[ILUG] paint programs ? - Photogenics

[David Golden]

> > Anyone know if there are paint programs like Deluxe Paint out for Linux ?

Not exactly - but if you remember DPaint from using it on the Amiga, you 
might remember drooling over Paul Nolan's Photogenics, too - and it's
still going strong:

Photogenics 5.0 is now available on Linux (and windows, and for wince PDAs!)

See http://www.idruna.com/

Photogenics is different again to DPaint or the Gimp, but it's excellent for 
from-scratch pixel-pushing artwork - Any idiot can whip up beautiful abstract 
desktop backgrounds in a matter of minutes with it -
imagine it as a bit like drawing in real-time with gimp script-fu plugins.

It's quite cool, though not open source.  The trial version is a 1.4 MB 
download, and I strongly recommend checking it out.

> > The question came up, as Padraig here spends his time trying to draw a
> > line in the Gimp, which sucks ass for creating stuff from scratch.
>

Personally, I too find the gimp very unsuited to original work.   It is after 
all an "image manipulation" package, not a "paint/animation package" as
Amiga-people understood the term:

For those who haven't seen them, DPaint (and similar packages like
PPaint) were simply great bitmapped-graphics packages - they worked like 
ultra-mega-powerful versions of the cheesy "paint" and icon editing packages 
you see in the "accessories" folders of things like windows.

Cloanto still sell PPaint 7.1b bundled with their "Amiga Forever" commercial 
version of UAE - works fine on Linux and Windows.
See http://www.cloanto.com/


* Anything which _requires_ me to faff about with selection tools before 
drawing is annoying, doubly so if selection-tool faffing is the official way 
to draw geometric primitives like circles and rectangles.  I much prefer
optional stencil tools.

* A package which doesn't allow me to use full-colour animated brushes, and 
to paint onto animations with those animated brushes, is a step backwards from
DPaint III... Extra annoying if you can only use monochrome, static brushes...

* Anything which doesn't have several independent clipboards and/or brush 
selections is pushing it a bit, and is hopeless if I can't arbitrarily pick up
a part of an image with a click-and-drag operation and use it as a brush from 
then on.

* Anything which doesn't have a real-time symmetry-painting tool with 
simultaneous color-cycling is hopeless for when you're drunk/stoned...