paint.net 4.2 beta build 7111 is now available

No, you didn’t miss the 4.1.7 release, I’ve just decided to call this the 4.2 release Enough has change that I think it’s warranted! Since this is a beta, translations have now been updated.

To get this update, make sure you have "Also check for pre-release (beta) versions" enabled in Settings, and then click on the Check Now button.

You can also head over to the forum for a direct download link.

Here are all the changes since 4.1.6, with highlights to indicate what’s new since 4.1.7 alpha 7107:

  • New: Support for loading HEIF/HEIC images (Windows 10 v1809+ required). Saving is not yet supported.
  • New: Keyboard shortcuts for changing the current layer. You can see these in the Layers menu with the "Go to …" commands. Alt+PgUp/PgDown will go to the layer above/below, and Ctrl+Alt+PgUp/PgDown will go to the top/bottom layer.

  • New: PNGs can now be saved as "interlaced"

  • New: Plugins that use IndirectUI can now use a UriProperty with a LinkLabel control (thanks @null54!)

  • New: Effect plugins can now more easily make use of the clipboard via the IClipboardService. It will handle all of the tricky clipboard issues such as threading, native data marshaling, and avoiding security vulnerabilities that exist in the standard WinForms and WPF clipboard APIs.

  • New: FileType plugins can now specify separate lists of extensions for loading and saving

  • Changed: Image->Resize supports Super Sampling again, and favors this over Fant when using Best Quality. Fant is still available, but is no longer chosen automatically.

  • Changed: Holding Ctrl when starting to move a selection with the Move Selected Pixels tool will no longer leave behind a copy of the selected area

  • Improved: When using Edit->Copy, a 32-bit BGRA bitmap in the DIBV5 format is now placed onto the clipboard so that other apps can read the alpha channel.

  • Improved: When using Edit->Paste, DIBV5’s are now supported if they have an alpha channel. If they don’t, then the regular DIB loader is used which has some heuristics for detecting an incorrectly defined alpha channel and correcting for it.

  • Improved: When using Edit->Paste, PNG is now the highest priority format. This maximizes the ability to maintain alpha/transparency, but it does mean that images coming from Microsoft Office apps will appear larger than they used to. This is either a bug or a feature of Microsoft Office. For some reason it places PNGs on the clipboard that are 25%+ larger than the DIB/DIBV5 bitmap that it also places on the clipboard (but which don’t have alpha/transparency).

  • Improved: BMP now supports saving in 32-bit (with alpha!) and 8-bit indexed.

  • Improved: PNG and JPEG now supports loading and saving of much larger images.
  • Improved: JPEG now has configuration for subsampling mode (4:4:4, 4:2:2, and 4:2:0). The default is now 4:2:2 instead of the (unconfigurable) 4:2:0 of older versions.
  • Improved: TIFF now supports saving at 24- and 8-bit color depths.
  • Improved: TGA images now load about 4x faster (thanks @null54!)
  • Improved: Added error reporting to the Save Configuration dialog. Instead of just saying "Preview: (error)", you’ll also get the standard error dialog that includes the exception which can used for troubleshooting.

  • Improved CPU usage for thumbnail updates (layers and image tabs) in many cases.
  • Improved performance of saving for file types where "Auto" bit-depth is supported but not the current choice.
  • Improved temporary memory usage when saving images at 8-bit color depth.
  • Improved: Slightly increased the size of the Settings dialog to reduce the need for scrolling in a few important situations
  • Fixed: AltGr should now work correctly with the Text tool. It will not trigger shortcuts like File -> Save All, or Edit -> Paste into New Image. (thanks @Bruce Bowyer-Smyth for the fix!)
  • Fixed: Mouse cursors now scale appropriately for non-integer UI scales (e.g. 125% or 175%)
  • Fixed a number of performance issues in the Save Configuration dialog. Especially with large images, it should now be much faster to change options and to click OK/Cancel.
  • Fixed flickering in Save Configuration dialog when changing options.
  • Fixed: Optimized rendering engine to remove huge lag spikes (30+ seconds) when zooming or panning very large images (e.g. 32K x 32K pixels). 
  • Fixed: 8-bit TGA images should now load correctly (thanks @null54 for the fix!)

  • Fixed: Some 32-bit TGA images were showing up as completely transparent due to their use of an obscure alpha channel type (thanks @null54 for the fix!)

  • Fixed: Simple message boxes can now be closed with the ESC key

  • Fixed: Some TIFFs could not be resaved as a JPEG due to having too much metadata (usually from Adobe Photoshop). The metadata is now discarded if necessary.

  • Fixed: Magic Wand now works on very large images (e.g. 65535 x 65535 pixels) without an error.

  • Fixed: DIBV5 bitmaps should now work with Edit->Paste, which improves alpha channel handling. (thanks @null54 for the fix!)
  • Fixed: Top-down DIBs should now work correctly with Edit->Paste. (thanks @null54 for the fix!)
  • Blocked the WebP FileType v1.1.0.0 plugin due to instability. An update is already available.

  • Blocked the ImAgif FileType v0.12.0.1084 plugin due to incompatibility. An update will hopefully soon be available.

6 thoughts on “paint.net 4.2 beta build 7111 is now available

  1. iiarrows says:

    “Holding Ctrl when starting to move a selection with the Move Selected Pixels tool will no longer leave behind a copy of the selected area”

    FINALLY! But… sometimes it was useful! 😛

    Also:
    Rick Brewster: “I’ll promote this version to a minor, as it has enough difference from the previous”
    Meanwhile at Google: “we have this very insignificant update. Let’s call it a major version”

      • Wieprzek says:

        What can I use the arrow keys for? Is it just pixel-by-pixel cursor movement or something I haven’t discovered yet?

        • Rick Brewster says:

          Yes.

          Most of the time, arrow keys will just move the mouse cursor, which you can use for whatever’s contextually relevant.

          Some tools use the arrow keys to move the selected object — like the selection (Move Selection), the selection with its content (Move Selected Pixels), or the line or shape you’ve drawn (Line/Curve and Shapes tools, respectively).

          Holding Ctrl will move by 10 pixels. It conflicted with some old behavior in the Move Selected Pixels tool where it would leave behind a copy of the selected area if you started the move with the Ctrl key held down. It wasn’t terribly useful because 1) you can just press Ctrl+C Ctrl+V to get the same behavior anyway, and 2) it gets in the way of Ctrl+Arrow Key to move it by 10 pixels.

Comments are closed.