Is Paint 3D so bad?

Hey everyone. Yesterday as I was reading an extremely long thread on Reddit about the Windows April 2018 update, there was also a sub-discussion about the warning you now get when you run Paint about it eventually moving to the store.

So naturally, this sparked a debate, with some people claiming that it *should* be removed because it’s so old and Paint 3D is better, while others claim it does no harm to stay because it’s still a great, fast tool to use when you want to do really simple graphical operations on an image or photo (like cropping).

So this caused me to fire up Paint 3D and play with it a bit, and I started thinking that, okay, maybe this isn’t so bad, that I could more than likely get used to it. Yes, it’s “app-ified,” if there is such a word, and it does more than what a lot of people need with the inclusion of these goofy 3D features, but can’t those just be ignored?

I also think the old version of Paint should not go away completely for people that still want to use it, hence it moving to the store. But what do you guys think? Is this just a case of us not wanting to get rid of old habits?

Conversation 26 comments

  • TheJoeFin

    Premium Member
    03 May, 2018 - 1:55 pm

    <p>I think Paint 3D is fine. It crops photos, and can export .png files with a transparent background. I don't use the 3D features, but ignoring them hasn't been difficult. </p>

  • Daekar

    03 May, 2018 - 2:12 pm

    <p>If Paint3D doesn't sacrifice any functionality or usability on the original Paint (a pretty darn low bar, IMO) then I couldn't care less if they got rid of the old program. Anyone with real needs will at least get Paint.NET or one of the many other Store photos programs, if not one of the Photoshop variants.</p>

  • hrlngrv

    Premium Member
    03 May, 2018 - 3:04 pm

    <p><em>Better</em> is entirely subjective. For some people, the 3D animation effects that Paint3D can generate may make it <em>better</em> for them. For me, I do little more than crop and annotate screen shots and other canned images. For me, Paint is <em>better</em> for that than Paint3D because Paint requires fewer UI interactions to do what I want, plus I'm used to it, so it's faster. However, the last time I tried it, Paint3D was unable to run multiple simultaneous instances. Paint can. Since some of my annotations involve copying parts of one existing image to paste into another, this is an objective difference which, for me, makes Paint3D much less efficient.</p><p>If the goal is to purge Windows of seldom-if-ever used cruft which has been bloating Windows for decades, there are much apter canidates under C:\Windows\System32, almost as old as Paint and used orders of magnitude less frequently.</p><p>The ideal would be giving users a choice during first login: accept defaults (so Paint3D rather than Paint) or customize (allowing users to have Paint, XPS Viewer, etc) available after all the upgrades and other out-of-box processes complete. Not a chance MSFT would provide it.</p>

    • ErichK

      Premium Member
      03 May, 2018 - 3:12 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#270943"><em>In reply to hrlngrv:</em></a></blockquote><p>I agree in principle about giving people choices about those things, but I see it as a potential problem with Joe Consumer who may react in confusion — "Paint? XPS? What?"</p>

      • hrlngrv

        Premium Member
        03 May, 2018 - 3:55 pm

        <p><a href="#270948"><em>In reply to ErichK:</em></a></p><p>Thus why I mentioned <strong><em>accept defaults</em></strong>, which would be the packages MSFT wants users to have, similar to how most complex application software used to install and some still does.</p>

    • skane2600

      03 May, 2018 - 6:28 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#270943"><em>In reply to hrlngrv:</em></a></blockquote><p>I'd say give them the choice "on demand", that is, include both. People download multiple gigabyte movies, Including both Paint and Paint3D is going to have a negligible effect on storage requirements.</p>

    • gregsedwards

      Premium Member
      04 May, 2018 - 12:45 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#270943"><em>In reply to hrlngrv:</em></a></blockquote><p>But here's the thing…Paint 3D doesn't really require any more steps than legacy Paint, and I've found <em>nothing</em> that Paint could do that Paint 3D can't do. At worst, some of the commands are just organized differently. </p><p>For example, you just need to crop and annotate an image. <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent;">Of course, annotate can mean a lot of different things, but let's say you want to draw a simple red box around an important part of the image.</span></p><p>Here are the steps in legacy Paint:</p><ol><li>Open or paste in the original image.</li><li>Select <strong>Home</strong>, <strong>Image</strong>, <strong>Select</strong>.</li><li>Draw a selection box.</li><li>Select <strong>Home</strong>, <strong>Image</strong>, <strong>Crop </strong>(or press <strong>Ctrl </strong>+ <strong>Shift </strong>+ <strong>X</strong>).</li><li>Select <strong style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent;">Home</strong>, <strong style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent;">Shapes</strong>, <strong style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent;">Rectangle</strong>.</li><li>Select <strong style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent;">Home</strong>, <strong style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent;">Colors</strong>, <strong style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent;">Red</strong>.</li><li>Drag corner to corner to draw the box.</li><li>Copy the image or save it as a file.</li></ol><p><br></p><p>And here are the steps in Paint 3D:</p><ol><li>Open or paste in the original image.</li><li>Select <strong style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent;">Crop</strong>.</li><li>Adjust the selection handles.</li><li>Select <strong>Done</strong> (or press <strong>Enter</strong>).</li><li>Select <strong style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent;">2D Shapes</strong>, <strong style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent;">Square.</strong></li><li>Drag corner to corner to draw the box.</li><li>Select <strong style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent;">Line Type Color</strong>, <strong style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent;">Red</strong>.</li><li>Select ✔.</li><li>Copy the image or save it as a file.</li></ol><p><br></p><p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent;">Either way, you're looking at basically the same steps.</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent;">To your point, I think Microsoft is interested in streamlining the legacy apps they have to support, while giving die-hard fans of legacy Paint the option to install and continue using their favorite product from the Microsoft Store. People who really care will find it if they want it, and everyone else will just come to accept Paint 3D as the standard. I'd bet in a few releases, they'll eventually lose the "3D" moniker, and it will just be…"Paint."</span></p>

      • hrlngrv

        Premium Member
        04 May, 2018 - 5:12 pm

        <p><a href="#271700"><em>In reply to gregsedwards:</em></a></p><p>My dirty little secret is that I still use the Windows XP version of Paint because I don't want the ribbon UI. My steps for crop and annotate.</p><ol><li>Paste in image.</li><li>Drag image (since selected following paste) so top-left of what I want is in the top-left corner.</li><li>Drag horizontal image size handle left to right edge of what I want.</li><li>Drag vertical image size handle up to bottom edge of what I want.</li><li>Click tool in toolbox on right.</li><li>Click color (if necessary) from colorbox on bottom.</li><li>Draw shape on image.</li><li>Save file.</li></ol><p>That's when it's simple. As often, I need to copy parts of other images and paste into the screen print. For that I can have 2 instances of Paint open. Why don't you try listing the steps involved for something like that with Paint3D.</p>

        • gregsedwards

          Premium Member
          21 May, 2018 - 1:11 pm

          <blockquote><a href="#271832"><em>In reply to hrlngrv:</em></a></blockquote><p>I'll agree that not having multiple instance support is an Achilles heel for a lot of UWP apps. It's a big reason I can't yet use the Word or Excel Mobile apps as my daily drivers. I do think that's supposed to be coming (if not already here in RS4), but it's going to be up to the apps themselves to support it.</p>

          • hrlngrv

            Premium Member
            21 May, 2018 - 3:18 pm

            <p><a href="#277844"><em>In reply to gregsedwards:</em></a></p><p>Annotating screen prints is more time-consuming than cropping and resizing. I have an image file with various sorts of arrows and some text box effects which I use. Simple with one instance for that stock image file and another for the screen print.</p><p>Paint 3D still only handles a single instance in build 17672. But even worse, it doesn't include a recent files list to make it easier to switch back and forth between different image files. From my perspective, it wasn't designed with practical usefulness in mind, only getting as many new 3D features as possible into it. Definitely new for the sake of new rather than progress.</p>

          • zman982

            22 May, 2018 - 5:01 am

            <blockquote><a href="#277844"><em>In reply to gregsedwards:</em></a></blockquote><p>I agree as well that the lack of multiple instances for Paint 3D is the main reason I haven't used it mainly. I really do not have a problem with Paint 3D itself and it took about 10 minutes to find out how to do most of thing I did in classic Paint. </p>

  • Paul Thurrott

    Premium Member
    03 May, 2018 - 3:52 pm

    <p>The issue is that Paint 3D is not a modern replacement for Paint. It's something else.</p>

  • Tony Barrett

    04 May, 2018 - 2:40 am

    <p>I've used old Paint many times over the years for absolute basic editing and copy/paste saving of screen captures, and it's useful in that respect. Paint3D is just… pointless. A gimmick if you like. I don't know why MS made such a big deal about it. They can move it wherever they like, it's something that may stoke around 2mins of interest, and it certainly won't turn anyone into a 'creator'. For the majority of more detailed work, I use Paint.NET – a very impressive tool.</p>

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    04 May, 2018 - 3:47 am

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  • karlinhigh

    Premium Member
    04 May, 2018 - 10:12 am

    <p>Paint has been around for… how many years? Does Microsoft plan on keeping Paint 3D maintained for a similar time period? Or will it be more like Windows Live Movie Maker? I don't want to invest in something that's going to get abandoned and killed off.</p>

  • wolters

    Premium Member
    04 May, 2018 - 11:01 am

    <p>I use Paint daily to crop pictures for business purposes. Very simple and easy…I guess I could try the Photo App or Paint 3D but it seems like there are more steps involved. Paint.Net is an option too but I always fall back to Paint. </p>

    • gregsedwards

      Premium Member
      04 May, 2018 - 12:21 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#271660"><em>In reply to wolters:</em></a></blockquote><p>I do this kind of thing a lot, too. And I can confirm that once you've done it a few times in Paint 3D and figure out where the corresponding tools are located, it's really no more involved than doing it in the legacy version of Paint. It's mostly just muscle memory.</p>

  • Patrick3D

    04 May, 2018 - 1:26 pm

    <p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/z8Yuhsf.jpg"><img src=""></p><p><br></p><p>Your eyes have to work harder to use Paint3D than Paint.</p>

  • lordbaal1

    07 May, 2018 - 6:23 pm

    <p>It goes according to what you're using it for. I'm in the process of repainting some rooms.</p><p>So I can go and create the shapes of rooms in it, put in some basic furniture. The color the walls. Then I can move it around to see what it looks like.</p><p>It is good for interior decorators. Not advance stuff like sketch. But for basic stuff, it's still useful.</p>

  • lordbaal1

    07 May, 2018 - 6:26 pm

    <p>They are both different. 3d is difference. There's many things that you can do in 3d that can't be done in 2d.</p>

  • jimchamplin

    Premium Member
    21 May, 2018 - 8:41 pm

    <p>NO</p>

  • harmjr

    Premium Member
    22 May, 2018 - 9:16 am

    <p>I think Paint 3D may be a great app. Maybe it has every single tool that Paint has but I dont like the user interface. If Microsoft wanted to lead in this area and convince app builders their new secure platform works why not rebuild paint, notepad as UWP and make it exactly the same user interface. Problem I dont think they can do that. Look at OneNote the only successful UWP and rom what I am told is not fully a UWP and its User Interface is so jarring that no one uses it at least any person willing to pay for Office has a hard time adjusting.</p>

    • ErichK

      Premium Member
      22 May, 2018 - 11:04 am

      <blockquote><a href="#278018"><em>In reply to harmjr:</em></a></blockquote><p>I used Paint 3D seriously for the first time yesterday to make some changes to an image, and I was able to do what I wanted to do just fine, but the initial thought was, "Dang it, I'm not used to this," because the UI is so drastically different than classic Paint.</p>

    • lordbaal1

      23 May, 2018 - 5:43 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#278018"><em>In reply to harmjr:</em></a></blockquote><p><em>Notepad and paint are baked into Windows. So why create a UWP app that is already in the OS to begin with.</em></p><p><br></p>

      • hrlngrv

        Premium Member
        23 May, 2018 - 6:22 pm

        <p><a href="#278263"><em>In reply to lordbaal1:</em></a></p><p>Same could be said for Calculator, but there's a UWP Calculator now. Handy for the hundreds of remaining Windows phone users.</p>

  • mmurfin87

    Premium Member
    30 May, 2018 - 10:16 am

    <p>Oh wow. Last time I fired it up, several years ago, for some reason I didn't really like it. Loading it up now and playing with it I think it's amazing!</p>

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