Paint.net 4.3 released with performance improvements and switch to .NET 5
A new version of the image editor Paint.net was released this week. The latest version, Paint.Net 4.3, is the first that uses the .NET 5 framework and no longer .NET Framework 4.8. The framework change has positive and negative consequences for the application.
Paint.net 4.3 is already available. Users who have installed the application and enabled automatic update checks should receive the update notification and an option to download and install the new version on the next start of the program. Paint.net 4.3 offline and portable versions are available on GitHub, and there is a Microsoft Store version, but it is updated automatically as well.
Portable zips are new and may be downloaded from GitHub. These won't update automatically, however.
Paint.net 4.3
Performance improved significantly according to the developer of Paint.net. Part of it comes from the switch from the .NET Framework 4.8 to .NET 5.
.NET 5 is a massive update to the .NET runtime, and brings a lot in terms of performance with its improved code generation (JIT). It also enables me to optimize code even further via the use of SIMD intrinsics (SSE* and AVX* on x86/x64, and AdvSIMD on ARM64), which I've started putting to good use. In addition, effects are faster, plugin loading is faster (especially for shapes), the Magic Wand and Paint Bucket tools are significantly faster, and overall performance is just plain better. Even installation and updating are faster because I was able to remove the "Optimizing performance" stage from setup.
The official release notes list more than a dozen areas with performance improvements, but that is not the only change. ARM64 devices are natively supported by Paint.Net 4.3, and that means that performance on devices such as the Surface Pro X has improved as a consequence.
Speaking of consequences, the migration to .NET 5 caused some plugins to no longer work with that version. The developer managed to get most of the plugins working again, but there is a chance that some plugins won't work anymore with the new version.
The developer plans to migrate to .NET 6 in the near future; the final release is expected in November, and a Paint.NET update will be released shortly thereafter according to the developer.
Check out the post on the official Paint.net forum here for additional information and links.
Now You: which image editor do you use?
Jasc Paintshop Pro used to be great then Corel (the other norton of the software world) bought them out and I haven’t really used it since.
Affinity is supposed to be good but both of those are paid.
I use Paint.net for image Editing and rasterizing, it is good for graphic tasks and simple touch ups.
All these years and neither Paint.net nor Gimp provide font strokes.
Even screen shot utilities provide this basic functionality.
just little correction to the article that it’s not open source
Google Picasa.
As with anything Microsoft, they copy anything and everything. NET is a shameless copy of JAVA, and a poor one at that.
Isn’t Picasa discontinued, without support and with some serious bugs that cause it to crash?
@Oliver Spice
Yes it is discontinued, but last time I tried it, it was working fine.
. NET 5 is not the framework after 4.8. It is the last version of the. NET Core frameworks. A complete redesign with new possiblities. After that migration the developing to newer version (NET 6 comes soon) is easier
A few of these comments sound more like advertising than anything.
I’ll stay with Linux and Linux software. Nice, free, open, and no bullshit. No paying, no nag screens, no proprietary software for me.
Regrettably, Paint.net now takes many minutes to install, sometimes a half-hour on some machines. This is apparently due to optimization of ,NET resources and precompiling code… and this formidable installation must be repeated for each update. Other image-editing software, such as IrfanView, can be installed in under one minute, and even superlative GIMP, comparable to Adobe’s editors, is faster to install.
Gimp is closer to Paint.net than it is to Photoshop.
Feature wise, Gimp is Closer to Photoshop and Paint.net is closer to Paint
Yeah but GIMP is written in C.
For developers the .NET framework may be 10 times easier to use for developing new features compared to C. Even though it may not be that fast to install or run, it can have much more features developed by much smaller team. And that’s a good thing!
Paint.NET is getting slower and slower. Now I go back to paint for quick photo editing
Its mostly good but I’m always looking for an alternative due to the way it handles text boxes and the fact that it doesn’t have handles on selections.
I use Fuken Gruvens’ Photoshop. Portable. Faster and better than Satan in Hell.
An 100% legal, right?
Still my favorite image/photo editor (even though I’m not really a fan of .NET based software). Why favorite? Because in my user situation, Paint.NET with its GUI, features and some plugins does offer the near-perfect middle road between too crude (like MS Paint) and too complicated (like Gimp).
Paint.NET is also available as a paid or free version from
https://www.getpaint.net/download.html#download . The free version has the advantage of optionally automatically downloading alpha and beta versions of the next release when and if available. The paid advantage has the advantage of rewarding the developer easily for his amazing programming skills.
+