Hi everyone! I'm brand new here and just installed the free version of Paint.net on my computer last night because I heard it was better than MSPaint. I thought the similarity of names would mean they would be pretty similar, so I'm surprised to be having problems with it.
What I want to do is simple, at least in MSPaint. I want to take a background image, such as a landscape, and then take a cutout of a smaller image, such as a person, and place it in the background image. With MSPaint, it was just a matter of select, copy, paste, and then click on "Transparent Selection". All done! But with Paint.net, I don't get those options. Reading forum posts about this and also the instructions online make it sound much more complicated.
I've read that the "magic wand" is used to make things transparent. But when I use it, it only seems to select part of the image I want to move, and sometimes selects things beyond the object I want to move. If it's a person, I click the magic wand, and maybe only the head is selected, and sometimes maybe only the upper body. I had to give up on the magic wand. I also heard about "layers" which is an option I clicked on several times, but I never saw anything happen so I don't know how to go about using it.
Then I took a cutout of a person that was already on a solid white background and pasted that onto the background. I got the entire person's image, but surrounded by a large checkerboard. I've heard that translates into being transparent later on. That's fine, but how am I supposed to accurately position the person on the background if the area around the person is obscured by the checkerboard? It blocks out the area I'm positioning the person in!
Anyway, that's where I am now. I also watched a Youtube video about this and it was so confusing that it lost me. I'm thinking that if MSPaint is so simple, and Paint.net is better, than there must be a better way than what I've been told. Can someone help me?