1. MyPaint
MyPaint – is a fast and easy open-source graphics application for digital painters. It lets you focus on the art instead of the program. You work on your canvas with minimum distractions, bringing up the interface only when you need it.
MyPaint Main Features –
- exists for several platforms
- supports pressure sensitive graphics tablets
- extensive brush creation and configuration options
- unlimited canvas (you never have to resize)
- basic layer support
MyPaint comes with a large brush collection including charcoal and ink to emulate real media, but the highly configurable brush engine allows you to experiment with your own brushes and with not-quite-natural painting. Latest stable version available for download is mypaint-v1.2.0.
2. Krita
Krita – is a creative sketching and painting application. Whether you want to create art paintings, cartoons, concept art or textures, Krita supports most graphics tablets out of the box.
Krita Main Features –
- support a variety of file formats
- color model supports different channel depths, from 8 bits integer to 32 bits floating point per channel
- supports both layers and masks
- includes several types of tools: vector tools, raster tools, guidance tools, canvas tools and selection tools
- supports brush engine plugins
- provides filters that can be used directly
A latest stable full-featured version of Krita available for download is Krita 3.14
3. CinePaint
CinePaint – is an open source computer program for painting and retouching bitmap frames of films. It supports higher color fidelity than ordinary painting tools. CinePaint opens high fidelity image file formats such as DPX, 16-bit TIFF, and OpenEXR, and conventional formats like JPEG and PNG.
CinePaint was used for films such as Scooby-Doo, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, The Last Samurai and Stuart Little. Its available as a native application for Linux, Mac OS X, and BSD.
4. DrawPile
DrawPile – is a collaborative drawing program, where you can share your drawing live with other users. There are no restrictions on who may draw where every user has full access to the whole picture simultaneously.
Main Feature highlights
- Antialiased drawing and multiple blending modes
- Layers
- Text annotations
- Tablet pressure sensitivity
- Image may be rotated freely while drawing
- Built-in server for hosting shared sessions
- Chat
Latest stable version available for download is drawpile-2.0.5.
5. QAquarelle
QAquarelle – is the opensource Qt4-based graphical editor, whose goal is to provide the native way of painting with emulated traditional instruments, including the full support of tablet input and OpenGL-based processing in GPU.
Latest version available for download is qaquarelle.
6. Alchemy
Alchemy – is an open drawing project aimed at exploring how we can sketch, draw, and create on computers in new ways. Alchemy isn’t software for creating finished artwork, but rather a sketching environment that focuses on the absolute initial stage of the creation process. Experimental in nature, Alchemy lets you brainstorm visually to explore an expanded range of ideas and possibilities in a serendipitous way.
Alchemy is written in Java, so can run on most platforms. It runs on Windows, Mac OSX, and Linux. It requires the Java Runtime Environment version 1.5 or above. Latest version available for download is Alchemy BETA 008.
7. ChibiPaint
ChibiPaint – is an open source oekaki applet, a software that allows people to draw and paint online and share the result with other art enthusiasts. You can start drawing on Oekaki Board section or download it and integrate it into your own website.
Features highlights:
- High-quality brushes.
- Rotating Canvas.
- Multiple layers with many blending modes.
- Filters such as noise generation and blur.
- Tablet pressure sensitivity through JTablet support.
- Open source: licensed under GPL v3
Latest version available for download is ChibiPaint 0.7.11.2.
8. Harmony
Harmony – is a web based procedural drawing application with a set of special brushes that has ability to create smooth and rich strokes created by Ricardo Cabella. Even if you don’t have any drawing experience, using Harmony you can create a drawing that is aesthetically pleasing in minutes.
It also gives you the option to change pencil colors and the option to save it into .png file. Since the tool is web-based, it supports various popular browsers and can even be used on mobile phones.
9. mtPaint
mtPaint – is a free painting program which Mark Tyler developed from scratch so he could easily create pixel art and manipulate digital photos.
It uses the GTK+ toolkit (version 1 or 2) and runs on PC’s via the GNU/Linux or Windows operating systems.
Main Freatures –
- Interface
- Pixel Art
- Image Manipulation
Latest stable version available for download is mtpaint-3.31.
10. Tux Paint
Tux Paint – is a free, award-winning drawing program for children ages 3 to 12 (for example, preschool and K-6). Tux Paint is used in schools around the world as a computer literacy drawing activity. It combines an easy-to-use interface, fun sound effects, and an encouraging cartoon mascot who guides children as they use the program.
Main Freatures –
- A number of useful drawing tools are made available. (See Drawing Tools, below.)
- The drawing canvas is a fixed size, so the user doesn’t need to worry about ‘pixels’ or ‘inches’ when making a new picture.
- The entire program fits on a screen as small as 640×480 and can be displayed full-screen, to hide the computer’s underlying ‘desktop’ interface. (It defaults to 800×600 mode, but can run at larger sizes and in portrait or landscape mode, as well.)
- Loading and saving of images are done using thumbnails, so no knowledge of the underlying operating system’s filesystem structure is needed. Even filenames are unnecessary.
Latest stable version available for download Tux Paint.