i need a free art program...any ideas?

[cleofus1]

i'm using msn paint right now...but are there any others that i could use too?

this is my latest...enhancing a phot and inserting stuff...using the airbrush and paintbrush,,,

[charlie]

1. Yep

There are plenty.

These first two are "painterly" programs, geared toward creating paint-on-canvas, pencil-on-paper images. All of them share similar capabilities and can be substituted for one another, but it's easier to use one tooled for the style you're going for -- like a steak knife can spread jam and a butter knife can cut, it's better to use the other for the job.

Project Dogwaffle, free version:
http://www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/free

It's a feature-limited edition of Dogwaffle Pro. Biggest drawback -- can only save in BMP and TARGA formats. You'll need to import the final image into something like IrfanView (or a recent edition of MSPaint) to convert to GIF, PNG, or JPG.

ArtRage:
http://www.ambientdesign.com/artrage.html

Works best with a graphics tablet. Biggest drawback -- weird interface.

The other, more Photoshop-styled programs --

Pixia:
http://park18.wakwak.com/~pixia

Japanese program, English edition. This one had quite a following for a while, since dwindled while the author has been AWOL for the past year or so. Works well with a graphics tablet. Biggest drawback -- ugly, somewhat confusing interface.

PictbearSE:
http://sleipnir.pos.to/software/pbse

Another Japanese program, simple and quite nice. Made by the author of the popular Sleipnir browser shell (similar to Avant and Maxthon). Biggest drawback -- no help, no instructions.

Don't worry about the all-Japanese page, the installer will switch to English if you choose and it'll allow you to install an English version of the software. Here's the download link, in case you miss it:

http://sleipnir.pos.to/cgi-bin/d/download.cgi?dl=epbse_rc5

Photofiltre:
http://www.photofiltre.com

English version of a French program. Compact, precise, simple to use, with a good selection of tools and filters, very nice. Good tutorials on-site. Biggest drawback -- no layers

Photoplus 6:
http://www.freeserifsoftware.com/software/PhotoPlus/key_features.asp

Photoshop-style interface, simple to figure out. Has a small, but useful feature set. Biggest drawback -- requires online registration to use. Give them a throwaway email to spam.

The GIMP:
http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net

The venerable GIMP, for those who can't afford or don't want Photoshop. Powerful program, with a depth of features that can take months to get acquainted with. Biggest drawback -- strange interface. Few like it, some find it enough of an obstacle to give up.

Grokking the GIMP is a dated, but comprehensive guide to using the GIMP:
http://gimp-savvy.com/BOOK

[Princess Turandot]

2. Here's a link to a freeware/share site called Snapfiles..

I've found their descriptions to be reliable.

http://www.snapfiles.com/freeware/gmm/fwgraphicedit.html

The link is to the graphic editing freeware programs but you can move up a directory to see other freeware offerings in many categories. They also have shareware, some reasonably priced.

Most of the programs mentioned abve are available at the link above, along with their review, users reviews and the developer's website.

[cleofus1]

3. you guys are great!

thank you very much!

[charlie]

4. Sure thing, cleofus1

Here's a couple more for you, something different than the standard paint programs above.

If you like image warping, the sort of stuff you see in mopaul's or the Wizard of Whimsy's GWBush grotesqueries, there's a German program called AnmanieSMP that's fun to play with. It's a sort of lo-rent version of Kai's Power Goo. The author has long disappeared from the net, so here's a French page where you can get an overview of the program:

http://tiry73.free.fr/anm/anmanie.htm

Here's a Google search that brings up more images:

http://images.google.com/images?q=anmanie&num=20&hl=en&lr=&sa=N&tab=wi

and here's a download link to the English version:

http://tiry73.free.fr/anm/anm24i.zip

If you're interested in doing animations, there's a powerful Japanese program called GraphicsGale. It has a full suite of paint tools and two features rarely seen in free or low end animation packages -- layers and onionskinning (onionskinning is the ability to place a "ghost" of the previous or next image over the current one, making the creation of 'tween images much easier).

http://www.humanbalance.net/gale/us

...and a Google GraphicsGale image search:

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&lr=&q=graphicsgale

The free version has only one limitation -- it can't save in certain file formats, and unfortunately one of them is GIF. Until browsers support MNG, you'll need to render your animations as GIFs for posting on the web.

Here's what you can do. Save the separate frames of the animation as PNGs and re-render them as GIFs in IrfanView. Get a copy of the tiny (19K) program UnFreez. Drag and drop the images onto Unfreez, click the button and it'll spit out a GIF animation:

http://www.whitsoftdev.com/unfreez

...or if you'd like more control over the rendering (different display times between frames and such), you can use:

MS GIF Animator:
http://www.quasar.ualberta.ca/edpy202/tutorial/animation/MSGIFAnimator/MSGIFAnimator.htm

Download link:
http://www.jhepple.com/gif_animator.htm

...or Ulead GIF Animator 2, for additional tools, like filters, cropping and rotation. Screenshot and download link on the page below:

http://encoderx.co.uk/imageeditors/index.php