You can get it at the website, http://www.getpaint.net/ , or from within Paint.NET by going to Help -> Check for Updates. Make sure that the checkbox, “Also check for pre-release (beta) versions” is enabled (Help -> Check for Updates, then click the Options button).
This release adds two new effects originally written by David Issel (“BoltBait”), support for the DDS filetype originally written by Dean Ashton, as well as many small bug fixes and some visual fit and finish.
- Note: For the beta, the new features are only presented in English. The final release will have complete translations for the other supported languages.
- New: Soften Portrait effect, by David Issel
- New: Ink Sketch effect, by David Issel
- New: DirectDraw Surface (DDS) file format support, by Dean Ashton. Improved from the original source code by optimizing the DXT compression library (“Squish”) to take advantage of multiple cores or processors.
- Improved: Visual fit-and-finish for the Layers window.
- Improved: Visual fit-and-finish for the close / ‘X’ button on image thumbnails.
- Changed: The keyboard shortcut key for the Color Picker is now ‘k’. This makes it so that the toolbar option, “After click: Switch to previous tool”, is not useless for those using the keyboard shortcuts.
- Fixed: Pressing Ctrl+[ no longer cancels out of drawing a line/curve, but instead decreases the brush size by 5 as expected.
- Fixed: Ctrl+clicking on the brush size +/- buttons now changes the brush size in increments of 5
- Fixed: Save Configuration dialog would “creep downward” from its last position every time it was opened again
- Fixed: TGA codec now saves the # of alpha bits to the image descriptor byte. This was causing some other applications to load TGA files saved with Paint.NET as solid black images.
- Fixed: Clicking the ‘X’ to close the Layer Properties dialog was not reverting changes made to the layer while the dialog was open.
- Fixed: Installation will not proceed unless Paint.NET is closed, and will also not allow Paint.NET to be opened until installation is completed. This helps to ensure a fully coherent and complete installation or update.
- Fixed: In Vista, it was possible to crash the Save As dialog by typing a filename that was too long.
- Fixed: In Vista, it was possible to crash the updater if you let the UAC prompt time-out.
- Fixed: It was possible to crash Paint.NET on some systems by clicking on a tool in the Tools window while the “Save As” dialog was open.
Enjoy!
paint.net blog 
thankx
Great to see continued improvements etc… I keep getting expired notice on the new beta regardless of how I get it though… Will check back tommorow should work..
Thanks for a great paint app…
I really think some important plugins as the Shape3D, Outline Object, Reflection and Flip should be included in a new version. just comments, but they are some of the bests nevertheless. The Conditional Hue/Saturation too. But i liked the new version
This is exciting!
1. new versoin of PDN
2. Before BoltBait published the portrait effect, I never thought my steps had been ever been read. But now not only is it a plugin, its built into PDN! (well, a revised version maybe but still pretty cool.)
Hi!
I have one question for you:
Do you going to put SVG support to the next version?
Bruno – Nope.
When are you going to release a version with SVG?
Will — Most likely never. SVG is a vector format.
You could support SVG import, that would be very helpful. Gimp let’s you select what size you want to import the svg at, but I hate gimp paint.net is so much nicer for my needs, I just wish there was an SVG import for those times its needed. I usually open the file up in firefox, then I printscreen, paste (but I lose the transparancy).