Paint.NET 3.35 Overall Rating:

Paint.NET Quick Review:

That’s right – Paint.NET is a masterpiece! You heard it here. This is a really great image editing package and best of all it’s absolutely free! It’s a complete package good for beginners and experts too! Paint.NET has a great selection of tools, adjustments and effects. It also uses layering so you can preserve the original image. Numerous plugins are available from avid fans of this package. You can’t go wrong with this editor.
 

Ease of Use:
Features:
Overall Rating:

Where to get Paint.NET: Download Paint.NET

Paint.NET Full Review:

Size of download: 1.55 MB (zipped)

Supported systems: Windows XP, Vista, 2003 server, 2008 server

File formats supported: bmp, gif, jpg/jpeg, png, tif/tiff, tga, dds, pdn

Language support: Multiple languages supported.

Here’s the deal:

Downloading was a little confusing as the process took me to several pages and/or websites. The link above is a direct link to download from download.com. During the install process, the installation actually created a system restore point. Now that’s thinking! A desktop icon was installed as well.

The minute I opened the program I liked it. It just looks modern, well designed and well, pretty cool. It opens with a blank image space, the requisite menu bar and four floating windows for tools, color palette, history and layers. You can close each individually if you don’t need them.

The help files are on the internet so you’d better be connected if you need help. Help is OK. The tool descriptions are somewhat limited but examples are provided. If you click on the tutorials link it takes you to the blog. Here you’ll find some good how-to tutorials written by users of the software. You may have to look around to find what you want. The ones I reviewed were detailed and very helpful.

Let’s get into the meat of this software. The image adjustments are plentiful. And when you open them up they have a slider bar, numeric setting and reset buttons. This makes it easy to get the exact adjustment you want. The adjustments are fairly quick in processing so you don’t have to wait around to see the changes.

For you sophisticated editors, Paint.NET includes a curves and levels adjustment. Both of these worked quite well. The curves adjustment has the ability to adjust each of the primary colors. The levels adjustment has the requisite input and output adjustments and you can adjust the primary colors.

Paint.NET has a great selection of effects. Although the posterize effect didn’t produce much of an effect. All of the others worked well and were easy to adjust. The processing didn’t take much time so you could see the result quickly. The package includes artistic, blurs, distortion, noise, photo, rendering and stylize effects. Each of these has several selections underneath providing a significant collection of effects. Except for posterize, all of the effects were of quality.

Some of the things I’d like to see include guides you can drag onto an image for positioning. The guides apparently only show a selection so you can’t use the guides without a selection. There isn’t a tool or option to do fine adjustments when you’ve made a selection. If you’ve done much image editing you know how precise edges need to be in some situations. Better blending options on the layers would be nice.

Paint.NET has multiple levels of undo. You can do undo through a menu selection, an undo button on the button bar or through the history window. I guess the creators of this software understand just how many mistakes we humans make!

Tools, tools, tools – Paint.NET has them. The usual tools are present for selecting, painting, filling and cutting. Let’s not forget the eraser and gradient tools. They’re available too. The gradient tool has color and transparent options. Very nice!

There are many plugins available from the avid fans of this package. Check out the Paint.Net website and take a look. You’ll find many custom features available with the plugins.

Overall this is a very nice image editing package. The interface is modern and easy to understand. It packs the right tools for most users, especially for a free package. There are more tools than the basics. The adjustments are finely controlled. The effects are good quality and easily adjusted. Of course, undo is available through a button or the history window. Paint.NET has a pretty good layering system as well. Between Paint.Net and GIMP you can’t go wrong.

Paint.NET paints a masterpiece!

What I Liked: I liked the sleek design of this program. It has multiple language support. Adjustments have a slider, a numeric value and a reset button. Good set of tools including a clone tool.

What I Didn’t Like: The four windows for layering, history, tools and color palette hang over the edge of an image sometimes. The magic wand tied up my laptop a couple of times. Refining edges on a rough-edged selection is manual.

Click on the images below to see a bigger image:

Paint.NET main screen:

Paint.NET curves adjustment:

Paint.NET layer and focus:

Paint NET image frosted and oil paint: