Thursday, May 28, 2009

HeliosPaint

HeliosPaint for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and Unix

Description

HeliosPaint is a freeware paint program for creating and editing images. It runs on Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and Unix and is written in Sun Microsystem's Java programming language.


(click here for more screenshots)


Tools and features in HeliosPaint currently include:
  • Pencil for editing pixels.
  • Curved, straight and freehand lines with choice of width, dash pattern, line joint and arrow heads.
  • Paint Brush with sizeable head.
  • Spray Can with sizeable head or global spray option.
  • Paint Can with local and global replace. Colour bleed sensitivity allows nearby similar colours to be painted.
  • Shape tool for creating freehand, regular polygon, star, moon and heart shapes.
  • Text entry with choice of font, style, underline and rotation.
  • HSB/RGB/contrast/gamma adjustment of image.
  • Image filters: invert, gray, black and white, colour filter, sharpen, blur, edge feathering, edge detection, oil painting effect, emboss.
  • Image colour and transparency adjustment by flat, round, rectangular and 'fit to shape' gradient patterns. This allows areas of the image to be darkened, brightened and colour enhanced.
  • Image flip, scale up, scale down, rotate, shear, perspective view.
  • Full colour pallet with adjustable transparency and colour grabber.
  • Zoom in/out with optional zoom grid.
  • Text and image paste from clipboard. Image and image segment copy/cut onto clipboard.
  • Scissors, lasso and wand for selecting and moving image segments. Sensitivity of lasso and wand is adjustable. Transparency of overlaid segments is adjustable. Scissors can cut out various shapes including regular polygons, stars and hearts. When part of the image is selected, all paint operations apply only to that area.
  • Saving selected areas as transparent gif or transparent png files.
  • Undo and redo.
  • Printing with auto fit to page.
  • Reads and writes image file formats: bmp, gif, jpg/jpeg, pct/pict, pcx, pgm, png, ppm, psd, ras, tga, tif/tiff, wbmp, xpm.
  • Supports images up to 12 megapixels in size (a high end computer is recommended for working with very large images).
I created the program purely for the fun of it :-). Future versions of HeliosPaint are planned and should contain some useful new features.

License

HeliosPaint version 1.3.8 and below are free to use. If the program is redistributed it must be done freely without any charge. It comes "as is" with absolutely no warranty of any kind. HeliosPaint program code is copyright D.J.B. Osborne 2007-2009.

Installation on Microsoft Windows

  1. Download and save HeliosPaint.exe onto your computer.
  2. Double click on the HeliosPaint.exe file to launch HeliosPaint.
Note: If the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) version 5.0 or greater is not pre-installed on your computer, you will be guided to the Java download website on running HeliosPaint.

Installation on Mac OS X

  1. Download and save HeliosPaint.jar onto your computer.
  2. Double click on the HeliosPaint.jar file to launch HeliosPaint.
HeliosPaint can also be launched manually on Mac OS X as follows:
  1. Open a terminal window (e.g. via your Applications folder).
  2. Use "cd" commands to go to the folder containing the HeliosPaint.jar file.
  3. Launch HeliosPaint by entering the command "java -jar HeliosPaint.jar".
Note: Java comes pre-installed on Mac OS X. If the program does not work properly, click here to get the latest Java for Mac OS X from Apple.

Installation on Linux or Unix (Java 5.0 capable)

  1. If the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) version 5.0 or greater is not installed on your Linux or Unix computer, first visit the Java download website to download and run the installer for your platform (or for Linux Ubuntu follow these instructions).
  2. Download and save HeliosPaint.jar onto your computer.
  3. Right-click on the HeliosPaint.jar file screen icon and select "Open with Sun Java Runtime".
HeliosPaint can also be launched manually as follows:
  1. Open a terminal window.
  2. Use "cd" commands to go to the folder containing the HeliosPaint.jar file.
  3. Launch HeliosPaint by entering the command "java -jar HeliosPaint.jar", granting execute permissions first if needed.