IrfanPaint - Manual

Manual

Note: this page is usually updated whenever a new stable version of IrfanPaint is released; thus the newer beta releases have no help file.

This revision of the manual refers to IrfanPaint 0.4.11.64. If you want a more updated and comprehensive guide, have a look at the IrfanView guide made by Surendran Nambiath; it features a whole chapter about IrfanPaint and gives many useful tips.

Also, there is an updated Spanish version of this manual, provided here. Many thanks to the author, Atonau. :)

Overview

IrfanPaint is the painting plugin for IrfanView, wrote by Matteo Italia in collaboration with Irfan Skiljan. It allows you to do many basic photo-editing tasks without opening an external editor.

Make sure you have the latest IrfanPaint version: you can download it from the download section.

Tips & tricks

When the IrfanPaint toolbar is open the space and backspace file navigation keys are disabled; this is by design, to avoid you to lose your changes for an accidental spacebar press.
With extended tool tips selected (), move the mouse pointer over a tool to see tips on its use. The size of text in the tool tips can be changed in Windows, Desktop, Appearance.
The Paint Toolbar is magnetic. Drag it to either side of the IrfanView window and it will snap there. Then it will move with the window if you resize it or load a larger image.
You can switch between the various tools scrolling the mouse wheel while holding Ctrl and Shift.
You can change the pen width also scrolling the mouse wheel while holding Shift.
If you try to select a color and you are faced with a palette that contains only a finite number of colors, it's because you're working with a paletted image. Just increase the color depth of the image (Image->Increase color depth) to 24 bpp; now you'll be able to choose any color. Note that, if afterwards you wanted to get back to a paletted image, you would have to do the inverse operation (Image->Decrease color depth).
If the toolbar seems to be active but does not appear on the screen, probably it's because it has gone offscreen (due to resolution changes, second display removal, ...). You can solve this problem just by updating to the latest version of IrfanPaint, that includes a check to make sure that toolbar is always visible. Otherwise, you can remove the TBXPos and TBYPos rows from the [Paint] section of your i_view32.ini file; this will reset the showing position of the toolbar.

The tools

Quick reference

Arrow: Limits tools to work within selection
Paintbrush: Left/Right = Fg/Background color
Eraser: Left/Right = Background/Undo paint
Clone brush: Copy source to target
Color Replacer: Swap colors
Text Tool: Insert formatted text
Line: Straight line; Shift/Control to constrain
Arrow-line Arrows; Right click for line endings
Ellipse: Shift = Circle; Control = Centre
Rectangle: Shift = Square; Control = Centre
Fill: Left/right = Foreground/background color
Color-picker: Foregound/background color
Rotate: Custom rotate to horizon line
Brush Settings: Line styles and hatch fills
Tool tips: Brief/Extended tool tips
About: Version number, Credits
Width: Scroll to adjust the brush size
Tolerance: Scroll to adjust tolerance
Fill checkbox: For ellipses and rectangles
Background color: Click to change color
Foreground color: Click to change color

Complete help

Name	Image	Description
Arrow		This enables you to return focus to the Irfan View window, to make selections, crop, etc. The IrfanPaint tools, such as paintbrush or flood-fill will have no effect outside of the selected area.
Paintbrush		The left mouse button paints with the foreground color, and the right mouse button paints with the background color. Hold down the shift key, and scroll with the mouse scroll-wheel to change the brush width or use the width control on the toolbox.
Eraser		Click and drag with the left mouse button to erase any part of the image, leaving the background color. Click and drag with the right mouse button to undo any previous painting, leaving the original image. Hold down the shift key, and scroll the mouse scroll-wheel to adjust the width of the eraser.
Clone tool		Right click to define the source; left click and drag to define the target and start painting a copy of the source. Hold down the shift key, and scroll with the mouse-wheel to adjust the width of the clone brush.
Color replacer		The color replacer is used to replace a color with another one. Click and drag with the left button to replace the background color with the foreground color. Click and drag with the right button to replace the foreground color with the background color. Hold down the shift key, and scroll the mouse scroll-wheel to adjust the width of the color replacer. Use the tolerance field to adjust the tolerance of the color substitution.
Text tool		Click to show the dialog screenshot The Text Tool adds formatted text to the image. The text cursor's cross-hair will be the baseline for the inserted text. The text will be left, right, or center aligned on the insertion point. When you click the text cursor on an image, the Insert Text dialog opens. Here, you can select text, format individual words or letters with font, size, color, and text attributes, or align the text left, right, or centre. Unicode text can be pasted from the clipboard, or typed by using a customised Windows keyboard. The text can be drawn as an empty path, a filled path, as text or antialiased text. For path text, the text color icon changes to the brush settings icon, from which you can set the line and fill attributes of the text. Text in the dialog can be copied to the clipboard for reuse, and all formatting is preserved. The Hold to preview button will display the formatted text in the image so that you can check that it is not too big, correctly justified, and has a suitable color contrast, etc., before clicking on OK to insert the text.
Line tool		Click and drag with the left mouse button to draw a straight line with the foreground color. Click the right mouse button while dragging to cancel. Hold down the Shift key to constrain the line to 45° angles. Hold down the Control key to draw a line centred on the start point. Hold down the shift key, and scroll with the mouse-wheel to adjust the width of the line. Use the Brush Settings to change the style of the line, or line endings.
Arrow-line tool		The same as the line tool. Right-click the arrow tool to define the start and end arrow styles.
Ellipse/circle tool		Click and drag to draw an ellipse. Hold down shift to draw a circle. Hold down control to constrain the centre to the start point. Click the right mouse button to cancel drawing.
Rectangle/square tool		Click and drag to draw a rectangle. Hold down shift to draw a square. Hold down control to constrain the centre to the start point. Click the right mouse button to cancel drawing.
Floodfill tool		Click with the left mouse button to fill an area with the foreground color. Click with the right mouse button to fill an area with the background color. Use the selector tool first to limit the flood fill to the enclosed area. Use the tolerance field to set the tolerance value of the floodfill (suggested value: 40).
Color-picker tool		Click with the left mouse button to select the foreground color. Click with the right mouse button to select the background color. After using the color picker tool once, focus will immediately return to the previously selected tool unless you selected the picker tool holding Shift.
Straighten/Rotate Image Tool		Click and drag the tool along a straight line or between two points that you want to be on a horizontal or vertical line after rotation. The current background color will be used to fill the canvas, which is extended to accommodate the rotated image. The background color used by the custom fine rotation in Irfan View is not affected or used by this tool. It uses the background color of IrfanPaint.
Pen and brush settings		Click to show the dialog screenshot Open the brush settings dialog to set line and fill styles, and line endings. Results will depend on the line width, and will affect the paintbrush, line, arrow, ellipse, and rectangle tools. Here you can set the line style, pen width, line ending style, line joints (corner) style, line color, and line hatching style. The background tab allows you to set the color and hatching style for the fill. The secondary hatching color can be transparent to get a highlighting effect when painting over text with the background color (right mouse button with the brush tool). To make it look like there is no pen outline, use the same color and hatching for the line as you use for the fill. Empty path text and filled path text will also use these brush settings. Unless text is very large you will probably need to use a line width of only 1 or 2 pixels. The preview indicates (roughly) what the result will be. Click the preview to invert the foreground and background styles and colors.
Help (exhaustive tooltips)		Choose between short tool tips and extensive context help for the tool tips shown on mouse over.
About IrfanPaint		Version number of the IrfanPaint plugin, information about the translation, credits and a link to the IrfanPaint website, from where you can download the latest IrfanPaint version.
Line width		Enter a line width value in pixels, scroll with the buttons, or use the up/down cursor keys to adjust the line width. The line width can also be adjusted by holding shift and scrolling with the mouse wheel, while using the tools.
Tolerance		Higher values increase the range of colors replaced by the color replacer and flood fill tools. Reducing it to zero replaces only pixels with the specified color; increasing it to 255 replaces every color.
Fill		Used by the arrow-line, ellipse and rectangle tools. Choose from solid (filled) or outline (unfilled) shapes.
Color pane		Click on the rectangle on the foreground to select the foreground color. Click on the rectangle on the background to select the background color. Click on the little arrow to exchange the two colors.