Say you're working on an image with a blue sky background, an airplane on top of it, and a cloud on top of the sky and the airplane. If you've never worked in an image editor other than Paint, layers give you the opportunity to decide which elements in an image appear above and below other elements.
But today Microsoft announced that it is finally adding two features that could make the app a bit more useful for power users: support for Photoshop-esque image layers and the ability to open and save transparent PNGs. The venerable, equally derided and beloved MS Paint app has been on a roll lately, picking up a major redesign, dark-mode support, better zoom controls, and other fit-and-finish updates all within the last couple of years.
