3 Mac alternatives to MS Paint

If you’ve just switched to OS X from Windows, then you might be missing MS Paint which has proved surprisingly popular over the years. Apple still haven’t included a basic drawing application in OS X but fear not as there are some decent third party alternatives available. Here are three of the best:

SketchBook Express

A hugely popular drawing application that’s suitable for beginners and experts alike. SketchBook Express uses professional-grade tools that enable you to produce some highly impressive results. The streamlined interface allows for what is known as “gesture-based marking menus” which mean that different tools are available to you at the click of a mouse. However, to get the most out of SketchBook Express, you’ll need a pen and tablet device. There are many preset tools, including pencils markers, airbrushes, erasers, flood fill tools, blur, and sharpeners plus different drawing modes that enable you to quickly create circles, lines and rectangles.

Paintbrush

Another very popular download, Paintbrush is a more similar clone of MSPaint and is suitable for all those that want something a bit more simple and fun and don’t need the professionalism of SketchBook Express. Paintbrush is extremely simple to use. You have a floating toolbox which allows you to change your painting tool, erase sketches, change color and more. The pencil tool isn’t very good to artists with a fine eye for detail will be disappointed. However, the paintbrush tool is excellent and you can have hours of fun spraying graffiti all over your canvas.

Scribbles

My personal favorite because it’s so easy to use yet allows you to be really creative. Scribbles is particularly suitable for young kids that just want to throw some paint around without upsetting their parents. On startup, you’re presented with a blank canvas and a round dot which is your paintbrush. You can spray in a variety of different styles such as a simple spraycan, an elegant calligraphy font or a messy “goo”. You can choose from a soft, medium or hard eraser and even choose an interesting tracing paper feature which allows you to trace whatever is on your desktop (with a steady hand of course). If you’re so proud of any of your creations you want to share them, you can also publish them online simply by entering a title, description and your e-mail address.