Paint.NET, Future Photoshop?

Image and photo editor running on .NET, hence its name, and on Windows, it is gradually enriched but is far to have the capabilities of The GIMP, but it has the advantage of ease of use.
Therefore it could in just a few years of development, become a free alternative to Photoshop ... if it remain free!

What can make a webmaster with Paint.NET?

Logo, images, page backgrounds, are part of the design of a modern site.

Special effects can help to create directly a logo, with blur edges for example.
Making a graph is easy with the form tools and lines with arrows.
Combining images, resizing them, changing the scenery, all this is easily done with tools for selection and editing.

The intuitive interface helps to make images quickly.

Simple interface

The design of the software makes it easy to use in general.

A list of thumbnails provides direct access to the images being edited.
Most options of the tools are modified by icons on the toolbar.

Defects

One of the shortcomings is the lack of context for options. As we cannot choose a color for text only or for drawing only, the same color applies to all tools. Similarly, the width of the brush also applies to other forms and graphics in general. This requires more frequent changes in options.
The lack of airbrush is crucially lacking.
Searches for doc redirect mostly to the forum. This is minimal service!

Special effects

We can achieve the following effects:

Convert a photo into drawing with color or just sketchup.
Oil painting from a photograph.
The effect of blurring glass, or blurring of the face of a person.
Smoothing to remove defects.
Removing red eye.
Enhancement of contrast for an too smooth image.
Stylish portrait as that of writers.

Some examples on the site.

Compatibility

A plugin can make the software compatible with Photoshop files.

Future of Paint.Net

There are no plans to port it to Mono or on other operating systems. A Mono version exists and is open source, but not very actively developed.
The original software is free but not open source. Nothing prevents therefore it to become a commercial product in the future. The last version which was published with source is 3.36.
So a drawing software easy to use, open source and portable is always to find.

Version 4.0, more easily extensible, is scheduled for 2011.

Tutorials

Creating a speech bubble with Paint.NET.

External Links

Download Paint.Net. After several screens for displaying advertising, you will arrive at the download link.
The tutorial to start .