eleonora

Sorry about asking such a stupid question! As soon as I went to save it, I realised my mistake. I just had to Save As and then pick 50% quality. Then I seem to have the same size, same number of pixels, but lower resolution.

I have created some postcards for print, so made them at 300 DPI. Now I want to email them to a friend, but they are fairly large files, so I want to reduce them, but without making them smaller. If I change the DPI it automatically increases the print size. So, what I found is that I can do it in two steps. First, what I just said, then I resize again, but this time I reduce the print size back to what it was originally, ending up with a more light-weight image. Is this the right way to do it, or is there a simpler way?

Hello Red Ocre, thanks for this. It helps somewhat but is still a rather mickey mouse solution. I have to make a grid layer and position it between the lower layers and the one I am working on. What I would really like is a true interface grid that was not part of the image and always visible in whatever layer you are working until you just toggle it off. At least this solution helps me make my grid quickly, saving loads of time. Also if I wanted to make a checkerboard pattern, that's the way to do it! Thanks. Eleonora

I just typed my whole question in and lost it. Here goes again. A grid size of 1 pixel is no good to me. I need to use a variety of sizes for different projects. One might be 10 x 10, another 20 x 20 or 100 x 100. I keep having to make these in each project as a layer which I later hide. I use the grids for positioning items within the picture. Is there any way to set the grid size and then change it?

Hi Rick, ok I did some more thinking after reading this post you quoted about manually re-creating the MSI. I did not need to go as far as re-creating it manually (as an aside, doesn't it madden you how Windows is taking control away from us - no such thing as Start -> Run in Win 10!). Anyway, I unistalled paint.net with Windows Apps and Features and then installed previous version 4.0.5. Made a copy of the MSI for that one for comparison, uninstalled, installed 4.0.6 and this seems to have done the trick. The install actually finished properly and when I looked the MSI for the earlier version had gone and the one for 4.0.6 is there. Re-started Windows and everything still there and working. Now, I recall distinctly that when everyting was going pear shaped there were wuite a few MSIs in the staging folder - about six or seven. That is probably one for every version I had before. I sincerely hope this is the last time I need to post on this topic. Look forward to posting more interesting stuff in future. Thanks for your help and patience. I know us users can be a pain sometimes. I used to be on the other end of it too, but my developing days are long over and technology seems to have got ahead of me, now I am retired!

So, tell me what should I do? Also, please do not shoult at me. it is most unhelpful.

I have found the solution to my problem! MOD NOTE: Do not do this! See Rick's explanation below. You will likely break Paint.NET. So, after posting my latest reply at 5.26 pm just above here I had a brainwave. I said "the only files left were the Staging files", so I thought they must be the culprits. I deleted them before exiting Windows. On re-starting, lo and behold, PDN is still there. The first thing I noticed the icon on the desktop was unchanged. Then, whoever is having the same problem I suggest the following: Run the install until it stops doing anything. Give it a few more minutes (maybe check in Task Manager that it is no longer using up any CPU), then using Task Manager end task (on the setup, of course). Before closing windows go to C:\Program Files\Paint.net (or wherever you chose to install it) and you will see files and folders. Select the folder named Staging and delete it. It will say you need admin rights to delete, so you must have them. Good luck....

Yes, Paint.NET does still work fine, but only till I close Windows. Remember my first post (Posted 04 October 2015 - 05:46 PM) explained that, after I close Windows and start up again, all the files and folders in paint.net have disappeared (that is, all except for the staging files). So the, I have to install all over again, and kill the setup before I can use PDN

Hello again. Thanks for the post Rick. I've been away a couple of days. Back now for two and then away again. Did some more digging. Can find no reference to NGEN - ngen.exe or mscorsvw.exe in task manager when running the install. My sysem is Intel Core i3-2375M CPU 1.50 GHx, with 8GHZ RAM, running Win 10 home. When it appears do go into "oblivion mode" (that is what I call it when the progress bar stops progressing ) I did notice in task manager the .NET framework optimization process was using quite a bit of CPU (can't remember the percentage) and then stops altogether and is no longer listed. After that, nothing happens. Other tasks are using CPU as would be expected, but the installer, nothing. This seems to narrow it down to the .NET optimization service. Does it help you to find out what is going wrong?

Here is some more information. 4.0.5 did NOT work, that is, the same thing happened. Installed, hung, killed it, restarted Windows, gone! So, I tried again with 4.0.6, but this time, instead of Express Install, I tried with Custom Install and got a bit further, still unsuccessful, bit a bit further. This may help for you (the kind developers) to work out what is happening. It got past the first stage (i.e. the one where it hung on the installing dialog) and got to the "Optimizing paint.net's performance... This may take a minute" dialog (see screenshot number 2), then it took a FEW minutes (not just one) to get to screenshot number 3) and sat there for an hour. Whilst all this was happening I looked in Task Manager. With the previous attempts choosing Express Install, Windows Installer and Windows Installer (32 bit) were left running after killing paint.net's setup. However on this latest attempt they were not. Any help?

It's me again. After closing windows down yesterday and starting up again today, guess what? Paint,net disappeared again! Can I install the previous version (that is 4.0.5)? I googled and found it on a website oldapps.com. Is it OK to do that? Of course it does not mention Win10 as it is old. If nobody has any better ideas I think I might try that and see what happens.

I added an attachment​. Don't know what happened to it. I will try and paste it into here. It does not let me paste it into the text. What I did was, clicked on more options. Clicked on Attach Files, Browse. Picked the jpg, Then on Attach this file (I may have missed that last step first time round). Hope you see it now. By the way, after waiting for over an hour, I killed the install with Task Manager and managed to open Paint.net and use it. However, that is what happened two weeks ago. Today, not having used it in the intervening time, It was all gone, disappeared! Looked in the folder and all there was there was the Staging folder.

Similar thing happens to me in Windows 10. It asked me to update to 4.0.6, so I said yes, then sits there forever (over half an hour) about 9 tenths of the way through, and just does not finish. See attached screenshot. I looked in the folder and there are 58 items. The folder Resources has several language sub-folders with varying number of files in each. The folders Effects, FileTypes and Shapes all have nothing in them. With me it doesn't even give an error message, just sits there. I am going to wait a bit longer till it has done nothing for an hour, then I will kill it with Task Manager. But HELP please as I need to get this working!