MS Paint - Tips & Tricks & Secrets

Learn how to use software like Photoshop and Gimp to create your own custom graphics.
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Usman55
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MS Paint - Tips & Tricks & Secrets
Usman55
Hello Everyone,

Today I decided to write a tutorial on all the secret stuff that I discovered while using MS Paint. Now I'm a pro at it and I want you to be one too. I am thinking on making a new forum in Hungry Hounds Kennel namely Pixel Artworks so I want some people to learn pixel stuff and MS Paint is the best pixel editor/creator.

MS Paint:
It is a basic yet very powerful image editor which Windows users often neglect and only use when they can't find another alternative. It is an editor + creator which can be used for editing images as well as doing some artwork. It supports a wide range of image formats. And the best of all, it is very user-friendly. All versions of Windows come along with this amazing little application.
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3D Drawing:
This is something which very less people know. And when they know this they often take it as a useless feature but it's not. When you are drawing using a Pencil or a Brush and your mouse's button is held down, scroll up or down the scroll-wheel. Lines will appear on each of the corner when you are moving the mouse. This feature isn't much useful all alone but you can draw 3D images with it which seems to be really cool.
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Brush Scaling:
This feature is popularly used nowadays. People thought that the brushes were limited and only came in 3 sizes, right? Wrong! You can increase a size to as much as you want and decrease it as less as a pixel. You can change the size by using the Ctrl button along with the + or - buttons i.e. Ctrl (+) will increase the size while Ctrl (-) will decrease the size. This feature can also be used with the Line (It will increase the wifth of the line being drawn), Airbrush, Pencil and Eraser tool.
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Zooming By 10:
That's right! This is the most rare one. You thought that the maximum factor was 8 for zooming but you can zoom into your image by 10. To do this trick, choose the Magnifier tool and under the toolbox press at the very top of the smaller box's end which is used to choose the zoom factor. The part where you have to press is coloured in red in the picture. After you have pressed there, the image will be zoomed by 10 and there will be obviously no item chosen in the smaller box.
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Custom Brushes:
Using MS Paint, you can make your own custom brushes, that's right! Just draw a small brush image using any provided tool. Then select it using the Select tool, set the transparency option to true. This can be done by choosing the lower option below the toolbox. Then drag the selected region (brush image) while pressing the Shift button. It works exactly like an original brush but it needs slow speed to make a continuous path.
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Quickly Undoing:
As the title says, by using this trick you can undo your task which you are doing currently. For example, if you are drawing an image and something goes wrong but you still have your mouse button held down, press the opposite button and it will undo the drawing to the part where you didn't started your last task. If you are drawing with left mouse button then press the right one and if you are drawing with the right mouse button then press the left one.
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Grid Your Image:
MS Paint has another cool feature for pixel artists. If you are having trouble with pixels and want to draw something in the same row or column, you can use the Grid feature. It is pretty common but I'm telling those who don't know about it. The grid can be accessed by using the hotkey Ctrl (H) or using the menubar. However, you can only enable it in the zoom factor 6 or above.
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Fixed Ratio Stuff:
If you want to draw straight lines or perfect circles/squares, press the Shift button while using the Ellipse, Rectangle, Rounded Rectangle and Line tool. The line can be drawn in about 4 directions when the Shift button is pressed i.e. Vertical, Horizontal, and like like a cross. And the Rectangle and Rounded Rectangle tools will draw the shape with the same width and height. The same case is with the Ellipse tool.
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Triple Colour Select:
We can select 3 colours at a time. Yes! besides the two colours (primary and secondary), you can select a third one by one technique. Press the Ctrl button along with the left or right mouse button, both will work. This features helps a person when he is in a zoom mode and fast drawing. When you have added this third colour to the palette, you can access it later while drawing/colouring by holding the Ctrl key.


Colour Replacement:
If you have drawn and image with for example black colour and after colouring it you remember that the outline should be coloured for example yellow colour and you think that you have to draw it again, then you're wrong. You can do it using the Eraser tool. The Eraser tool is an eraser but it can also be used as a colour replacer. You can do it by selecting the Eraser tool ofcourse. Now set the primary color to the colour you want to replace and set the secondary colour to the colour you want to replace with. Then press the right mouse button and drag to the place you want the colour replacement to take place. If the image area is big, you can increase the size of the eraser.
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Stamping/Duplicating:
Another thing that I found during my experience with MS Paint is that we can duplicate stuff very easily. We can do it using the Select tool too by copying/pasting but my way works better if you want to make many duplicates or as I call it "Stamping". So what you have to do is instead of copying and then pasting it, just select the part of your image or if you are stamping select the stamp image and turn transparency on and then press the Ctrl button and click on the image. This will make a duplicate of the selected image and then you can drag it to where you want. East as it is!
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Fixed Ratio Image Scaling:
This feature comes when you have an image which needs resizing and when you manually do it, your image's co-ordinates and graphics are disturbed. You can resize your selected image in a fixed ratio (or proportion) by using this method. First of all select your image. Then hold down the Ctrl button and then the (+) or (-) buttons to increase or decrease the size respectively.
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After you have read this topic, please help me by donating, by simply viewing this link: http://computersight.com/software/ms-pa ... s-secrets/ And also please give me a +rep if you liked this post.

Thank you.
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Agust1337
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Hell Usman55,
Really nice, but what is that Quickly Undoing image :lol:
You're crazy!
I'm not crazy, my mother had me tested. ~Sheldon Cooper
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Codex
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Nice tips & trick i liked the 3d the most :D
We shall let the revolution begin.. the revolution for freedom, freedom against censorship. We shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender
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Usman55
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Yeah, third one is very rare and almost no one knows it. Please +rep me if you liked this topic cuz I'm running really low on reputation points.
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mikethedj4
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I have a playlist of video tutorials I did back in 09 (I redid the ones back in 07) and I go over a bunch of tricks, and tips, in these tutorials on how to create certain effects.

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p ... C66AAAAC38
GoodGuy17
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I use Paint.NET for my digital artwork, so I have never really gotten into MSPaint. This seems helpful, so +rep to you!
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Skillful
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Very nice collection of tips Usman55!!This will surely help me!
You deserve +rep for this!
Instead of LOL use this -
LSIBMHBIWFETALOL

Which means -
Laughing silently in between my head because it wasn't funny enough to actually laugh out loud!
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Usman55
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Thank you all for your repsand all and mike, I'll check your video, haven't tried it yett!
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Lewis
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Re: MS Paint - Tips & Tricks & Secrets
Lewis
know them all, good tut though
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code it
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-A little bump-

I never knew you can do these things!
Thanks a lot! ;D
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