During the almost 10 years that I was working in an ICT consultancy, the Microsoft Paint application became one of the tools I used the most on my PC. Although many people think that it is an application with very basic functions, the truth is that we can get much more out of it than it seems at first glance.
As a staunch supporter of Paint, I must say that in some ways I find it to be a superior tool even to Photoshop, due to its immediacy and simplicity. Here are some tips and tricks that I’ve learned over the years so that you too can better exploit the potential of this wonderful application.
How to pixelate images with Paint
If you need to pixelate an image or any part of it (such as faces, eyes, people, car license plates, etc.) you don’t need to resort to complex applications like Photoshop. Just follow these steps:
- Open the image in Paint.
- Hit the “Select” tool and cover the area you want to pixelate with a selection in the shape of a rectangle or freeform.
- Press the CTRL+W keys and activate the measurement of size in pixels to know how many pixels your selection occupies. Then reduce the pixels to 5% of their original size.
- The crop will now have been made really small.
- Highlight the selection again, press CTRL+W to resize it, and return it to its original size. The cutout will appear completely pixelated.
Remember that you can make the pixelation more forceful simply by reducing the size of the selected crop even more.
Paint’s “homemade” clone stamp
Paint can also be very useful for removing objects, people, or graphics from an image. For example, if we want to remove the moon from this beautiful night photo, what we will do is the following:
- Click on the Selection tool and make a box the same size as the object you want to make disappear.
- Then drag the selection marquee so that it covers the object.
- Item removed!
This trick doesn’t always work, but if the image has a flat background and the object is not in contact with other elements of the image, we can make it work really well.
One tip: if enlarging the selection marquee shows pixelated or defaced parts, instead of extending the marquee press CTRL+C to copy it, then CTRL+V to paste and place a duplicate that we’ll use to cover the object we want to delete. This is something that works great with images that have a lot of repeating or overlapping patterns.
Resize an image to reduce its weight
When we are going to paste an image in a Word document, in an email or on a PC, we do not need it to have disproportionately large dimensions. In general, in this type of document, the image having between 700 and 1,000 pixels is more than enough to make it look good.
Reducing the size of the image will also help you to make the document weigh less megabytes and be more comfortable to store and share.
- Open the image in Paint.
- Press CTRL+W to resize the image.
- Check the pixel box and reduce its horizontal or vertical size while maintaining the aspect ratio.
After doing this save a copy of the new image. You will see that its weight is much lower. If it seems to you that it does not look sharp enough when pasting it into the document, you can go back and make the image a little larger until you find the right size.
The transparent picker is a super versatile tool
If you’re working with images that have a white background, you can move objects freely across the canvas without overlapping by turning on transparent selection.
Now, if you press the select button you will be able to make a box and move the object in such a way that it can be superimposed on top of other elements of the image.
color identifier
If you want to know the exact HEX or RGB value of any color you see in a photo or image, you can identify it using Paint. Just take a screenshot and paste the image into Paint.
Then, use the “pipette” or the color selection tool and click on the color you want to identify. Then click on the color wheel located on the right margin of the toolbar and a new window will open where you can see the hexadecimal and RGB values of the selected color.
What do you think of this little guide to Microsoft Paint? Do you know other tricks that are worth it? If so, do not hesitate to go through the comment area.
