Cc4FuzzyHuggles

Thank you. The results aren't perfect, but your samples look good. I will play around with your ideas. You make it sound so easy, but I'm not getting it, especially the varying thicknesses of fibers. Do you have any suggested settings?

Does paint.net have it's own version of photoshop's fibers filter(effect)? Or is there a plugin variant? This photoshop tutorial shows an example of photoshop's fiber filter being used. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax1Klk8P8KA

I'm not sure if the Mini tuts are being updated, but here is a text effect by MJW -- http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/topic/31794-text/?p=426406

Hello. Cool looking text is very possible in paint.net. I suggest you explore the Text Effect tutorials to learn some techniques.

Font Used : http://www.1001fonts.com/barbarian-ns-font.html

You should only download from this forum. Most other websites will give you viruses, paint.net/amihotornot is guilty for having infected downloads, such as it's megalo pack. You can read about the nasty virus here : http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/topic/28270-megalo-virus/

What Maximilian pointed you to was a plugin. Plugins are great things that really add a lot of neat stuff to paint.net. You can learn how to install plugins here : http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/topic/1708-how-to-install-pluginsgeneral-plugin-troubleshooting-thread/ I recommend exploring the plugin section of the forums to get a better idea of what they are. Some people love adding more effects and adjustments to paint.net, while other people tend to like paint.net to be as basic as possible. I personally love plugins.

Hi. The checkerboard pattern = transparency. A good way to blend images together is to have each image on it's own layer. Then lower the opacity of the top image. If you want your image to be softer, place your image on one layer and have a white background on another layer underneath your image's layer, then lower the opacity of your image layer. In case you haven't seen it, you can learn more about working with layers here : http://www.getpaint.net/doc/latest/WorkingWithLayers.html

Hi. You can try one of the Feather plugins, there are two object ones and a selection one, all three are downloaded from boltbait's plugin pack. If you want, you could also try the Alpha Blur plugin, or perhaps gradient blending is a technique that might help you (this tutorial is a little long, but you might learn a few things from it). Tip, make a new layer or duplicate your layer and apply the re-coloring on that layer. Erase/delete what you don't want and use edge-smoothing plugins or blending methods on the duplicated layer.

Hello. Paint.net lists the fonts that you have installed on your PC (from your font folder). It does not distinguish commercial friendly fonts from fonts that aren't commercial friendly. However, some types of fonts are no longer compatible with paint.net, so those fonts are excluded from the list. It's not really a matter of paint.net's fonts being legal for commercial use, it's more of if the fonts in your PC's font folder are legal for commercial use. To know more info on a font, see if you can learn a font's name and then try to do an internet search on it. A lot of the "basic" and "web-safe" fonts that are pre-installed on most PC's I think are legal for most uses, since you sort of paid for them when you bought your PC. For examples, Arial, Arial Black, Comic Sans MS, Courier New, Georgia, Impact, Times New Roman, Trebuchet MS, Verdana, etc. I'm not positive on their usage rights, but they are standard fonts. If you want more fonts that are legal and free to use, this website offers some. Fonts with a green $ tag are said to be free for commercial use. http://www.1001fonts.com/ Just out of curiosity, when you say "a font is a program" do you mean "font is made from a program" ? Sorry, I'm not super tech savvy, so I tend to ask questions about some things as I'm always trying to learn. Personally, I've never heard of font being called "a program" before. I know about programs that make fonts, such as this one, but the fonts themselves always seemed like mini works of art to me. And just like how most works of art have copyright laws, font has copyright laws. I tried to do an internet search to see where and how font is called a program, but I could only find programs that make fonts, I could not find anything that called font "a program". What is font? doesn't mention font being a program either.

In paint.net 4.0 and higher the UI has changed a little. Your color window can be toggled on and off by clicking a little icon in the upper right corner of paint.net.

I want to show/hide all layers too. This idea gets my vote. (as well as shift-select a range of layers to hide/show.)

If you want to make a mask of your object, you can try this : 1) Change the top layer's blending mode to Multiply. 2) Duplicate the top layer, name it Alpha Mask. 3) Duplicate the Alpha Mask layer, then merge that duplicate back down, so that you only have one Alpha Mask layer. 4) Temporarily turn off the other two layers. 5) Use the two-tone threshold plugin on the Alpha Mask layer to turn the object solid black and remove the background. Try these settings: Lo threshold 255 Hi threshold 255 Colors 1. black 2. transparent. Leave the rest of the settings default. Click Ok. If some parts of the object are not black, use the paint brush tool for touching things up. 6) If you are successful at making your object into a mask, you can then use the mask with the alpha mask plugin on one of the other layers. (use the invert mask setting). If you need more help or have questions, feel free to ask.

I'm sorry you don't like the idea of people using stock photos and paint.net as an image manipulation program (a photo editor) for the paint.net comps, but I feel your conversations and attitude towards those who do enjoy using paint.net as an image manipulation program are being a bit harsh. I'm glad you are skilled at making things from scratch, and I also like it when people make things from scratch, but I don't think you need to get mad or so serious towards those who choose to not make things from scratch, and instead enjoy paint.net and the competitions differently than you do. I'm sorry if I have offended you in some way, I have nothing against you, and I personally have liked some of your previous entries, I'm sorry that the feelings aren't neutral. But, the competitions are fun for me, and I would like them to still be fun, but now I'm feeling a little attacked and hurt just because I don't use paint.net like everyone else does. I'm sorry you wouldn't want my cake, I'm just trying to have a little fun and enjoy that fun with others. If you decorated a nice, fun, and friendly cake, and offered some to everyone, I would probably eat your cake. Cakes are fun, and they are fun to be enjoyed with others and shared, that would include your cakes. I hope you can find some peace in your heart towards me and forgive that I like to enjoy things differently than you.

I do not know the era of the forums when competitions were separated into "from scratch" and "photo edit" comps, but those aren't the comps we have now. The current competitions are not “made from scratch only” competitions, nor are they “photo manipulation only” competitions, they are competitions that allow both kinds of creativity and art styles. Just like paint.net is both a paint program and a photo editing program. The creativity I enjoy. My creativity isn't making things from scratch, the creativity I enjoy is building and piecing things together. I enjoy paint.net the way people enjoy making cakes, they use pre-made ingredients such as flour. I enjoy paint.net the way people enjoy scrapbooking, they use lots of pre-made art supplies. I layer my photos the way people layer cakes, and I re-color or add cool effects the way people use frosting. Making things from scratch and photo manipulating are different kinds of creativity, but I don't think we need to exclude or look down on either types of creativity. Often photo manipulation doesn't seem as impressive or talented compared to images that have been made with only digital drawing tools, but, when you start looking around at some photo manipulations, and when you start to do photo manipulations of your own, that's when it can become apparent that there is a lot of skill and talent that can go into editing photos. Have you seen what people do with photoshop? Even if they use stock photos, the way they edit the photos is amazing. Being less of an artist and less creative. I will admit, I am not an artist like those who make great works of art by just using the paint brush and fill tools, nor am I skilled like those who can do dramatic photo editing. I am bad at being creative compared to a lot of people. I'm not original when I use tutorials, and I'm not original when I use stock photos. But, the competitions aren't for artists only, they are for anyone who makes or edits things using paint.net. And I don't think we need to try and shun people just because they are less creative than others. Using other programs. I can understand being against the use of other programs, but as I said before, I personally have not used other programs to make my paint.net entries. If I use outside things, I use pre-made objects, not programs. The plane was made using outside programs, not photos, meaning, it can't count as being a photo manipulation. You need photos to do photo manipulations, and photo manipulations is what I do. My outside resources are normally photos, different font types, and sometimes photoshop brushes from brusheezy (brushes might be controversial, so when I do use brushes I use them sparingly). For all of the resources I use, I try to keep within the comp rules of not violating copyright laws. The resources I use are not random pictures from the internet, read my previous post where I went into detail about using free legal photos, the purpose of links is to give credit to the original photos and authors. If you want to get picky, then maybe we should ask what font you use when you use text in your entries. I can't call the fonts I use "pdn", I think Microsoft is the author to most of my fonts. But, there are no competition rules saying we need to give credit to the original creators of the fonts that are pre-installed on our computers. My alphabet sig. Concerning my alphabet sig, I didn't break any comp rules, and I didn't use any other programs to make it. So it's not a fair comparison to say why it was OK, but the plane might not be OK. My "A" was 100% pdn, and yes I made my own pencils. For my "B" block, the texture lines were the only things that weren't pdn. My "C" was an edited and colored photoshop brush, I think the brush was originally a photo of two real brush strokes. And the background was made out of three stock photos. I added the stock photos to enhance and help represent what each of my letters were made out of. Pencils went behind my pencil A, toy blocks went behind my B block, and paints went behind my C paint stroke. I probably should have edited the background images more, but since they weren't the main aspects of the siggy, I didn't do much to them. However, I still did use photo blending techniques on them, and re-sized the photos, flipped the photos, as well as used layer blending modes. Consider my alphabet sig like a cake, lots of the parts were pre-made objects, but I put them together and decorated them using paint.net.

Congratulations winners! I think I will recruit all of you for my next world domination army. Just be sure you have your tags of identification when you come to join me. Thanks Chimay for hosting! You do a great job even though your busy.

This is an older thread, I'm not sure if it's old enough to get the grave digging or necro-posting claims yet, but you probably should read the forums rules (rule 11) before you post on older threads again. A new thread would have been fine for this. Anyways, about your not liking to have to hit "finish" every time, I can kind of agree. And I think your idea of an auto-finish option sounds like a good one. I personally like the versatility of the new paint bucket, but I can see how I would still prefer to use the paint bucket the classic way most of the time. I like both the new and old uses of the paint bucket, so a way to have both (without the need of new habits) would be great. I think your auto-finish option would accomplish the idea of having both. As for a work around to not having to click "finish" every time, did you see my post above about making a new habit? Old habits die hard, but the new one works fine, if you can get used to it. It feels a little weird to fill the next area with the same color as your first area, but since it's not staying that way, it really doesn't matter. If you learn the new habit, you can take advantage of having a normal workflow, hit finish a lot less, and yet still have the abilities of the new paint bucket for when and if you do ever want to use them (such as if you miss click you can just move the fill instead of re-filling. Or you can test out several colors without having to hit undo and re-fill each time. You can even click the "more" in the colors window to adjust your color into something custom while the fill is still active). But again, old habits aren't easy to overcome. Even today, despite how long I've known of this new habit, because I don't use the paint bucket tool very much I still find myself almost instinctively using the paint bucket the old way. Which is why an option for an auto-finish sounds nice.

@FotoFactory, I commented on your cool work in the sig battle, but I'll say it again, Overall great sig, it looks cool! @VivekRaman, I like the sky and sun, and you did a great stick man. If you want some creative ideas, try checking out the tutorials section of the forums.

A Cubist Cube's self portrait was great, haha . But yes, great job for getting creative to come up with an entry for this challange everyone. And thanks Pixey for hosting!

I might not be able to give you a short answer or an easy to understand answer, but here are my thoughts. (this is just how I see things) Here is a short-ish answer. When it comes to paint.net competitions, I think paint.net should be the primary program that is used. Other programs might or might not be ok, if they are ok, paint.net should still be the main program. For paint.net competitions it is good to show what paint.net can do, what can be made using paint.net, and what paint.net can do to edit images. When photos are used, it's not about the photos, it's about what people do with the photos using paint.net. Personally, I might use lots of pieces, parts, and photos, but I don't use any other program to make my signatures. For a longer answer.... When considering if something counts as being a paint.net picture, it is important to know the role paint.net played in making the image, but it is also good to remember that there is the idea of making things from scratch, and there is the concept of image editing. Image editing, photo manipulating, and photoshopping could be called photo art, and photo art is often a different kind of art, as it's based off of photos, and not making things from scratch. My paint.net pictures often involve photos, as I enjoy image editing, but that doesn't mean my pictures aren't paint.net, paint.net is still the program I use for the image editing. Image editing is a popular hobby for some people and a real career for others. Image editing is normally done with professional programs like Photoshop, which is where the term photoshopping comes from. When people think of photoshop pictures, they don't always think of things made from scratch, but rather, they think of photos that have been digitally changed or edited in photoshop. If you explore photoshop tutorials, there are lots of tutorials that simply give you links to the resources used in the tutorial, such as stock images and photoshop brushes, and then they give you the steps of how to put all the resources together to make a cool picture using photoshop (I don't give steps to how I make my paint.net pictures, but I try to give links to the resources that I use). Photoshop can do almost any kind of digital art you can think of, but lets remember that photoshop is called PHOTOshop, as it originated as a digital photo workshop. It is a photo editing software. But what is my point, why am I talking about Photoshop? I'm talking about photoshop as a usage comparison. Paint.net might have originated from the idea of Microsoft's basic paint program (often called MS Paint), but these days paint.net is considered a “free image and photo editing software" (you can read about paint.net here). If images that are edited in photoshop by professionals can be called photoshop pictures, then I think images that are edited with paint.net are safe to be called paint.net pictures. Because image editing is mostly a type of photo art, it often means requiring photo resources, and that's where people use stock photos and/or any photos from the internet. If things such as stock photos are used in paint.net comp entries, the rules say not to violate copyright laws (this is because when you use photos that are not legally free, you are stealing other people's work). So when I use photos, I try to find legally free images and then obey the licensing terms. Image licenses often want attribution and proper credit given to the original image and/or author by linking to the image. Not all licenses require attribution, but I still like to give links out of courtesy, so people know the original images that I use. (for free legal images I like this website http://www.freeimages.com/ and this one http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page.) When photos are used, it's not about the photos, it's about what people do with the photos using paint.net. Again, PHOTOshop, is a digital photo workshop, it is an image and photo editing program, like-wise, paint.net is also an image and photo editing program. Paint.net has it's "Adjustments" tab, which I think is mostly for photo editing, and under the "Effects" tab, there is the sub category called "Photo". And have you seen the paint.net documentation? How many of the sample images are "photos" and not images made from scratch? Paint.net is an image editing program, so I think using paint.net to edit images and photos for competitions is fair, since that's half of the programs purpose. And I am very glad paint.net is an image editor, because as a paint program or drawing program, paint.net lacks some important tools, such as built-in custom brushes, a smudge tool, air brushing, etc. Without plugins, paint.net is a very limited painting program. Not everyone enjoys making things from scratch. I don't think it would be fair to say only if you make things from scratch you can enter a paint.net comp, and then exclude those who enjoy image editing. Paint.net is both a painting program and an image editing program, if the program it's self accepts both kinds of art, I don't see why it's competitions should be for or against either type of art. And luckily, according to the rules, the comps do allow both kinds of art. And I personally love the variety. I love to see how people get creative both with photos and making things from scratch. (PS: I have seen images that you have "editied" using paint.net, and I like them. I hope you keep up the good work.) Edit, sorry, I just wanted to say one last thing. Using multiple programs to make a picture, versus using paint.net as an image editor, are sometimes two different things. I personally use paint.net as an image editor, I do not use other outside programs for comp entries.

Wow, cool. It sounds like you used a verity of programs and resources to make your plane picture, and it turned out really nice. Good job. And yeah, as I said before, I don't enter to win either, I enter because it's just fun to participate. I look forward to you still entering competitions and joining the fun. I like your art, so I hope to see more of it in future comps.

Nice work Red. Very impressive. And about the tree, I don't mind it. Perhaps I would have positioned it differently, but the tree does look like it's enjoying itself up there .

Very cool Skullbonz! And great photos.

Hello. I have a request for both your furblur plugin and your scribble plugin. Would it be possible to add a “width” slider to those plugins? I would like the ability to make thicker lines. For example, there is a width slider in pyrochild's “Jitter” plugin.