8 ms·

Paint.net 4.1 is now available

103 points by el_duderino 8y ago

ggregoire 8y ago
Paint.net is the only app I've been missing on MacOS. I've switched 10 years ago and still haven't find anything as good.
- hd4 8y ago
  Ditto but on Linux.
  - baldfat 8y ago
    Pinta is pretty decent. https://pinta-project.com/pintaproject/pinta/ https://pinta-project.com/pintaproject/pinta/
- jerrycruncher 8y ago
  Acorn[1] is excellent, but it's not free. Once or twice a year it's on sale for 50% off. I prefer it to paint.net as Acorn mostly uses the same keyboard shortcuts as PhotoShop. That may or not be useful to you, though. [1] https://flyingmeat.com/acorn/ https://flyingmeat.com/acorn/
- chrisper 8y ago
  What about Krita? https://krita.org/en/homepage/ https://krita.org/en/homepage/
  - setr 8y ago
    krita is much bigger than paint.net though, isn't it? as I understand it, it competes with gimp/photoshop on complexity. one of the nice things about paint/paint.net is at least partially how limited it is: everything is easy to find, menus are small, actions are limited but quickly understood, etc. It's probably the pinnacle of an 80% product
- otterpro 8y ago
  On Mac, there's Paintbrush (https://paintbrush.sourceforge.io/ https://paintbrush.sourceforge.io/), which is similar to original MacPaint and MS Paint. It's not as full-featured as paint.net, though. Other free alternatives include Gimp, Krita. Fire Alpaca, etc.
- dmitripopov 8y ago
  A good example of how far you can get with a pet project created to showcase early .Net Framework.
- sdegutis 8y ago
  Several of my kids use Paint.net all the time when making 2d assets for Love2d, and I've used it 15 years before them doing the same thing for FreeBasic. Paintbrush.app isn't quite on part with Paint.net's features, although there was no technical limitation in Cocoa causing this. Acorn is more featureful, but trying to be more like a mini-Photoshop than an advanced MSPaint. It's very powerful but it trades off simplicity to get it. I tried my hand at making my own Paint.net clone for Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) during my first year of learning Cocoa (2008) but it only ended up being a learning opportunity for me and nothing useful came out of it. Mostly because I had no motivation. I was sharing my progress in #macdev on freenode but there is absolutely no excitement or culture of encouragement in that channel. And for some reason I feed off other people's excitement, it motivates me tremendously and I get 100x productivity boost. But if there's none (and no paycheck), I drop to 1/100 productivity. Honestly I'd like to try my hand at it again. I've learned a lot in the past 10 years. But I just don't have the time.
  - unhammer 8y ago
    My 5-year-old loves painting with Mypaint, if you want something kid-friendly (but also powerful enough to be used by pros): http://mypaint.org/about/ http://mypaint.org/about/
- jamesgeck0 8y ago
  I finally bit the bullet and bought Pixelmator 3. It's an older version, but it was cheap and I'm not using it for anything demanding.
- girvo 8y ago
  Affinity Designer
- m-p-3 8y ago
  Have you tried Pinta? https://pinta-project.com/pintaproject/pinta/ https://pinta-project.com/pintaproject/pinta/
  - tracker1 8y ago
    The Linux version has been buggy for me, but the mac version has worked well. I'm hoping it sees some love as it seems to be getting stale. Other mentions are Krita and Gimp. They all seem to have their own issues though.
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  The Gimp is quite good once you get the hang of the UI. Which may be never :-)
  - guiambros 8y ago
    I tried many times, but never got the hang of GIMP's UI. I usually end up googling the operation I want to do, and then following the recipe (and forgetting 5 minutes later, because it is always non-obvious). Paint.net has always being intuitive, an I still remember how to do most operations, even after years without using it. But never managed to run it reliably on Linux under Wine.
- Fnoord 8y ago
  Pixelmator (Pro), available in the App Store (not in Homebrew)
netinstructions 8y ago
Paint.net is a wonderful, wonderful application that I'm unfortunately very hesitant to recommend to friends/family because the website has a lot of malware ads with giant download buttons right next to the actual download button Examples: https://i.imgur.com/LGBoiHp.png https://i.imgur.com/LGBoiHp.png https://i.imgur.com/jlocdG9.png https://i.imgur.com/jlocdG9.png I guess the Windows Store route might be better or providing a direct link to the download, but I've actually stopped talking about paint.net because I wouldn't want someone to Google it, go to the website, and end up with malware instead.
- gregmac 8y ago
  Your screenshots perfectly capture the sad state of this stuff and contain their own irony: 1) Google's Chrome ad is one of the giant misleading "Download" buttons, done inside Google's own ad platform. 2) The legitimate "dotPDN" download image button is done in the same style as spammy download buttons shown in ads.
  - tyingq 8y ago
    Here is a Google blog post that's funny in this context: https://security.googleblog.com/2016/02/no-more-deceptive-download-buttons.html?m=1 https://security.googleblog.com/2016/02/no-more-deceptive-do...
- Sir_Cmpwn 8y ago
  Paint.NET became irrelevant when it became closed source. These awful malware buttons are just another example of the same mentality that led to changing the license.
  - sdegutis 8y ago
    Wait, Paint.net is closed source, and the website knowingly has malware buttons? That makes me extremely hesitant to use the app anymore. If they're unscrupulous about putting those buttons on the website, who's to say they aren't putting actual malware inside the app?
  - 8y ago
krylon 8y ago
I've been a GIMP man for about as long as I can remember (1999?), but a while back I had some reason to try Paint.Net at work, and I was seriously impressed. The GUI is one of the nicest I have ever seen. Too bad it is only available on Windows.
billfruit 8y ago
Does it have customizable keyboard shortcuts now?
viggity 8y ago
I love paint.net. Have been using it since it was a senior project. The ONLY thing that is missing that I want is a feathered selection. Yes, BoltBait has an plugin for it but I've consistently had problems with it. It would be so nice if it was built in natively.

103 points by el_duderino 8y ago

Paint.net is the only app I've been missing on MacOS. I've switched 10 years ago and still haven't find anything as good.

hd4 8y ago
Ditto but on Linux.
- baldfat 8y ago
  Pinta is pretty decent. https://pinta-project.com/pintaproject/pinta/ https://pinta-project.com/pintaproject/pinta/
jerrycruncher 8y ago
Acorn[1] is excellent, but it's not free. Once or twice a year it's on sale for 50% off. I prefer it to paint.net as Acorn mostly uses the same keyboard shortcuts as PhotoShop. That may or not be useful to you, though. [1] https://flyingmeat.com/acorn/ https://flyingmeat.com/acorn/
chrisper 8y ago
What about Krita? https://krita.org/en/homepage/ https://krita.org/en/homepage/
- setr 8y ago
  krita is much bigger than paint.net though, isn't it? as I understand it, it competes with gimp/photoshop on complexity. one of the nice things about paint/paint.net is at least partially how limited it is: everything is easy to find, menus are small, actions are limited but quickly understood, etc. It's probably the pinnacle of an 80% product
otterpro 8y ago
On Mac, there's Paintbrush (https://paintbrush.sourceforge.io/ https://paintbrush.sourceforge.io/), which is similar to original MacPaint and MS Paint. It's not as full-featured as paint.net, though. Other free alternatives include Gimp, Krita. Fire Alpaca, etc.
dmitripopov 8y ago
A good example of how far you can get with a pet project created to showcase early .Net Framework.
sdegutis 8y ago
Several of my kids use Paint.net all the time when making 2d assets for Love2d, and I've used it 15 years before them doing the same thing for FreeBasic. Paintbrush.app isn't quite on part with Paint.net's features, although there was no technical limitation in Cocoa causing this. Acorn is more featureful, but trying to be more like a mini-Photoshop than an advanced MSPaint. It's very powerful but it trades off simplicity to get it. I tried my hand at making my own Paint.net clone for Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) during my first year of learning Cocoa (2008) but it only ended up being a learning opportunity for me and nothing useful came out of it. Mostly because I had no motivation. I was sharing my progress in #macdev on freenode but there is absolutely no excitement or culture of encouragement in that channel. And for some reason I feed off other people's excitement, it motivates me tremendously and I get 100x productivity boost. But if there's none (and no paycheck), I drop to 1/100 productivity. Honestly I'd like to try my hand at it again. I've learned a lot in the past 10 years. But I just don't have the time.
- unhammer 8y ago
  My 5-year-old loves painting with Mypaint, if you want something kid-friendly (but also powerful enough to be used by pros): http://mypaint.org/about/ http://mypaint.org/about/
jamesgeck0 8y ago
I finally bit the bullet and bought Pixelmator 3. It's an older version, but it was cheap and I'm not using it for anything demanding.
girvo 8y ago
Affinity Designer
m-p-3 8y ago
Have you tried Pinta? https://pinta-project.com/pintaproject/pinta/ https://pinta-project.com/pintaproject/pinta/
- tracker1 8y ago
  The Linux version has been buggy for me, but the mac version has worked well. I'm hoping it sees some love as it seems to be getting stale. Other mentions are Krita and Gimp. They all seem to have their own issues though.
maxxxxx 8y ago
The Gimp is quite good once you get the hang of the UI. Which may be never :-)
- guiambros 8y ago
  I tried many times, but never got the hang of GIMP's UI. I usually end up googling the operation I want to do, and then following the recipe (and forgetting 5 minutes later, because it is always non-obvious). Paint.net has always being intuitive, an I still remember how to do most operations, even after years without using it. But never managed to run it reliably on Linux under Wine.
Fnoord 8y ago
Pixelmator (Pro), available in the App Store (not in Homebrew)

netinstructions 8y ago

Paint.net is a wonderful, wonderful application that I'm unfortunately very hesitant to recommend to friends/family because the website has a lot of malware ads with giant download buttons right next to the actual download button Examples: https://i.imgur.com/LGBoiHp.png https://i.imgur.com/LGBoiHp.png https://i.imgur.com/jlocdG9.png https://i.imgur.com/jlocdG9.png I guess the Windows Store route might be better or providing a direct link to the download, but I've actually stopped talking about paint.net because I wouldn't want someone to Google it, go to the website, and end up with malware instead.

gregmac 8y ago
Your screenshots perfectly capture the sad state of this stuff and contain their own irony: 1) Google's Chrome ad is one of the giant misleading "Download" buttons, done inside Google's own ad platform. 2) The legitimate "dotPDN" download image button is done in the same style as spammy download buttons shown in ads.
- tyingq 8y ago
  Here is a Google blog post that's funny in this context: https://security.googleblog.com/2016/02/no-more-deceptive-download-buttons.html?m=1 https://security.googleblog.com/2016/02/no-more-deceptive-do...
Sir_Cmpwn 8y ago
Paint.NET became irrelevant when it became closed source. These awful malware buttons are just another example of the same mentality that led to changing the license.
- sdegutis 8y ago
  Wait, Paint.net is closed source, and the website knowingly has malware buttons? That makes me extremely hesitant to use the app anymore. If they're unscrupulous about putting those buttons on the website, who's to say they aren't putting actual malware inside the app?
- 8y ago

krylon 8y ago

I've been a GIMP man for about as long as I can remember (1999?), but a while back I had some reason to try Paint.Net at work, and I was seriously impressed. The GUI is one of the nicest I have ever seen. Too bad it is only available on Windows.

billfruit 8y ago

Does it have customizable keyboard shortcuts now?

viggity 8y ago

I love paint.net. Have been using it since it was a senior project. The ONLY thing that is missing that I want is a feathered selection. Yes, BoltBait has an plugin for it but I've consistently had problems with it. It would be so nice if it was built in natively.