Paint.net is not compatible with Adobe Photoshop psd files by default which can be quite troublesome if you need to work with psd files occasionally. The psd plugin for paint.net adds support for Adobe Photoshop psd files to paint.net. It does not implement all features of the psd file though, only those that are needed to convert the image in the image editor and those that have a paint.net counterpart. Below is the list of support features:

• Layers
• Masks (only loading see To do list)
• RAW or RLE compressed files
• The following color modes are supported for loading an image: Gray scale, Indexed, 32 Bit-RGBA, CMYK (lossy conversation), Multichannel CMY (lossy conversation), Duotone (as gray scale), Lab (lossy conversation)
• For saving an image only 32-Bit RGBA is supported

The psd plugin comes as a single dll file that has to be placed into the filetypes folder of the Paint.net installation. The association of psd files with paint.net has to be created manually. This can be done by right-clicking a psd file on the computer system and selecting Open With > Choose Program from the context menu. Paint.net has to be selected as the program to open psd files and the checkbox “always use the selected program to open this kind of file” has to be ticked.