Not long ago Microsoft unveiled its slew of A.I. features that were planned to be baked right into the Windows OS, and one of those features that got me personally eager to test was the new and improved Microsoft Paint app.
While initially these features were Windows Insider members, they have now rolled out to the general public in the latest Paint update.
How to get it
If you don't see it just yet in your Paint app, then you will probably need to update to the latest version, which you can do from the Microsoft Store here.
Once installed, you should see the new menu items appear in the top panel. Along with "Cocreator", we are also greeted with the new "Layers" option, which might actually be even more exciting.
On initial launch, I was greeted with a "Join waitlist" window, however, once clicked I was redirected to what seems to be the functional panel ready for my prompt.
The UI remains similar to Bing Image Creator in which you enter your prompt and are presented with a few variations after a few seconds. But a nice addition is the "Choose a style" selector, where you can further nudge the A.I. towards a specific look that you are after.
Similar to Bing Image Creator, the idea of credits seems to still be a thing. While initially, you are presented with 50 credits in order to get started, there is no real mention of how to attain more, whether through a purchase or through Microsoft Rewards.
And I, for one, don't quite feel like running through all 50 of my credits just yet in order to get the answer. But when I do, I will be sure to update this article.
One interesting thing to note is that the resulting images seem to default to around 900px by 900px, unlike Bing Image Creator which defaults to 1024 x 1024.
Whether that can be updated is still to be determined. Regardless however, this is a big upgrade for MS Paint as it typically has been used for very light image editing and cropping.
Now with the combination of Dall-E image generation and layering, it's definitely starting to sprout its wings just a bit further in the world of graphic design.
Walter Guevara is a software engineer, startup founder and currently teaches programming for a coding bootcamp. He is currently building things that don't yet exist.
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