UKC

Evening chums.

I'm looking for some software like MS Paint, but just a bit less clunky and...pixely? If that makes sense. I don't need to draw 3D objects or textures or anything, I just want a similar functionality to Paint, but with a slightly more useable interface.

Needs to be free and for windows.

Any recommendations?

Thanks in advance.

In reply to Dave 88:

Gimp is free, may do what you want....

In reply to Dave 88:

Could try Inkscape that's free to download

In reply to Dave 88:

The daughter seems to achieve remarkable results with Firealpaca.

In reply to Dave 88:

SketchUp is free but might be overkill, depending on what you want to do and achieve. You don't need to use its 3D facility, you can stick to 2D

In reply to markAut:

Gimp will certainly do what you want and much more - might be a bit complicated if you just want a paint substitute.

In reply to Dave 88:

Paint.NET is a decent 'upgrade' from Paint and has plenty more features but keeps it simple - Gimp might be overkill.

http://www.getpaint.net/index.html

In reply to Dave 88:

On the subject of free drawing software, does anyone know of a decent, free, easy to use house/building floorplan design one?

In reply to Big Ger:

I've used myhome3d to plan rooms. It's a bit clunky and basic, but there's not much learning curve. Was great when planning a kitchen and the designer tried to catch me out asking for measurements.

The 3d render was surprisingly realistic.

Oh, and it's free!

If you're wanting proper plans, you may however want to look elsewhere, but for diy it may be good enough.

In reply to markAut:

Many thanks mate, I'll have a look at it when I get home.

It's just to get an idea of floorspace. Our house can be imagined as a very long rectangle, (single story,) we want to totally gut the interior and lay it out again. So a simple planning software would be ideal.

I have a mate who is an architect, he will do the plans in return for free holidays in in Cornwall. I just want to give him a basic Idea of the layout we'd like.

In reply to Big Ger:

SWEETHOME3D. Almost got the name right from memory.

I also used it to virtually put furniture in a room before we physically moved walls around to work out where sockets should go for different layouts.

Think it may work as a first approximation.

In reply to markAut:

Found that one now, thanks again.

In reply to Dave 88:

Ms PowerPoint is actually quite a powerful drawing programme. And you probably already have it.

It takes time to learn but I used to make geological maps and figures using it and was pretty impressed with the results. If you save as a pdf you get high resolution vector images.

It's a really dumbed down CorelDraw or illustrator. Both also excellent programmes but best if bought.

In reply to GarethSL:

Everyday's a school day! Are there any guides or tutorials you can point to?

I'm a paint.net fan, it gives a good level of ability out of the box and you can install additional tools/effects if you need them. For example i found an effect for curving text. All in all I think it's a great product

In reply to Dave 88:

paint.net +1 . Have used it for years. Imports and exports to just about any format via plugins and natively. Fast and easy to use. The only criticism is that plugins are not obvious to install - thats because its dead easy. Unzip the download files and copy the dll into the plugins directory in the program files/paint.net directory then restart.

Gimp is an "image manipulation package" (err Gnu.I.M.P) and not really a drawing package, although it can be used very successfully for this and it has many fans. I find it crashes loads on windows and excellent features get abandoned quickly. Gave up on it years ago, then tried again recently, and gave up again. The opaque menus and horrible dialogue boxes don't help.

If you use a pen and pad combi to draw then gimp does do pressure related brush widths/colour density which I did like, not sure about paint.net for this as never tried it.

In reply to Dave 88:

Thanks for all your replies. Gonna give Inkscape a try as the rest look a bit too advanced for what I'm after. Also really amazed with Powerpoint, so cheers for that tip. Blows my mind that MS never develops paint. If they merged the functionality of paint and the drawing parts of powerpoint that would make a really powerful program. Oh well.

Cheers everyone.