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One thing I use constantly when writing posts is MS Paint to edit screenshots and sometimes featured images. Since I decided to do everything on my MacBook for this blog I needed to find an equivalent of Paint on Mac. And I think I was able to do it.

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• Paint For Mac
• Is There Something Like Ms Paint For Mac

1. A Paint-esque app does exist on your Mac — and here’s how to find it By Justin Pot November 23, 2020 Since the dawn of time (aka 1985), Windows has always shipped with a basic image-editing.
2. Unfortunately Microsoft Project, also known as MS Project, wasn’t designed for Mac computers, so it won’t work on any version of Mac OS. But there is a workaround that can solve your problem. It’s not complicated, and in fact, it’s easier to use than the MSP interface. Best of all, it’s free (well, for 30 days, but after that you’ll.
3. Paintbrush is a Cocoa-based paint program for Mac OS X, similar to Microsoft Paint and the now-defunct MacPaint. The project's ultimate goal is to recreate the basic functionality of Microsoft.

Paint Brush for Mac OS is like the perfect replica of MS paint. The app is quite bare-bones and extremely easy to use, offering just the basic functions of a paint application. Installing MS Paint on Mac with Wine In my article about Notepad on Mac, I described how to install Notepad on Mac with the help of Winebottler. The Winebottler also has an option for MSPaint 2010 install, but no matter what I did the installation was failing on multiple MacBooks I used.

In short, there are following options available for Paint on Mac:

• Install Paint app on Mac on top of Wine based platform
• Use Preview to edit images and photos
• Use Paint alternatives such as Paintbrush or Pixelmator
• Use online apps such as JSPaint

Installing MS Paint on Mac with Wine

In my article about Notepad on Mac, I described how to install Notepad++ on Mac with the help of Winebottler. The Winebottler also has an option for MSPaint 2010 install, but no matter what I did the installation was failing on multiple MacBooks I used. Still determined to find a way to run native Windows app on Mac I found another Wine based platform: PlayOnMac.

If you curious the way Wine works is by translating API calls from Windows programs to the operating system from Windows to macOS. This is not an emulator, in fact, the name Wine is an acronym that stands for “Wine Is Not Emulator”. This means that only a small subset of Windows calls was translated and it requires quite a bit of work in order to run Windows applications on Wine.

That’s why users instead of copying programs directly from Windows to Wine need some kind of packaging tool where other people did all this work for you. In the case of Paint such tool is PlayOnMac.

Installing PlayOnMac

To install PlayOnMac download the image from the link.

After download double click on DMG file to unpack the app. If you are curious about DMG files, what they are and how safe to install them check my article on this topic.

Now drag and drop the PlayOnMac icon to the Applications folder.

Depending on your settings your Mac may warn that developer is not approved, so you need to do additional things to allow it. Open System Preferences, go to System and Privacy and under General tab click on “Open Anyway” button.

Once PlayOnMac starts, click on the plus icon with the label “Install a program” and in the popup window click on Graphics icon. In the list of programs select Microsoft Paint and click on Install button. Follow wizard instructions and click Next several times.

This will start a process of downloading and installing Paint app. If you don’t have Wine platform already installed then PlayOnMac will ask if you want to install Wine and Gecko. Just click Install button to install them.

After installation is finished a new Microsoft Paint shortcut will appear on the Desktop and you will be able to run Paint on Mac any time.

This approach has pros and cons. Pro is that you can run other Windows programs besides Paint. The main purpose of PlayOnMac was to port some Windows games to Linux and Mac. So check out the tool and see if they have your favorite game ported.

The downside of this approach is that the version of Paint is pretty old. Paint in Windows 10 is a much nicer tool and unfortunately, it is not available at this time.

Also, while Wine is not an emulator and not a virtual machine it still takes some space and ported programs are not native macOS apps.

Use Preview to edit images and photos

If you looking for a native macOS app then definitely check Preview, a built-in macOS program. It has a lot of features that Paint offers and I will show you how you can use for some simple operations. After all, people use Paint for simple image editing. People who edit images professionally use Photoshop or GIMP instead.

Annotate screenshots with Preview

One of the main uses of Paint is to add some annotation for screenshots or photos. By the way, if you are looking for PrintScreen button or snipping tool, i.e. if you don’t know how to make screenshots on Mac check my article: How to Take Screenshots on Mac : 27 Tricks and Tips.

This is how I edited the previous screenshot in Preview.

Before doing anything in Preview remember a simple key combination: Command-Z. If you did something wrong you can always undo it with Command-Z, so don’t be afraid of experimenting, you can always undo anything.

First I double clicked on the image file. By default, .png files (file format for screenshots) associated with Preview so double-clicking on png file will start Preview.

I made sure that both Toolbar and Markup Toolbar are visible by going to View menu and clicking on Show Toolbar and Show Markup Toolbar options.

To make red rectangles around Install Program and Install buttons I had to do some preparations:

1. Click on Border Color icon in the toolbar to select red
2. Click on Shape Style to choose a thicker line
3. Click on Fill Color and then click on Show Colors to bring up the Color dialog and change the Opacity all the way down to 0% so that rectangle in the next step does not hide the underlying image.
4. Click on Shapes and then on rectangle icon.

Preview will add a red rectangle shape to the image. Now you need to move it to a proper place and adjust the size. You do it by hovering the cursor over the rectangle lines and once the cursor changes you can move and resize the element.

Click somewhere on the picture to deactivate the element. The cool thing about Preview is that all the elements you are adding on the image you change later before saving the file. With MS Paint once the element is not active it becomes a part of the image so you can’t come back and change it.

To add some text to the image click on the Text icon. Preview will add a sample text shape which you can move and resize just like any shape. If you need to change the font style and size of the text shape click on Text Style icon in the toolbar.

Sometimes, you may need to add arrows to connect parts of the image together. Use arrow shape from Shapes section, it is very flexible, you can rotate and resize arrows anyway you like it. Alternatively, use Bubble Speech element.

Cropping images in Preview

Preview creates very large files to keep the quality of images as high as possible. Unfortunately, the internet still is not fast enough in some areas and people who read your articles would appreciate if you keep the images as small as possible.

The first thing we will do is crop the image so we can remove the parts we don’t need.

Click on Selection Tools which looks like a rectangle with dotted border and down arrow on the right and select Rectangular Selection.

Click at the top left corner of the image you want to cut and then drag the bottom right to cover the part of the image you need.

Now you have two options:

• You can click on Crop button that appears after selection. In this case, the part of the image outside of the selection will be removed and you will have only the selected part left. With this option, the selection will replace the original image.
• You can copy the selection to the clipboard with Command-C key combination and then in the menu go to File -> New from Clipboard. This will open a new Preview window with the selected part of the image, so you can save it in another file without changing the original.

Combining multiple images in one

For each blog post, I always create a featured image. Since I can’t always find the perfect image online I often combine multiple images to create something interesting. For this blog I decided to combine an image I found on Pixabay with the screenshot of Paint app inside.

I started with the original image and opened it in Preview window.

In another Preview, I opened the second image: a screenshot of Paint. Using Selection tools I made a rectangular selection and copied it to the clipboard.

Then I switched to the original image and pasted the selection by using Command-V key combination. Then I adjusted the size and position of the selected image inside the iMac screen and saved the file.

Resizing images in Preview

For featured images, I need the ones with the specific dimensions: 833 by 450 pixels. The original image dimensions were 1280 by 1043. To resize the image I clicked on Adjust Size option in Tools menu. I wanted to keep the picture proportional so resized it to 552 by 450 pixels.

Then I switched back to screenshot pic and adjusted its size to 833 by 450 (non-proportional). Then selected everything with Command-A and deleted the entire image with Delete button. Now I had a clean canvas with the correct size (833×450) to which I copied the 552×450 picture.

The result you can see at the top of the blog post.

Converting to JPEG

All screenshots on Mac are saved in PNG format which is too big for the internet. I prefer to save all images in JPEG which makes smaller files by compressing and slightly reducing the quality.

To save the picture in another format open it in Preview and select the Export option in the File menu.

Choose JPEG, other formats are not better than PNG. Don’t use JPEG-2000 because it’s not supported by most browsers.

There will be a slider which allows you to choose the quality of the JPEG: higher the quality larger the file. When you move the slider Preview will tell how big the file will be, so choose what works best for you.

Drawing in Preview

Preview has tools to draw pictures besides the predefined set of shapes. But here is a problem: if you start the program by itself there is no option to create a new file. But I found a workaround:

I use Command-Shift-3 keys to make a screenshot and while the thumbnail floats I click on it to open it in Preview. Then I select all with Command-A and Delete. Then I resize the picture and on the clean canvas I can draw.

In the toolbar, there are two pencil-like icons: Sketch and Draw. The difference between is that with Sketch has ability autocorrect the lines you draw so shapes look nicer than when you use Draw option.

Paint alternatives

Paintbrush

If you search on forums the application most mentioned as an alternative to Paint is Paintbrush. You can download the app from sourceforge.io, just google for “paintbrush app”.

Installation is very simple. Download the zip file to your Mac, unpack it. Double click on Paintbrush app to start it. In the beginning, it will ask you whether you want to copy it to the Applications folder. That’s it.

It’s a very simple app, the only problem with it that it’s not being maintained for a long time. The last entry in their blog “We are not dead yet” appeared nine years ago.

Anyway, this could be a good alternative, especially to equally old Paint on PlayOnMac platform.

Pixelmator Pro

Another tool is Pixelmator Pro. This one is much more sophisticated and it is not free. You can download it from the Apple Store for $39.99 or try it first for free and see if you like it.

Ms Paint

The number of features packed in the app is huge. So, after playing with it for a little I don’t feel it’s a replacement for Paint because it requires me to learn a new tool which was not needed with Paint.

Online tools

JSPaint

I found a neat online clone of old Paint at jspaint.com. It’s a free web-based tool built entirely in JavaScript and you can run it in the browser without needing to install anything.

Conclusion

I presented several ways to run Paint and its alternatives on Mac or online. If all you need is old Paint app then PlayOnMac, Paintbrush or JSPaint options is all you need. Pixelmator could be a viable approach as long as you don’t mind to invest some money and time to learn the new tool.

Preview could also be a good choice if all you need is to annotate images or photos. The annotation part of Preview is probably the best, otherwise, it’s really a pain to edit in Preview.

Unfortunately, if you are looking for MS Paint which is a part of Windows 10 I wasn’t find anything close to it.

So, after several days of research and trials, I ended up with setting up a remote desktop connection from my MacBook to my Windows 10 PC and use it only for editing images.

Get all best apps via Setapp

If you've been using PCs all your life and have recently switched to a Mac, you wouldn't miss a lot. But you've probably felt that there is one missing program which has inadvertently won the hearts of PC users worldwide — Microsoft Paint.

It's true that objectively MS Paint is not the best raster graphic editor around. It's clunky, slow, not accessible to beginners, and at the same time doesn't offer enough for pro-level users. Still, Windows Paint might be the most widely used graphic software around. And lots of people wish there was Paint for Mac as well.

Is there Paint for Mac? Well, not really. Official Microsoft Paint for Mac doesn't exist. But there are in fact more accessible alternatives that allow you to do better things and present much less of a learning curve at the same time. One of them is already installed on your Mac by default, only that its toolkit is hidden inside the app called Preview.

Get a Paint replacement with Setapp

Missing Paint on Mac? Download, Setapp, the curated package of Mac apps that take your drawing to the new level.

Best MS Paint Alternatives For Mac

Since its inception, Mac has been the operating system of choice for creative enthusiasts and professionals around the globe. So it's no wonder that macOS is the primary destination for the best new drawing, painting, image and video editing, and sketching applications.

As mentioned above, beginning your journey with Preview will cover all your basic needs that Windows Paint used to do. To get a specific result, you can try apps with more to offer, such as Tayasui Sketches for painting or Capto for working on images.

Annotate and edit images with ease

Not everyone knows that Mac's default Preview application is not only an image viewer but also provides a basic painting and annotating toolkit that's just enough for it to be a decent substitute for Microsoft Paint for Mac. Here's how to access it.

1. Right-click on any image and choose Open With > Preview
2. Locate the marker icon in the upper-right corner of the app window
3. Click on it to open all available tools

All the tools in Preview are fairly close to what you used to see in MS Paint. There are three broad functionality groups separated by vertical dividers: selection, creation, and modification.

Using Preview is just as intuitive as it was with MS Paint. Let's say you want to draw a circle around an object on one of your images to bring someone's attention to it:

1. Select the Sketch tool (third from the left)
2. Simply draw around the object. By default Preview will autocomplete the shape you've drawn, getting it to a perfect oval, square, or triangle. You can, however, choose to keep the line freehand by selecting such option from a small pop-up menu.
3. If you want to modify your line, choose Shape Style (fourth from the right) to pick the appropriate line thickness and Border Color (third from the right) to alter the color of the line itself
4. And yes, Preview has the bucket tool as well. If you've drawn an enclosed shape, you can select the Fill Color tool (second from the right) and choose to fill your object with any color.

Just like that feel free to explore all the other tools Preview has to offer, such as Shapes, Text, Sign, Adjust Color, etc. We guarantee you won't miss MS Paint one bit.

But why limit yourself in the first place? Since you're switching to a new platform altogether, pick the tools that will serve you in any situation, such as producing a high-quality tutorial, for example. For this, you'd need a more powerful app, such as Capto.

Unlike Preview and Windows Paint, which offer bare-minimum functionality in terms of annotating your images, Capto is the top app for recording your screen, whether it's just grabbing a screenshot or making a video, and modifying all the resulting files afterward.

Starting with Capto couldn't be easier:

1. In the app's Organizer window, where all Capto's images and videos are kept, you can either grab a new screenshot using the tools in the top bar (Screen, Area, Window, etc.) or import any image you already have on your Mac just by dragging and dropping it onto the app's window.
2. To modify an image, double-click on it to open
3. Choose the tool you need from the left-side bar. Beside the basic tools you might be familiar with from MS Paint and Preview, Capto features more advanced ones, such as Spotlight, Numbering, Blur, and Callout.
4. To use a Numbering tool, for example, simply select it from the menu, choose the Type, Style, and Color, and leave the sequence of numbers on your image by clicking on the appropriate locations

Try any other features offered by Capto in a similar way. This app is indispensable in nearly any line of work when we think about the easy ways of explaining to our colleagues how to do something. Taking 45 seconds to create a quick tutorial on Capto can save you hours of walking around the office or endless instant messages.

One of the best features of Capto, and one of the ones you wish Microsoft Paint for Mac would have, is its extensive sharing capabilities. As the app is mostly used to show someone how to do something, you also need an easy way to send the explanation to them.

To share your creation with Capto:

1. When you're done with your image, click Share in the top-right corner of the app's window
2. By default, you have a selection of Mail, Messages, or AirDrop. Choose one of these or click Configure for more options.
3. In the new menu, select one of the options you'd like to set up, from Dropbox to your own server, and follow the login instructions on the right. Now you'll be able to share images from Capto through your favorite platform in no time.

Finally, don't forget that Capto goes beyond images and lets you record, edit, and share video tutorials as well. The process is largely the same. Just choose Record from the top menu bar to start, use the same tools to edit, and share in the preferred way you've set up above.

Paint at any level right from the get-go

When it comes to drawing and painting, a lot of people are used to MS Paint mostly for the lack of accessible alternatives. Macs, on the other hand, have plenty. And one of them is Tayasui Sketches.

Tayasui Sketches is a lot more than just Microsoft Paint for Mac. It combines natural drawing experience you're so used to with a near unlimited selection of beautiful digital brushes and colors.

Starting with Tayasui Sketches is just as easy as picking up a pen in real life — simply choose the paper type, select one of the tools in the left sidebar, and begin to draw.

Quickly you'll realize how none of the MS Paint's artistic brushes can compare to the flow and realistic beauty of the tools available in Tayasui Sketches. At the same time, the app doesn't require you to go through lengthy workshops and spend hours in settings, which positively distinguishes it from other professional alternatives.

It's likely that Tayasui Sketches will serve you for many years to come. It remains an indispensable tool for lots of professional artists. And even if you decide to switch to a different professional drawing app in the future, the foundational functionality would probably remain the same.

Pick the right tool for the job

As you can see, there is no need to try to download Microsoft Paint for Mac as soon as you discover there is no exact counterpart within macOS. There are plenty of tools that copy and even surpass both the functionality and ease of use that MS Paint used to offer.

Sometimes you might be using Preview for the simplest tasks around. More likely, you might find yourself relying on Capto more and more, as its diverse toolkit is able to perform the majority of annotating and editing tasks at the highest level in no time. Finally, when you feel really creative, you can easily switch to Tayasui Sketches and really express that creativity with beautiful pens and watercolors.

Best of all, these apps are not going to set you back financially at all. Preview is already installed on your Mac by default, and Tayasui Sketches and Capto are both available for a free trial through Setapp, a platform of over 150 useful apps and utilities for any scenario. Let your creative side shine!

Paint For Mac

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Is There Something Like Ms Paint For Mac