I have the habit of hanging on to programs well past their use by date, I give as an example the fact that I still use Picasa 3 many years since Google abandoned it.
Another such program is Paintshop Pro which used to be a free “try before you buy” program from JASC it was bought out by Corel to become a fully paid program. I am still using the old JASC version 7 program but recently I downloaded a free program called Paint.Net. It is not open source and is copyrighted - I forget where I got the recommendation from.
Like the old Paintshop Pro it seems to be a simple photo/picture editor unlike Gimp for example which is quite complex but it is a bit more complex than Picasa.
Is anybody else using Paint.net? Has it been reliable? does it have any major limitations? (there is a paid version I believe) I have only had a brief look at it. I need to check YouTube for a good tutorial.
BTW I got it from here:
I am tempted to delete Paintshop Pro from one laptop to force myself to use it
I’m a fan of PaintDotNet. Been using it since the early days, 10 or 15 years. It’s not the best photo editor as it doesn’t edit RAW files, but for Jpegs very good.
I don’t think there’s a paid-for version, just, I think if you download in from Microsoft they charge you. If you go to https://www.getpaint.net/ you won’t.
I was playing with it last night, it is quite similar to the old Paintshop Pro.
Picasa does most of the simple tasks like resizing, cropping etc, I mainly use Paintshop Pro for blurring out personal details in documents and changing canvas size. PaintdotNet seems to do that.
Personally I have never used RAW out of my camera, jpeg is more than good enough for my uses. I’ll leave RAW to the keen photographers like you and @realspeed.
Checked on the paid version - as far as I can see the only difference is that the paid version updates itself automatically.
I fear this might be the end of the road for Paintshop Pro on my computers.
Sorry, not much help Bruce…Although I’ve been using Paint Shop Pro 5 ever since my Amiga computer packed up back in 2000 and I purchased my first microsoft computer running windows 98…
It does everything I need from a paint package and I know my way around it like the back of my hand. At my age I wouldn’t want to start learning something new all over again.
But with your love of most things technical I can understand your reasons…
That’s how I feel BUT PaintdotNET looks so similar I don’t think the learning curve is very steep. The main two bits I use are almost exactly the same.
Eventually Paint Shop Pro will stop working in Windows, it already has to run in compatibility mode.
I don’t really change programs on a whim either and I have never found a suitable replacement for Picasa for example but PaintdotNET seems simple enough so I might bite the bullet in this case but retain the option to return to the program I know and love.
Yes, a good point Bruce. I still have some files in microsoft works that won’t run on windows 10.
Fortunately, I can copy and paste them to Excel on my old desktop running Vista…
I’m not really familiar with Paint Shop Pro or MS Paint which PDN was designed to replace. I understand PDN has the same uncomplicated look and layout. You might want to read the first few paragraphs of Paint.NET - Wikipedia
Like you, I still use Picasa3. I download my photos to there, and they are all viewable in date order. Click to enlarge, then I use the Straighten Tool. then the Crop Tool. Then I copy&paste it into PDN, where main simple adjustments tools are Levels and Curves, usually give it a Sharpen and a little Vignette. Give it a name and Save it in a relevant folder.
That’s it basically, but it can get a lot more interesting. I love what you can do with Layers. A favourite trick is to add a duplicate layer (top layer) then erase parts, here’s an example, a friendly cop at the gates of Downing Street, lightened the bottom layer, erased his face on the top layer (his helmet put it in the shadows) then merge. So what you’ve done is lighten his face but not the whole picture. Loads more fun to be had there.
I have no experience with newer versions of Paint.NET but lots with the later versions of Paintshop Pro. I’m running the 2022 version at present. I can’t say what the disadvantages/advantages are compared to Paint.NET other than to to say Paintshop Pro is a very good editor in my opinion.
It is my preferred editor over and above Photoshop Elements.
My favourite paint package was ‘De-Luxe Paint’ on my old Amiga computer.
Although I’m not so well informed about the latest paint software, the old De-luxe paint did a few things I haven’t found on the more recent ones. You could knock up an animation in no time, and I’ve yet to figure out how to do it on Paintshop pro 5 ? If I remember correctly, there was something unique about the colour pallet too.
Although I love Paintshop pro 5 I can understand how it might fall short for all you photo experts.
Yes there is. Static GIFs and animated GIFs consist of 256 colours. You can normally save these with something less than that to reduce the file size. It doesn’t matter so much in these days of higher speed Internet connections and capabilities. All images/videos/animated/static GIFs generally load pretty fast anyway. It used to matter in the days of 5.6K modems though. Waiting for an image of any kind could take a while to load if the file size was too large. It was always best to shave the colours away in a GIF until it started to notice.
Actually Paintshop Pro came complete with Animation Workshop as a separate program which created animated GIFs. It should be in your Start Menu (perhaps in a folder)
These days there are several on line sites which do the job for free from your short movie clips. Mr Google is your friend
Presumably you’re using the Corel version because version 7 was the last one made by JASC before they sold it to Corel. Corel still gives a 30 day free trial then it costs about $70 or it stops working whereas the old JASC versions still work. (no idea how)
The Corel version is updated each year but if it is anything like their video suite they charge to update to a newer version and you get constant popups reminding you of the fact (I don’t know if that is true with the version you have)
Yes, I’m using the 2022 Corel version of Paintshop Pro. I keep being offered an upgrade to 2023 (doesn’t seem to be a 2024 one yet) for a reduced price. Probably not much difference from the version I have.
I just watched a tutorial on making an animated gif by someone using the the 2018 Paintshop Pro. He drew the images in the program but needed to go to an online service called Giphy to start making the animation with them, No built-in function now.
? If I remember correctly, there was something unique about the colour pallet too.