Summary
- Microsoft has announced a major new update to its in-box Paint app for Windows 11.
- In addition to a new opacity slider, the company is introducing a dedicated .paint project file type for the application.
- In recent months, Paint has received a number of upgrades, including AI features, layers, transparency, and PNG support.
Microsoft has announced a major new update to its default Paint app for Windows 11. In addition to a new opacity slider, which grants easy access to Pencil and Brush stroke transparency levels, the company is finally introducing a dedicated .paint project file format into the mix.
Similar to other painting applications with their own bespoke file formats, .paint unlocks the much-appreciated ability to save a canvas in project form, making it easy to hop back in and pick up where you left off in your photo editing or inking journey at a later date.
“Once you’re ready to save your artwork, go to the File menu and select Save as project. The File Explorer will open, allowing you to choose a location and save your work as a .paint file. When you’re ready to return, simply open the file to launch it in Paint, right where you left off,” writes Dave Grochocki, Microsoft Principal Group Product Manager, in a Windows Insider Blog post.
These new Paint updates are rolling out now in the Windows Insider Program Canary and Dev channels, where they’ll be available for early testing. A stable release to the public is expected in the coming weeks, though Microsoft hasn’t committed to a specific timeline as of yet.
Microsoft’s Paint app has a storied past
Paint went from abandonware to state-of-the-art seemingly overnight
In the Windows 11 era, Microsoft has doubled down on supporting its suite of in-box applications that ship with its flagship PC operating system. Classics like Notepad and Snipping Tool have received their fair share of updates in recent years, but it’s the glow-up of Paint that I find to be the most fascinating.
Paint has been around for as long as Microsoft Windows has existed, first serving as a tech demo for digital art creation via mouse and cursor. The app received a steady flow of updates up until Windows 8 in 2012, where it was unceremoniously dropped like a sack of potatoes.
Microsoft first experimented with a modernized painting experience in the form of a new app called Fresh Paint, which is still available on the company’s Windows 11 storefront to this day. Then, a few years later, it introduced Paint 3D — yet another new painting app, but with an emphasis on three-dimensional art creation (this was at a time when Windows Mixed Reality was top of mind at Microsoft).
Paint has been around for as long as Microsoft Windows has existed.
In the wake of Paint 3D, Microsoft announced plans to deprecate the original Paint app in 2017, prompting much backlash from the tech community and beyond. The company eventually reversed course, declaring Paint a permanent fixture of the Windows experience, and, in an ironic twist of fate, Paint 3D itself was ultimately canned late last year.
Microsoft Paint is finally great
Paint has officially put Adobe Photoshop on notice
Roughly coinciding with the release of Windows 11 in 2021, Microsoft gave classic Paint a massive redesign, with modernized user interface elements, Fluent design language principles, and full support for dark mode.
In the years since, Paint has received a ton of new capabilities, including long-requested features like support for transparency and the PNG file type, configurable layers, an object selector tool, smoother zooming, a more prominent thickness slider, and a background removal function.
Paint has also benefited greatly in today’s Copilot+ PC era, with generative AI-powered features like Image Creator, sticker generation, and more being introduced in recent months.
As a free, standalone roster graphics editor, Paint is now a capable (and visually pleasing) option.
With the new additions of a dedicated .paint file type and a dedicated opacity slider, I reckon Paint is now more than sufficient for the vast majority of casual photo editing workflows. In fact, if I were rivaling Photoshop, I’d start to get a bit nervous. Adobe’s Creative Cloud subscription isn’t cheap, and while it’s still a more powerful suite than Paint, it also introduces an undesirable amount of bloat and heaviness into the mix.
As a free, standalone roster graphics editor, Paint is now a capable (and visually pleasing) option that seamlessly integrates into the Windows 11 experience. In 2025, Paint is finally a powerful enough piece of software for general-purpose image editing — it’s hard to believe that just a few short years ago, the iconic app was on the brink of discontinuation.
