A tool for designing 2D stuff - [SOLVED]

Hello

I want to design some good 2D stuff for my game ,especially the main menu and other menus. What tool do you prefer that is efficient and easy-to-use? And please don't tell me Photoshop ,tell me another painting programme or some generating tool.....


Thank you for reading & any help will be appreciated

Good tool: The Gimp
Easy to use tool: MS Paint



OT: At the beginning I thought like you. Every tool had to be easy to use to achieve things I needed for my games. Now, I prefer good tools that take me a week or two to gain some skill. But with this skill I am able to achieve better results that I'd ever dreamed of in my "I want an easy tool"-days

I really like Paint.NET.

Yea, you'll probably find that eventually it's a lot better just to learn how to use industry standard software instead of wasting time with quick-fix software like MSPaint. Don't get me wrong, they're good for fixing the odd pixel or resizing, but I wouldn't do much more with it.

A good, low price software I use is Corel Paint Shop Pro. It is similar to Photoshop but it is a little more user-friendly. They have sales which means you can get the software for a low price. It is good for designing both simple and complex graphics. Only downside to it is that there are not as many tutorials for it as Adobe Photoshop.

There was a GUI generator in one of the AUM magazines.

I prefer Corel Draw and Corel Photopaint!

I've been working for a long time with gimp and I really like it.
I once tried photoshop but most features and almost all shortcuts were so different that I immediately switched back to gimp which I was way more familiar with.

...but in the end it's just personal preference and experience.

Thank you all guys for help....

The Gimp didn't work on my Windows 7 Ultimate (the startup menu frame appears ,but nothing happens and it causes freezing the computer)


Thank you again

Paint+ has evolved to greater heights
Paint.Net

...might do the job and its free....

I use Genetica.. It takes a bit to learn but the results are just fantastic

Yes, Gimp did exactly that on my Windows 7 too, so you have to wait a few minutes while it's loading. Or you can try to set compatibility mode, but I'm not sure it solves the problem.

Ok, I downloaded Paint.NET and it looks too good....

Thank you everyone....

I have no problem with gimp 2.8 on win7.

I like it but I have problems with its alpha channel handling, i.e. does not save rgb data on transparent pixels. but maybe it requires only a setting I don't know...

Try using RGB and alpha mask instead of RGBA pixels. Maybe the colours are "optimized" away.

the best is: Photo-Filtre 7 (it's free)
and you can make good looking buttons, panels ect

very easy to use and very rare

Lemmi throw http://inkscape.org/?lang=en&css=css/base.css in the ring...