Live Preview
You can get a Preview on-the-fly, testing different filters to determine the final outcome you are looking for. If you have a real eye for color, you can even mix your own paints, and test different brush types and sizes. Don’t worry about any errors, it’s all digital! Just select UNDO, and try another creative approach. Once your masterpiece is ready for your adoring public, share it with a text, email or via the cloud on SkyDrive.
Fresh Paint is getting a lot of traction–currently there are over 1 million downloads. The developer, Aaron Coldiron, told the Windows Experience blog that the app started as a little project at Microsoft Research (MR) designed to see how they could use digital technology to mimic realistic painting.
Content Packs
To make it simpler to get up and running, the program provides a number of content packs. There are really easy ones for the little ones, and more involved projects for adults. For example, Disney-Pixar’s Finding Nemo Pack has 22 different images that were designed for the program. The paint palette in this pack has been custom-designed to approximate the original colors.
The Creative Pack is similar to the paint-by-numbers pages many filled in when they were kids. It includes a sketch outline with different views. Use the Eye Dropper to select the target color and load the brush. Paint away on the sketch outline to get the look you want. As always, you can start over at any time.
Images can be imported and transformed into wet paint. From there, the artist can use different brushes to manipulate the paint to create an attractive painting. Some artists will even blend different images together to create completely new images.
Unleash your inner Picasso and give Fresh Paint a try. It is a free download and requires a Windows Phone 8 with a minimum of 1GB of RAM.