A highly successful and popular freeware image editor with tons of different applicable uses.
Paint.NET has got to be one of the nicest surprises for a freeware image editing program. It comes packed with all of the most essential tools needed in a modern image editing suite and completely blows Microsoft Paint out of the water. Despite the name, the two programs are not comparable at all.
Professional features you'd expect from expensive software like Photoshop
If you're a Photoshop user who's used to using layers within a working document, then you won't be disappointed when using this freeware application because layers remain the foundation of Paint.NET, along with applying filters and effects to specific layers. Transparency is also supported.
The community around this program is definitely a plus because users help each other and provide tutorials and a growing list of add-ons. The add-ons make applying unique and cool effects easy as pie.
Apply stunning effects and filters to photos
Like Adobe Photoshop, Paint.NET can also apply adjustments to your images such as auto-levels, contrast, invert, color levels, hues, posterize, and many others. Standard effects available out-of-the-box are standard blurs, sharpening, photo effects (red-eye removal, photo softening), a list of various distortions, and more. To be clear, "Paint.NET" includes almost all of the standard Photoshop effects and adjustments in very familiar places.
Paint.NET supports transparency, which means that users can edit images with transparent backgrounds or add transparency to an image.
The community of developers have created plugins that can be used to add additional functionality to the software. There are a wide variety of plugins available, including ones for adding new effects, tools, and file formats.
High performance with a low footprint on system resources
Performance-wise, this program has been optimized for systems running newer versions of Windows (but older platforms are also supported) and works flawlessly on some of the slowest systems (like netbooks) to some of the fastest systems with multiple cores. The fact that it contains so many features and tools, yet runs so much faster than paid-for rivals, is very impressive. The program ran when we tested it along with many other applications, and the executable used virtually no unnecessary memory or CPU power.
Another point worth mentioning is the fact that "Paint.NET" offers users the ability to undo and redo any action from within the history window.
Get tutorials from a variety of online sources
Paint.NET's online community has a wide range of different tutorials available on different forums and newsgroups.
In closing
Paint.NET is definitely better than Corel Draw and certainly rivals Adobe Photoshop when it comes to standard and basic features. If you're not a professional and don't require the absolute power of Photoshop, this image editor is definitely worth installing before forking out hundreds of dollars for a commercial image editing suite.
Features of Paint.NET
- Adjustments: Adjust hue, saturation, brightness and contrast.
- Brushes: Draw and paint with a variety of brush tools.
- Clone Stamp Tool: Copy and paste portions of an image.
- Curves: Adjust colors and tones with an advanced curves panel.
- Effects: Enhance photos with a variety of filters and adjustments.
- History: Undo, redo and revert your changes.
- Layers: Create, arrange and blend multiple images.
- Magic Wand Tool: Automatically select similar colors and tones.
- Move Tool: Quickly move, resize and rotate objects.
- Performance: Fast and responsive, even with large images.
- Plugins: Extend Paint.NET with a variety of custom plugins.
- Selection Tools: Select, move and delete portions of an image.
- Shapes: Draw a variety of shapes, from basic rectangles to complex polygons.
- Text Tool: Add text to image compositions.
- Zoom: Zoom in and out for detailed work.
Compatibility and License
Is Paint.NET free?
Paint.NET is provided under a freeware license on Windows from graphics editors with no restrictions on usage. Download and installation of this PC software is free and 5.1 is the latest version last time we checked.
dotPDN LLC accepts donations for the continued development of this free software.
What version of Windows can Paint.NET run on?
Paint.NET can be used on a computer running Windows 11 or Windows 10. Previous versions of the OS shouldn't be a problem with Windows 8 and Windows 7 having been tested. It's only available as a 64-bit download.
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