Paint.NET is a free image and photo editing software for Windows computers. It features an intuitive and innovative user interface with support for layers, unlimited undo special effects and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools. An active and growing online community provides friendly help, tutorials, and plugins.
Paint.NET for Windows PC
Paint.NET started development as an undergraduate college senior design project mentored by Microsoft and is currently being maintained by some alumni who originally worked on it. Originally intended as a free replacement for the Microsoft Paint software with Windows, it has grown into a powerful yet simple image and photo editor tool.
The free software includes simple tools for drawing shapes, including an easy-to-use curve tool for drawing splines or Bezier curves. The Gradient tool has been cited as an innovative improvement over similar tools provided by other software. The facilities for creating and working with selections is powerful, yet still simple enough to be picked up quickly. Other powerful tools include the Magic Wand for selecting regions of similar color, and the Clone Stamp for copying or erasing portions of an image. There is also a simple text editor, a tool for zooming, and a Recolor tool.
It has been compared to other digital photo editing software packages such as Adobe Photoshop, Corel Paint Shop Pro, Microsoft Photo Editor, and The GIMP.
Paint.NET utilizes DirectWrite in Windows to render text. DirectWrite is one of the new additions to the DirectX family of APIs in Windows and enables better readability, adds support for a large variety of languages and scripts, and in conjunction with Direct2D provides superior rendering performance for Windows applications.
The final release of Paint.NET brings some new UI changes to the application. This “refreshed” UI takes advantage of Aero in Windows 11/10/8/7/Vista.
Go get it from the Paint.NET home page.
While Paint.NET offers user-friendly design and effective tools for basic and intermediate image editing, it does not match Adobe Photoshop’s advanced features and professional capabilities. Photoshop leads in versatility and power, making it preferable for high-level image manipulation. However, Paint.NET is an excellent, more accessible alternative for non-professional use.
Pinta for Windows, Mac and Linux is a Paint.NET clone you may want to check out.
