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General discussion

Graphics Utility that Allows Freeform Area Cut and Paste?

Apr 28, 2004 3:56AM PDT

I'm looking for a relatively simple (i.e. small) graphics program that allows you to cut and paste areas of freeform shapes, rather than just rectangular areas? Preferably a program that allows you to download a free trial.

Discussion is locked

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Re:Graphics Utility that Allows Freeform Area Cut and Paste?
Apr 28, 2004 4:28AM PDT

Hmm... I'd forgotten that good ol' MS Paint has this capability... but I actually need a program that can handle jpgs.

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Re:Re:Graphics Utility that Allows Freeform Area Cut and Paste?
Apr 28, 2004 5:01AM PDT

Not free, but well worth the money are some of the earlier versions of Corel Draw and Photopaint such as version 9. Earlier versions going back to 7 support this well. If you are using XP, you may need to go with something newer. It has all of what you want and much much more.

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Re:Re: Graphics Utility that Allows Freeform Area Cut and Paste?
Apr 29, 2004 2:30PM PDT

pretty weird, I already responded to this, and yet now I can't find what I had entered before ...

oh well, let's try this again ...

MS Paint (in WinXP) can handle JPG files. But by default, it doesn't appear so. Once you open a JPG file with MS Paint, you will be able to save in not only as JPG but also GIF, TIF, and PNG.

It is just an oddity of MS' Paint.

Now, once you get MS Paint to understand it can work with JPG files, then I suggest that you get IrfanView, a really GREAT graphics (over 60 formats reading, and over a dozen formats writing) viewer and converter.
(it also can make stand-alone slide shows, and is a very nice screen capture tool, it will display various video and sound file formats as well!)

Anyway, once you have IrfanView loaded you can set it up to easily (keypress Shift-E) to open any existing graphic with a defined external editor.
So you pre-define that to be MS Paint, and there you go.
A nice graphics viewer and converter, and any time you need to do a quick edit, that IrfanView can't do for you, just "Shift-E" to open it in MS Paint.

Cool, huh? Happy

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Re:Re: Graphics Utility that Allows Freeform Area Cut and Pa
Sep 10, 2004 12:50AM PDT

Thanks much. Guess I forgot how to subscribe to a thread, 'cause I forgot I posted this and stumbled upon your response months later by chance. Information's very valuable.