Best Paint.NET Plug-ins?

[Chuck38]

Hi folks! 

 

I was looking through all the plug-ins and I found some I thought would be helpful, but there are so many that I'm sure I can't go through every one of them!

 

So I wanted to ask you who use Paint.NET a lot, which plug-ins do you find most helpful. Or which plug-ins do you use the most?

 

Thanks,

-Chuck

[Pixey]

HI @Chuck.

 

Golly, there are so many to choose from and you will only really know which ones to use when you try to compile an image.

 

But - these are a few of my favorites.

 

Flip/Rotate

 

Shape 3D

 

Multi color gradient

 

Bevel selection

 

Feather  -  in the same pack as the above plugin

 

AA's Assistant

 

Clip Warp

 

Smudge

 

Intensity Warp

 

Enjoy yourself

Edited October 30, 2014 by Pixey

[BoltBait]

Start by downloading the plugin packs that are pinned in this forum: http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/forum/44-plugin-packs/

[Chuck38]

Thanks, Pixey and BoltBait!

 

Pixey, some of links seem to be broken, they take me to some http site?

 

-Chuck

[Cc4FuzzyHuggles]

Which plug-ins do you find most helpful. Or which plug-ins do you use the most?

I was wanting to know the same thing!

Although this question was asked a while back, I love seeing it refreshed since different people might answer and some answers might change. It's fun to see and know the plugins others are currently favoring and then explore the ones I might not have yet or haven't given much attention to.

(If it interests you, here is an old thread of someone who asked before. You might like the answers there.)

I, as usual, like a lot of plugins, and here they are :

I use both Feathers (mostly New though) and AA's Assistant to smooth edges.

I use Alpha Blur to fade edges.

Object Align and Align Object are pretty self explanatory, I like both but I use Object Align more.

I use Outline Object, to again, do what it implies.

There are two ways I give things a drop shadow, either manually by making a solid black duplicate of my object, gaussian blurring the black object, and then moving the black object with my keyboard's arrow keys, or I use the Drop Shadow plugin. Surprisingly both ways give different results depending on what I want to give a drop shadow to.

Grim Color Reaper and Cut Color are great for removing simple colored backgrounds.

I love Alpha Mask, I can't give a brief reason on why I love it, but I really wish there were more explanations on using it, as I feel many people are missing out not knowing this plugin.

Waves is a great distort effect that can give a pretty good variety of various waves vs other ways to make things wavy.

I like the Smudge plugin, but I honestly favor the Liquify plugin these days.

Fur Blur is a funny plugin to play with, but it can also be used to make really neat stuff (See the seascape tutorial as an example).

Shape 3D, I like the look of shiny 3D things, and that's exactly what this plugin renders.

Random Shape Fill is a nice plugin for making bokeh effects or to render a shape that paint.net might not have.

I use Engrave/Emobss to add texture to things, bevel things, or to engrave things. It's good with the use of layers and creativity.

TwistZ with Zoom (aka Twist +) is what I use when I want more adjustments or a stronger twist than paint.net's Twist effect gives.

Trail is a cool plugin, it can be used to give depth to things.

Curly Lines is about as close as you're going to get for making vector lines in paint.net, and I love vector lines.

In my opinion Bevel Selection and Outline Selection are two of the best selection effect plugins available.

Bevel Objects gives unique bevels to objects.

I use Cyanotype to make something that's gray (or black) into a color, and then I can change the color to anything I want using Hue/Saturation.

Color Tint and Color Filter are more coloring plugins that I like to use.

And as of lately I have used the Jitter plugin quite a bit, but warring, some settings make it crash.

And I use most gradient plugins. Gradient Mapping, Multi Color Gradient, Gradients Galore, and BoltBait's Gradient plugin, as well as Gradient Bars.

I haven't used Clipwarp as much I used to, but it's still a plugin I really like.

 

There are also a few favorite built-in adjustments and Effects that I use a lot, which aren't plugins, as they come with paint.net, but I'll share those too.

Hue/Saturation, Brightness/Contrast, Sepia, Levels, Invert Colors, Dents, Clouds, Tile Reflection, Emboss (the built in one), Sharpen, and most blurs.

You won't believe how much I use clouds and how much I love dents. To match those effects there is the Dents 'Classic' plugin, and some plugins are similar to paint.net's clouds, such as TR's Plasmatics and TR's Cloud Control.

Assuming I have all of my plugin names correct, you should be able to find all of the above in the Plugin Index.

Or you can do an internet search of "Paint.net --insert plugin name-- Plugin", for example "Paint.net Alpha Mask Plugin". Just be careful you only get your plugins from Paint.net's forums, downloading anywhere else will get you viruses.

Edited October 30, 2014 by Cc4FuzzyHuggles

[Pixey]

Thanks, Pixey and BoltBait!

 

Pixey, some of links seem to be broken, they take me to some http site?

 

-Chuck

 

 

Sorry about that - I've fixed them now .

 

Also - this is a great Search link to find anything in Paint.net:

 

http://www.getpaint.net/search.html

[Chuck38]

I was wanting to know the same thing!

Although this question was asked a while back, I love seeing it refreshed since different people might answer and some answers might change. It's fun to see and know the plugins others are currently favoring and then explore the ones I might not have yet or haven't given much attention to.

(If it interests you, here is an old thread of someone who asked before. You might like the answers there.)

I, as usual, like a lot of plugins, and here they are :

I use both Feathers (mostly New though) and AA's Assistant to smooth edges.

I use Alpha Blur to fade edges.

Object Align and Align Object are pretty self explanatory, I like both but I use Object Align more.

I use Outline Object, to again, do what it implies.

There are two ways I give things a drop shadow, either manually by making a solid black duplicate of my object, gaussian blurring the black object, and then moving the black object with my keyboard's arrow keys, or I use the Drop Shadow plugin. Surprisingly both ways give different results depending on what I want to give a drop shadow to.

Grim Color Reaper and Cut Color are great for removing simple colored backgrounds.

I love Alpha Mask, I can't give a brief reason on why I love it, but I really wish there were more explanations on using it, as I feel many people are missing out not knowing this plugin.

Waves is a great distort effect that can give a pretty good variety of various waves vs other ways to make things wavy.

I like the Smudge plugin, but I honestly favor the Liquify plugin these days.

Fur Blur is a funny plugin to play with, but it can also be used to make really neat stuff (See the seascape tutorial as an example).

Shape 3D, I like the look of shiny 3D things, and that's exactly what this plugin renders.

Random Shape Fill is a nice plugin for making bokeh effects or to render a shape that paint.net might not have.

I use Engrave/Emobss to add texture to things, bevel things, or to engrave things. It's good with the use of layers and creativity.

TwistZ with Zoom (aka Twist +) is what I use when I want more adjustments or a stronger twist than paint.net's Twist effect gives.

Trail is a cool plugin, it can be used to give depth to things.

Curly Lines is about as close as you're going to get for making vector lines in paint.net, and I love vector lines.

In my opinion Bevel Selection and Outline Selection are two of the best selection effect plugins available.

Bevel Objects gives unique bevels to objects.

I use Cyanotype to make something that's gray (or black) into a color, and then I can change the color to anything I want using Hue/Saturation.

Color Tint and Color Filter are more coloring plugins that I like to use.

And as of lately I have used the Jitter plugin quite a bit, but warring, some settings make it crash.

And I use most gradient plugins. Gradient Mapping, Multi Color Gradient, Gradients Galore, and BoltBait's Gradient plugin, as well as Gradient Bars.

I haven't used Clipwarp as much I used to, but it's still a plugin I really like.

 

There are also a few favorite built-in adjustments and Effects that I use a lot, which aren't plugins, as they come with paint.net, but I'll share those too.

Hue/Saturation, Brightness/Contrast, Sepia, Levels, Invert Colors, Dents, Clouds, Tile Reflection, Emboss (the built in one), Sharpen, and most blurs.

You won't believe how much I use clouds and how much I love dents. To match those effects there is the Dents 'Classic' plugin, and some plugins are similar to paint.net's clouds, such as TR's Plasmatics and TR's Cloud Control.

Assuming I have all of my plugin names correct, you should be able to find all of the above in the Plugin Index.

Or you can do an internet search of "Paint.net --insert plugin name-- Plugin", for example "Paint.net Alpha Mask Plugin". Just be careful you only get your plugins from Paint.net's forums, downloading anywhere else will get you viruses.

That was a lot of reading!    

 

But thank-you! It's very helpful, many of those plug-ins sound like they would be very helpful! Thankfully these are small fast downloads!

 

Pixey- Thanks for fixing the links, I will definitely give them a try!

 

-Chuck

[Pratyush]

A few more suggestions from me.

 

Curve++ from Pyrochild's plugin pack. This is a very versatile plugin. If you become expert in it, you can use it in a lot of ways.

 

TR's Custom Random Filler It's a must have plugin. It fills an area with many images provided by user.

 

ScriptLab is a nice plugin. It's like macro for PDN effects and Adjustments (Also, due to some hidden reason it also support 'Zoom and rotate' in layers menu in macro commands). 

 

You may also like Plugin Browser .. It does not do any effect but it's a plugin for browsing the plugins.

[Chuck38]

Thanks, Pratyush! I'll check the out!

[Pixey]

Ohhhh - and how could I forget this one which is fun,fun, fun!

 

http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/topic/30188-trs-third-dimension-v140-oct-29nd-2014/

 

Enjoy!

[skullbonz]

It really depends on the individual needs of each individual.

[Red ochre]

Hi Chuck,
The question is which plugins are most useful for YOU.

People use Pdn in many different ways and what is useful for one user may never be used by another. Having too many plugins installed will (slightly) slow down Pdn's load time but more importantly it can become very confusing.

 I would suggest the following:
1. Fully learn to use the program without plugins first (just the built- in effects and adjustments). Get to know layers, objects and blend modes.
2. Do as Boltbait suggests and download some of the pinned plugin packs.
3. Download the Plugin browser (this will give you useful information about the plugins you have installed and suggest others that may be relevant).
4. Go through all of the plugins you have installed and test them.
If they are useful keep them - if not, create a folder outside of paint.net and move them there. Although it is recommended you always use the most up to date version of a plugin (redownload), it is sometimes useful to have access if, say, a link is broken or you're offline.
5. Do go back to plugins you have tried before and perhaps not fully understood. I use different plugins from when I started.
6. Visit the individual download page (use the plugin index) often the author gives useful instructions there.
7. Don't overlook the file type plugins - I had great fun making Icons for desktop shortcuts when I started.
8. If a plugin crashes regularly I uninstall it - (just my own rule to save losing work). Ideally inform the author of the crash too.
9. When experienced and if curious - read Boltbait's excellent guide to writing plugins with codelab. Even if programming is not for you, it should give you a better understanding of how they work.
10. If you've got more than say 200 plugins, think about 'culling' some of the less used ones. (I currently have 260 installed but many of those are versions of ones I'm working on. )

[Chuck38]

It really depends on the individual needs of each individual.

Well, I only use Paint.NET for making forum signatures. Normally around 600x100 ad sometimes I'll use 600x150, but not often.

[Chuck38]

Hi Chuck,

The question is which plugins are most useful for YOU.

People use Pdn in many different ways and what is useful for one user may never be used by another. Having too many plugins installed will (slightly) slow down Pdn's load time but more importantly it can become very confusing.

 I would suggest the following:

1. Fully learn to use the program without plugins first (just the built- in effects and adjustments). Get to know layers, objects and blend modes.

2. Do as Boltbait suggests and download some of the pinned plugin packs.

3. Download the Plugin browser (this will give you useful information about the plugins you have installed and suggest others that may be relevant).

4. Go through all of the plugins you have installed and test them.

If they are useful keep them - if not, create a folder outside of paint.net and move them there. Although it is recommended you always use the most up to date version of a plugin (redownload), it is sometimes useful to have access if, say, a link is broken or you're offline.

5. Do go back to plugins you have tried before and perhaps not fully understood. I use different plugins from when I started.

6. Visit the individual download page (use the plugin index) often the author gives useful instructions there.

7. Don't overlook the file type plugins - I had great fun making Icons for desktop shortcuts when I started.

8. If a plugin crashes regularly I uninstall it - (just my own rule to save losing work). Ideally inform the author of the crash too.

9. When experienced and if curious - read Boltbait's excellent guide to writing plugins with codelab. Even if programming is not for you, it should give you a better understanding of how they work.

10. If you've got more than say 200 plugins, think about 'culling' some of the less used ones. (I currently have 260 installed but many of those are versions of ones I'm working on. )

Thanks for the suggestion!

 

I know just about all to know about Paint.NET without plug-ins, that's why I'm here. So I can spice my sigs up a bit. I've downloaded some of the packs and now I'm just figuring them out!