Pixia from Isao Maruoka (FreeWare)
Pixia is a free painting and photo finishing tool originally created in Japan by Isao Maruoka. There it quickly became rather popular and after some time there appeared versions of the program in other languages including English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Korean, Chinese (simplified form), Polish and Hungarian. Now there is a rather big circle of Pixia fans who help to develop Pixia, create filters and masks for it, as well as plugins.
This pretty girl mascot represents English version of Pixia 
Here is a link to the web-page for Downloading Pixia. Here you can download Pixia in the desired language version, various plugins for it, and Help-files. It must be noted that the installer for Pixia application doesn’t include Help-files. The installer of Help is separate. Besides Help-system, the Official Web-site of Pixia has a page with links for on-line Tutorials for Pixia created by its users. Moreover, some users created their own web-sites and web-pages dedicated to Pixia; the links to these web-sites and web-pages are also at the web-page of tutorials.
For better understanding of working with Pixia and promoting it on the official web-site for Pixia there is a Gallery containing pictures created with Pixia as imaginative examples.
The Main menu of the application consists of only two options if there is no opened image in the utility: File and Help.
The option File starts File Dialog. The option New… allows creating a new image. When you choose this option there appears a window for selecting properties of the new image (width, height, resolution). The option Open… is for opening an existing image through the system browser. You can open image from the Clipboard with the option Open from Clipboard. If there is a scanner or camera connected to the PC it is possible to acquire picture from it with the option from Camera or Scanner. The option Select TWAIN.. allows selecting a TWAIN source, and after selecting it you can Acquire TWAIN…. There is an option for setting Preferences for working with the application. You can Customize Tool Bar… for work. The option Exit serves for cancelling program execution. At the bottom of the File Dialog there is a list of recently opened files (program history). This list can be cleared with the option Clear History…. If there is an opened image in the application there are additional options for file saving Save and Save As…, and file closing Close.
Pixia supports a number of image formats including Bitmap, JPEG, PNG, Photoshop, Makintosh PICT, FujiFilm Standard Format RGB, Windows Icon ICO, Adobe EPS, TIFF, Targa TGA, and native PXA. But image information such as transparency and layer information can be saved only in the native format PXA.
The option Help of the Main menu initiates a popup with only two options: Help… F1 and About. As has been mentioned above the option Help is enabled only if there is a Help-file separately downloaded and installed.
If there is an opened image in the Main window then the Main menu expands and contains additional options: Edit, Selection, Paint, Image, View and Window.
The option Edit of the Main menu opens Edit Dialog. It contains standard file editing options such as Copy, Paste, Delete; options of Undo and Redo changes. You can Copy [image] from File… or paste image content to the current image from other image file (Paste from File…). With the option Copy to Partsbox… you can save the selected area of the image or the image as a whole as a new file in the picture gallery of the application. The option Paste from Partsbox… pastes images from this gallery into a new layer in the current image.
The option Selection of the Main menu contains Selection handling options such as Select All, Select by Layer Size, Deselect, Invert Selection, Convert to New Layer and much more. There are options for saving selections to a file and loading selections from it (Load Selection… and Save Selection…). You can Flatten Selection… (enlarges selection area by a number of pixels), Slim Selection… (shrinks selection by a number of pixels), Blur Outside Selection and Blur Inside Selection, too. With the option Trim Selection you open a new canvas with the picture trimmed by selection.
The option Paint contains options for painting. The option Fill fills the selected area with the selected color (i.e. the current color). The option Line draws a line along the edge of the selection using the pentip and the color you selected earlier. The option Tone filter… makes filling and pasting in gradation. There are options for flipping and rotating the selection or the whole image. The option Text… allows applying a text to the image using the selected font. The option Magnify magnifies part of the image and allows pixelwise editing.
The option Image of the Main menu contains various image adjusting options. You can do Color Adjustment…, Color and Contrast…, Color Balance…, Tone Balance…, Merge Layers… and much more. The option Negative makes a negative picture from the current layer. The option Duplicate makes a complete duplicate from the current image. And more.
The option View allows zooming in and out of the current picture; it also opens and closes windows for filters and Supplementary Settings of the image, enables and disables the grid and the ruler, as well as enables/disables displaying of the mouse pointer position.
The option Window contains standard options handling windows within the application.
Here is a snapshot of the Pixia Main Window:
Under the Main menu there is the taskbar of the application; the main toolbar is located on the right side of the Main window. Parts of the toolbar can be brought out as separate toolbars. For example, you can move out the color toolbar either in the form of the set of color squares or in the form of a color circle with colors fluently turning into each other.
In the Filters window you can select a filter for applying to the image. The actual applying of the filter is being done by pushing the Execute button in the window; you can undo tha action by pushing the button Undo.
The toolbar of the application contains an awful lot of instruments. All the instruments can’t be shown at once so similar instruments are grouped together, and such groups can be opened and closed by pushing the button for them. Each pushing of the button changes the group of instruments in the toolbar; the selected group is indicated by its name on the button.
In the window Supplementary Settings you can change additional settings of the picture which aren’t shown in the main menu such as Anti-Aliasing (the technique of minimizing aliasing (jagged or blocky patterns) when representing a high-resolution signal at a lower resolution) and so on.