:29pm
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M.E., It is tempting, but I have never coded in Java, and I'd rather not learn another language with its own set of quirks. And I've never really liked that the UI isn't OS native. I will abstract the Windows code though, and use OpenGL for rendering. I'm sure that when the project is running, making everything work on Mac won't require too much work. There are lots of talented programmers out there. |
Posted By: Metaru
Date Posted: 09 April 2008 at 8:16pm
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please, do not forget to send us some Betas. remember that we are the best testers you could ever find. ------------- I ate leel's babies |
Posted By: purpletree
Date Posted: 10 April 2008 at 3:13am
| hmmm interesting, i would like to see like a preview of what we're doing when we're zoomed in like graphics gale!~ |
Posted By: BlackDragon
Date Posted: 10 April 2008 at 9:27am
| Like a thumbnail, Tree? |
Posted By: Heptagonal
Date Posted: 10 April 2008 at 11:58am
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Things are progressing, albeit slow -- I'm not a full time programmer. I should probably post some info when there's something interesting to show. Right now, I'm trying to get the architecture right. |
Posted By: Aleiav
Date Posted: 10 April 2008 at 12:45pm
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Originally posted by Heptagonal To quote myself: I think I'll be staying away from .NET, however, I don't own a Mac nor
a Linux box, so making it work on those platforms would be up to
someone else. It's not just a matter of clicking a button to make it cross platform, but I'm trying to keep the platform specific parts as separated as possible. Whoops. >.< |
Posted By: Heptagonal
Date Posted: 10 April 2008 at 1:14pm
| Don't let that disappoint you though, I am planning to make it available on Mac as well once ready. |