Paint.NET started working as a student project and is an alternative to Microsoft Paint. Now, the program is a very competitive online photo editor, and most importantly, it has versatility and practicality. It is easy to use and can solve non-standard photo editing tasks.
Paint.net is a free program for editing raster graphics files for Microsoft Windows developed on Windows. NET framework.
PRO
- Frees up disk space
- Easy to use
- Can have a noticeable impact on system speed
CON
- All functions could be performed with Windows’ own tools, if you had the patience
Customizable Interface

The user interface of Paint.NET is very simple, has many convenient functions, will not overload the computer. I found it to be the main advantage of this photo editor. Even beginners can quickly learn and use Paint.NET tools. Paint.NET supports hot key function. Sometimes this is very important, especially if you are not an experienced person and need a lot of time to get used to it.

Note that when you select a tool in Paint. The Net software on the left vertical toolbar also changes a set of additional settings. If you choose something, on the top toolbar you can choose the multiple selection mode: Combine / Intersect / Subtract / Invert.
The Zoom Blur tool is easy and fun to use by dragging one or both of the gripping handles called tabs. Visual changes to the brush size and hardness are almost invisible. This is a drawback with the Brush tool.
Simple Basic Editing
Photographers now use Paint.NET as a photo graphics editor. Although it was originally designed as a simple program for drawing.
All image editing functions can be used in the “Adjustment” menu, including the “Hue/Saturation” and “Curve” tools. These tools are usually used by professional photographers and photo retouchers. In this program, you can overlay and mix layers. For this, you need to select the “Layer” palette tool. You can return to any stage of photo editing. People facing this type of problem will understand this advantage: you edit the image for a long time, you know that the image is not good, you want to go back, cancel the last operation and you did not reach the goal. Right timing-the program keeps a limited number of steps in memory.
Layered Editing With Layers

The structure of the layers is displayed in the usual lower right corner, as in Photoshop. You can create a new layer, move them to each other, merge layers, change their opacity, rotate and move. For convenience, functions for layers are provided in both the “Layer” panel and the “Layer” menu. Although paint. NET does not contain layer effects. The “Effect” menu has some important options, such as “Bevel” and “Relief”. The program does not support CMYK color space, and provides RGB and HSV.
Third-Party Plugins
Anyone can design other modules to extend the standard photo editing in Paint.NET and provide them to creators. Paint.NET plug-ins are files with a .dll extension, usually, they are always packaged in the archive. The reason is simple, because the library file is a system file, so when starting from the Internet DLL file in a “natural” form, Windows can block it for security reasons.
After unzipping, you must copy the plug-in files to the “Effects” folder located at: C:\Program Files\paint.net\effects
It completes the installation of the plug-in. To enable it, you need to restart Paint.NET. As a result, the effect list will be supplemented. The new effect will be located in its corresponding category function or specially created folder.
Paint.NET has its format, which is .pdn. The significant advantage of this program is that it can save files in other formats, such as TIFF, GIF and JPEG. that’s it! You cannot save the file in RAW format for further editing or to configure EXIF.
Price
Paint.net is a free application, which in turn provides many image editing functions. If we review Paint.NET and compare it with GIMP, one of the best free image editors, the program will be ranked third, referring to a lot of resources, while Paint.net will be ranked forth.
Leave a Reply