frio

This has changed in the 5.1 branch I think, running 5.100.8930.35902: Previously when you entered an output high/low level number directly, it would get accepted and used as is even if the gamma tick didn't get updated to an appropriate position -- the gamma *value* was still okay even if the tick wasn't repositioned. Now it seems like the value gets capped to where the midpoint/gamma tick is, then the gamma tick gets updated. Steps to reproduce: Start from scratch to have default settings. Open levels adjustment. Input 32 as the output high level. It will get capped to about 128 instead, since that's where the gamma tick was located in the middle. Gamma tick drops to about 1/4 height. Input 32 again: it will now be set to about 64 instead, again matching the previous gamma tick height. Cancel. Open levels again. Input 8 as the gamma level, to get it as low as possible. Input 32 as the output high level: it will be set to 32, since it didn't "hit against" the gamma tick. Same happens for setting the output low level higher than the gamma tick. It's not a huge deal, but it keeps throwing me off since I often do material maps that are limited to specific output high/low ranges.

When you save a file as .dds, the format selection pops up in the save details dialog. Have you tried the topmost option? It's an uncompressed 8 bits per channel format (each pixel gets the full 32 bits).

Straightforward repro: the 8BF filter plugin crashes paint.net on second invocation every time, regardless what you do: the first invocation will work normally and run the Photoshop filter correctly (or allow you to cancel normally), but second invocation causes this crash:

Alternatively, control-B to turn the "zoom image to window" off right after making a new image. Zooming manually also does that.

Same deal there, the files are just completely blank, a couple megabytes of zeroes. Whatever file restoration happened there was not very successful.

That example file is all blank, full of zero bytes. There's not even a trace of anything to rescue, I'm afraid.

Paste Warp+ reshapes whatever's on the clipboard into the current selection. Original on left, random selections paste-warped into on the right.

The gradient tool uses dithering to reduce the amount of color banding. The closer the colors are to each other, the more intense the dithering becomes and alpha counts as well, so alpha 255 to alpha 0 are maximally far from each other, but alpha 70 and 0 are much closer and get dithered harder. When you change layer opacity, there is no dithering, and you get the banding instead. Here's a synthetic comparison: top part is a gradient from RGBA 255, 255, 255, 31 to 0, 0, 0, 0, on a black background. The bottom part is a RGBA 255, 255, 255, 255 to 0, 0, 0, 0, with layer opacity set to 31. After merging the layers, the visibility was boosted with the levels tool to bring the 31, 31, 31 to 255, 255, 255. As you can see, the banding is intense on the bottom one, whereas the top one is very fuzzy but you can't really tell the banding. It's a tradeoff and you kind of just have to choose which is preferable for your use.

The ZIP filetype plugin lets you save all layers as a zip of pngs.

BoltBait's Fill -> From Clipboard does exactly this and respects the alpha channel on what you're filling with.

New version crashes paint.net with some plugins, notably Nvidia normal map plugin. It's very old and Nvidia no longer has a download for it, but this is probably a legitimate enough source (the installer checks clean on virustotal.com): https://gamebanana.com/tools/347 There were also others that crash with the same error but are commercial. Others were okay. Crash log:

There's a partially transparent gradient at the bottom right, it's what is being detected as an edge (since it's not the same color as the fully transparent area - even fully transparent pixels have color information, even if you can't see it). There's no easy way to completely clean it out without plugins, but Pyrochild's Curves+ is one option. These settings will turn the slightly transparent parts into fully transparent ones: alpha channel, draw straight lines, move the bottom left control point rightwards. Important parts highlighted in red. The resulting edge detect in the bottom right corner:

As Tactilis explained above, the component that handles some file types (artificially) limits the width/height even if the file format itself supports it. As a workaround, I checked that it's possible to save a .tiff or a .bmp beyond 65535 pixels, so you could do that and use some other tool that's capable of converting them to .png of that size - IrfanView for instance. .dds and paint.net native .pdn also work, but .dds is a lossy format and .pdn wouldn't be as likely to be supported by an external tool.

I use Panelling, since it's pixel-precise. It isn't lossless though since rotate/zoom works with floating point numbers and easily results in fractional pixels, and hence why plugins like Panelling are useful.

Control-V doesn't paste a layer, it pastes a selected object which will merge automatically once you deselect it. Paste a new layer with control-shift-V.