Introduction to Paint.Net

About Paint.Net

Paint.NET is free image and photo editing software for computers that run Windows. It features an intuitive and innovative user interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools. An active and growing online community provides friendly help, tutorials, and plugins.

 

Paint.Net is designed to work with raster images (e.g. photo's) so can be categorized along side with pay-for image editing applications such as Photoshop and Paintshop Pro. 

Some key features of Paint.Net include:

     Image Cropping, re-sizing

     Output to different image formats

     Functions such as red-eye removal and artistic effects

     Drawing functions (e.g. freehand brush, shapes, curves, fill tool)

     Basic tool text

     Layered images (an image can be constructed from two or more images stacked in front of each other)

Paint.NET Introduction 

1. Open Paint.NET

Double-click on the Paint.NET icon if present on your desktop. 

2. Open background image (pond)

First, you're going to open a photograph of a pond. To this, we will add a couple of ducks. 

Select File > Open... , press CTRL + O or click the file open icon

Browse to the S:\Share\_Bucci\Paint.net\Pond and select pond.jpg and click Open 

3. Save the file

In order to maintain the highest image quality and work with layers, the file needs to be saved in the Paint.NET format (.pdn). This is a proprietory format (don't worry - the final output can be saved later in a number of alternative formats), with a similar purpose to (but not compatible with!) Photoshop .psd or Paint Shop Pro .psp files. 

            Select File > Save As... (or CTRL + SHIFT + S)

In the File Name: box, type a name for the file (e.g. pondimage)

Browse to the folder H:\My Documents\Technology 6,7, or 8\Images

In the Save as type: drop-down box select Paint.NET (*.pdn)

Select Save 

4. Add a duck

This section introduces the concept of layers and transparency.

Select Layers > Import From File...

You should be taken straight to the S:\Share\_Bucci\Paint.net\ directory, if not then browse to it as before

Select duck.pdn and click Open

 

The 'Layers' palette (at the bottom-right of the Paint.NET screen by default) now displays 2 layers with a background layer ('pond') and a second layer 'duck'. Layers take precedence the further up the stack they are (so on the main image, the duck is not obscured by the pond). 

 

If you cannot see the layers palette, select Window > Layers or press F7

Now save your file – select File > Save , CTRL + S or click the file save icon     

5. Select, resize and move the duck

Selecting the duck

The 'duck' layer should be selected (has a moving dashed border around it). If it isn't, do the following:

Ensure the 'duck' layer is highlighted (grey)

  Click the 'Rectangle Select' tool in the 'Tools' palette (on the right of the screen)

You're going to 'draw' a selection rectangle around the duck:

1. Click and hold the area where you want the top-left of the rectangle to start

2. Move the cursor to where you want the bottom-right corner to be and release the mouse button. You should now have a rectangle around the duck

3. If the whole duck is not within the rectangle, select Edit > Deselect, the deselect icon  or CTRL + D – then repeat steps 1 and 2. 

 

Moving the duck

From the 'Tools' palette, ensure that the 'Move Selected Pixels'  icon is selected

Click and hold anywhere inside the selection rectangle (away from the edges though) and move the duck to somewhere on the pond to the right of the image, below the island

You should now have a duck selected that looks similar to:

Resizing the duck

Move the mouse cursor over one of the corners of the rectangle so that it changes to a hand cursor

Hold down the SHIFT key and click and hold the rectangle corner

Move the cursor towards the center of the rectangle to make the duck smaller (moving it the other way will make it larger

Release the mouse button when you're happy with the size

Keeping the shift key held down during this process 'constrains proportions'. This means that the image doesn't become 'stretched'

You can re-position the duck in the same way as before

Now save your file

Download and install application