Pixelation has been DUGG!

[Blick]

I use MSpaint to piss people off.

[Rox]

There's hard, and there's masochism. If you think there's respect to be gained from being a masochist, then you're not a real masochist

Now see, that's just your opinion. You're so much softer and more sensitive than I am! That effectively forces me to respect your point of view, because you're so much more fragile and can only take so much of a badly made interface. I like hurting myself in stupid ways! When I was younger, I even thought about trying to get into the stuntman business!

I'm harrrd. 

[.TakaM]

Getting work done faster AND better is way more satisfying than masturbating over doing decent work in a shit package.

atleast say 'intellectual masturbation'

[Helm]

Now see, that's just your opinion. You're so much softer and more sensitive than I am! That effectively forces me to respect your point of view, because you're so much more fragile and can only take so much of a badly made interface. I like hurting myself in stupid ways! When I was younger, I even thought about trying to get into the stuntman business!

I'm harrrd. 

Sadly, hard or not hard, I don't see a lot of pixel art coming from your ways. Perhaps you need to get a program that you can work faster in?

[.TakaM]

wow, this really is quite a heated suject

[ndchristie]

nobody cares about how 'harrrd' you are, and youll find that 99% of the people on a pixel board disagree that 'better' art can be made with photoshop brushes.

as far as ms paint goes, the most frustrating thing that i find is that you need to leave what you are working on and clikc on the palette (or worse, use the eyedropper tool) every time you want to change the active colors.  Other programs allow you to simply right-click on the color in the image to change the active color.  Paint also only stores 3 history states; i must prefer the 1000 that a program like IDraw offers (or 2000 in photoshop, although i dont use photoshop as much).  other programs also have in-file animation schemes, so that you can preview your entire sheet in action in real time. 

sure none of these features that other programs have are needed to make pixel art, but they definately make it faster, which means that if i spend 2 hours on a piece in IDraw, the ratio of creative effort to work effort is a bit better than an unfamiliar but good program like ProMotion which is much better than a good program with a different purpose like Photoshop which is still better than a poor program with no real purpose like MS paint.

the last issue i have with ms paint is that the functions it DOES have are badly organized - you need to go through a dropdown and a tab just to get to the color sliders, and even then you can only adjust one color at a time.  the program can save as several different formats, but it always changes the colors when it does unless the file was originally opened with a set palette (which in paint of course cannot be changed while it is being worked on in those formats)

[Helm]

If somebody wants to be real hard, I'm sure a programmer here can code them a pixel art app with only an 1pixel brush, palette entries you edit only by inputing (NOT SLIDING) r g b values, no undo, no selection tools, only two zooms...

[Wolverine]

as far as ms paint goes, the most frustrating thing that i find is that you need to leave what you are working on and clikc on the palette (or worse, use the eyedropper tool) every time you want to change the active colors.  Other programs allow you to simply right-click on the color in the image to change the active color.

Actually I really hate that right clicking color picker and it's the main reason I find Graphics Gale annoying to use.  Maybe it's just that I grew up using Deluxe Paint for the most part and prefer having each mouse button be a separate color and use [ and ] to cycle through the colors in Pro Motion.

What gets me about MS Paint is that it's never been any good ever, especially once programs like Deluxe Paint started popping up and it's just amazed me that Microsoft have never seemed to really want it to be anything more than a quick doodling program.  Which sorta surprises me given their usual wanting people to use Microsoft stuff for everything.  Spent two years trying to use MS Paint on college computers and I just found it clumsy, awkward, painfully limited (especially when wanting to create animations) and usually just gave up and played Solitaire... and I hate Solitaire (thank god we went and installed Duke Nukem 3D on the college network).  Used to love going home at the end of the day just so I could get back on my Amiga and use DPaint III and later DPaint IV AGA (when I finally got given a copy).

I respect those people who do amazing work with MS Paint but I can't help wondering what they'd produce with far more efficient pixelling programs...

[Ai]

nobody cares about how 'harrrd' you are, and youll find that 99% of the people on a pixel board disagree that 'better' art can be made with photoshop brushes.

photoshop, no. Deluxepaint/ProMotion style brushes are useful (animbrushes, and the ability to cut out an image area and use it as a brush)

sure none of these features that other programs have are needed to make pixel art, but they definately make it faster, which means that if i spend 2 hours on a piece in IDraw, the ratio of creative effort to work effort is a bit better than an unfamiliar but good program like ProMotion which is much better than a good program with a different purpose like Photoshop which is still better than a poor program with no real purpose like MS paint.

In general, I believe that disvaluing a tool that is more agile for your particular application simply because it  is unfamiliar, is a false economy; If you could use one tool more effectively to create your art,  then that is the more effective tool, unless you need to get the art done straight away always. It's markedly shortsighted. Your ability to maintain creative flow is dependent on being able to get the program to do what you want. In this respect, both your understanding  of the program and the program's essential power are equally important.

the last issue i have with ms paint is that the functions it DOES have are badly organized - you need to go through a dropdown and a tab just to get to the color sliders, and even then you can only adjust one color at a time.  the program can save as several different formats, but it always changes the colors when it does unless the file was originally opened with a set palette (which in paint of course cannot be changed while it is being worked on in those formats)

I understand that the version of paint that comes with XP does address that -- it supports PNG, so saving with colors completely preserved is possible.

[Ryumaru]

If somebody wants to be real hard, I'm sure a programmer here can code them a pixel art app with only an 1pixel brush, palette entries you edit only by inputing (NOT SLIDING) r g b values, no undo, no selection tools, only two zooms...

even an mspaint user like me has nightmarish thoughts of such a program!