Romain F. T.
rrroschan@gmail.com
Draw with simple tools.

# Classic tools

Draw on the image with the color and options you selected!

When you use a classic drawing tool, the options are located at the left of the bottom bar: there are two colors, the tool size, and a menu (whose content changes depending on the tool).

To better understand the options related to the colors, see the explanations on this page.

Many tools have a main option that can be toggled by pressing Shift and/or Alt when you click to use the tool.

# Basic lines

Pencil: The pencil draws following the mouse pointer, and according to the chosen color.

Using the "eraser" mode from the color menu, the pencil can delete all existing colors. Using the "highlight" mode and a semi-transparent color, it can also highlight text. For this reason, the two related tools are optional.

Eraser: Ignore the current color settings and just erase to get fully transparent pixels. Optionally, the erased pixels can be changed to the initial color of the canvas, or to the secondary color.

Another option of this tool is its behavior: it can erase according to the line you draw with it, or according to a rectangular shape you define. Using this rectangle mode, you have more available options: blur, mosaic, randomly shuffle pixels, etc. so you can — for example — quickly censor text over wide areas of the image.

Highlighter: Ignore the transparency of the current color, and draw with a semi-transparent version of the current color.

The "highlight" color application mode is used, so the selected color is added to the lighter pixels only, which highlights dark text on light background. An option can be used to do the opposite (highlight light text on dark background).

Line: This tool can draw straight lines. Its options also include ending the line with an arrow, and using a gradient from the main color to the secondary color.

The option to lock the orientation of the line will force the line to be perfectly horizontal, at 45°, or vertical.

Curve: This tool can draw Bézier curves, optionally with an arrow at the end. Two clicks are required, if you only click once to draw a straight line, that line is drawn temporarily until a second click.

Aside of the colors, a usual option for classic tools is whether or not you want to use anti-aliasing. If you use anti-aliasing, the lines will look smoother, but it may negatively affect any following use of the Paint tool, as well as several options of the selection.

With several tools, you can change the ends of the line: it can be rounded or square. You can also draw various patterns of dashed lines with a few tools.

The Outline option adds an outline around the line you draw. This outline uses the secondary color, and is available with the Pencil, Line, and Curve tools.

# Pressure-sensitive brushes

This tool is disabled by default, because it has performance issues.

If you use a drawing tablet and a stylus, you may appreciate the "brush" tool, which reacts to the pressure of your input. Various possible brushes are available:

Simple: this brush is basically a pencil with no options. The line will be wider if you apply more pressure. Otherwise (if you use a mouse for example), the width of the line will vary according to the speed of your movement.

Airbrush: small "droplets" of color will be added to the canvas. If you apply more pressure, there will be more droplets. Without a pressure-sensitive device, their density is constant.

Hairy brush: thin parallel lines will be added to the canvas. If you apply more pressure, the lines will be more outspread. Without a pressure-sensitive device, their proximity is constant.

Calligraphic nib: this brush draws wider in one direction than in the other, according to an angle which is an option of the brush. For a given direction, the line will be wider if you apply more pressure. Without a pressure-sensitive device, the width is constant for a given direction.

# Insert text

With the Text tool, you can insert text on the image. A few formatting options are available in the options menu, such as "italic", "bold", or a basic font family selection.

For better contrast, the text can be displayed on a rectangle background, or with a shadow, or with an outline. The color of this background is the secondary color you chose.

Don't forget to confirm the insertion using the Insert here button.

An optional tool named Points is designed to help you captioning pictures: you can add numbered round dots or crosses to elements of the picture.

# Fill an area

To paint an area using a given color, several tools can be used:

Shapes. Available shapes include rectangle, rounded rectangle, oval, circle, polygon, and free shape.

Polygons and free shapes are drawn in several clicks. To close them, do a last click at the position where you began the shape, or use the Close shape menu item.

Various filling options are available (using a plain color, or a gradient, or nothing), as well as outline options (using a plain outline, dashes, or nothing).

Paint. This tool tries to paint an area of a given color with a new color.

This tool is disabled by default, because it will not work if the shape to paint is too complex.

It can use several possible algorithms: Encircle and fill is very simplistic and discouraged, Erase and replace should work better, but still fails in a few situations.

The Entire image option paints over the the entire image, regardless of what's already drawn.

Erase color doesn't paint but erase the color you clicked, on the entire image, for example to cut out an image from its white background.

# Other kinds of tools

The selection tools don't draw, but their capabilities are very powerful and useful for any image editing.

Use these special tools to transform the canvas or the selected area.