I haven’t been updating the blog lately, partly due to … honestly I kind of just forgot about the blog (do people still read blogs? Let me know if it’s still important to you so I don’t forget again!). I kept meaning to update it for the new 5.1 pre-release builds I’ve been releasing, but life got quite busy, work was really interesting, etc. When I was away from my PC I’d often think, “oh yeah I need to update the blog,” but then I never remembered by the time I got back to my PC. Too many other things going on.
Anyway! Version 5.1 is introducing some important functionality and some amazing performance improvements, described in depth in following forum posts:
tl;dr: COLOR MANAGEMENT (support for color profiles), including support for HDR and WCG (Wide Color Gamut) displays. Performance improvements. Input latency reductions. Enormous reductions in memory usage (both CPU and GPU). New and revamped blur effects.
Please head to the forum post for the newest build (5.1 beta build 9000) for download links and information.
And like I said, if you still read this blog, please post a comment to remind me that it’s still important to you. This will help me to remember to update it in the future.
Paint.NET Blog 
hey hey hey of course I’m reading the blog. I have email notifications set up for it. It allows me to be up to date with stuff in a more time efficient manner than manually crawling through the forum threads. I hope us blog readers are not too much of a second class citizen. I’m aware that the pages long threads on the forum go into many more details. That’s ok. I like that you always put links into the blog posts so if I do have the time, I can do the deep dive into the forums.
I love to enjoy the latest blog information, especially to enjoy beta info.
I really like the blog, it keeps updated with changes and the reason for them, it’s entertaining and informative.
I recently subscribed to the RSS feed for news about HDR image support. I guess you do have a Github page for Paint.net, so I could always subscribe to the Atom feed for the releases too. Either way is fine for me.
I keep up with blog posts like this – have just rebuilt my computer, and this is a reminder to set up my snip/edit workflow with paint.net. Feedly is vital to keep up with what’s going on in tech!
I appreciate the blog, it’s my main way of getting updates!
I have your blog in Feedly, thanks.
Jup, I do read your blog. Even more than I visit Facebook!
I really like the blog, but look to it more for insight into the high-level direction of development than release notes. Really appreciate the pointer to the forum post on colour management, today.
I read the blog. This is how I keep up-to-date on the changes to Paint.NET.
Another blog reader her, subscribed via the RSS feed so I can read about the latest Paint.Net updates as soon as they come out.
Yup, a curated selection of important blogs (this one included) is my “morning read” on Feedly (the inheritor to the old Google Reader UX).
Also, I have zero pacience for explanations and/or announcements over video, much rather have the written content to parse at my own leisure.
So, from this old geezer, yes, your blog (and many others too) is still relevant, please don’t abandon it (but also don’t feel pressured to come up with stuff to post, do it when it feels right and it will turn out ok)
Cheers and thanks for a most excellent tool. Paint.NET is pinned to my taskbar; not may programs get that distinction (a grand total of seven as I look not, with Outlook, Edge, Windows Terminal, Explorer, Notepad++ and VS Code being your neighbors).
I like the blog and check it pretty often!
Bug report with 5.1 build 9000: With Hardware Acceleration enabled, zooming in or out makes the window start flashing/flickering black and white.
Using Windows 11 build 26120 (24H2), RTX 4070 on driver version 460.94, .net 8.0.8.
Paint.net diagnostics info: https://pastebin.com/QBCQapuF
Yes! I’m reading the blog! I use this to keep up on the changes.
yes, read the blog posts via RSS feed
I read the blog … but only when the author posts.
As a long time. Net developer I really appriciate the insights you bring to the Windows ego system and. Net runtime. With the Store release just updating it self, I only drop by when my RSS reader says there are something new on the blog, and its nice to follow along on your amasing journey for this software. Thanks for sharing up until now at least! 😃
There is a massive slowdown upon starting the latest Paint.NET update. The whole program freezes for like 5-10 seconds. The content of the Colors window is blank and not loading during in the first 5-10 seconds, too. Most likely this is caused by the connecting to servers or checking for compatibility with plug-ins.
It’s not going to be caused by “connecting to servers,” that’s only done for the update check which is done on a background thread. If you have a lot of plugins installed, especially certain older ones that need load-time shims, it is possible for it to affect startup performance. You can see if that’s the case by running the app with the /disablePlugins command-line parameter. If startup performance is better, then it’s probably due to the plugins.
I read it too, and love the content and details about the development!
I follow the blog via RSS. I don’t use social media, so I wouldn’t know where to find out about the latest updates.
Of course, RSS all the way!
Thanks for your work !
I still read the blog, mainly because I configured it in feedly (RSS) so I can see any updates along side all other sites I follow.
If you’d like to change the way to communicate, I’ll just adapt myself.
Hi, if it’s not too much trouble to continue the blog posts, I’d appreciate it. I still use an RSS reader for news and tracking major releases. Perhaps there’s a way you can automate blog posts via forum posts via some tagging and scripting?
For releases and their release notes, it’s not too hard to do the blog post that matches up with the forum post. I copy+paste from the forum over to Windows Live Writer. Life just got busy and I literally forgot!
Just to chime in that i do also read the blog. Usually though when new stable version is released, but i do like to read about all the changes and improvements done in every release. Was a bit worried to not see new releases for a while and no new blog posts 🙂
Still using the blog, using an RSS reader.