Parts of this article (those related to the latest version of Paint.NET, which is version 5.0.7 as of June 24, 2023) need to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (June 2023)
Paint.NET
Original author(s)Rick Brewster
Developer(s)dotPDN, LLC
Initial releaseMay 6, 2004; 19 years ago (2004-05-06)
Stable release
5.0.13 / March 5, 2024; 22 days ago (2024-03-05)
Written inC#, C++, C++/CLI
Operating systemWindows 10 or later[1]
Platform.NET Framework[1] and .NET
Size1.1 MB
Available in28 languages
List of languages
English, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Russian, Spanish, Turkish, Ukrainian, Catalan, Corsican, Thai[1]
TypeRaster graphics editor
LicenseFreeware[2]
Websitegetpaint.net

Paint.NET (sometimes stylized as paint.net) is a freeware general-purpose raster graphics editor program for Microsoft Windows, developed with the .NET platform. Paint.NET was originally created by Rick Brewster as a Washington State University student project,[3] and has evolved from a simple replacement for the Microsoft Paint program into a program for editing mainly graphics, with support for plugins.

History

Paint.NET originated as a computer science senior design project during spring 2004 at Washington State University. Version 1.0 consisted of 36,000 lines of code and was written in fifteen weeks.[4] In contrast, version 3.35 has approximately 162,000 lines of code. The Paint.NET project continued over the summer and into the autumn 2004 semester for both the version 1.1 and 2.0 releases.

Development continues with one programmer who worked on previous versions of Paint.NET while he was a student at WSU. As of May 2006 the program had been downloaded at least 2 million times,[5] at a rate of about 180,000 per month.[6]

Initially, Paint.NET was released under a modified version of the MIT License, with the exclusion of the installer, text, and graphics.[7] However, citing issues with the open source code being plagiarized by others that had rebranded the software as their own and bundled user content without their permission, the availability of the source code was restricted, in December 2007 Brewster announced his intent to restrict access to components of the program (including its installer, resources, and user interface).[8] In November 2009, the software was made proprietary, restricting the sale or creation of derivative works of the software.[8][9]

Starting with version 4.0.18, Paint.NET is published in two editions: A classic edition remains freeware, similar to all other versions since 3.5. Another edition, however, is published to Microsoft Store under a trialware license and is available to purchase for US$7. According to the developer, this was done to enable the users to contribute to the development with more convenience, even though the old avenue of donation was not closed.[10][11]

Overview

Paint.net is primarily programmed in the C# programming language. Its native image format, .PDN, is a compressed representation of the application's internal object format, which preserves layering and other information.[12]

Plugins

Paint.net supports plugins, which add image adjustments, effects, and support for additional file types. They can be programmed using any .NET Framework programming language, though they are most commonly written in C#.[13] These are created by volunteer coders on the program's discussion board, the Paint.NET Forum. Though most are simply published via the discussion board, some have been included with a later release of the program. For instance, a DirectDraw Surface file type plugin, (originally by Dean Ashton) and an Ink Sketch and Soften Portrait effect (originally by David Issel) were added to Paint.net in version 3.10.[citation needed]

Hundreds of plugins have been produced;[14] such as Shape3D, which renders a 2D drawing into a 3D shape. Some plugins expand on the functionality that comes with Paint.net, such as Curves+ and Sharpen+, which extend the included tools Curves and Sharpen, respectively.[citation needed]

Examples of file type plugins include an Animated Cursor and Icon plugin and an Adobe Photoshop file format plugin.[14] Several of these plugins are based on existing open source software, such as a raw image format plugin that uses dcraw and a PNG optimization plugin that uses OptiPNG.[citation needed]

Forks

paint-mono

Paint.net was created for Windows, and has no native support for any other system. With its previous open-source nature, the possibility for alternate versions was available. In May 2007, Miguel de Icaza officially started a porting project called paint-mono.[15] This project had partially ported Paint.net 3.0 to Mono, an open-source implementation of the Common Language Infrastructure on which the .NET Framework is based. This allowed Paint.net to be run on Mono-supported platforms, such as Linux. This port is no longer maintained and has not been updated since March 2009.[15]

Newer Mono runtime 6 versions are able to run original Paint.NET releases up to 3.5.11 almost perfectly.[16]

Pinta

Main article: Pinta (software)

In 2010, developer Jonathan Pobst started a project called Pinta, describing it as a clone of Paint.net for Mono and Gtk#. Pinta reused the adjustments and effects code from Paint.net but otherwise is original code.[17]

Releases

Version Release date Significant changes
1.0 6 May 2004 Initial release.
1.1 1 October 2004 Support for effect plugins.
2.0 17 December 2004 Many new effects, adjustments, and tools.
2.5 26 November 2005 Internationalization support; update manager; support for file type plugins.
2.6 24 February 2006 Use of .NET Framework 2.0, full 64-bit support.
2.72 31 August 2006 Last version to support Windows 2000.
3.0 26 January 2007 This major release introduces a new multi-document interface (MDI), availability in 8 languages, a highly requested interactive gradient tool, four new effects, a user-definable color palette, lower disk space usage for scratch files, and a generally cleaner and improved user interface
3.05 29 March 2007 Added a new effect; improved certain parts of the user interface.
3.10 23 August 2007 Ink Sketch and Soften Portrait effects added; support for the DDS filetype.
3.20 12 December 2007 Enhancements to the built-in effects, a re-organized Effects menu, a new and much easier system for effect plugin development, better error handling for plugins, and the ability to draw Fixed Ratio and Fixed Size selections with the Rectangle Select tool. (With this release, Paint.NET is also no longer open source; and even the sources of 3.10 release are removed from the servers).
3.22 12 January 2008 Adds a new Reduce Noise effect.
3.30 10 April 2008 This release adds an Italian translation, a new "Fragment Blur" effect, and the ability to save PNG images at 8- and 24-bit color depths. For developers, the IndirectUI system has some new controls, some new constraint rules, and can now be used for file type plugins.
3.35 7 June 2008 A new Posterize adjustment, a new Intersect selection mode, dramatically improved performance for selection editing.
3.5 6 November 2009 Improved performance reliability, reducing memory usage, upgrading to the latest .NET Framework version, and refreshing the user interface for Aero and glass (Windows 7 / Vista)
3.5.2 4 January 2010 Resolves some feature disparities in the Text tool between GDI (Windows XP) and DirectWrite (Windows 7/Windows Vista). It also improves overall performance, as well as the correctness and quality of the Move Selected Pixels tool, the Image->Resize function, and the Hue/Saturation adjustment.
3.5.5 26 April 2010 Fixes a bug when saving 8-bit images, improves layer composition and Gaussian Blur performance, and is updated to support the new .NET Framework 4.0 in some cases. Dropped support of Windows XP without Service Pack 3, additional support for .NET 4.0.[18]
3.5.11 17 August 2013 Fixes the Gaussian Blur effect that was incorrectly calculating alpha values for non-opaque pixels. Effects Sharpen, Median, Fragment and Unfocus have seen an improved performance of 25%, 30%, 40% and 100% respectively. Also memory usage is reduced when many selection manipulation operations are in the history/undo stack. The built-in updater now supports upgrading to Paint.NET 4.0. Last version to support Windows XP and Windows Vista.
4.0 24 June 2014 4.0 requires Windows 7 SP1 or newer, and uses .NET Framework 4.5.1 (it can be installed automatically if needed)[19] This complete rewrite contains a brand new, asynchronous, fully multithreaded rendering engine, antialiased selections, a redesigned user interface, soft brushes, and a new shapes tool. Most Tools now support "fine-grained history" and it can adjust the properties of what the user has drawn before committing to the layer.[20]
4.0.6 2 August 2015 Updated for Windows 10. Increases the maximum brush size to 2000. The shapes tool now allows custom shapes to be installed and used. IndirectUI-based effect plugins can now provide help text, accessible via the question mark button.[21]
4.0.7 30 December 2015 Updated for .NET Framework 4.6. Added Swedish translation. Title bar uses the Windows 10 accent color. Custom Shapes XAML now supports cardinal splines via PolyCurveSegment. Shapes tool rendering performance on CPUs with many cores.[22]
4.0.10 8 July 2016 Added "overscroll" to the editor.[23]
4.0.20 9 January 2018 Updated for .NET Framework 4.7.1. Dark Theme support added.[24]
4.1 5 September 2018 Several effects rewritten to use GPU. Copy-and-paste selections. Two new effects: Morphology and Turbulence. Increased maximum zoom level to 6400%. IndirectUI enhancements.[25]
4.2 13 July 2019 Added HEIF file format support, fixed performance with very large images, and upgraded and modernized the functionality of many existing file types[26]
4.2.1 7 August 2019 Added JPEG XR file format support[27]
4.2.2 18 September 2019 Can open AVIF files (but not saved), improved DirectDraw Surface support and 4-bit saving for PNG/BMP/TIFF[28]
4.2.5 1 October 2019 Added WebP file format support[29]
4.2.6 21 November 2019 Added a "Native pointer input" setting if a "pointer" device is available.[30]
4.2.7 25 November 2019 Fixed a crash at startup (FileLoadException) due to 1) the stub for System.Runtime.dll not being updated, and 2) the rigid version binding policy that prevented the older version from working in its stead (which would’ve been fine in this case).[31]
4.2.8 3 December 2019 This small update fixes a few pressing bugs, particularly for touch and pen input.[32]
4.2.9 31 January 2020 This update greatly improved performance and significantly reduced memory usage, added two new translations, and fixed a number of small issues.[33]
4.2.10 14 February 2020 Fixed some important bugs, most notably with installations that directly use the MSI file for deployment.[34]
4.2.11 20 May 2020 Adds XMP metadata support, 3 new translations, some UI improvements, and several bug fixes.[35]
4.3 22 September 2021 Migrated to .NET 5, resulting in improved performance.[36]
4.3.3 21 November 2021 Migrated to .NET 6, resulting in improved performance. Usage of C# 10, three new translations, including Catalan, Corsican, and Thai.[37]
4.3.4 3 December 2021 Fixes color picker bug, and legacy plugin issues. Version 4.3.x will be the last to support Windows 7, 8 and 8.1, plus x86/32-bit platforms.[38]
5.0 10 January 2023 Dropped support for Windows 7, 8 and 8.1, as well as x86 platforms. Pressure sensitivity for tablet devices is now fully supported. Effects can now use GPU rendering, with an all new system. Users can set their preferred rendering device via the tools menu. New effects and adjustments for image processing. A new Bokeh Blur effect, which now replaces the previous unfocused effect. Support for .NET 7.[39]
5.0.1 20 January 2023 New toolbar options to enable or disable pressure sensitivity. Small updates to bundled plugins.[40]
5.0.2 19 February 2023 Performance improvements and bug fixes since 5.0.1. This version includes a new 'invert alpha' adjustment, while improving the performance for distortion effects, such as Bulge, Crystalize, Dents and Frosted Glass.[41]
5.0.3 29 March 2023 Added the ability to draw from the center of the canvas while using the shapes, line or curve tools, by holding down Ctrl. Performance improvements and bug fixes since 5.0.2. Updated the DDSFileTypePlus to add support error diffusion dithering for BC1-3 formats.[42]
5.0.4 19 May 2023 This update includes another revamp of Image->Resize's resampling modes, gamma correction for key parts of the app, higher quality canvas rendering, and a host of other miscellaneous fixes and improvements. In addition, GPU-based effect plugins now default to rendering in linear gamma space and have better access to color management information.[43]
5.0.5 20 May 2023 This update is a hotfix for 5.0.4 that fixes loading images that have multiple frames (GIF or TIFF).[44]
5.0.6 23 May 2023 This is a small update that improves the sharpness of the canvas, and fixes a few other small issues.[45]
5.0.7 24 June 2023 This is a small update with some quality-of-life improvements and bug fixes.[46]
5.0.8 1 August 2023 This update improves the Colors window UI and fixes some important bugs. [47]
5.0.9 8 August 2023 This is a small update that fixes a few important bugs. [48]
5.0.10 1 October 2023 This update has a handful of small improvements and bugfixes, and many improvements and fixes for GPU effect plugin development. [49]
5.0.11 11 October 2023 This update has a handful of important bugfixes, and an updated DdsFileTypePlus plugin. [50]
5.0.12 1 December 2023 This is a small update that fixes a handful of bugs, and updates both the AvifFileType and WebPFileType bundled plugins to include support for loading the first frame of an animation (similar to how GIF works). [51]
5.0.13 5 March 2024 Version 5.0.13 includes fixes for a handful of bugs that were present in previous versions. Paint.NET now supports Latvian as of 5.0.13. [52]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c Brewster, Rick. "Paint.NET - Download". dotPDN, LLC. Retrieved January 13, 2018.
  2. ^ Brewster, Rick (November 6, 2009). "A new license for Paint.NET v3.5". paint.net Blog. dotPDN LLC. Retrieved May 1, 2011.
  3. ^ "Paint.NET – Free Software for Digital Photo Editing". Retrieved September 30, 2009. Bottom of the page, below about.
  4. ^ "Paint.NET v1.1 "Beta 2" Download". Archived from the original on 2007-12-21.
  5. ^ "Paint.NET crosses 2 million downloads, and other news". Archived from the original on January 2, 2008. Retrieved June 16, 2006.
  6. ^ Mook, Nate (February 27, 2006). "Interview: A Look Inside Paint.NET". Betanews. Betanews, Inc. Archived from the original on October 30, 2011. Retrieved June 16, 2006.
  7. ^ Paint.NET – Licensing and FAQ
  8. ^ a b "Freeware Authors: Beware of "Backspaceware"". paint.net blog. December 4, 2007. Retrieved July 27, 2017.
  9. ^ "A new license for Paint.NET v3.5". 7 November 2009. Retrieved February 11, 2015.
  10. ^ Rubino, Daniel (September 30, 2017). "Paint.NET is now available in the Windows Store for all Windows 10 PCs". Windows Central. Mobile Nations.
  11. ^ Brinkmann, Martin (October 1, 2017). "Paint.net lands in Windows Store (but is not free)". ghacks.
  12. ^ "Paint.NET's file format, ".pdn"". Archived from the original on January 2, 2008.
  13. ^ "CodeLab: Paint.NET Plugin Development Environment". August 16, 2014.
  14. ^ a b "Plugin Index". 28 June 2009.
  15. ^ a b Project Paint Mono at Google Code
  16. ^ "Paint.NET". WineHQ AppDB. Retrieved July 22, 2021.
  17. ^ Holwerda, Thom (February 8, 2010). "Introducing Pinta, a Gtk+ Clone of Paint.NET". OSNews. Retrieved September 25, 2014.
  18. ^ Brewster, Rick (26 April 2010). "Paint.NET v3.5.5 is now available". paint.net Blog. dotPDN, LLC. Retrieved April 26, 2010.
  19. ^ Paint.NET – Download: System Requirements
  20. ^ "paint.net 4.0 is now available!". June 24, 2014.
  21. ^ "paint.net 4.0.6 is now available". August 2, 2015. Retrieved January 20, 2021.
  22. ^ "paint.net 4.0.7 is now available". December 30, 2015. Retrieved February 7, 2016.
  23. ^ "paint.net 4.0.10 is now available". July 8, 2016. Retrieved January 20, 2021.
  24. ^ "paint.net 4.0.20 is now available". January 9, 2018. Retrieved January 20, 2021.
  25. ^ "paint.net 4.1 is now available". September 5, 2018. Retrieved January 20, 2021.
  26. ^ "paint.net 4.2 is now available". July 13, 2019. Retrieved January 20, 2021.
  27. ^ "paint.net 4.2.1 is now available". August 8, 2019. Retrieved January 20, 2021.
  28. ^ "paint.net 4.2.2 is now available". September 18, 2019. Retrieved January 20, 2021.
  29. ^ "paint.net 4.2.5 is now available". October 1, 2020. Retrieved January 20, 2021.
  30. ^ "paint.net 4.2.6 is now available". November 21, 2019. Retrieved November 23, 2019.
  31. ^ "paint.net 4.2.7 is now available". November 25, 2019. Retrieved November 26, 2019.
  32. ^ "paint.net 4.2.8 is now available". December 3, 2019. Retrieved December 4, 2019.
  33. ^ "paint.net 4.2.9 is now available". January 31, 2020. Retrieved February 1, 2020.
  34. ^ "paint.net 4.2.10 is now available". February 14, 2020. Retrieved February 15, 2020.
  35. ^ "paint.net 4.2.11 is now available". May 20, 2020. Retrieved May 20, 2020.
  36. ^ "paint.net 4.3 is now available". September 22, 2021. Retrieved September 26, 2021.
  37. ^ "paint.net 4.3.3 is now available". paint.net blog. 2021-11-21. Retrieved 2021-12-02.
  38. ^ "paint.net 4.3.4 is now available". paint.net blog. 2021-12-04. Retrieved 2021-12-04.
  39. ^ "paint.net 5.0 is now available!". paint.net Forum. 10 January 2023. Retrieved 2023-01-11.
  40. ^ "paint.net 5.0.1 is now available!". paint.net Forum. 20 January 2023. Retrieved 2023-01-28.
  41. ^ "paint.net 5.0.2 is now available!". paint.net Forum. 19 February 2023. Retrieved 2023-02-25.
  42. ^ "paint.net 5.0.3 is now available!". paint.net Forum. 30 March 2023. Retrieved 2023-04-04.
  43. ^ "paint.net 5.0.4 is now available!". paint.net Forum. 20 May 2023. Retrieved 2023-07-12.
  44. ^ "paint.net 5.0.5 is now available". paint.net Blog. 20 May 2023. Retrieved 2023-07-12.
  45. ^ "paint.net 5.0.6 is now available". paint.net Blog. 24 May 2023. Retrieved 2023-07-12.
  46. ^ "paint.net 5.0.7 is now available". paint.net Blog. 24 June 2023. Retrieved 2023-07-12.
  47. ^ "paint.net 5.0.7 is now available". paint.net Blog. 24 June 2023. Retrieved 2023-07-12.
  48. ^ "paint.net 5.0.7 is now available". paint.net Blog. 24 June 2023. Retrieved 2023-07-12.
  49. ^ "paint.net 5.0.7 is now available". paint.net Blog. 24 June 2023. Retrieved 2023-07-12.
  50. ^ "paint.net 5.0.7 is now available". paint.net Blog. 24 June 2023. Retrieved 2023-07-12.
  51. ^ "paint.net 5.0.7 is now available". paint.net Blog. 24 June 2023. Retrieved 2023-07-12.
  52. ^ "paint.net 5.0.13 is now available!". paint.net Forum. 2024-03-05. Retrieved 2024-03-06.

Further reading

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Paint.net.
Wikibooks has more on the topic of: Paint.NET
Raster graphics editors
Categories