Paint.net

A blank document.

Paint.net is a basic raster graphics editor for Windows primarily written in C# which uses an unobtrusive nagware distribution model. It was first released on 2004-05-06, and has seen constant upgrades since then. It has a small amount of the capabilities of a professional raster graphics program, but it's missing pretty much all of the high-end features, and even a lot of basic ones.

Personal

A co-worker of mine suggested Paint.net after I complained about wanting a high-quality free graphics program to replace Corel Photo-Paint, but was annoyed by the horrible interface of GIMP. I installed it and found that, while it had some decent features, it was not even remotely close to a replacement for a professional graphics program. However, because it does have a lot of basic features, I tend to keep it installed as a backup.

Review

Good

• All of the basic features you would expect from a raster graphic program are present. You can paint, draw primitive shapes, flood fill, type text, resize and reshape the image, and perform a variety of special effects.
• Paint.net supports multiple objects (though it uses the less-intuitive Adobe term "layers").
• It natively supports the common raster image formats including PNG, JPEG, TIFF, WEBP, HEIC, GIF, BMP, TGA, as well as its custom format. Additional formats can be added through plugins.
• The program supports third-party effects plugins.
• The program automatically updates itself each time a stable version is released.

Bad

• The program is by no means strong enough to replace a professional graphics editor, and it looks like there is no intention for it ever to become so. I've been using it for over a decade, and I haven't seen any major features added to it. Of course, it's free, so you shouldn't expect much, but programs like Gimp have undergone massive increases in power since then.
• It's missing a lot of features which I think are quite basic, so it won't be long after you start using it where you will find yourself struggling to do something. For example, if you paste a small image into a larger one, and want to center the small image, Paint.net can't do this because there are no alignment controls, you have to try and manually align it. Similarly, there is no way to align it to a specific row or column, you have to eyeball everything. You can go searching for a plugin that can align layers, of which there are several, but they each function differently and have different options.
• Although the plugins feature allows for added functionality, the designers don't seem to be interested in adding the most popular ones to the main program. Also, there is no standardization in their design, and no manager for finding, adding, and removing plugins, so they're a bit of a mess.
• The various tools (toolbox, palette, layers, history) crowd the interface and are not dockable.
• Paint.net only supports RGB and grayscale color models, and, even then, you don't get much control over how the color data is stored. You can't use CYMK, Pantone, HSL, or any other common models.
• By default, the program doesn't support any of the more exotic image formats, and it doesn't take advantage of all the special features present in formats it does support.
• The UI of the 2D shape tool is a bit clumsy and requires more clicks to get what you want than is necessary.
• The UI uses the backward Adobe zoom system where you have to hold CTRL on the keyboard to zoom with the mouse wheel; using the mouse wheel without CTRL scrolls up and down, which is pretty useless.
• Paint.NET stores a recent history of all the images you opened with a thumbnail of each, but has no option to disable this feature. This is a security problem because, if you ever open a sensitive graphic in Paint.net, not only will a snooper be able to see the path to the image, but, even if you move or delete the image, they can still see a thumbnail of the image! The developers of Paint.net have said they have no plans to fix this security flaw.
• The installer drops a shortcut into your root Start menu each time it upgrades, and there is no option to prevent it.

Ugly

• Nothing.

Plugins

Plugins can be downloaded from the Paint.net forum. Effects plugins must be extracted into C:\Program Files\paint.net\Effects, format plugins must be extracted into C:\Program Files\paint.net\FileTypes.

Below are plugins that I have tried and found useful:

• Madjik plugins - Over 70 plugins, many relating to fractals.
• BoltBait plugins - Lots of effects and adjustments.
• Red Ochre plugins - Large variety of plugins.
• 2dimagefilter - Adds common emulator pixel scalers to a "Tools" menu in "Effects."

Links