Retouch your digital photos, and create and edit images.
PaintStar is versatile digital-image processing software suitable for such tasks as retouching photographs, composing and authoring images, image morphing, screen capture, and displaying image thumbnails in the Windows Explorer context menu. It supports alpha, layer, path, and the most common editing techniques. PaintStar has many of the tools and filters you would expect to find in similar commercial offerings, and some interesting extras as well.
Version 2.7 may include unspecified updates, enhancements, or bug fixes.
I have tried about 15 of the top, free photo editing programs here on CNET today and have been extremely frustrated until I tried this one. All I wanted to do was remove some background garbage cans that were in a picture of my kids I wanted to use on our Christmas cards. I've done this type of thing before.
I figured it would be a simple freehand select, followed by a color fill or a freehand select followed by copy, paste. All the top ones were ridiculously hard to use and many seemed incapable of such a basic task. With this software I was able to download, figure it out and complete the edit in about 15 minutes. What a relief!
Cons
The only improvement I can think of is this. It would be great to be able to fill in a color and then, within the picture, be able to adjust the hue to match the surroundings. When I tried to do the fill my color was so far off and I couldn't seem to get it right. Then I switched to copy paste and it work much better.
Summary
Many thanks to Mr. Wangshenzhou for this free software. I hope you are very successful.<br /><br /><span class='notifyMsg'> Updated </span>on Dec 9, 2012<p/>I see the name is actually Zhenzhou Wang, sorry for the misspelling.
Where to Use it--i do not know
poulstaun
Pros
To me it looks like the paint prg. build into windows
with a few addings.
Sometimes free or not--dos not matter
.
Cons
can really not see the purpose of this program.
It is not on My Pc any more
Summary
Not for me--I wonder for who .
intuitive and productive
hjuder46
Pros
found it a snap to use - no steep learning curve, no tutorial - just pictograms, clicks, and fun effects! it's FUN!
Cons
NIHIL zilch
Summary
After trying a number of photo editing programs and getting so frustrated trying to use them, finally uninstalling them I almost gave up. Then with paintstar It just put our fun images easily and quickly. The programs active windows are the perfect size to both use and open other windows over - three words here: EASE OF ACCESS
nice little paint program
noalternative
Pros
very low resource, which is what I am looking for.
Cons
too bad you don't get a better file host so you don't run out of bandwidth. Also it would be nice if you would let the program save in lower quality and adjust dpi. Then it would be perfect.
Summary
Good program but could use some improvements and a better file host.
Now the new version is totally free.
Ghost_ARCHER
Pros
1. Light weight but very powerful; 2. support layer and path; quite some filters; 3. now it is free; 4. gimp interface compatible; 5. no other file needed (gimp need gtk... and paint.net need dot net running enviroment ---- I don't want to install a huge platform to run a small program)
<p>
<p>Try it yourself.
Cons
a. gimp interface compatible. gimp interface sucks.
<p>b. the author ignored download.com for some reason, or download.com just ignored the update. In both case, it is not good for the popularity.
Summary
Once you learn how to use it.....it is a GREAT program
satwswy
Pros
This program does everything I need. Has many professional software features and allows for a variety of uses. I purchased this program after the trial, and feel it was well worth the money. Much better buy than many other professional publishers.
Cons
Not user friendly for the beginner photo editor. Soemwhat tedious to have seperate tool bar from the actual photo. However, with some patience in learning to use it, this program is EXCELLENT!