LESSON 02 – PAINT.NET

WHAT IS PAINT.NET?

Paint.NET is advanced graphic editing software. It is a free alternative to expensive programs such as PhotoShop, Paint Shop Pro and Fireworks.

Paint.NET is created and updated by a group of volunteers. It is free for anybody to use. Such software programs are called freeware.

BETTER THAN PAINT

Paint.NET is far superior to Paint. Here are some of the extra functionality:

• Layers
• Transparency
• Gradients
• Magic Wand
• Tolerance settings
• Effects
• Plug-ins (Extra downloadable effects)
• Customizable tools
• And much more…

SELECTING & MOVING

One important difference in Paint.NET is that you must make a selection with one tool and then move the pixels in the selection with a second tool. This is inconvenient at first.

TRANSPARENCY

It is often useful to have transparency in images. Paint.NET supports transparency. It displays transparency using a checkerboard.

LAYERS

Layers are like a series of transparencies that are placed one on top of the other. Wherever the top one has transparency, the next one can be seen. This continues all the way down all the layers.

The advantage is that you can work with certain parts of your image separately. In fact, you can add effects to specific layers.

GRADIENT TOOL

The gradient tool is useful to add nice colour blends. It is important to note that it is automatically applied to the entire canvas or to the current selection. You can also apply it to anything that is not transparent by setting the option at the top. Here are thumbnail examples of gradients created in Paint.Net:

MAGIC WAND

The magic wand is a very powerful tool. When you click on one location, it will automatically select all neighbouring pixels that are similar to the pixel you clicked on. You can set the tolerance of pixels that are selected by setting the tolerance value at the top.

EFFECTS

There are several built-in effects in Paint.NET. They are applied to the entire canvas or to the current selection.

ADDING EFFECTS (PLUG-INS)

You can actually download and use new effects in Paint.Net. You simply need to download them to the effects folder.

CLONE TOOL

The clone tool allows you to make a copy of certain parts of an image. It is quite neat although not that useful. J