13140 I cut my Mac graphics teeth on the little, 1-Bit painting module of the HyperCard application that shipped with System 6 Macs. I loved working with bitmap graphics in HyperCard, which taught me the basics that I built on when I moved on to more sophisticated graphics software like SuperPaint, Expert Color Paint, Color It! and Photoshop.

There's still a place for a simple Mac bitmap graphics program, perhaps even more so with the demise of AppleWorks and its excellent Paint module. Paintbrush is a freeware Cocoa-based paint program similar to Microsoft Paint and the now-defunct MacPaint.

The Paintbrush project's ultimate goal is to recreate the basic functionality of Microsoft Paint, which has been noticeably absent from Mac OS X for years. Paintbrush can open and save to most major image formats, including BMP, PNG, JPEG, and GIF. Unfortunately, its save function does not support the very convenient save selection only mode.

Paintbrush is not intended to replace Photoshop or other high-end image editors. Instead, it aims to fill the need for a basic, streamlined editor for those times when you just feel the need to doodle. It's also ideal for kids who just want a place to express their creativity, and for whom Photoshop, or even Color It! are several magnitudes of overkill.

The Paintbrush user interface consists of a single floating tool palette with ten tool selections: Pencil, Eraser, Selection, "Bomb" (which I never quite figured out - when I tried it it quit the program abruptly; I'm not sure whether that is its intended function), Text, Fill, Line, Curve (the latter two with "Border Only," "Fill Only," and "Border and Fill" pop-down selectors), a Line Width slider, and Foreground/Background color selection toggles.

That's pretty much it. The menus are generic and the only Preference selection is to check for version updates. Paintbrush gives you what you need for simple bitmap editing and image creation, but it's definitely not a photo image correction application.

An interesting freeware bitmap graphics combination is Paintbrush, which supports bitmap editing but not image correction, and ToyViewer, which supports an impressive range of image correction tasks but not bitmap editing. Used in tandem, these two applications can function as a poor man's Photoshop. It even supports multiple undos.

Paintbrush works quite well within its limitations. I found that it doesn't respond quite as quickly as, say, Color It! does, and there are minor annoyances like almost all of the tools using the same crosshair cursor icon, but the transparent simplicity is quite charming. Which is good, because there is zip for documentation - no Help files or user manual on the Website.

New in version 1.0:
• Holding shift while using shape tool results in perfect square/circle/lines - try it!
• Paintbrush now remembers previous image size
• Saves as PNG by default, instead of BMP
• New option to choose from preselected sizes
• Undo/redo works with cut and paste
• Updated icons for shape fill styles
• Requested: Keyboard shortcuts for zoom in/out/actual
• Added: Bomb tool animation (also responds to Shift key)

System requirements:
Mac OS X 10.4 or later.

Note: this application has not yet been fully tested on OS X 10.5. Full support will be added upon Leopard's release in October. Use at your own risk.

System Support:
PPC/Intel

Paintbrush is, and will remain, completely free, with no nag screens. However, donations are always welcome. Even the smallest donation is greatly appreciated.

For more information, visit:
http://paintbrush.sourceforge.net/


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Charles W. Moore

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