john256

Thanks; I've upgraded to the latest stable version now (didn't realise I'd missed any updates, I turned auto-update on now) but none of the functionality I'm looking at appears to have changed. I've looked at the Levels documentation and think the Input sliders are equivalent to the ones used in pixlr, I can get something similar but it's not quite right. The Ink sketch doesn't seem to do what I need - pencil is closer. I'll play a bit more comparing the blur method with pencil sketch, unless anyone's any more specific tips? I'll have a quick look at not desaturating it so early as well, it makes sense that information is being lost here.

BTW I'm running v3.5.10. If there are newer features I'm missing out and/or additional plugins that would make this much simpler, please share! Any good method on how to achieve this goal in Paint.net is welcome, it doesn't have to follow that guide.

I've been following this simple but pretty effective "Turn your photo into a coloring page" guide: http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Make-a-Coloring-Book/?ALLSTEPS It uses the online pixlr.com editor and I'd rather use Paint.net. But I'm having trouble getting the same results, on two steps in particular: Paint.net's Gaussian Blur seems to function slightly differently, I am not getting quite as well-defined edges I have no idea how to map Paint.net's Levels tool with pixlr's I'm very much not an artist, I dabble a bit, so can anyone help me out? I did notice Paint.net has a pencil sketch tool but I'm not sure if this would be more effective or not until I can understand levels - trying to push out patterns to get a nice clear, black outline. Thanks for any help. I've got about 40 photos to convert as a gift and realising I don't really have time to find someone to do it now, but need to plough on myself!

Thanks. I guess I was on the right track but I wondered if there was some neat tool I'd missed.

Do I need a layer underneath, filled with black perhaps? I want to make sure that when I export I don't get bright red with varying alpha, but the alpha and red are baked together into the red channel (as it were).

Hi all. I'm a long-time Paint.net occasional user - I'm no artist but it's my go-to tool for rough work or mockups. Anyway, I want to paint on a layer in an additive way. i.e. I set a color like (10,0,0) and if I hold down or repaint an area, it gets brighter and brighter. The idea is I want to create a texture map for a 3D model, which encodes how thick the material is based on the red channel. But I can't seem to get this to work. I tried using (255,0,0,10) i.e. red with very low alpha and that sort of works, in that it looks right on screen, but it's not outputting as I expect/desire when I save to a flat file like PNG/JPG. Any advice both on the exact question I've asked, and how better to do what it is I want, are welcome - there could be a much better way I'm not aware of. Thanks.