ben merrill.

Ben Merrill Paint

Paint.NET is a great image editor, and it only runs on Windows. So I built one that runs anywhere there's a browser. More powerful than MS Paint, far simpler than GIMP.

Start painting Free. No install, no account, nothing uploaded.
BMP with a painting of a red barn and pumpkins open: tools down the left, a color wheel, brushes and layers on the right

The basics, done right

Layers, selections, real undo.

Every picture is made of layers with their own opacity and blend mode. Select with a rectangle, a lasso or the magic wand, and undo anything from the history panel.

Brushes, pencil, eraser, clone stamp, fill, gradients, text and shapes. Mirror painting is in the toolbar for when symmetry matters.

A cartoon knight run through the Ink Sketch effect, with the tools, color wheel, brushes and layers panels around it

Effects

Seventeen effects, one menu away.

Sharpen, vignette, blurs, glow, drop shadow, halftone, ink sketch, oil painting, dither, an old CRT screen, even render-your-own clouds.

Each one opens a small panel with live sliders and a hold-to-compare button, so you can see before and after without committing.

The Effects menu open on the Artistic submenu: Halftone, Ink Sketch and Oil Painting

Adjustments

Fix the light without a manual.

Curves, levels, hue and saturation, temperature and vibrance, posterize, sepia, a gradient map. Eleven adjustments, with live previews.

Auto-Level is there for when you just want it to look right.

The Curves dialog open over the barn painting, with an RGB curve and Hold to Compare, Reset, Cancel and OK

Have fun with it

Ink sketch. CRT screen. Why not.

The fun stuff is right next to the serious stuff. Here's the same knight in two tabs: one through Ink Sketch, one through the CRT Screen effect.

Open as many pictures as you like. Each one gets its own tab.

A cartoon knight running from dragon fire, with CRT scanlines applied, in its own tab beside the ink-sketch version

Built to stay out of your way.

Runs anywhere

Linux, Mac, Windows, a Chromebook. If it has a modern browser, it has BMP.

Nothing leaves your machine

Pictures open and save on your computer. BMP never sends them anywhere.

Projects keep their layers

Save a project and every layer is still there when you open it again.

Install it like an app

One menu item adds it to your desktop or dock, and it works offline.

Screenshot frames

Drop a screenshot into a clean window frame for a blog post or a bug report.

Light or dark

Follow the system, or pick one. Keyboard shortcuts for the things you do a hundred times.

Open a picture and play.

No sign-up. Your pictures stay on your computer.

Start painting