- Quick specs
- Price: Free
- Operating system: Windows Vista, Windows XP
- Date added: January 29, 2007
- Total Downloads: 3,314,678
- Downloads last week: 45,019
- See full specifications
A newer version of Paint.NET is available.
(Download doesn't provide access to previous versions of this program.)
- CNET editors' rating: stars
- Average user rating: stars out of 849 votes
See all user reviews
CNET editors' review
Reviewed by: CNET Staff
If you just want to retouch images a bit, Photoshop is overkill. Check out Paint.NET, an open-source freeware editor with all the essential tools, including those for cropping, rotating, resizing, adjusting colors, and creating collages.
Paint.NET supports the most popular image formats--JPEG, PNG, GIF, TIFF, and others--but not superhigh resolution ones like RAW. However, you'll find such basic effects as Red Eye Removal, Emboss, Mosaic, and Oil Painting, and a few higher-end features such as Clone Stamp, Lasso Select, and Magic Wand. Like a full-fledged graphics package, Paint.NET even supports layers and an actions manager. The interface is very convenient, and the panels are semitransparent, so you won't need to hide them.
Version 3 fixes many old quibbles. Multiple-image editing is done through a convenient thumbnail manager in the upper-right corner of the app; blurry tool icons have been sharpened as well. Paint.NET is far better than Microsoft Paint, and given its free price, it's a no-brainer for anyone who does a lot of minor graphical tweaking.
Watch the CNET video review of Paint.NET:
Publisher's description
From dotPDN :Paint.NET is free image editing and photo manipulation software designed to be used on computers that run Windows. It supports layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools.
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User reviews of Paint.NET 3
- Average user rating: 4.2 stars out of 849 votes
- My rating: 0 stars Write review
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Showing 5 of 31 user reviewsSee all 31 user reviews
This software version | All versions -
9 out of 10 people found this review helpful
Version: Paint.NET 3
"finally! a decent all-around photo editing program."
Pros: all of the basic editing tools in MS paint but much more advanced feature as well. the special effects can really set the level up, especially when you combined with some of its top of the line tools like magic wand, clone stamp, gradient, layer and multi-imaging support. easy to use and friendly interface that well even settle for the novice just like the MS paint. overall, it's a well packaged photo editing tool that will do almost every standard editing task. hey, its free, so give it try.
Cons: need to support more image formats. it's like the lite-home edition of photoshop. only able to satisify home users, but not the professionals.
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8 out of 9 people found this review helpful
Version: Paint.NET 3
"A great, free choice for photo editing"
Pros: Its easy to setup and install and doesn't require too much space, CPU, or RAM. It has many of the tool sthat Adobe Photoshop has, but without the $150 price tag. It supports all the image formats I ever use, and the tools and instructions are simple. I would highly recommend this as a replacement for Paint, especially if you don't have Photoshop or some other good picture-editing program.
Cons: I would like the UI to be slightly more.. friendly, but its nice for a start.
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1 out of 1 people found this review helpful
Version: Paint.NET 3
"Good features but more format handling."
Pros: First of all, it is free. And it provides many editing features that most users ever need.
This is a .NET application so it is actually X-copy-installable. If you need to reinstall Windows, just backup the installation folder and restore it. No such long reinstallation hassle as Photoshop.
It requires really small disk space compared to other giant image editors which consume hundres of MBs, and it doesn't mess up system's registry.
Cons: Many graphic viewers such as IrfanView have fine-tune options for saving formats like "JPEG Compression factor" which is crucial for web graphics, but Paint.NET doesn't. One star minus for this.
Plus, operations such as gaussian blur are noticably slower than those of Photoshop or other native applications.
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1 out of 1 people found this review helpful
Version: Paint.NET 3
Pros: It works like a charm. I'm a total newbie to this stuff and it is easy for me to figure out without reading any documentation. Fantastic. Keep up the good work guys.
Cons: None so far!
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3 out of 5 people found this review helpful
Version: Paint.NET 3
"No need for PhotoShop anymore"
Pros: This is the best free tool to edit images. I used to use PhotoShop for that, but Paint.Net is much faster to do quick fix-ups so I got rid of PhotoShop at all...Of course it will not replace PhotoShop for professional work - but for home/business user Paint.Net is the way to go...
- See all 31 user reviews Write review
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