I hadn’t updated the Features page on the Paint.NET website since Paint.NET v2.5 was released way back in November of 2005! So today I took some time to do this, taking into account all the changes that have gone into the program over the last year and a half. I especially make a strong mention of the new tabbed document interface, built-in updater, and the online forum.
So, here’s the refreshed features list, complete with new pictures:
Simple, intuitive, and innovative user interface
Every feature and user interface element was designed to be immediately intuitive and quickly learnable without assistance. In order to handle multiple images easily, Paint.NET uses a tabbed document interface. The tabs display a live thumbnail of the image instead of a text description. This makes navigation very simple and fast.
Layers
Usually only found on expensive or complicated professional software, layers form the basis for a rich image composition experience. You may think of them as a stack of transparency slides that, when viewed together at the same time, form one image.
Active Online Community
Paint.NET has an online forum with a friendly, passionate, and ever-expanding community. Be sure to check out the constantly growing list of tutorials and plugins!
Frequently Updated
Updates usually come about every 4 to 6 weeks, and contain new features, performance improvements, and bug fixes. Upgrading to the latest version is very simple, requiring only two clicks of the mouse.
Special Effects
Many special effects are included for enhancing and perfecting your images. Everything from blurring, sharpening, red-eye removal, distortion, noise, and embossing are included. Also included is our unique 3D Rotate/Zoom effect that makes it very easy to add perspective and tilting.
Adjustments are also included which help you tweak an image’s brightness, contrast, hue, saturation, curves, and levels. You can also convert an image to black and white, or sepia-toned.
Powerful Tools
Paint.NET includes simple tools for drawing shapes, including an easy-to-use curve tool for drawing splines or Bezier curves. The Gradient tool, new for 3.0, has been cited as an innovative improvement over similar tools provided by other software. The facilities for creating and working with selections is powerful, yet still simple enough to be picked up quickly. Other powerful tools include the Magic Wand for selecting regions of similar color, and the Clone Stamp for copying or erasing portions of an image. There is also a simple text editor, a tool for zooming, and a Recolor tool.
Unlimited History
Everybody makes mistakes, and everybody changes their mind. To accommodate this, every action you perform on an image is recorded in the History window and may be undone. Once you’ve undone an action, you can also redo it. The length of the history is only limited by available disk space.
Open Source and Free
Paint.NET is provided free-of-charge, and the source code (all 138,000 lines of it) is also available for free under generous licensing terms. The bulk of Paint.NET is written in C#, with only a small amount of code related to setup and shell-integration written in C++.
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Hi Rick – any plans for an Options/Preferences dialog?
I can give two reasons off the top of my head for this – to expose the Tools defaults (which is pretty well hidden, especially if you only use the palette to select and switch tools) and to change settings like “if the image is saved, and New is clicked, replace the current image”.
Cheers Rick,
Thomas
Thomas, I started writing a reply but it got so long that I decided to make a full post out of it. Stay tuned.
Hi,
One of the things that has ‘pained’ me over the years, is that Windows Paint has no memory of preferred File saving preferences. I like to save everything in a Folder called c:\Dpwnloads.
And I like to save as jpg.
Windows Paint always defaults to the horrible ‘mine shaft’/’rabbit warren’ called Documents and Settings (somewhere down the mine shaft).
And it defaults to bmp file type.
Your program is a bit better, as it remembers where you last saved, but NOT how you like to Save. It keeps reverting to png.
Ideally you could have a Settings dialog, where one can set desired location and File Type for Saving Files when your program was opened directly (no file was opened).
If you do not intend to provide a Preferences/Settings dialog, then remembering the File type will be ok.
I was using Paint to grab screen snapshots, and save them as jpg’s.
I usually manage to keep Paint’s Canvas size, as just a couple of centimeters, so that the snapshot forces the canvas to exactly match the image width/height.
Is something like that possible in your program ?
Thanks,
Rob
PS
Is there a Preferences/Settings Dialog ?
Rob, you can easily paste via Ctrl-Alt-V which pastes into a new image. That way you don’t have to answer the question about whether you want to enlarge the canvas or not as well.