Paint.NET is free image and photo editing software for computers that run Windows. 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.
It started development as an undergraduate college senior design project mentored by Microsoft, and is currently being maintained by some of the alumni that originally worked on it. Originally intended as a free replacement for the Microsoft Paint software that comes with Windows, it has grown into a powerful yet simple image and photo editor 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.
This Windows-only application requires the .NET framework to run, but this freebie is worth installing for any minor (and some major) picture manipulation. It's fast, easy to use, and comprehensive—if you don't need full Photoshop capabilities.
New for version 3.5 is a revamped UI theme for Windows 7 and Vista users, inspired by Aero and making use of "glass". Other features include reduced memory usage, better stability, and better performance. See the Roadmap page for more details.
New for v3.10 is support for the DirectDraw Surface (DDS) file type, which is popular in game development and game modding. It is also used by the XNA Development Kit for the XBOX 360.
Version 3.0 added support for drawing gradients, both in color and in a special transparency mode. The latter is often used for fading between two images, or between two versions of the same image. The active image in the screenshot below has a foreground layer that had the Sepia adjustment applied to it, after which a transparency gradient was used to fade between it and the background layer which was an oversaturated version of the original photograph. This picture was taken at the 5th Annual Labor Day Weekend Classic Car Show at Silverwood Theme Park near Coeur D'Alene, ID.
The new Paint.NET v3.0 release has support for MDI (multi-document interface). This is accomplished by providing a tab strip in the upper right corner of the main window. All open images are placed there, and navigation is very simple, intuitive, and fast. Other new features include a better toolbar interface and a customizable color palette.
Paint.NET can be used to enhance and clean up your photographs. Using the Clone Stamp tool, the power lines that criss-crossed in front of the Space Needle were carefully removed. Other operations were performed that had the effect of smoothing out the image without blurring it, adding some "bloom" (glow), and increasing the contrast.
Paint.NET v2.6 introduces the Curves adjustment, available from the Layers → Adjustment → Curves menu item, which is capable of some powerful and sophisticated editing. This screenshot was edited in Paint.NET in order to add the inset copy of the original image, a border shadow, and overlaid text with shadow.
Paint.NET v2.5 added full freedom to scale, rotate, move, and combine both selections and images. This screenshot includes two images from akinna's stock photography page on deviantArt: "cat1" (link) and "polaroid1" (link). Used with permission.
Work with TGA images, which are popular in the game development community and is also the format used for World of Warcraft screenshots.
Use the various features together to create stunning and original effects:
Download: http://www.getpaint.net
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