Faster, leaner image editing for free...

Paint.NET ( www.getpaint.net) sits beautifully in the middle between Photoshop (too powerful and bloated) and Paint (too basic), offering the best features of the former without bringing your PC grinding to a halt.

In addition to the standard editing, compositing and colour-correction tools you’d expect, Paint.net also includes some powerful and useful options, too.

1 MULTIPLE LAYERS

Multi-layered images enable you to lay parts of one image on top of another for all kinds of creative effects. Paint.NET has full support for layers, with a transparency slider and choice of methods for blending one layer into another for the perfect image.

2 POWERFUL FILTERS

Want to do something artistic with your photos? Paint.NET has built-in filters that offer a range of artistic effects, including rendering your photos in pencil, ink or oil paints. Other filters produce blurs, sharpen and distortion effects just like Photoshop.

3 3D ROTATE/ZOOM

Want to recompose your image? Select ‘Layers > ‘Rotate/Zoom...’ You’ll find sliders for zooming, panning and rotating your picture in both 2D and pseudo 3D. Tick ‘Preserve background’ to try and fill in the backdrop when ‘rolling’ in 3D.

4 PLUG-IN SUPPORT

Paint.NET also includes support for hundreds of specially designed plugins – visit www.getpaint.net/doc/latest/InstallPlugins.html for details. These add extra filters and tools, such as Photoshop file support and a Shadow/Highlights recovery tool.