hi guys, I have searched high and low recently for a decent, lightweight bitmap editor. Something like mspaint but with slightly more features. Here's what I am looking for:
1) ability to open/save GIF, JPG, PNG, BMP, and ICO
2) ability to use custom color palettes
3) decent zoom support (able to zoom into image for fine detail editing) -- preferably using mouse wheel or kbd shortcut
4) axis-constraints (i.e. hold shift to lock to X or Y axis while moving or drawing)
5) basic image editing features: resize, crop, stretch, adjust hue/saturation, replace color, etc
6) 24-bit/32-bit color support
7) pleasant interface
8 ) reasonably lightweight and fast
that's about it.
before everyone says "you just described Photoshop" please I already own Photoshop and it fails in several areas:
1) takes forever to launch-- sometimes I just need a simple tool for a simple job
2) tools are not really optimized for per-pixel bitmap editing, too much emphasis on anti-aliasing, smoothing, etc. I often find that it takes too much effort to adjust all the tools between pixel pushing and photo editing.
3) does not read or write .ICO files
4) slow and bloated
5) expensive
I have not found anything that even comes close (well, mspaint is the closest I guess!)
anyone got any tips?
