Paint Tutorial (MSP) [*]

[Λύσις]

If you have Windows, you have Paint. It's simple, it's easy, and it's free. However, quite a few people don't like to use Paint. They think you can't do anything real good with Paint. Now, what I say is, if you have a better program...go for it! However, if you're like most of us...or at least like me...you don't have Photoshop and don't want to buy it. Now, this tutorial is for people who just don't know how to use Paint, and for those who only moderately know how to use Paint. Or for anyone who might want to learn a little more about it.

To begin, open Paint. This is the easiest part, you should be able to do this, but in case you don't know, click on Start, hover over All Programs, find your way to Accessories, and look! There it is. Paint. (Now click on it! There you go...)



Alright, first I'll walk you through all the things you can do with Paint. First, get to know the Tool Bar. It's the most important thing in Paint. Without it, you can do NOTHING!



You'll notice that at the moment you have the Pencil tool selected. The Pencil is only good for free drawing (don't ever do this for something professional. No matter how good you think you can free draw, you really can't!) and for laying single pixels. I hardly ever use it. If you've never done it before, just draw a few lines and stuff with it. Okay, moving on.

Next to the Pencil is the Paintbrush. I also don't use this often, but it can be pretty useful. First of all, notice that the once empty box now has something in it. This determines what exactly the brush will lay down when you click. Test it out for a while.

Under the Pencil is the Spraypaint tool. The box determines the size of the spray. Use it, and you'll see what it does. This is good for clouds, smoke, and spray such as water or blood. However, it may look...not done well.

Next is the Line tool. I use this a lot. Here you can select a varying line thickness. Note that any changes to the line thickness you make here effects the thickness of the line on any of the shape tools, such as the rectangle and the oval. The Line tool draws a single straight line of any length you drag it out to.

Next, the Curve tool. With this you make a straight line, and then click anywhere to make it curve towards the click. Then click once more, and it's set in stone! This isn't very useful, but it works when needed.

Now the Zoom tool. With this you can zoom to 200%, 600%, and 800%. Notice that if you are zoomed, then the default click will bring you back to 100% zoom. This is good for getting up close and personal.

Now the Fill tool. Here we should probably tell you about Primary Colors, and Secondary Colors. (No, I'm not talking color wheel or anything...I'm talking Color Box.) If you left click when using a tool, it will lay down the Primary selected color. If you right click, however, it will lay down the Secondary selected color. With the Fill tool you can change one color into another. You simply click on the color you want to change, and every single pixel of the same color, as long as they touch (besides diagonally) change to the specified color. (Primary if you left click, Secondary if you right click...unless you changed your mouse setting, but whatever.)
Basically, it fills the area with the color you choose.

Now for the Rectangle. With this you always draw a perfect rectangle. You'll notice the three settings in the box. The top one lays down just an outline. The second one lays down an outline with the primary (unless you right click, then it's the secondary) color, filled with the secondary (unless you right click, then it's the primary) color. The last one lays down just the pie filling, without the crust. The same is true with all the other shapes (oval, polygon, round rectangle)



The oval and round rectangle tools are self-explanatory, but the Polygon is just odd. Basically, say you want to make a shape that isn't one of the other tools. This makes any polygon. Polygon means it has at least three sides, is always closed (it will close itself, every time) and has no curves. Basically you drag out the first side, and then click at every point (vertex) of the shape you're making.
If you have fill selected, it will fill it automatically.



So what now...how about the Color selector? Also known as the eyedropper. Why? Who cares? This is for selecting colors that are not in your Color Box. (Well, okay, you can select colors that are in the box, but why?) Click on any color in the picture. Left click to make it primary, right click to make it secondary. This is how I found just the right pink in my signature. It wasn't in my color box, but it was in the picture I used. The color selector is great when you want matching colors.

Next, the most important tool of all (well...maybe not...) the Square Selection tool. All it does is select a square portion of the picture. Try it.



Now move it. Go on, move it! Yes, you see that annoying square? And the overlapping?



No matter what, when you select something and move it, it will always leave behind the secondary color underneath it. Also, everything you move, even the background color, will overlap everything else...on opaque mode. So, if you don't want that annoying secondary-color-square (in my example the white square) then change the secondary color to black (right click on black in the color box. Or whatever color you want "left behind."
Now look, you can also switch between "opaque" mode and "transparent" mode.



I almost always use the not opaque mode. In transparent mode (not opaque) your secondary color becomes transparent, in whatever you have selected. You can then move an object over something else, and the color of the something else will show through the secondary color areas in the selected object.




The Free Select tool does the same thing, only without the square. Look at the reasons for using this below.



The problem with free select is that the select line is so...thick. Anyway...now onto the eraser.

It's really quite simple. Pick a size, then drag it along. It will lay down whatever you have selected as your secondary color.

CONTINUED BELOW!

[Λύσις]

CONTINUED FROM ABOVE!



But wait! I only want to erase red, I don't want to erase green! Never fear! Pick the color you want to erase, and put it on Primary. Now, pick the color you want it to erase too, and put it on Secondary. Right click...and drag along.



Now on to...text! Yay! One problem with the text tool is you can only use it when you aren't zoomed. Darn. Oh well. Use the tool to draw a text box. The font format box should pop up now. Pick a font, a size, and bold/italic/underline. This is the format for the entire text box--you can't change the format midway without effecting all the text. The color of the text is your Primary color, and the background is the secondary color. Don't want a background? Want to see what it is your typing on? Switch to not-opaque mode. Careful with text-it is formatted to fit only on top of the color you type it on. Look what happens when you type white on black, and then decide to move the text to a green square.



Not what you were looking for? Either write the text on the color you want it to stay on, or move it before you close the text box. Just drag the edge of the box. You can also resize by pulling the squares. There are some limits to resizing the text box though.

Now for a look at some other things. First off, the color box.



Feel...limited? There are no limits to colors! Pick a color you likely won't need, or would like to change. (Don't change black or white, you need those). Just click it. Then click "Colors" and "Edit Colors." Now use the pop up to form any color of the rainbow.



Now, to see what else you can do, with the selection tool on, right click anywhere. Not many options you can use...some are unselectable. For now, click "select all" or make a selection first. Now all the options are usable.



Just for fun, click invert colors.



Even cooler on photos or images with lots of colors.
You've probably seen this image before. It's a standard sample picture on Windows XP. Here it is...inverted.



Now use the Flip/Rotate option. It's pretty self explanatory.



Ah, now Stretch/Skew. With this you can resize something. It's best if you use full 100s, rather then doing a 150% resize or a 341% resize. It ends up a lot less choppy that way. As for skew...I don't know what the point is. Figure it out yourself.



Other simple things include resizing the window, which you do by dragging the squares at the edges. You can turn on a pixel by pixel grid under View > Zoom (must be zoomed to work). From View you can toggle the color box and tool box and text format box.

Well, that's all for now. As a closing statement, take any old image, or even a solid color, right click a cool color, use the free form select tool, and drag it all over the place. Then move the image slightly.

Tomorrow...or...whenever...we work on making simple Paint signatures. (It's not hard, trust me.)

[Twilight__]

wow awsome guide man ur really good on paint 10/10!

[Λύσις]

Now for Paint Signatures. It's pretty easy, my sig was made in Paint and was done in around ten minutes.

First off, you need some kind of image. For the best results, the image's background should be either a color that matches what you want as your sig's background, or it should be an entirely solid color that you can fill in to any other color (in other words, it can't be jpeg'd!). Or it could be a rectangular image with no background anyway.

This image is jpeg'd! Unless you want your sig to have a white background, don't use it!



Watch what happens when you try to change the background color.



Well what in the world is with that? Unless you think you can remove all of that white using the eraser or paintbrush (good luck my friend) you might just not want to use that image.

Instead, search around some more, until you find one that works. Like this one. It matches the color that I would have my sig's background be anyway (I almost exclusively have black sig's)



Although it's probably just as badly jpeg'd as the other one, it doesn't matter because I'm not going to change the background color.

Now clearly this image is waaay to big for a signature. Select the part of the image your going to use, and resize it so that it fits the sig limit. (Which is like 400 by 150 or something. Ask the rules, not me.)



Hey, look at that, we're halfway there already. Now we need text of some sort. Remember, use the text tool, then draw a box where you want the text to be. Pick a cool font, and a color that matches the image. (It doesn't necessarily have to match, but make sure it doesn't clash. For instance, in my example, lime green would be a bad idea.)

Using the eyedropper tool I was able to select a color that was in the image already. Now, this just has the main text on it. You might want to add subtext.



To add subtext do the obvious. Pick another color, a smaller size, and type it on. It can be the same font or a different font. It also doesn't necessarily need to be smaller. It can also be the same color. As you can see, I picked a really dark color (that I eyedropped from the image) and a really small size font.



Well, would you look at that? As far as I'm concerned, that's a completed signature! But what if you want more effects to it? Maybe a border?

There's a simple one pixel gray line, one pixel away from the edge. I also added four small squares one pixel apart up in the corner, as I've seen to be popular in signatures.



But wait! I forgot something!

Forgot something? Meant to add another image? Well, in most cases...your screwed. Paint can only undo to the last three moves. You could start over...or you could get into serious editing mode. In this one all I did was find another image, and added it underneath the existing text. How? First, I cut out part of the text, the part that I put the new image in. Then I put the image in, filled in the white areas left over with black, and then I put the text back on (in not-opaque mode)



Hey, it's a bit choppy, but that's what happens when you make a last-minute edit.

Like anyone else I'm sure, I like special effects!



Wow! How did you do that with Paint, ShadowVaati? I got that last technique from Dog Dog 123. Overlaying Images/Changing backgrounds with Solid Images (MSP + Word)

That's all for now! Next time I will explain how to do Sprite Comics! (Super easy, trust me!)

AH! Post-Script!:
(P.S.)
Remember when I said that a jpeg'd image was a lost cause? Well, they're not entirely impossible to fix. After an irritating thirty minutes, I was able to change this-



Into this-
http://img244.imageshack.us/img244/6605/tuttwoqc4.jpg (click to view, stupid image limit!)

Yes, it's really choppy (especially the sword), which is why it's best to find an image that already works for you, instead of trying to recolor an image like that.

[Carge]

i've been waiting for the sprite comic one, but suddenly i knew how to mak it...

[Λύσις]

Sorry, I haven't had time to make it yet...

[Carge]

anyways, my comic is good for now...

[Darmani`s Ghost]

I love to work with paint it's easy and really fun. and If you practice alot in it, you'll become pro in it. here are a few things I've made with paint:

hylian shield:

I first started with this and finally after many many hours spending on the coloring I've became this:


and this is what I've made a month ago:

[Rantick]

You forgot about holding Ctrl with the pencil tool or shapes or stuff. It makes a perfect circle an' stuff