Paint.net – Alternative for Photoshop (Freeware)
Photo editing? Designing a cover page or a report or a poster? Professional graphics editing work! All this can be done in a single software, Photoshop!. Yes, still this software owned Adobe won a mammoth place because of its powerful tools, for a designer. No other software available till now to completely replace or decline it. To be an amazing photographic editor and designer, it requires creativity and experience with a hand tool also. Since ages, many users were blindly going for PS for photographic purposes. But we have to pay the premium tariff to use PS. Cracked .dll or keys were available to use PS for free but those may contain malware, which affects your PC’s performance. Are you looking for a freeware? Are you looking for the best alternative for PS? Paint.net have decent options like PS. So let’s see in detail about this freeware.
Why alternative for PS?
Industrially, Adobe Photoshop becomes a myth. Every poster or graphic designer use PS only. But their subscription fee was high if you want to access for more than one device its bit difficult. Not only PS, other software available which offers same tools and features for a decent photo editing.
Paint.net Software
Paint.net is a freeware can be downloaded from its developer’s site. They have a discussion forum and plugin support for this software. By using plugin additional options like photo effects, auto background remover etc. can be enabled. Forums let you download the plugins and tutorials for various topics. Cool isn’t, this is why I am suggesting this freeware as the best alternative for photoshop.
How to download and install Paint.net?
- Go to this link. Click Here
- Click to download and install it. Usually, take 4-6 min.
- You can also download the plugins from this link also.
Features:
As mentioned earlier, this freeware has options for layer add, text tool, gradient color, clone tool, magic wand etc. So let’s see these options in detail to get an overview of paint.net. Starting with the new image option, an only manual option like image size available. Options like standard page size, resolution of the image etc. are not found.
In the toolbar, direct access to the text, move tool, hand tool, gradient tool, clone tool, quick select/magic wand, shapes and eraser tool are present. So if you are an experienced photo editor you can make use of these features. For freeware, these options make this software make competitor than the other freeware available on the internet.
In magic wand tool, options available for subtracting or adding the layer. We can also adjust the tolerance level if your photo contains complex background color.
The clone tool also works smoothly like in photoshop. Press “alt” key and click your desired region. Now drag the cursor in your destination region to have a clone image of the latter. But for text options, we can change only the font style, font color, and font size. In color toolbox, we can choose the color by using RGB values or hex values or color clouds. Both primary and secondary colors selection should be in the same dialogue box. There is also support to add external color palettes. 
In layer toolbox, we can add or delete or hide/view layers of the image. But for creating a new layer, each time we have to click on the “new layer” and then separate layer will be available. While in PS, it will add a new layer automatically. You can find the layer toolbox at the bottom of the screen, as like in the below screenshot.
For image editing, adjustment and effects option are available. Contrast, brightness, hue, saturation, color levels etc. (you can see in the below screenshot) which can be used to add effects to your photos, if you how to play with these values. Also blur, noise, distort, glow, sharpen etc.available in the effect toolbar. By this, we can easily add effect with just one click.
In case you are working with multiple images, we can simply shift between them click the arrow as shown in below screenshot. This will be helpful in case if you want to copy and paste a layer from different images.
In the history box, we can undo or redo the operation performed in a single click on it. In top right side corner, we can enable or disable the toolboxes in the workshop according to our convenient.
Final thoughts:
As you can see, nearly this freeware matches the PS software. There is other freeware also available, will be discussed in the later articles. I can say paint.net is the best alternative because of its handy tools and plugin option. If you are an experienced guy or rookie, I can say that this will deliver you that photo editing atmosphere. But this software can’t be used for professional editing or designing work. Paint.net is my secondary software because of its fluidity for basic photo editing work.
Thanks for your patience for reaching the end of the article. I wrote this article based on my experience only, I would be happy if you share your thoughts in below comment box. Stay with us for more handy software updates.
