Long-time Windows users, especially those in the creative field, are well aware that Microsoft’s proprietary image editing software, Paint (or better known as MS Paint), has been the butt of various jokes . For context, the 38-year-old app only offers basic drawing and editing tools, all of which fall far short of those offered by most free third-party software downloads from the Internet. But now it looks like the company is going to change that once and for all thanks to an upcoming update.
In a recent blog post, Dave Grochocki, Senior Product Manager for Windows Inbox Apps, revealed that MS Paint has received two new features that are now available to Windows Insider testers in the Canary and Dev channels (build 11.2308.18.0 ). The first is the Photoshop-like Layers tool which allows you to add multiple layers to a canvas so you can add graphics or text over and/or below your artwork.
“You can now add, remove, and manage layers on the canvas to create richer, more complex digital art,” Grochocki wrote. “With layers, you can stack shapes, text, and other image elements on top of each other.”
The second addition is something that most users would agree is a long time coming for MS Paint, and that is the ability to finally support image file formats with transparent elements such as PNGs and GIFs. Additionally, erasing the content of an artwork will now leave that portion of the canvas transparent, greatly complementing the new Layer feature as well as the upcoming feature. Background Remover Tool. For those who missed it, the latter was introduced to the app in the previous beta version, which allows users to automatically remove the background from any image with just one click.
For Windows Insider testers, you can find the new Layers button in the MS Paint toolbar. Clicking on it will open a panel on the side of the canvas where you can add new layers and rearrange them. Just like its counterpart in Photoshop, you can also choose to show, hide, duplicate and merge added layers.
As mentioned earlier, the updated MS Paint app is currently only available in Windows Beta. But as with most features introduced during testing, a public rollout will likely occur in the coming weeks or months. With this, we hope that these new additions will finally make Microsoft’s proprietary image editing software relevant, unlike its Wordpad app which is going to be permanently deleted from future versions of Windows.
(Source: Microsoft [official blog])
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