Paint.NET

Overview of Paint.NET (Image editing and photo manipulation software)

Paint.NET (stylized as Paint.net or Paint Net) is free image editing and photo manipulation software designed to be used on computers that run Windows. It supports layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools. It started development as an undergraduate college senior design project mentored by Microsoft, and is currently being maintained by some of the alumni that originally worked on it.

Originally intended as a free replacement for the MS Paint software that comes withWindows, it has grown into a powerful yet simple tool for photo and image editing. The programming language used to create Paint.NET is C#, with a small amount of C++ for installation and shell-integration related functionality.

Paint.NET can be used to enhance and clean up your photographs. Using the Clone Stamp tool, the power lines that criss-crossed in front of the Space Needle were carefully removed. Other operations were performed that had the effect of smoothing out theimage without blurring it, adding some "bloom" (glow), and increasing the contrast.

Features of Paint NET

Simple, intuitive, and innovative user interface

• Every feature and user interface element was designed to be immediately intuitive and quickly learnable without assistance. In order to handle multiple images easily, Paint.NET uses a tabbed document interface. The tabs display a live thumbnail of theimage instead of a text description. This makes navigation very simple and fast.

Layers

• Usually only found on expensive or complicated professional software, layers form the basis for a rich image composition experience. You may think of them as a stack of transparency slides that, when viewed together at the same time, form oneimage.

Active Online Community

• Paint.NET has an online forum with a friendly, passionate, and ever-expanding community. Be sure to check out the constantly growing list of tutorials and plugins!

Frequently Updated

• Updates usually come about every 4 to 8 weeks, and contain new features, performance improvements, and bug fixes. Upgrading to the latest version is very simple, requiring only two clicks of the mouse.

Plugins

Paint.net supports plugins, which add image adjustments, effects, and support for additional file types. They can be programmed using any .NET Framework programming language, though they are most commonly written in C#. These are created by volunteer coders on the program's discussion board, the paint.net Forum. Though most are simply published via the discussion board, some have been included with a later release of the program. For instance, a DirectDraw Surface file type plugin, (originally by Dean Ashton) and an Ink Sketch and Soften Portrait effect (originally by David Issel) were added to Paint.net in version 3.10.

Hundreds of plugins have been produced; such as Shape3D, which renders a 2D drawing into a 3D shape. Some plugins expand on the functionality that comes with Paint.net, such as Curves+ and Sharpen+, which extend the included tools Curves and Sharpen, respectively.

System Requirements:

• Supported OS: Windows XP/7/8/10
• Free Hard Disk Space: 2 GB or more.