Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

MS Paint equivalent program for Mac

S

saintforlife

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Feb 25, 2011
1,046
329
I am a new Mac convert and am still trying to figure some things out with the Mac OS X. One of the things I do often on my laptop is take a lot of screen shots and save the images. On my windows computer I use MS Paint for this.

Is there a Mac equivalent application like MS Paint? Also what is the keyboard shortcut to take a screen shot in OS X?
 
You don't need a separate program, just hit command-shift-3 and a screenshot will be saved as a file on the desktop.
 
I use Paintbrush for simple editing. It works fine for marking up screen shots and such. Not much else.

iPhoto has some tools for changing brightness/contract and the like.
 
You can also use Preview to do simple image manipulations usually done on screenshots, such as cropping, resizing, and creating simple rectangles and ellipses to highlight parts of the screen. It can also convert to several output formats.
 
You can also use Preview to quickly annotate a graphic. I use it all the time at work to take a screenshot and draw an arrow pointing to something, or putting a circle around something.

I also like how with the OS X screenshot keys, you can press control and it puts the screenshot in the paste buffer. So then I can click on Preview (it's always open in my Dock) and hit command-N, which opens up a new window and automatically pastes the screenshot. I can do my annotations in Preview, hit command-A (to select everything I did in Preview) command-C (to copy it), then paste it in an email.

Ok, looking at the paragraph, it doesn't sound so cool, but it really annoys my Windows co-workers that I can do all that so quickly with just stuff that comes on OS X. :)
 
Last edited:
aristobrat said:
I can do my annotations in Preview, hit CTRL-A (to select everything I did in Preview) CTRL-C (to copy it), then paste it in an email.
Click to expand...

I use the first part of what you described all the time (in my case, shift-control-command-4, then command-N to open in preview).

But, I like what you added, with the A + C after! I just tried it, and one note is that on my MBP at least it is "Command-A" and "Command-C" vs. "Ctrl-etc."

My next move is to explore the possibility of creating a different key command to do "shift-control-command-4" as I use it all the time and it's a tiny bit awkward.

The more I use Preview, the more I like it (older versions did not annotate nearly as well, which drove me nuts as I like circles, arrows, and descriptions :)).

Miss Terri
2010 MBP 13", 10.6.4
 
Miss Terri said:
I just tried it, and one note is that on my MBP at least it is "Command-A" and "Command-C" vs. "Ctrl-etc."
Click to expand...
Oye, rookie error on my part -- I meant command instead of CTRL ... thanks for catching that! :eek:

My next move is to explore the possibility of creating a different key command to do "shift-control-command-4" as I use it all the time and it's a tiny bit awkward.
Click to expand...
What a cool idea, I'm going to try that too! :)
 
I forget the name of it, but there is a free MS Paint equivalent program in the Mac App store. Just go to the 'Top Free' tab on the lower right and it should be among those.
 
Grab

I can't believe no one has mention the program GRAB, which comes with all Macs.

I LOVE this little gem of an app
 
aristobrat said:
You can also use Preview to quickly annotate a graphic. I use it all the time at work to take a screenshot and draw an arrow pointing to something, or putting a circle around something.

I also like how with the OS X screenshot keys, you can press control and it puts the screenshot in the paste buffer. So then I can click on Preview (it's always open in my Dock) and hit command-N, which opens up a new window and automatically pastes the screenshot. I can do my annotations in Preview, hit command-A (to select everything I did in Preview) command-C (to copy it), then paste it in an email.

Ok, looking at the paragraph, it doesn't sound so cool, but it really annoys my Windows co-workers that I can do all that so quickly with just stuff that comes on OS X. :)
Click to expand...

is there an easy to way edit the images like in ms paint? say i want to fuzz out a license plate or something.
 
simsaladimbamba said:
You could overlay a white rectangle via the Annotation Tool.
Click to expand...

If you do that though, make sure you save as a jpg and not a pdf, because with pdfs it's usually completely possible to open any pdf file and simply remove the censoring annotation box.


http://www.betanews.com/article/The...A-may-have-been-using-old-software/1260466899


Boston007 said:
I can't believe no one has mention the program GRAB, which comes with all Macs.

I LOVE this little gem of an app
Click to expand...

No one's mentioned it because (afaik) all those great Grab functions are available system-wide using standard key commands, without having to open up the Grab app at all.
 
looking for paint - I hear you

I know where you are coming from. I used it all the time when on PC to send quick mark ups to colleagues and web designers etc. Im now having troubles getting it to work on the new mac book pro. Im sticking with Win 7 and using parallels for comunication. It should work, works fine on the Imac, its just playing up on the macbook.

To your other question
To grab images without grabing the whole screen

command + shift + 4 then pull it around the area you want copied, it will then save to the desktop on auto. Set up a file for all your grabs or just delete them once you have done your work.
 
Sketchbook Express ( free)

Sketchbook Copic ( Free)

And others too numerous to mention are free in the App store...don't be fooled by the fact that they cost nothing, these are full featured applications and if you are used to using Paint then you'll easily take to either.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back