Five Best Microsoft Paint Alternatives for Windows 10

Microsoft has removed the well known Microsoft Paint (also called MS Paint) from Windows 10 in the Fall Creators Update. In fact, they have made Paint available from the Microsoft Windows Store. While this makes no sense to many people, some are speculating this is another move to force users into using Windows Store more and more. If you do not want to get Microsoft Paint from the Windows Store, then you can download one of the third party alternatives for MS Paint and forget about the 32 year old program that many of us grew up using.

Here is a list of five best MS Paint alternatives that can be used in Windows 10 and are totally free:

  1. Pinta – Pinta is a cross-platform for drawing and image editing. It supports many popular image formats. You will find the interface to be very similar to that of MS Paint. All the familiar tools are laid down on the left side along with the color palette. You can download Pinta from https://pinta-project.com/.
  2. Paint.NET – This image editor can compete easily with the giants like GIMP and Adobe Photoshop. it supports layers just like GIMP and can work with a large number of file formats. You can download Paint.NET from https://www.getpaint.net/.Paint.NET
  3. PhotoDemon – PhotoDemon is an image editor only, it cannot be used to draw anything. But it can be used to manipulate images and make them look prettier. The program is available in the portable version and does not consume much of system resources. You can download PhotoDemon from http://photodemon.org/.PhotoDemon
  4. Krita – Krita is a not an ordinary drawing tool. It is designed for professionals, artists and illustrators who work with with VFX industry. The interface may look intimidating at first, but once you start using it, you will forget about all the other programs. You can get Krita from https://krita.org/.
  5. iPhotoDraw – This is a small but feature packed drawing and annotation tool for Windows. The program is ideal for people who upload annotated pictures to social media or blogs. You can download iPhotoDraw from http://www.iphotodraw.com/.iPhotoDraw

In picking the programs for this list, we have considered how many resources the programs use. There are very good programs like GIMP and Inkspace but they are for heavy image manipulation and cannot be used for light image editing features similar to the ones offered by MS Paint.

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