Digital painting is the creation of imagery on a computer, using pixels (picture elements) which are assigned a color. The process uses raster graphics rather than vector graphics, and can render graduated or blended colors in imagery which mimics traditional drawing and painting media.

The earliest graphical manipulation program was called Sketchpad. Created in 1963 by Ivan Sutherland, a grad student at MIT, Sketchpad allowed the user to manipulate objects on a cathode-ray tube (CRT).^[1] Sketchpad eventually led to the creation of the Rand Tablet for work on the GRAIL project in 1968, and the very first tablet was created. Other early tablets, or digitizers, like the ID (intelligent digitizer) and the BitPad were commercially successful and used in CAD (Computer Aided Design) programs. Modern-day graphics tablets are the tools of choice by digital painters.

The idea of using a tablet to communicate directions to a computer has been an idea since 1968 when the RAND (Research and Development) company out of Santa Monica, developed the RAND tablet that was used to program.^[2] Digitizers were popularized in the mid-1970s and early 1980s by the commercial success of the ID (Intelligent Digitizer) and BitPad manufactured by the Summagraphics Corp. These digitizers were used as the input device for many high-end CAD (Computer Aided Design) systems as well as bundled with PC's and PC-based CAD software like AutoCAD.

An early commercial program that allowed users to design, draw, and manipulate objects was the program MacPaint. This program's first version was introduced on January 22, 1984, on the Apple Lisa. The ability to freehand draw and create graphics with this program made it the top program of its kind during 1984.^[3] The earlier versions of the program were called MacSketch and LisaSketch, and the last version of MacPaint was MacPaint 2.0 released in 1998.^[4]

Much of MacPaint's universal success was attributed to the release of the first Macintosh computer equipped with another program called MacWrite. It was the first personal computer with a graphical user interface and lost much of the bulky size of its predecessor, the Lisa. The Macintosh was available at about $2500 and the combination of a smaller design made the computer a hit, exposing the average computer user to the graphical possibilities of the included MacPaint.^[5]

Another early image manipulation program was Adobe Photoshop. It was first called Display and was created in 1987 by Thomas Knoll at the University of Michigan as a monochrome picture display program. With help from his brother John, the program was turned into an image editing program called Imagepro but later changed to Photoshop. The Knolls agreed on a deal with Adobe systems and Apple, and Photoshop 1.0 was released in 1991 for Macintosh. Adobe systems had previously release Adobe Illustrator 1.0 in 1986 on the Apple Macintosh. These two programs, Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator are currently two of the top programs used to produce digital paintings. Illustrator introduced the uses of Bezier curves, which allowed the user to be incredibly detailed in their vector drawings.^{[citation needed]}

In 1988, Craig Hickman created a paint program called Kid Pix, which made it easier for children to create digital art. The program was created in black in white and after several revisions, was released in color in 1991. Kid Pix was one of the first commercial programs to integrate color and sound in a creative format. While the Kid Pix was intentionally created for children, it became a useful tool for introducing adults to the computer as well.^[6]

Corel Painter was created in 1991 by Mark Zimmer and Tom Hedges of Fractal Design.^[7]

In recent years there has been a growth in the websites supporting online painting.^[8] The user is still drawing digitally with the use of software: often the software is on the server of the website which is being used. However, with the emergence of HTML5, some programs now partly use the client's web browser to handle some processing. The range of tools and brushes can be more limited than free-standing software. Speed of response, quality of color, and the ability to save to a file or print are similar in either media.

• Art software
• Brain painting
• Computer art
• Computer graphics
• Computer painting
• Digital Art by Microsoft
• Digital illustration
• Digital photography
• Electronic art
• New Media
• Software art

• Donald Kuspit The Matrix of Sensations VI: Digital Artists and the New Creative Renaissance
• Joline Blais and Jon Ippolito, At the Edge of Art, Thames & Hudson Ltd, 2006
• Christiane Paul Digital Art, Thames & Hudson Ltd
• Donald Kuspit "Del Atre Analogico al Arte Digital" in Arte Digital Y Videoarte, Kuspit, D. ed., Consorcio del Circulo de Bellas Artes, Madrid
• Robert C. Morgan Digital Hybrids, Art Press volume #255, pp. 75–76
• Frank Popper From Technological to Virtual Art, MIT Press
• Bruce Wands Art of the Digital Age, London: Thames & Hudson
• Christine Buci-Glucksmann, "L'art à l'époque virtuel", in Frontières esthétiques de l'art, Arts 8, Paris: L'Harmattan, 2004
• Margot Lovejoy Digital Currents: Art in the Electronic Age Routledge 2004
• Brandon Taylor Collage Thames & Hudson Ltd, 2006, p. 221
• Wayne Enstice & Melody Peters, Drawing: Space, Form, & Expression, New Jersey: Prentice Hall
• Frank Popper Ecrire sur l'art : De l'art optique a l'art virtuel, L'Harmattan 2007
• Fred Forest Art et Internet, Editions Cercle D'Art / Imaginaire Mode d'Emploi
• Lieser, Wolf. Digital Art. Langenscheidt: h.f. ullmann. 2009