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As a traditional and digital painter, there is one unique feature that is easy to overlook: the colors are selectable as true pigments.
Painters don't categorize colors using standard terms: red, blue, green etc. Rather they categorize according to pigment. Different pigments (i.e. chemical base to the paint) have different properties.
For example, a Prussian blue appears almost black when applied thickly, but is very chromatic when applied thinly. In contrast, a cobalt blue is pretty much the same however it is applied.
ASAIK, this is the only app that supports this feature out the box.
The digital painting toolset has been pretty much in stasis for years, but this app offers node based brushes! I am very intrigued. Downloading it now.
I have had time to browse through the app. Regarding the nodes, it would be good if the node parameters had too tips, as it is they are labeled very mysteriously. The keyboard-powered brush picker is very useful. I wish Photoshop had one. The lighting feature I don't see as very useful. Its basically no more than a temperature adjust. The color picker had a few cool features, but I admit I did not explore it too deeply.
Overall I enjoyed it but nonetheless see it as being in the same family as every other painting app.
I would love to see painting apps stop trying to emulate real media and instead try to do things that are uniquely digital. My dream digi-daub app would feature...
- 16 bit as standard. Do a gradient in an 8 bit Photoshop document and you will see how limited 8 bit info is. (OUR PAINT supports this).
- A brush that can paint both behind and in front of previous strokes. Of course, this would need to be supported by a depth channel.
- Supporting this, I want an adjustment parameter that can adjust based on depth. Depth-based contrast is a uniquely powerful force in image-making.
- Also a brush that increases/decreases neighboring regional contrasts.
- Almost all digital brushes are simply repeated stamps. This is now ancient technology. I would love to see a brush that can paint entire objects or the textured components of those objects. For example, with one stroke I would love to be able to paint a tree, or hair and fur. Of course, such a tool would likely be AI.
- An AI powered style randomizer.
For a featureless program it appears to be quite featurefull !
Opaque and transparencies, at the same time.
Use opaque color for impasto, or glazing over with transparencies, any process, any time.
Different reflectance behaviour for dense/diluted colors, enjoy the hue shifts as you mix.
Allow different light source and exposure control of the image.
Node-Based Brush Engine
...I looked at the website, but I don’t really get what this is about. Is anyone able to summarize what it means that it’s programmable, or how that sets it apart from other programs?
The brushes are editable to a degree that I have not seen in other apps. For this the authors have employed a node-based system which they call 'programable'. Not sure how valid that it, but it is certainly novel.
> Our Paint is Developed by Wu Yiming and licensed under GNU GPL v3 or later for individuals. For commercial licensing, customization and technical support, contact Yiming for details.
Is that allowed under GPL V3 to limit commercial use?
If that phrase "for individuals" means "for individuals only", then it isn't GPLv3, but some bespoke non-free license.
My speculation: it was intended to mean: use it under terms of GPLv3 (for commercial purposes or not), OR contact to negotiate different terms.
But there's a built-in assumption that no commercial entity would _want_ to use it under GPLv3 terms.
I think it's more subtle than that:
https://web.archive.org/web/20250719210835/https://www.wello...
The project is a mix of licenses since it's a mix of components. If I had to guess, they intend source code and maybe the binaries under GPLv3 that they own, fonts under SIL Open Font, but "brushes" and "splash images" under CC_BY_NC, etc. mean they could probably constrain certain uses:
Our Paint is a painting application.
Copyright (C) 2022-2025 Wu Yiming
Learn more about LaGUI: https://ChengduLittleA.com/lagui
Support the development: https://patreon.com/ChengduLittleA
Our Paint is licensed with GNU GPL v3, and Noto fonts are licensed with SIL Open Font license. You should be able to find details about the license in the source code directory.
The splash screen images under Resources are licensed with Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC 2.0). You can not use these images commercially, but you are free to contact the author for licensing info on other products such as prints.
The brushe files packed with Our Paint distribustion are licensed with Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC 2.0).
Looks absolutely cool and insane at the same time:
The site is very slow for me. There's an archive here: https://archive.ph/c7aHC
Crafted by Rajat
Source Code