Friday, January 13, 2012

Paint.NET (Free Image and Photo Editor)


Paint.NET is a free, open-source, image and photo editor for the Windows operating system. It is fully featured, and, in my opinion just as capable as Adobe's Photoshop in the right hands.

Some of the software's strong points are its speed(start-up and performance), its suite of effects, the plugins available, its unlimited history (redo/undo) and its community.

It is worth noting that I've used this software, both for personal and educational purposes. As a student, I used it to create/edit custom templates for presentations. That being said, Paint.NET never took up too many resources to run on my Lenovo T43 Thinkpad, and between double clicking to open the program and starting my edits, it took no more that 10 seconds. Keep in mind that I may have had MS PowerPoint, MS Word and Firefox open simultaneously.

The features and tools are also worth noting, and if you are at least familiar with Photoshop, you will see some similarities in the functionality of Paint.NET. Layers, cloning, looping, gradients, special effects, special brushes, it's all there. You can also download various plugins to add to the base functionality.

The Paint.NET community is very supportive, and always willing to lend a hand to both newcomers and veteran graphic artists. They will assist with every thing from basic tutorials to advanced techniques and manipulations.

Here is a screenshot of the user interface:


and here is something I did a while back:


I clearly am no expert, but you can do all the cool stuff you can do with Photoshop on Paint.NET, including logos, banners, and website themes, with all the crazy and dazzling effects expected from the former...and all of it is of course, free!!

Remember, it is only available to windows users. Paint.NET can be downloaded here:
http://www.getpaint.net/download.html


Source: http://www.getpaint.net/index.html


Enjoy, and live free!

9 comments:

  1. nice! I'll have to check this out.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I def need to keep this in mind if I need edit images.

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  3. Looks great! I will definitely need this :)

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  4. cool app, I mainly use photoshop but I might look in to this.

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  5. dude, love this program. better than paying for other alternatives.

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  6. I've been looking for something just like this! Awesome man, great post!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Paint.net is (at least in our opinion) the simplest option on the list. It still comes with a ton of powerful features like layers, adjustments, and user-created plugins, but is simple enough that complete newcomers can grasp it immediately. The features are across the top, and filters are accessible from a drop-down menu.
    Some of the special effects are pretty cool: sharpen, blur, distort, emboss, etc. You can even get some Instagram-esque vintage effects in there for good measure. We don’t want to waste too much time on this one. It’s got a lot of features, an easy interface, and a simple layout. If you’re struggling with others on this list, then stick with the easiest option.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Paint.net is (at least in our opinion) the simplest option on the list. It still comes with a ton of powerful features like layers, adjustments, and user-created plugins, but is simple enough that complete newcomers can grasp it immediately. The features are across the top, and filters are accessible from a drop-down menu.
    Some of the special effects are pretty cool: sharpen, blur, distort, emboss, etc. You can even get some Instagram-esque vintage effects in there for good measure. We don’t want to waste too much time on this one. It’s got a lot of features, an easy interface, and a simple layout. If you’re struggling with others on this list, then stick with the easiest option.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Paint.net is (at least in our opinion) the simplest option on the list. It still comes with a ton of powerful features like layers, adjustments, and user-created plugins, but is simple enough that complete newcomers can grasp it immediately. The features are across the top, and filters are accessible from a drop-down menu.
    Some of the special effects are pretty cool: sharpen, blur, distort, emboss, etc. You can even get some Instagram-esque vintage effects in there for good measure. We don’t want to waste too much time on this one. It’s got a lot of features, an easy interface, and a simple layout. If you’re struggling with others on this list, then stick with the easiest option.

    ReplyDelete