Hi i have a question
i got mypaint1.2.0+gitexport.f62444e , its good , but i do not like it because there are no transformation /selection/rotate tools like in krita, to me mypaint is useless ,but it has so much potential, seems very undeveloped .Mypaint could actually become a krita killer ,and that would be the happiest day of my life. Is there a Mypaint admin boss thats gonna make select/tranformation tools very soon ? i was expecting that to be in mypaint, as it is standard in every other drawing application
The main reason is probably because the original developer wanted to emulate drawing on paper/canvas. And when you paint traditionally you don’t have transformation tools.
He has left the project now, and the current maintainers aren’t opposed to transformation tools, but none of them seem to have a particular interest in them either. That’s the way it is with open source software, features appear when a developer finds it interesting to make them.
Here is a discussion about selection tools. It seems to be planned for MyPaint 1.3. I suspect it is less an issue of “interest” but more of priorities, there are simply a lot of open bugs and stuff. And selection is no easy task I guess.
oh Thanks, this was from way back in 2014 , didnt know its been spoken about that long ago, after reading this reply it brought me to the realization that mypaint is has been a dead inactive project for some years now, but i found out a week ago that i can use Mypaint brushes in gimp 2.9.5 , so that actually makes mypaint a totally useless program to develop on since theres already krita and gimp out there which have all the editing tools, the only thing i like in MyPaint is its brushes anyway, other than that its complete garbage since one can use its brushes in gimp these days anyway
I think you misunderstood: The original developer left the project, however there are other people continuing to work on it. Both mypaint and libmypaint get regular commits, but I admit that those take a while to end up in releases… 
As a workaround you can right click on a layer in MyPaint and select “Edit layer in external app” and “update…”. This is the fastest way I know to make more general edits like colour correction or rearranging the composition. MyPaint was based on the idea to offer an easy and intuitive sketching application (this is why selection is an afterthought). Over the time it has grown and has now a few not-so-intuitive-and-hidden features. But they are really awesome for artists, for example the Gamut Mask…
Feel free to ask questions if you find MyPaint too coplicated. I am right now in the middle of writing the Documentation. Knowing the hurdles people encounter can help me to address them and write clear instructions.
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This is an old question yes but it seems to STILL not have any. AT THE VERY LEAST, masking should be possible, WE SHOULD NOT HAVE TO PUT MASKING TAPE ON OUR MOUSEPAD WHICH IS THE ONLY CURRENT WAY OF DOING IT. Not that it would work anyway. Masking is a very basic thing in art, one of the very very important aspects of painting. When I had Art 101 in school, the VERY FIRST topic we talked about before even picking up our first brush was about masking techniques. I can’t fathom why this program still after all these years does not have even the most basic of masking features. Its only saving grace is the -to-external-editor- feature which basically admits that it falls short. Sadly if you want to use those tools you are stuck going to another program that supports those brushes but then you lose the feel of the canvas altogether.
MyPaint feels like a really really nice and perfect program with a “just kidding” dialog popping up 5 minutes into it and stopping you for eternity.
Masking is 101 and also generally unnecessary in painting. I feel you though. The thing is with MyPaint is that it’s aging, in a low maintenance era of its life, and needs more users that know how to code (in FOSS users and developers are often the same thing). It’s in a state where it’s not even ready for contributions to small feature requests from 15 years ago to be accepted. I plan to fork it and share my work, but I also can’t run a community or be responsible for the program’s future. I’m just a user trying to keep it working for myself and getting some QoL stuff in.
I’d like to see more selection and modification tools too, but MyPaint has a very unique canvas system and that is also a large part of what holds back many tools that are so normal in other raster art software. With other art software most of these problems have already solved for ages and you can look up papers, for MyPaint we’re waiting on an experienced and clever computer scientist to suddenly show up and solve new problems for free. It’s frustrating, but that’s the state of things with a lot of the tool requests that would normally be trivial.
MyPaint has very different goals than Krita and you can use it’s brushes in Krita, which also has canvas expansion now. MyPaint will probably always be a simpler tool vs. ever being a “killer app”. As an illustrator and commission artist I got away with using only MyPaint for a good two years (and it was life circumstance vs MyPaint that made me stop), but I never used it for graphic design outside of concept sketches. It’s good at what it’s good at and not much else.
(You can still technically do masks in MyPaint BTW, it’s just very old school and you paint them like masking fluid and use special layer modes. I don’t mask often so I don’t remember off the top of my head but it’s definitely possible.)
