LESSON 01 – PAINT BASICS

 

COPY AND PASTING

 

You can right click on an image in any browser, copy it and then paste it in a graphic editing program such as Paint, Paint.NET or Photoshop.

 

SELECTIONS

 

All graphic editing programs allow you to select a part of an image.  The selection is usually shown inside of dash lines.

 

Paint offers two different selection tools, a rectangular tool and a star tool that allows you to decide on an exact selection.

 

Making precise selections is an important part of graphic editing. 

 

Selections can be moved around or can be copied and pasted.  In fact, you can even copy a selection from one image into another. 

 

SHORTCUT KEYS

 

Here are shortcut keys that will help you work more efficiently:

 

·       CTRL-C = Copy

·       CTRL-X = Cut

·       CTRL-V = Paste

·       CTRL-A = Select All

·       CTRL-Z = Undo

 

Note: In Paint, you have a very limited number of undo options.  Keep that in mind!

 

COLOURS

 

Most graphics programs have two active colours.  One is known at the primary colour and the other is known as the secondary (or background) colour.  The image below is a capture from Paint where the primary colour is black and the secondary colour is red.

 

 

When using a tool, left clicking will make use of the primary colour while right clicking will use the secondary colour.

 

TRANSPARENCY & DRAW OPAQUE

 

Paint does not support true transparency for images.  So, you cannot save an image with transparent part in it.

 

However, for selections, Paint can make one colour transparent.  If Image > Draw Opaque is unchecked, then the secondary colour in paint will be transparent.

 

IMAGE FORMATS

 

For now, you should know the name of the more common image formats that we will work with.  You should use PNG files for now until we learn more about other formats.

 

JPG – Great compression.  But leaves bad artifacts!

 

GIF – Great compression.  But limited to 256 colours.

 

BMP – Perfect storage but no compression, so huge files!  Boo!

 

PNG – Solid compression.  Perfect storage!  USE ME!!!

 

PRINT SCREEN KEY

 

The Print Screen key is located near the top right of your keyboard.  When hit, it automatically captures the entire screen into memory.  You can then paste that into a graphic editor such as Paint or Photoshop.

 

OTHER INFO ABOUT PAINT

 

          Here is a list of different facts about Paint that might be useful:

 

USEFUL FACTS ABOUT PAINT

 

  • The space in which you can draw is called the canvas.  You can resize it in the bottom right corner (as long as you don’t have a selection made in your image).  You can also resize it under Image > Attributes.

  • When drawing a straight line, you can assure that it is either vertical, horizontal or at a 45 degree angle by keeping the SHIFT key pressed.  Try it!

  • When drawing an ellipse, pressing the SHIFT key will make it a circle.

  • When drawing a rectangle, pressing the SHIFT key will make it a square.

 

  • The background in Paint is white by default.  However, we can make the white transparent.  Under image, you can simply unselect “Draw Opaque”.

  • To do detailed work, use the magnifying glass to zoom in.  This is the key to all successful work in paint.

  • You can rotate a selected part of the image.  Search the menus above for this.

  • You can enlarge a selected part of the image by using stretch.  Again, search the menus above for this.

  • The fill tool will fill the primary colour over all pixels that match and are connected to the pixel that was clicked on. 

 

LESS USEFUL FACTS ABOUT PAINT

 

  • When you click on the magnifying glass, Paint has a hidden 10X zoom option.  It is located just below the 8X.

  • Select a part of your image and simply move it around while holding down SHIFT.  The selected image is repeated over and over.

  • You can invert the colours of your image by hitting CTRL-I (that’s the capital letter i)

  • Paint actually allows you to select three colours (primary, secondary, tertiary).  These are visible on the colour palette (see below).  To use the primary colour, use the left mouse button.  To use the secondary colour, use the right mouse button.  And to use the tertiary colour, press CTRL with the left mouse button.