Help for Paint.NET etc, please

[icosahedron]

LOL, sounds like you're a man after my own heart, Redrobes. I'm getting more Luddite as computers 'progress', too. Unfortunately, I don't know the first thing about programming, so I don't have the option to go it alone or tweak things until they work. Most of the discussion in the last couple of posts is over my head.

I keep the important stuff well away from the web. I do my surfing from an even older and simpler machine. A six foot gap makes an effective additional firewall.

Like you, I'm hoping that by the time MS forces me out of its market, Linux will have developed enough that you don't need a postgrad in computer science to get it working. And if it does develop for the masses, any time I spend now learning to program the source code will have been time wasted.

I'm assuming that Ubuntu is a form of Linux? Thanks for the tip Rob, but unfortunately if Redrobes' analysis of it is correct, anything that doesn't work 'out of the box' is a non-starter for me. I don't have the skills to poke about with it and I don't have the time to learn. What little learning time I have needs to be spent learning to map, not learning how to program the software that supports the software that enables me to draw the maps I need to play a game...

Sheesh, all I want to do is draw a few cartoon floortiles, a couple of top-down cars and the odd desk and chair.

[Redrobes]

Sheesh, all I want to do is draw a few cartoon floortiles, a couple of top-down cars and the odd desk and chair.

Your probably best off using Gimp and just glazing over all the buttons and widgets that you don't need. The only downside is that every time you ask for a bit of help around here using it your gonna get bamboozled with features you cant pronounce let alone use. Still, thats a small price to pay huh ?

Oh and my advice for drawing top down cars is to find a tall building with a balcony and take your camera with you

[Ascension]

I learned how to draw by drawing cars in 4th grade so I had 3 favorite magazines...CarToons, HotRod, and Road & Track. So I'd start there. Plus you can almost always find the technical drawings and concept drawings with a Google search or car magazines.

[Notsonoble]

I'm assuming that Ubuntu is a form of Linux? Thanks for the tip Rob, but unfortunately if Redrobes' analysis of it is correct, anything that doesn't work 'out of the box' is a non-starter for me. I don't have the skills to poke about with it and I don't have the time to learn. What little learning time I have needs to be spent learning to map, not learning how to program the software that supports the software that enables me to draw the maps I need to play a game...

Sheesh, all I want to do is draw a few cartoon floortiles, a couple of top-down cars and the odd desk and chair.

Ubuntu is a linux, but its focus is "working right out of the box"... you might give it a shot anyway... Kid you not, I give ubuntu boxes to people who've never touched a machine before... and they pick things up pretty fast. Find someone to burn you a copy of Ubuntu or Xubuntu... (I can't remember if Xubuntu comes gimp on the live disk... but I know it comes with some image editor)... and just boot your machine from the CD and play with it. I think you'll be surprised... and if you don't like it, no harm done.