In November 2024, Paint 3D was removed from the Microsoft Store as the app was officially deprecated by Microsoft. But here I am in 2025, and I still use the software daily even though Paint has become a better app with Windows 11. But why would I stick with an old app while there are newer options available?

From its responsive performance and useful features, as well as my familiarity with its interface, Paint 3D continues to play an important role in my image editing workflow.

3 It has been incorporated into my workflow for years

It's basically muscle memory at this point

While Paint 3D allows you to work with 3D objects, ironically, it's the 2D features that I use. My main uses for Paint 3D are pasting, cropping, and adding boxes to screenshots; as well as cropping and resizing photos. This is a simple image editing workflow, so I want to use an app that lets me work quickly.

The fact that Paint 3D automatically resizes the canvas to the picture you're pasting into the app means that it's seamless to paste a new screenshot, crop it, and then save it as a new file. I don't have to open up a new window or new file. I just keep pasting, cropping, and saving as a new picture.

It's a process I've grown used to. I've been using the software for these features for years — and I absolutely hate changing up my workflow. So, when something fits so simply into my editing, it would take making the app unavailable or introducing something extremely user-friendly and clearly superior to get me to switch it out.

2 Even without updates, it does what I need it to

It just won't receive new features

There's only one feature that I wish Paint 3D had that it doesn't support — pixelating and blurring content. This feature would be useful for censoring personal details and account information from screenshots. But other than that, Paint 3D does everything I need it to. When it comes to censoring details, I either just cut out the information and fill it with the background color, or I use a tool like GIMP to add a blur or pixelation.

Besides being a creature of habit, the other reason I don't use another free photo-editing app for my workflow is that Paint 3D is fast and user-friendly. A more full-featured editor requires me to get acquainted with different features and options, but it also takes a longer time to open up. Paint 3D takes a literal second to open, while GIMP takes around 40 seconds. Paint.NET is much quicker than GIMP, taking just under five seconds to start up. However, using Paint.NET to crop to a fixed ratio takes a few more steps, which would slow down my workflow.

When I consider the speed and the essential features, there's not much motivating me to move from Paint 3D.

1 Paint and the Snipping Tool don't have the main feature that I need

No Microsoft app is a true replacement

The only reason I started using Paint 3D is because Paint had been deprecated in 2017. But Microsoft reversed course eventually and introduced an updated version of Paint in 2022.

I did take a look at the updated version of Paint to see if it would be a suitable replacement for Paint 3D, especially since I don't use any of the 3D features. Paint supports cropping but not cropping to a set ratio. For my work, I often have to crop images to 16:9 or 3:2, so the preset ratio in Paint 3D is essential.

Snipping Tool would also be an arguably better tool to use to edit screenshots. While the app does have markup options, it once again does not let you crop to a specific aspect ratio. Neither Paint nor Snipping Tool have blurring options either, which means I'm not missing out by using Paint 3D instead.

Using ShareX over Snipping Tool is another option, especially since it includes blurring and pixelation. But the essential preset cropping ratio I need isn't there. If another app introduces a quick preset crop option, I'd definitely view it as a viable alternative.

I'm sticking with Paint 3D in the meantime

I wouldn't argue that Paint 3D is the best photo editing app out there, especially since it's missing crucial features you would find in other photo editing software. But for me, it does exactly what I need it to. Opening the app is extremely quick and I've grown used to the process of pasting, cropping, and saving screenshots over time. For me to change over, I would need there to be a free app that's equally quick to start up, while also having superior features and a simple user interface. So far, I haven't found that in the various alternatives that I have tried.