Paint turns into Photoshop - Microsoft has significantly improved the program and added support for layers, transparency and its own file format
Paint is returning to its roots and is set to become the most powerful graphics editor ever. Microsoft has updated Paint for Windows 11, and the app now has new features like layers, transparency, and AI functionality. Paint can now create complex projects and save them in its own .paint format, similar to the .psd format in Adobe Photoshop.
The proprietary format is needed to save complex projects for further editing. Once the editing is complete, the image can be converted to a regular "single-layer" image suitable for viewing on PCs and phones. In addition to the usual formats, Paint has learnt to use the modern AVIF and HEVC formats for this purpose.
Tools, such as brushes, now have transparency settings - you can set the slider to any value from 0% (completely transparent) to 100% (opaque).
Accessibility.
Windows Insider programme members (Paint version v11.2508.361.0 and higher) can already try the new feature. Ordinary users can try to get the new Paint through installation packages from the Dev channel. Since the programme is still under development, its operation may be unstable and features may be added. But it is noticeable that after 30 years, Microsoft has decided to take the graphics editor seriously.
Context.
In 1983, Apple released the Lisa computer, which for the first time had a full-fledged graphical interface and an innovative mouse manipulator. To demonstrate its superiority over its competitors, Apple released MacPaint in 1984, a raster graphics application that allowed it to create raster graphics.
Microsoft tried to catch up and began to actively develop its own operating system with a graphical shell, as well as a mouse. In 1983, Microsoft released the first mouse drivers for MS DOS. The problem was that MS DOS did not have a graphical interface and no one needed a mouse. So Redmond decided to include a demo application for drawing in the driver package. And the company wrote a simple raster image editor called Doodle, which was included with the mouse drivers for MS DOS.
Later, Microsoft found ZSoft, which in 1984 developed a full-fledged PC Paintbrush graphics editor that could work with 16 colours. Microsoft licensed the editor and the same year included it in the fourth version of the mouse drivers for MS DOS. In 1985, Microsoft licensed PC Paintbrush and included it with its first OS with a graphical user interface, Windows 1. In 1990, Windows 3 was released, which included the latest version of PC Paintbrush. By this time, Paint (the name under which the programme was introduced in Windows) had overtaken the original PC Paintbrush in popularity. ZSoft started having problems, was sold, and in 1994 the latest version of PC Paintbrush Designer was released.
When Microsoft released Windows 95 in 1995, it decided not to pay the new owners for a licence and not to look for new developers, but to rewrite the main functions of the programme on its own and, after minor additions in 1998, froze the project. The most advanced graphic editor of 1994 was frozen in development for a decade. Microsoft only occasionally made minor changes related to new system functions. During this time, many new graphic editors appeared, which developed more dynamically and brought image editing to a qualitatively new level.
Source: blogs.windows.com
