Paint.NET: Photoshop for Free

Posted in Computers & Technology, Deals & Savings, Graphics, Photo, Photoshop by Elliott Back on October 14th, 2006.

For simple photo editing tasks, Paint NET is a free Microsoft .NET powered open-source alternative. Installing Paint NET is as easy as downloading a small executable from their site, the Microsoft NET 2.0 runtime, and running them.

If you wonder how useful this is, let’s walk you through several common tasks.

1) Resizing a screenshot for your blog post:

In this case, ironically it will a meta-screenshot operation, because we’ll be taking a screenshot to illustrate taking a screenshot… you get the picture. It’s as easy as using the rectangle tool, and image, resize:

2) Cutting someone out of a complex picture:

Everyone’s always needing to mask out a person for one reason or another–how well does Paint compare in this regard? It turns out pretty well–the masking tools seem to work better than in Adobe Photoshop:

There are a few downsides to Paint dot NET:

It doesn’t have all the fancy features that Photoshop has
It has a limited set of FX plugins (but they’re free)
It uses more CPU than Photoshop, and feels slightly less responsive
It’s idea of multiple documents is to have them selectable in a single window
It’s brush tools are relatively useless because they don’t have varying opacity and flow

Not everything’s bad, though–the source code is open, so you can go fix it up yourself and submit patches to make it better. In another year or two, it will probably be a lot more useful.

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 14th, 2006 at 6:51 pm and is tagged with rectangle tool, brush tools, fancy features, image resize, taking a screenshot, free microsoft, common tasks, opacity, adobe photoshop, photo editing, source code, patches, meta, open source, regard, microsoft. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback.

Viewing 13 Comments

Ki ki Sato 2 years ago 1 point
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I want to know if it's free.Is it good?Will itg spread computer viruses?

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Nigel Stoner 2 years ago 1 point
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Paint Dot Net is Free. It was designed as a University project, much like the C programming language itself. It was designed to be better than paint, not photoshop or paint shop. That said, it is getting better and better. It has always been easy to use. With plugins from the forum installed it gets a lot more interesting. Icon Export means I don't have to buy a seperate icon editor. Conditional Saturation plugin, I have never seen this anywhere else and is a valuable tool, use it to convert summer to autumn. It has become part of the install routine for any new computer I set up.
There are, as far as I know, no viruses or spyware in this software, it is afterall endorsed by MS.
Try it, it's free, don't uninstall it if you don't like it, you might just be able to use 1 effect or tool that no other program has, to get just the picture you need.

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http://nidblog.blogspot.com

Corey 2 years ago 1 point
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Yes, it is free. No, there are no virus' or spyware. Nothing even close. This is a really great program that does some things that others don't. I have Paint Shop Pro X, Gimp 2.2 and Paint.Net. I use ALL of them regularly.

The biggest benefit of Paint.Net, (I believe), is its ease of use. It is very, very easy to learn how to do the basics with.

Paint.Net is used extensively at WinCustomize.com to create skins, cursors etc.

If you need a good graphics editor, that is easy to learn, this is it.

Corey

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johny 2 years ago 1 point
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well been using it since inception , the last few releases have improved and cant be compared to photoshop about it features, but it can stand on its on ground for ease of use, flexibility and of course the price , also not to forget that some features you would do in photoshop would require 2 or 3 steps
in paint.net only 1

ask me what and i shall tell you no less than 10 tricks to spice up your day

and just for the faint hearted ...you would rather have this than MS-paint on your PC anyday .!

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zelda gerstl 1 year ago 1 point
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how do i download paint into my computer
thank you

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Rec 1 year ago 1 point
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I would highly recommend any person to download this amazing program. I have been using this for about 6 months and it has changed the was i do images and web sites. Since you can also get plug ins for it, you can do even more than photoshop. Yes of course photoshop is better but only because it takes less steps. Paint Dot New is the same it just takes layers and practice to get good but you can make images even like this from scratch

http://img444.imageshack.us/img444/4882/picture...

that is an image i made just playing around with the great tutorials on the site.

you can find and download this program here

http://www.getpaint.net/index2.html

the program is safe. The only viruses you may get is from a bad .dll file you might download as a plug in.

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B3CKii..=] 1 year ago 1 point
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Erm Yeah Wel.. Ermm
Ahmm CONFUSED..
=]
Boom Chickaah Wah-Wah =P!

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Jordan 1 year ago 1 point
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Yes it is awsome and its free.....
u can do anything or whatever!!!!!
: )

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Plusheh 1 year ago 1 point
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I have this magnificent program, but I do not know if I can download any brushes. Is there any tutorials telling how to download brushes to this program?

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BILLY 10 months ago 1 point
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YEA YEA YEA WHAT EVER IT SUCKS

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traumeel 4 months ago 1 point
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Yea this program is awesome, ive made about 20 awesome gaming sigs it, just go to photobucket.com/ks308 and check some of them out

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malissa 1 month ago 1 point
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how do i install brushes? i know you have to install a plugin so how do you do that, soooooooo complicating!!!!!!!! x

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peter 1 month ago 1 point
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Were Can you download IT!
Send it to my email please

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