Get it either from the website (http://www.getpaint.net), or from within Paint.NET itself. Note: Make sure you have “Also check for beta releases” enabled. You can access this option by going to Help -> Check for Updates, then clicking on the “Options” button.
Please be sure to report any compatibility problems with plugins!
Change log:
- Note: New features will be displayed in English through the Alpha and Beta release(s). The final release will include full translations for the other supported languages.
- New: Ability to do ‘Fixed Size’ and ‘Fixed Ratio’ selection drawing with the Rectangle Select tool
- New: Added selection ‘combine mode’ (replace, add, subtract, xor) to the toolbar. This makes this feature much more discoverable.
- New: Added magic wand / paint bucket ‘flood mode’ (contiguous, global) to the toolbar. This makes this feature much more discoverable.
- New: Mandelbrot and Julia fractal render effects.
- New: Implemented new property and UI systems that makes it much easier to develop effect plugins. Authors may now specify properties with default, min, and max values and the UI for this will be dynamically generated. (instead of the author having to spend hours writing WinForms code)
- New: Better error handling for plugin effects. They will no longer crash Paint.NET, and will provide easier access to the diagnostic and support information.
- New: If a plugin fails to load, then a “View Plugin Load Errors” item will be added to the File menu.
- New: Added ‘Coverage’ property to the Add Noise effect.
- New: Added ‘Center’ (offset) property to Radial Blur, Zoom Blur, Bulge, and Twist effects. This allows you to set the center of rendering, complete with an image underlay preview.
- New: Added ability to do counter-clockwise rotation in the Twist effect. Also added ability to change the size of the twisted area in the Twist effect.
- Changed: In Frosted Glass effect, the performance was highly optimized. Increased max radius to 200 (instead of 10), and added ‘minimum scatter radius’ and ‘smoothness’ properties.
- Changed: Enhanced all built-in effects and adjustments (except for Layers, Curves, and Rotate/Zoom) to use the new effect UI system.
- Changed: Reorganized Effects menu into categories: Artistic, Blurs, Distort, Noise, Photo, Render, Stylize.
- Changed: Command link buttons now look better in Windows Vista.
- Changed: Moved ‘Median’ from the Blurs menu to the Noise menu.
- Changed: Rendering for the ‘angle chooser’ control is nicer now.
- Fixed: Header label flickering in some parts of the UI.
- Fixed: Some window activation issues with the Save Configuration Dialog if you switched to another program and back while it was open.
- Fixed: Some buttons and checkboxes were not honoring the theme animations in Windows Vista.
- New: Added text to installer to remind people that Paint.NET is free of charge, and if they paid for it (other than to donate), then they should ask for a refund (e.g. eBay swindlers).
Note: The new plugin system is still subject to change. Plugins written for this alpha are not guaranteed to work with the Beta or Final releases (although I will of course do my best to avoid breaking things).
paint.net blog 
> New: Ability to do ‘Fixed Size’ and ‘Fixed Ratio’ selection drawing with the Rectangle Select tool
That will be useful, and I believe it could be used with the Ellipse Select tool too. However, it would be quite irrelevant with the Lasso Select :).
Anyway, these changes are welcome as always!
Rick,
The median blur sits under the noise category, I suppose that should be in the blurs category…
Otherwise, the first impression is very good indeed, I especially like the fixed ratio selection (for cropping). Do you have plans to replace those textboxes by spinboxes, or maybe use the control you have for brush width?
As I’ve told you before, the fixed ratio selection will probably take away 50% of my Photoshop usage. I don’t want to push it or anything, but the one big thing that remains now is control over the size of the prints and Photoshop is gone from my machine!
Thanks and keep it up,
Kris.
‘Opentype’ and a ‘Quick Mask’ and my first born is yours!
Haha. Kudos on the development, this sounds promising. Unfortunately I can’t contractually risk any ‘Alpha’s’ or ‘Beta’s’ on this rig but I look forward to having a play with ‘the shiny newness’ at home.
Thank you.
Nice build! But I have a few questions:
– Like Francis told, is possible to make “Fixed Size” and “Fixed Ratio” for Ellipse Tool too?
– Could be possible to implement some “drag-an-drop” for layers? to change order, for example … and change the “X – Delete Layer” to a recycle bin where we can drag and drop to delete?
– Remove the three dots “…” after all effects and most adjustments? It will become more professional. I know it means that a dialog window is going to appear, but anyway.. it’s not intuitive.
thanks,
Leandro
Sorry for posting again, but I think I’ve found a bug: the dialog screen “Unsaved Changes” when I try to close PdN with unsaved images is transparent… and this way is difficult to read the text.
L.Rawlins — OpenType support would have to wait until a future release, such as 4.0, where I use WPF and/or FreeType for font rendering.
Leandro — I can probably add that to the Ellipse select tool pretty easily. I have filed a bug. “Unsaved Changes” is supposed to be partially translucent so that you can see the image beneath it. If you don’t want this behavior, you can use the Window -> Translucent menu item. This will also disable the floating window and effect window translucency. I don’t see how removing “…” could make things “more professional.” I am following the Windows UI guidelines and standard convention. Removing the 3 dots would just make things weird, and actually *un*-professional.
I would love the same effects for Ellipse too, thanks for thinking about it. And I agree with 3 dots now, Rick.
Thanks for answering!
The one thing left that keeps me turning to Photoshop is being able to edit text already typed. Once that’s done, I’ll gladly uninstall Photoshop 🙂
I have to say I like this a lot so far.
I’m just wondering, will any more plug-in’s be effected by the new ability to choose the center of what the plug-in effects?