13 ms·
Paint.Net 4.0 is now available
- rtpg 12y agoPaint.NET is one of the first things I get when I install windows somewhere. It's actually pretty frustrating that there isn't a nice simple image editing tool like that for Mac (or Linux). There's Gimp but...
- josteink 12y ago> There's Gimp but... Yeah. Gimp doesn't really cut it in my books. I'd love to get paint.net running in Linux under Wine, but so far all my attempts have failed.
- spingsprong 12y agoJust out of curiosity, why doesn't Gimp cut it in your books?
- acangiano 12y agoMy money is on UX. But let's hear it from OP.
- josteink 12y agoWhile acengiano here is being downvoted, this is really one of my biggest gripes with Gimp. I'm having a terrible user experience. It also doesn't help that I'm already well used to the paint.net/photoshop keyboard shortcuts. Besides Gimp having its own, different keyboard shortcuts, it also has some unique (and again different) conventions for how to use the mouse to select regions and stuff like that. It may be equally productive once you're used to it, but I never liked Gimp enough to get into how the different ways it has chosen to do things actually works.
- aragot 12y agoGimp shortcuts aren't displayed, most often. Try creating a path and draw a line on it: You'll have to use the mouse very, very often. And you'll only find the shortcuts if you search online. That's sad because you could be much more efficient with it.
- XorNot 12y agoGIMP is too complex (and too slow to startup) for simple image editing tasks. None of the substitute photo viewer type apps on Linux really seem to stand in particularly well either - I like Shotwell at the moment, but it still lacks an easy to use crop/copy/paste workflow.
- vanderZwan 12y agoAre you aware of Darktable? I think it's a great Adobe Lightroom replacement, even has some features the latter is missing I believe. http://www.darktable.org/ http://www.darktable.org/
- matwood 12y agoWow, this looks awesome! I own and use Lightroom now, but will give Dark Table a look.
- FranOntanaya 12y agogThumb has been my favourite for years for quick resize/crop/rotate/white balance edits and image folder browsing. I don't know why it never was picked as default on Linux Desktops.
- XorNot 12y agoOn this comment I checked it out and it looks like gthumb does a address a lot of problems. Thanks!
- pjmlp 12y agoFor me on Windows it is dog slow, even on i7 system. Don't get it actually, as it a native code application coded mostly in C, unless Python and Guile plugins now own the majority of the code.
- rplnt 12y agoI managed to run it using mono. It wasn't flawless.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- laichzeit0 12y agoI'm too stupid to use Gimp. It's like every time I want to do something I think is really simple (and in other tools it is really simple) takes me longer to do in Gimp. Sometimes I can't get it right, give up and try something else.
- memoirmasters 12y agoToo stupid? Not at all. I've used GIMP almost daily for years and still find it counter-intuitive. Paint.NET looks really good, so I may finally make the switch.
- quarterto 12y agoPinta[0] is a decent Paint.NET-inspired Linux image editor. [0]: http://pinta-project.com/ http://pinta-project.com/
- fletchowns 12y agoYou should definitely check out http://pinta-project.com/ http://pinta-project.com/
- tphan 12y agoI use Pinta at work. It's no Paint.NET.
- fletchowns 12y agoWhat are the differences? They seem almost identical to me for my limited usage.
- shurcooL 12y agoPixelmator is my go-to OS X alternative.
- bakareika 12y agoI second Pixelmator. It's great for simple edits, and also provides some of the more complex, Photoshop-esque tools. Also pretty fast.
- rimantas 12y ago+1 for Pixelmator, but there is also Acorn, quite popular.
- shaunpud 12y agoSeashore isn't too bad either, http://seashore.sourceforge.net http://seashore.sourceforge.net
- Tyrannosaurs 12y agoYep, I like (and own and use) Pixelmator but before I was willing to pay money for something, Seashore was my go to app for basic editing. My understanding is that it's bits of the GIMP processing engine with a nicer UI.
- mythz 12y agoMassive fan of Pixelmator, my #1 goto option on OSX. Very few apps have Pixelmator's quality and polish. Paint.NET is a great option on Windows for quick and easy graphic work, has been enough to keep me off Photoshop (as a web dev) for years.
- TarpitCarnivore 12y agoWhat got me to buy Pixelmator was the amount of instructional material they provide on their website, that is well laid out and easy to follow.
- rogerdpack 12y ago
- a-saleh 12y agoIt has been long time since I tried, but ... http://code.google.com/p/paint-mono/ http://code.google.com/p/paint-mono/ Then there is http://pinta-project.com/ http://pinta-project.com/, that was created basically as a cross-platform clone of paint.net Apart from that, if you want a painting tool, Krita is reasonably good.
- factorialboy 12y agoI'm not a heavy graphics user, but Pinta on Linux (and Windows) does the trick for me.
- dools 12y agoPreview is a pretty simple image editing tool that ships with OSX
- ghshephard 12y agoPreview is a markup tool, not an image editing tool. On OS X it is either Acorn (my preferred tool, because you can cut/paste excel spreadsheets into it elegantly), or Pixelmator (which I also use occasionally)
- mseebach 12y agoDepends on what you mean by 'editing'. I can crop, resize, rotate and stitch together images in Preview which is editing in my book and covers about 95% of all image editing I ever need.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- Spiritus 12y agoRita is quite nice, perhaps a bit too simplistic and is vector based. Doesn't support text input either. http://www.frykholm.se/rita.html http://www.frykholm.se/rita.html
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- mathnode 12y agoPixelmator for mac, it also has a vector editor. The new version also allows for 16bit editing, which GIMP doesn't do yet (but Krita does).
- Svip 12y agoGIMP 2.10 does. http://www.gimpusers.com/tutorials/whats-new-in-gimp-2-10 http://www.gimpusers.com/tutorials/whats-new-in-gimp-2-10 (I admit, GIMP 2.10 isn't technically out yet, but it is just around the corner.)
- moron4hire 12y agoDoes it support color profiles yet? That is a big deal preventing it from being used in any professional setting.
- lmm 12y agoKrita is pretty great for simple image editing on Linux (I even use it on Windows sometimes).
- chestnut-tree 12y agoKrita is an impressive painting app, but not really designed for photo-editing. The developers of Krita currently have a Kickstarter campaign running to fund new features and possibly port it to the Mac https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/krita/krita-open-source-digital-painting-accelerate-deve https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/krita/krita-open-source...
- enimodas 12y agoi use the http://pixlr.com/ http://pixlr.com/ editor, no need to install anything
- guelo 12y agoI actually run paint.net inside a windows vbox on OS X. Pixelmator doesn't cut it. People say paint.net is simple but it's actually very powerful. It's just designed so well that it fools people into thinking it's simple.
- mschaef 12y agoWhat don't you like about Pixelmator? (I've been thinking of buying it for my MBP...)
- ghshephard 12y agoOne downside of pixelmator (as compared to Acorn) - you can't cut/paste Excel spreadsheets and get all the nice formatting and gridlines - Acorn handles that.
- grennis 12y agoAlso wondering what is wrong pixelmator. My trial ran out before I could decide whether it was really capable enough. It seemed like something wasn't quite right with it though.
- MrBra 12y agoIt's designed to look like Paint :)
- devindotcom 12y agoI'm with you, Pixelmator is a bundle of aggravation. I can't stand it.
- Serow225 12y agoI've used Paintbrush for this use case because it gets the job done and is free; it hasn't been updated in a while but still seems to work fine under Maverick.
- viraptor 12y agoWhen it was first released, it worked quite well under mono on Linux. (so I guess also on Macs, but I never tried) Is that not the case anymore? Edit: The Internets claim that ported paint.net 3 exists as paint.mono. Not version 4 though :(
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- tinco 12y agoThe OSX alternative is Seashore. It's got the same goal as Paint.Net, to be a simple and easy to use image editor and is based on gimp, so it's stable and supports many things. I'm not sure there's a similar project for Linux.
- arrrg 12y agoDepends on what you need on the Mac. For many common image editing tasks like rotating, cropping, resizing, saving in a different image format, some simple levels, exposure, saturation, sharpening and white balance adjustments as well as a few mark up tools (adding text, arrows, various shapes) Preview is perfectly adequate. That’s probably more than enough for people who don’t actually create any images. Maybe the photo editing is a bit anaemic, but Photoshop’s photo editing tools are cryptic and hard to use for occasional users and those probably benefit a lot more from a simple editing panel with a few relevant sliders than from all the hard to unlock power of Photoshop. The only notable absent thing is some sort of image straightening tool (only 90° rotations are possible). If you want to do actual image editing there are a couple of excellent apps, namely Acorn and Pixelmator, both modern and frequently updated. You have to pay for them but that’s Mac software. You should have to pay for them. That’s only proper.
- arikrak 12y agoThere's a large amount of free software available on Windows that doesn't have an equivalent on Mac. It matter less over time as more things move to the web, but Paint.net is still a good example.
- pasbesoin 12y agoI had a similar situation and came across... "Pinta" (Linux), I think it was. Did enough while retaining relatively simple and straight-forward controls. (It was no Paint.NET, but neither was it the beginner-adverse Gimp.) I'd have to have another look to refresh my memory, and it was only a brief need, but might be worth having a look. P.S. And of course, for vector graphics, "Inkscape". And, oops: I see now that someone else mentioned Pinta already.
- pessimizer 12y agoI agree. I went all Linux years ago, and Paint.NET, minesweeper, and Irfanview are the major things that I miss. GIMP doesn't take that long to start now, though. I missed Paint.NET a lot more when the GIMP took longer to load.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- josteink 12y agoHaven't really tried much yet, but initial impression is that it seems noticeably snappier than the older version. That said, I mostly use it to crop images and highlight regions when documenting bug-reports with screenshots. Most of these enhancements are probably not meant for me :)
- dtech 12y agoThe major improvement for everyone is decreased startup time thanks to Multicore JIT. That was one of my few irritations with Paint.NET. Paint.NET should perform better overal thanks to GPU acceleration and multithreaded rendering. I've personally used the alpha's and beta's for a while now and it just feels zippier.
- pjmlp 12y agoFor several years I had put off using Paint.NET over GIMP due to the dependency on .NET, but as soon as I realized that it still managed to outperform GIMP, I moved on the spot. Still do not get how GIMP gets compiled on Windows to perform so poorly.
- dtech 12y agoJIT'ed bytecode only carries a ~10% performance overhead versus well-optimized compiled native code, so the argument that a .NET program would be slower is bogus nonetheless. In this case, GIMP is fully POSIX and GTK based so it needs to translate all POSIX stuff for Windows + rely on a subpar implementation of GTK for the Windows platform. A good example of how native vs managed usually impacts performance much less than the application structure.
- pjmlp 12y agoSure, I am aware of JIT vs AOT compilation, although .NET JIT has not been touched that much on the last years. Looking forward to RyuJIT improvements. Just that a statement that writing something in C does not make it fast by itself.
- ohwp 12y agoI never used it because I've got Photoshop installed on Windows but just gave it a try. The first thing I noticed was the enormous lag of the mouse movements. So I think for an free alternative I will stick to Gimp.
- trentmb 12y agoI just used it without lag. Consider making a bug report instead of a snarky comment on HN?
- morganvachon 12y agoWhat was snarky about it? I agree, he should file a bug report, as I'm on a modern system and don't have lag (I use paint.net and Gimp on Windows 7). But his comment was fairly emotionless and to the point.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- imdsm 12y agoI had this, but got rid. I find my mastery of regular paint suffices and for anything else, I can hop into Photoshop.
- CmonDev 12y agoWell, Paint.NET is for people who don't want to buy Photoshop. Adobe products are not priced for people who only use them occasionally.
- dtech 12y agoPlus Paint.NET occupies a sweet spot: it is simple enough to easily do easy tasks like cropping, while complex enough to do so slightly more advanced things. I find it to be especially popular among IT professionals as they usually don't need to do photo-manipulation ("photoshopping"), but need to process images every so often.
- thescrewdriver 12y agoThere are many people who can't afford Photoshop, so Paint.NET is useful for those who want something better than paint without having to sell their car to pay for software.
- erikpriana 12y agoI prefer to use photoshop than using paint
- okonomiyaki3000 12y agoIn case you don't enjoy clicking through half a dozen pages to get to the download, the actual link is on this page http://www.dotpdn.com/downloads/pdn.html http://www.dotpdn.com/downloads/pdn.html
- codebolt 12y agoI appreciate that the author wants to get something back, but really? Why would I have to click through 4 or 5 pages just to get the download started, while nearly being tricked to click several abusive CNET "Download Here!" ads. Free apps like this would make a much more professional impression if they didn't clutter their websites with ads that no one will ever click (except for by mistake).
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- omnibrain 12y agoMy GF is a teacher who did some graphics design and typesetting part-time during her time at the university. She used the Adobe products of course. When teaching at a school for the first time, and doing image manipulation with the pupils, she had to use Gimp because it is free and because of that the "oficially recommended" program. She had real trouble adjust to the GUI and teaching it to her pupils and at the same time the tool was way oversized for the tasks. I showed her Paint.NET and it was like heaven-sent for her.
- hereonbusiness 12y agoI agree the GIMP developers are missing out on a big opportunity by not making their UI look/behave more like the commercial products people are used to. But on the other side there are a lot of people used to the current GIMP UI as well. Good thing there are projects like Gimpshop (though I havent' tried it yet), GIMP is a open source project so I don't see why we wouldn't have multiple UI's just like there are for Linux, KDE, GNOME, Xfce, ... as long as the core remains the same.
- ionforce 12y agoEvery time image editing comes up on forums, so does mentions of GIMP. To me, there seems to be no shortage of "GIMP has UX problems" claims. So what gives? Do they not believe that this is a legitimate problem hurting their adoption? Or do they not care about adoptions? Somehow it's not a priority? Or their execution is severely lacking.
- hereonbusiness 12y agoI'm not in any way affiliated with GIMP or even a graphics professional but as a programmer I think part of it is ideological (GIMP is not a copy of photoshop, why would we spend a lot of resources to change something that works for us and copy adobe for example just to appeal to users who don't want to learn to use a new UI or workflow) and part of may be just because they are more or less happy with it, they have a steady user base (at least it seems that way guessing by the mentioning of GIMP on forums as you say), also it's not like they (programmers/community) are going to get rich off of it so there might be no profit motive in revamping the whole thing. I think the project just needs some fresh blood, either a fork that strives for a (better) more familiar UX for people that are switching from commercial products or an easy way to decouple the UI from the core and build custom front ends. There's no point in re-developing all the functionality that's already in GIMP, it's a functional product with years of development behind it.
- zeinology 12y agowithout further ado
- andrelaszlo 12y agohttp://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/ado-versus-adieu?page=all http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/ado-versu...
- codeulike 12y agoI've been in several offices where people think they need Photoshop to crop or resize photos. Consequently no-one has Photoshop (because its expensive) and people end up pasting 2000x800 images of logos into their letterhead and wondering why all the word files got so big. Paint.Net is brilliant for doing common tasks like that. Its a shame you have to play 'guess the download link' - that has really stopped me from recommending it to people recently.
- kubiiii 12y agoThere is a built in workaround in word itself : pasting the huge picture, adjusting size, cut & paste as PNG.
- MrBuddyCasino 12y agoArtweaver is pretty nice too - there is a freeware edition for non-commercial and academic purposes.
- aneeskA 12y agoYou can use https://pixlr.com/editor/ https://pixlr.com/editor/ for such trivial uses.
- nhebb 12y ago> Its a shame you have to play 'guess the download link' - that has really stopped me from recommending it to people recently. It's one of the tools available on Ninite. Point them there instead: https://ninite.com/ https://ninite.com/.
- doczoidberg 12y agoPaint.NET is one of the best free graphic applications. It' amazing how easy and fast it is. I only miss a dark theme.
- richardw 12y agoWorth a donation. This is such an awesome app.
- Grue3 12y agoHow about donating to some opensource project like Gimp or Krita, so that everyone benefits, not just Windows users?
- Cthulhu_ 12y agoBecause the parent apparently doesn't like those as much as Gimp / Krita etc? Open source is a noble goal, but not equal to worth donations / money.
- Grue3 12y agoOr the parent doesn't know open-source alternatives exist. It doesn't hurt to remind about them, seeing as their development would benefit more people in the long run.
- josephagoss 12y agoI would donate to GIMP if they started caring about UI.
- Grue3 12y agoPeople who start with GIMP prefer its UI over Photoshop's. It's a matter of getting used to it, really. Or, failing that, "donate" to Adobe to get your ideal UI.
- Infinitesimus 12y agoMaybe because the parent has benefited from Paint.NET and it is logical to support them?
- knocte 12y agoIt's a bit sad that this program was open-source once, and then further versions got closed. (It's the other way around to what usually happens!)
- teh_klev 12y agoThere's some history there. Basically a scammer was passing it off as a paid app [1]. See also [2]: "Excluding the installer, text, and graphics, Paint.NET was released under a modified version of the MIT License.[6] It was initially released as completely open source, but due to breaches of license, all resource files (such as interface text and icons) were released under a Creative Commons license forbidding modification, and the installer was made closed-source.[7] Version 3.36 was initially released as partial open source, but the sources were later removed by Brewster, citing problems with plagiarism. In version 3.5, the license was altered to reflect this, and users are now prohibited from modifying the software. As free licenses cannot be revoked, developers can still legally develop forks based on version 3.36 and earlier. Brewster later stated that he hopes to release portions of the source code back into the public." [1]: http://blog.getpaint.net/2007/12/04/freeware-authors-beware-of-%E2%80%9Cbackspaceware%E2%80%9D/ http://blog.getpaint.net/2007/12/04/freeware-authors-beware-... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paint.NET#Overview https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paint.NET#Overview
- knocte 12y agoAll opensource software is subject to scammers like this, so I think the Paint.NET author overreacted.
- majornoob 12y agoIf the author see no obvious benefits with keeping it open source but sees downsides I don't see why it would be an over reaction. I did exactly the sane thing as he a few years ago. I've since opened sourced it again since people were wanting to contribute.
- atesti 12y agoIs there a download link for the latest version with source code? I would like to browse it a bit. edit: found something here: http://paint-mono.googlecode.com/svn/vendor/pdn_src_3_0/ http://paint-mono.googlecode.com/svn/vendor/pdn_src_3_0/ (reference before porting to linux started)
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- math 12y ago"Now why would somebody invest time in something like Paint.NET, freemium, developed by a single guy that may lose interest or vanish tomorrow" Because delivers enormous value, doesn't require much effort to learn, is already mature and um doesn't cost me anything to use?
- bad_user 12y agoI deleted my original comment because it was mean and not deserved. However on not costing you anything, software is never free as in cost of ownership. Ask the folks that still suffer after Google Reader.
- KnightHawk3 12y agoBut my install of Paint.Net will still work if it disappears tomorrow.
- bad_user 12y agoNot if you upgrade to a version of Windows or .NET that breaks backwards compatibility.
- jerf 12y agoYou've proved too much now; if you're going to follow through with that argument, rather than just lob it into the discussion with an "any weapon to hand in the moment" philosophy, you just proved you can't use any software, ever, because someday, you might not be able to use it.
- partomniscient 12y agoHow about instead appreciating the different scenario outcomes between stand-alone OS-native installable software and "software as a service", and then the variations within each - a multidimensional hue with Stallman GNU/Open Source/BSDs/Linux etc. close to each other at one bundle of ends, nowhere near the Googles, Apples, Oracles and Microsofts etc. at various others, surrounding a kind of "works on my machine(s)" conglomeration in the middle with varying levels of documentation and support. The more rugs that get pulled from under you, the more you appreciate what your abdication of control loses you and the experience gained hopefully makes your next decision a wiser one.
- ryp35 12y agoBeware that it silently installs .NET 4.52!
- Serow225 12y agoIt would be great if Paint.NET could ship with Windows!
- CodeCube 12y agoNo kidding, if there's any Microsoft acquisition that makes sense, it's this! :P
- soneca 12y agoOnce I read somewhere that Paint.NET developer is the only in the interwebs than can make a living out only of donations for his software. I don't know if this is true, but it is totally deserved. I use Paint.NET for a lot of things, most of them professionally. If I someday get lucky in this startup lottery thing, I intend to donate some thousands of dollars. EDIT for add: I see a lot of comments talking about using Paint.NET for croping and resizing. I do so much more than this. I actually create all kinds of communication materials with it. Flyers, images for a landing page, business cards, etc. The layers feature is what make it of great value for me. Also the feature to open different images at the same time is great to create an image that includes a logo, a stock photo, a standard background. Two things that are missing: be able to save it using CMYK color scheme (better for professional printing) and saving as PDF (easier to send it to graphic stores).
- scriptproof 12y agoMaybe he makes money also with the 50 pages displaying ads you have to visit before to be able to download the file. But this does not detract from the qualities of the software, that I use daily.
- adventured 12y agoWhat am I missing? I had three clicks, zero ads. I clicked here: http://www.getpaint.net/download.html http://www.getpaint.net/download.html Then I clicked here: http://www.dotpdn.com/downloads/pdn.html http://www.dotpdn.com/downloads/pdn.html Then here for the file: http://www.dotpdn.com/files/paint.net.4.0.install.zip http://www.dotpdn.com/files/paint.net.4.0.install.zip I use adblock, but when I fired up another browser, I still had three clicks, and the only ads were one typical square block ad, that didn't get in the way at all.
- arb99 12y agothese are the ads: https://www.dropbox.com/s/q9dzn78tfh2srnb/Screenshot%202014-06-25%2014.48.47.png https://www.dropbox.com/s/q9dzn78tfh2srnb/Screenshot%202014-... It isn't really a bad thing. He's giving the software away for free. I'm never a fan of the ones that pretend to be the download link (the ad on the left linked to http://www.mac-zip.com/lp/freezip_osx/df?mnag=155060&mnct=4528&mncr=0&gclid=COSOiI6Ilb8CFUcV7AodOT0Acw http://www.mac-zip.com/lp/freezip_osx/df?mnag=155060&mnct=45... god knows what kind of stuff you'd get if you downloaded/ran that...)
- Nate630 12y agoIt is impressive that Paint.NET keeps on releasing updated software for free.
- kateperry 12y agomy roomate's sister-in-law earned $14851 last month. she is getting paid on the laptop and moved in a $499100 house. All she did was get blessed and put to work the clues exposed on this web site ,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,, WWW.MAX43.COM
- peaton 12y agoI'm unfamiliar with Paint.NET. I'm sure this question gets asked a lot, but could someone summarize the main differences between Paint.NET and GIMP?
- ComputerGuru 12y agoFor the people asking for a Mac or Linux equivalent, Paint.NET is actually a .NET Framework application (hence the .NET) and has been ported to run on Mono: https://code.google.com/p/paint-mono/ https://code.google.com/p/paint-mono/ (a little out of date, but still.)
- dep_b 12y agoSince my house got raided the only computers left were Macs. I really don't miss that much of Windows except Visual Studio and Paint.NET. Paint.NET is and feels really robust and everything it does just works like you expect it. I tried all alternatives for Macintosh and they all don't have the same features and have UI issues.
- yawz 12y agoIs there an app that comes close to Paint.NET on the Mac?
- pkaler 12y agoPixelmator is brilliant. http://www.pixelmator.com http://www.pixelmator.com
- Fando 12y agoYes, anti-aliased selections! I love Paint.NET. It suits all my image editing needs completely. I've been using it for over 2 years. It's my go-to image editing program and I recommend it to anyone who wants a professional, feature-full, and free tool.
- devindotcom 12y agoAh, excellent! I used to always use the feather selection tool but this should be more helpful.
- freewareuser21 12y agohi, paint.net user here, using paint.net since netframework 3.0 and stopped upgrading from above v3.5 i think it may not madder for the programmer of paint.net, but... i stopped ugrading cause for me it seemed that all the newer versions are mainly fixing bugs which were not in v3.5, and it continues... yes, in all the years using paint.net errors/bugs only happend through plugins smile. there are two points which i would like to be "nachgereicht" but thats something for the paint.net-forums... what you can do with pixels when there are vector-based drawing programs... maybe make others smile (?) heres an example truly inspired by frankie zappas: "bobby brown" direct link to image: http://i.imgur.com/0CIgBXV.png http://i.imgur.com/0CIgBXV.png