The biggest visible change in this release are some touch-ups to the Colors window. The Primary/Secondary dropdown has been removed, and instead the color boxes themselves will indicate which is the active color. In addition, inconsistencies with left/right clicking for selecting colors have been ironed out. The Colors window will also remember whether it was expanded (More vs. Less) across app sessions.

Another notable change is that, by popular request, the key to hold down for centered shape drawing and uniform resizing has been changed from Ctrl to Alt. This ensures it won’t interfere with Ctrl + Mouse Wheel zooming.

Get the Update

There are two releases of Paint.NET:

• Microsoft Store release (recommended)
  • You can purchase it here. This helps fund development and is an alternative or supplement to sending in a donation.
  • If you already have it installed, the update should happen automatically once Microsoft certifies the update, usually within the next day or so. To get the update immediately (once it’s certified), you can follow the instructions listed here.
• Classic Desktop release
  • Download the installer from the website. This is the recommended download if you don’t have Paint.NET installed. It can also be used to update the app.
  • If you already have it installed, you should be offered the update automatically within the next few days, but you can also get it immediately by going to ⚙ Settings -> Updates -> Check Now.
  • Offline Installers and Portable ZIPs are available over on GitHub.

Change Log

Changes since v5.0.7:

• Improved: The primary/secondary dropdown in the Colors window has been removed. The active color is now indicated in the color box itself.
• Improved: The Colors window will now remember whether it’s in the expanded state (More vs. Less).
• Fixed: In the Colors window, left clicking in the color wheel or the color palette will always set the active color, and right clicking will always set the inactive color. This was not always consistent before.
• Changed: The key for centered shape drawing and uniform resizing has been changed from Ctrl to Alt so that it does not collide with zooming with the mouse (Ctrl + Mouse Wheel)
• Fixed: The keyboard shortcut for previous/next tab is now Ctrl + Page Up/Down, to match other applications
• New: You can now use Ctrl + Shift + Page Up/Down to move the current tab left or right
• Fixed: The printing UI is now run out-of-process, which should fix a slew of reliability problems (hangs, crashes)
• Fixed: The “Add Color” button in the Colors window was often showing the wrong color
• Fixed: Effects -> Noise -> Median was incorrectly causing transparent pixels (#00000000) to turn into slightly transparent, almost black (#01010101)
• New: Primitive structs (e.g. RectInt32, Vector4Float) now implement IParsable<T> (for plugin developers)
• Fixed: UnaryPixelOps.Invert now works correctly, which was broken in the 5.0 release (for plugin developers)
• Updated the bundled DDSFileTypePlus plugin to version 1.12.1.0, which, which improves support for swizzled BC3/DXT5 normal maps (e.g. DOOM 3), and support for loading textures with an incorrect DDS_PIXELFORMAT size (e.g. FlatOut 2) (thanks @null54!)
• Updated the bundled WebPFileType plugin to version 1.3.18.0 (thanks @null54!)