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Paint.net
by PCLM
Paint.NET, developed by dotPDN LLC whom specialise in free high quality software, is a relatively powerful 2D graphics composition application; "relatively" in the sense that comparing it to the likes of MSPaint is like comparing a wheelbarrow to a Porsche, but a reverse comparison could be made when Paint.NET is held up next ... to something like Adobe Photoshop. It boasts a wide variety of powerful features, but professional graphics designers may find themselves struggling with it when they come to work on a very complex project.
~ [ Installation ] ~
Currently weighing in at under 5MB (28MB when unpacked/installed) Paint.NET is easily downloaded and installation takes a few minutes at most. The package comes with both x64 and x86 architecture support, and it will install the appropriate version without any tinkering required at your end. The installer will check for updates before installing (with your permission, of course) and the program itself can be set to check automatically for updates, including beta releases.
One rather significant consideration you must undergo before installing is to make sure you have the Microsoft .NET Framework (version 2.0 or later) installed, because Paint.NET requires it. The .NET Framework is freely available on Microsoft's website, and comes pre-installed on Windows Vista or later, so if you use this or a later operating system you should be ready to roll.
~ [ Features ] ~
Despite the tiny download size, and the reasonably small install size, the program is very powerful and has a plethora of features which you might only expect to find in professional commercial applications, and many others which are simply absent from most free image editors like MSPaint.
[Layers]: Elements of an image can be independently manipulated using layers, and transparency may be applied and layers placed under or over each other in order to form a complete picture. This is an invaluable tool and one of the program's main accomplishments.
[Special Effects]: The tool set is complete with numerous methods of manipulating images in a variety of ways, including embossing, sharpening, distortion, noise, and red-eye removal. Colours can be manipulated via the contrast, brightness, hue, saturation, levels and curve effects. Also supported is the option to apply black and white colouration or sepia tone to the image.
[Tools]: The software has all of the tools you would expect from an image editing application of any stature, such as drawing, line tools, zoom tool, text editor, colour picker tool, ellipse, square and circle tools, selector tools and so on. Additionally, a gradient tool whose quality is on par with that of commercial applications is included, as is a Magic Wand tool (which allows you to quickly and easily select regions of a similar colour) and the Clone Stamp (which lets you to easily copy/erase sections of the image). There's no proper crop tool, but there is an option to have the image crop to the selection you've made. In other words, if you select a chunk of the image and use the crop option mentioned the portion of the image lying outside of the selection will be deleted, and the canvas will be reduced in size to match the dimensions of the remaining selection - a fair compromise for those who will miss a dedicated crop tool when they come to use Paint.NET.
The software undo history is unlimited, meaning you can revert back to the very earliest stages of your image's editing session. Every single action you perform is remembered and is undoable/redoable. I personally think all software designers should adopt this policy.
[Cost]: It's FREE! The software is free, and its supporting online forum community is free.
[Support]: The online forum is a place to discuss and explore the software, as well as receive troubleshooting tips and other technical support from its users. There are already sticky threads with frequently asked questions listed along with their responses, so it's rare that you'd ever have to post a new message anyway.
[Performance/Speed]: The software supports and makes use of multi-core processors, as well as x64 and x86 architectures/operating systems, so every ounce of juice is used efficiently and effectively. The program loads pretty quickly, and actions performed are as quick as your hardware will allow.
I don't think I've ever had the software crash once in my several years of use spanning numerous versions, and I'm confident that I won't experience any in the future judging by the flawless track record the software has enjoyed on my various systems. The coding and the pre-release testing appear to be as watertight as a dolphin's Speedos.
~ [ Ease of Use ] ~
Newcomers to the software will instantly find the software familiar if they've ever used MSPaint or any other image manipulation package. The layout is almost identical to the most common rival applications, and the floating panels which contain lists of layers, colours or history are easily moved around and docked/snapped into place as and when is needed. The layout is described on the software's website as "intuitive" and I don't think this is buzzword rhetoric; you do indeed feel as if you know where to look when you need to perform some particular function or to find a specific sort of tool.
[Plugins]: If the current tool set doesn't meet your needs you might find that the extra functionality you require can be obtained through the installation of user-created plugins. The plugins, and instructions for installing and using them, are located on the software's support forums and are available to anyone who wants them. Many of the currently available plugins are significant additions to the feature set of the program, including proper anti-aliasing for smoothing images, and others expand the scope of existing tools, such as more powerful/customisable blur and emboss capabilities. The full catalogue can be found here:
http://paintdotnet.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=30570
~ [ Conclusion ] ~
My primary uses of this software are resizing images, converting images to other formats, creating layered images for superimpositions and mock-ups, converting coloured images into black and white and for editing screen grabs when I need to share screenshots from games or software to send to other people. In all of these uses, which are barely scratching the surface of what the software is capable of, I am 100% satisfied and would probably pay a reasonable amount of cash for software as solid as this if payment were required, but luckily I don't have to because the folks at dotPDN are altruistic and respect the art of developing fine software for people who need it. The software is free, and the only drawback the software has that I can think of is the requisite installation of the Microsoft .NET Framework, but this is also free so at worst you'll have to wait an extra few minutes downloading and installing it.
Go to http://www.getpaint.net/ now and get your hands on one of the best freeware applications you'll ever use.
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Paint.net
by Jenraux
Paint.net is my preferred paint program, for a start, its free, there are many image editing programs out there which will take a large chunk of money from you for not many more features.
Paint.net offers many features to use, for a start it has a variety of gradiants to use, it has dozens of patterns to choose from, and it ... has various other image editing tools, all of which you'll probably use at some point. There are 22 standard image editing tools in total, with more available for download and even more available just inside the drop-down box.
The Paint.net forums are a great source to find several plugins, often these plugins will add extra image manipulating tools, as well as support for editing further image types, such as .tga, .ico and .dds.
The program is updated every few weeks or so, each time improving the program with new features and further image manipulation tools. There is also an auto updater, everytime you launch the program it will search for an update, if an update is found, it will bring up a window asking if you wish to download and install the update.
Another useful feature i found in this program, is the fact that you can un-do an unlimited amount of time, instead of the normal Windows Paint program, only allowing you to un-do up to 3 times.
The special effects available in the program are numerous, from reflections to distortions, and fractals to pixelation.
The sole developer who currently works on Paint.Net is a Microsoft employee.
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Adobe Photoshop CS3
by roktimdutta
I have been thinking of doing a review of Photoshop CS3 because I am highly impressed by this version but my only source of the indecision was its price and on top of that this excellent program is not really meant for home and casual users, Photoshop CS3 is really meant for professionals and those who do web designing on professional ... level. I think it will be prudent to say that for home users there are hardly any difference between Photoshop 6 and this version but believe me if you know how to use it there are 'n' number of additions all of which has its usability and specialty.
==Chronology:==
1988: Original Mac version was written by Knoll brothers (Thomas and John)
1990: First version by adobe appeared on the Mac
1992: The first Windows version (v2.5) was available
1994: Introduction of layers with Version 3.0
1998 Introduction of multiple undo history in Photoshop 5.0
2002: Addition of camera RAW support in Photoshop 7
2003: The real harmonization came with whole array of Adobe's other programs with concept of Creative Suite in Photoshop 8 (also known as CS i.e. Creative Suite):
*Image Ready
*In Design
*Illustrator
* Premiere
* Encore
* After Effects
As expected an update to CS came up in 2005 (April) with further additions of Smart Objects, red eye tool and the most valuable and significant Spot Healing brush.
2007: (May) Probably the most ambitious 10 the version Photoshop CS4 (but as a stand alone program)
System requirements: At least 1GB RAM
Hard disk space required: 1.3 GB
For best performance of Adobe Bridge 512MB physical memory is a must
Probably the biggest program available in the market and naturally it comes in a DVD but it is possible to split the program and stuff in CDs (not available in the market) with the caution that although technically possible it requires some skill to do it and mind you Adobe Photoshop CS3 is priced at £340 even at amazon.com., better not mess around with it.
===INSTALLTION:===
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Before you start installing Adobe Photoshop CS3 it will be a good idea to disable your internet connection otherwise you might be baffled by massages like "Set up failed, please disable Internet Explorer" or yahoo messenger. I don't know why but even after disabling i.e. and yahoo messenger or similar other outside application the same message was displayed. Even once I had to delete i.e. altogether and only then CS3 installed.
The time required with Windows XP is 32 minutes.
The key is never asked for during the process of installation, only when you launch CS3 that the key is required otherwise you are allowed a trial version. The CD has a keygen and it's wonderful that you can use the same CD for installation in multiple computers because clicking on the 'generate' button of the keygens provides you different keys. I will always suggest not skip the Adobe Photoshop CS3 registration process because later on you will find the registration comes very handy.
It's to be noted installation of Photoshop CS3 doe not create Desktop or quick launch short cut automatically.
Creating Desktop and Quick launch shortcut:
*Right click and click on 'create desktop shot cut' from the drop down menu. But it is to be noted that for some quire reasons this process does not work always, if it fails, then
*Open All programs right click on the CS3 icon copy and then paste it on the desktop. Since the shortcut will be created at the point of insertion to arrange the icons just right click and choose 'arrange icons by name'.
To create a quick launch short cut, enable quick launch tool bar, just right click on the status bar and enable quick launch toolbar from the pop up menu. Now just drag down the Photoshop CS3 icon to the quick launch tool bar sitting on the status which give one-click launching of the program.
If the installation has gone through smoothly in the start menu you will have the following programs installed. (I mean if you hover on 'all programs')
# Adobe Bridge CS3
# Adobe Device Control Center
# Adobe ExtendScript Toolkit 2
# Adobe Sock Photos CS3
# Adobe Photoshop CS3
Although advanced users can have their desktop icons according to their priority but I will advice to have only the Adobe Photoshop CS3 icon on the desktop for faster access, there is no point crowding the desktop since it does consume system disk space unnecessarily.
===GLIMPSES OF SOME IMPRESSIVE FEATURES:===
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To me one of the most impressive features is the new Photoshop CS3 Refine Edge tool. Even if you take the trouble of creating pixel-level selections, the Refine Edge is just perfect cleaning up rough and messed up edges and extraneous pixel, going further just make selection of the image or part of it and the radius, contrast level and smoothness can adjust with the neat little tool's slier.
Since I use dual monitor setups Photoshop CS3 introduces a very important and necessary interface upgrade that gives the option of resizable palette buttons having fly out capabilities.
This is useful for single and double monitor users since this give you the ability to reduce button sizes to tiny ones or just tear off the palettes and position them around your screen. Another useful option is that you can arrange them in one/two columns and then choose the palettes you require.
The new Quick Selection tool of Photoshop CS3 is another impressive upgrade. Now it is far more easier to act upon a chosen portion of an image as with this toll you no longer require to jam on the Shift key to add to the selected image, just click on the areas of the image you want select and that does it, isn't simpler?
This tool workers wonderfully with sharp, high-contrast images in fact it works more like magic wand tool but with the exception that it is some times not as reliable as the magic wand tool since it seems to get confused after a few clicks and selects the entire image, which I think is due to its lack in tolerance setting but all the some it works just as well.
This program will make DSLR very happy, first because CS3's Auto Align Layer capability gives you the option of combining multiple images and then this tool matches common parts or elements in the images and lets you choose portion/portions of which ever image you want. Wonderfully efficient with photos taken in rapid succession by dSLRS.
As the price tag suggests it's something meant for the pros you just don't own it for simple uses. But the performance is fabulous.
The screen shot is taken from my computer with Windows XP Pro. I have no problems with till now.
===ISSUES TO GRUMBLE:===
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Besides the price tag the only thing to grumble about is its launching time which understandable considering the size of the program. What I feel although the recommended RAM is 1GB, a 512 MB will solve this problem, in fact it has decreased the launching time by quite a bit after I added a mere 256 MB to my RAM.
(The one I have review had the extended version also which has new tools and capabilities for video postproduction tasks, 3D texture-map editing, or scientific image analysis I have not gone on into them to keep the review as it should be for Photoshop CS3.)
*Also at other sites under the same user name
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