IHaveNoName

Just tried that ^ asphalt texture technique myself. Looks rather good; thanks for the info, could be useful. BTW if the OP is using PDN v3.5.11 it could be because he's on a WinXP machine and should/can not update as that was the last version compatible with XP.

As that article BoltBait linked too explains Chkdsk will fix indexing errors it finds and move files out of any bad sectors on the HDD and mark them as not for use. But it still might indicate a possible problem with the HDD as others here suggested earlier. If not done already check what Chkdsk actually did to see if it was just an indexing error or it moved something from a bad sector. To find the Chkdsk logs (Win7):- Open the Control Panel. Open Administrative Tools. Select Event Viewer. In the Event Viewer expand the Windows Logs. Select the Application log. Right Click the Application log and select Find. Type wininit in the box and click Find Next.

It is a pity Trevthom has not been back here since his OP. I'm quite interested to find out more about the problem and if any of the advice given here actually helps fix whatever it is.

The reason I assumed he used the Windows repair tool was because with my installation there is no PDN repair (or uninstall) shortcut in the Windows Start menu. Usually when you install a program it provides shortcuts to such tools in its Start menu folder. PDN appears in my Start menu as standalone launcher shortcut ie. no repair or uninstall options. That is unusual and a few quick searches suggest that has caused problems in the past when users wished to uninstall PDN for whatever reason. However after that useful post ^ I checked and indeed there is a repair tool in the PDN folder but did Trevthom actually use that? It is not obvious it is there. I also looked through the PDN folder and I could not find any uninstaller.exe. If it is there in the C:\Program Files\Paint.net folder it is well hidden. Obvious question: why is there no shortcut to the repair tool in the Start menu and, apparently, no specific uninstall tool and shortcut to that too? Even if he did use the provided PDN repair tool how did he delete the original installation other than by using Windows Add/Remove/Repair Programs? The fact is PDN was installed and working before a problem occurred. He tried repair and when it did not work he deleted the existing PDN installation and tried a new install. However if the uninstall was done only using the Windows tool it will always leave stuff behind that may cause problems with any 'fresh' install. Couldn't that be the reason why he's now getting the error message identified as being from the PDN Set Up Wizard? I absolutely agree with Ego Eram Reputo too; it would be foolish not to follow Rick B's advice before doing anything else.

The OP's first post said that he first received this message when trying to open PDN. This was not a completely new installation of PDN it was a previously working one which, by the sound of it, out of the blue suddenly refused to launch. Something had changed. It could be a system file matter either corruption or incompatibility as suggested but the most typical cause of such problems is not a system fault but an automatic update of the program itself. When it happened he tried the obvious thing: first using Repair, presumably meaning Windows program repair tool, and then uninstalling/reinstalling. There is the possibility that if the whole program wasn't properly ie. fully uninstalled (using Revo or similar) and if it is a PDN problem, rather than a Windows system file issue, that the problem file is still there. Any future attempts to install and launch PDN will have the same result. The information I found online on that 0x8007045A error ID was typically unhelpful but seems to be a general one for any failed "initialization routine". What I would have done is exactly what was suggested: use System File Checker (and Check Disk too) and check that Windows was fully updated particularly .NET Framework ones which are usually optional. If no help then I would have used a restore point prior to the problem. Failing that I'd have to assume that it was a program automatic update fault but, obviously, that would require auto-updating to be enabled. If we assume it was then rolling back PDN to the previous working version would confirm it one way or the other. So I'd suggest doing this by finding an installer (FileHorse, FileHippo) for the earlier version of the PDN Trevthom was using which would likely be v4.1. If that or other earlier versions report the same error then the PDN v4.1.1 update can not be to blame and we're back to square one.

What PDN version are you trying to launch? What Windows version are you using? Is PDN set to automatically update? If it is: it could well be that PDN was updated some time during your previous session and on restart you found this problem. That would suggest the current version of PDN (v4.1.1) may not be compatible with your system. If you check the manual download page for PDN you will see that it has certain system requirements specified. It says it will automatically install Microsoft's .NET Framework 4.7.2 if it is not already on your system. Check that it is - the method for this (might be different for Win10) is to use Control Panel and then click on Programs > Programs & Features That will list all programs installed on your PC: look for Microsoft .NET Framework and it will show the precise version installed. Programs which list all installed software, like Revo Uninstaller, maybe even more convenient to use for the same information. If it is not something like that I've found plenty of threads here reporting similar error messages here from 2017 and as far back as 2014. First suggestion is that it is some GPU update/driver problem. Second, more plausible, is that the PaintDotNet.SystemLayer.Native.x64.dll being used is old or faulty. How this happens? Who knows but, just a wild guess, would be that with automatic updates not all the old PDN installation's components are always replaced with newer versions. Go to your installed 64 bit programs (usually C:\Program Files\Paint.net) and look through the contents for that DLL. It should be alongside a 32bit equivalent x86.dll of the same name. The 64 bit file version info shown if you hover over it should be 4.101.6828.39058. That is what it is on my 64bit system which was updated last week to PDN v4.1.1 and working fine so if the DLL version shown is not the same then it would be a good guess, bearing in mind the earlier threads about this DLL, it is the problem. How to sort it? Unless somebody here can offer a simpler solution: thoroughly uninstall PDN using Revo Uninstaller employing its advanced uninstall scan after its own uninstaller has run and it should get rid of everything PDN related on your PC. Then reinstall the new version of PDN from the approved link here. Hopefully that will fix the trouble.

The problem with Effects folder might be because he had older plugins which have newer versions included in Boltbait's Plugin Pack. What I found is when I installed selected plugins from the pack rather than the whole thing a few, not all, of the older version plugins already installed went missing from my Effects folder. I did not notice this until several weeks later when I wanted to use one of those plugins and I couldn't find it anywhere in Effects. I re-installed it from the pack and all has been fine since. The one I remember for sure had gone missing after the initial pack install was Old Feather but I'm fairly certain there were a few others. However unless there were only a few plugins in Effects before the OP's problem occurred I don't see how using Boltbait's pack could have deleted them all let alone also failed to install whatever plugins (all?) selected from the pack. There's really nothing too uninstall; as Boltbait says the plugin pack has its own installer, it is a standalone/portable .exe so if you want rid of it just delete it. The fact is it should work and Effects should not be empty however it was used. That suggests a problem with the Paint.net installation itself. What I'd do is first try again as Boltbait advises and if the result is still an empty Effects folder try adding other packs and manually install other plugin .dlls, exiting and restarting PDN and see if they go missing. If they're still there then try Boltbait's pack again and see what happens. If none of this fixes the trouble then I'd use Revo Uninstaller to thoroughly (Advanced) uninstall PDN. It creates a restore point so you can always go back. Then install a fresh copy of PDN from here and make sure your system meets the requirements shown for the latest version. Try installing Boltbait's Plugin pack or selected plugins from it again and all should be good.

I don't think it was a joke although it might be claimed it was now. I'd think the explanation as to why a 10 layer image is not 10x the original image in size 282KB would be quite simple. If you don't understand layers it might not be as obvious as it is to some. If a top layer has any 100% opaque areas the parts of layers below those areas become redundant, ie. they're not needed. So in the flattened image they're not added together they're actually subtracted. It can't be any more opaque than 100% It is easy to demonstrate this; just find a JPG picture, open it with PDN. Open a new image of the same size with a 100% transparent background and create a vignette with the Gradient > Radial tool ie. a 100% transparent circle which graduates to 100% opaque black. Save that alongside the original JPG image file . Now combine the vignette and the image as two layers in PDN, flatten and save that too. Let's say the 800x600 vignette JPG is 80KB and the original image JPG is 220KB. If the image + vignette added together the combined image would be a 300KB JPG. The actual combined JPG size is of course bigger than the vignette but as the vignette graduates, towards 100% opacity, less and less of the layer underneath remains visible. Where it reaches 100% opacity (black) nothing of the underlying image needs to be rendered. The result is a combined JPG file size likely half that of the original image and a third of the sum of the images used in the two layers.

400x300 is a 1.3:1 ratio 7x5 is 1.4:1 so isn't that at least one problem? The question I'd ask is what is the size/format ratio of the original picture because if that isn't a1.4:1 ratio you're going to lose picture content if you crop or, alternatively, introduce distortion if you resize to a 1.4:1 ratio? I've not sure I've understood the "insanely small" selection box problem but it sounds as if you're trying to use a 7x5 selection box with a full size image displaying in pixels. You need to use 1.4:1 selection box of the appropriate pixel dimensions for the image concerned. In HyReZ's example: 5344x3008 that's a 1.7+:1 ratio so to crop it to 1.4:1 you'd need to use a selection box of 4211x3008 or alternatively 5344x3817 ie. full width but with borders top and bottom as in the screenshot shown. Very much as he suggests rather than mess around with selection box sizes just start a new picture of an appropriate width for the photo with a 1:4:1 ratio and paste the photo in as a new layer. It would seem to be the most obvious solution. If it is too small ie. one of the photo's dimensions is too big then you'll be warned of that when you try to paste it in. With the "Maintain aspect ratio" box ticked just increase the canvas size to accommodate it. You can then adjust the photo to best fit the oversize 1.4:1 canvas or reduce the canvas size but maintaining the ratio if you decide you don't mind losing content. When you want to print it use Resize to give you a 7"x5" print

The obviously very rough edges around the skull outline and the lesser problem with the text edges have been improved/cleaned up very effectively. Yes, good job.

Thanks for that. I'd hope somebody knew the answer to this because it is something I'd find very useful too. What I normally do is just choose a square canvas size eg. 800x800 making it easy to position the cursor at the centre (400/400) and then use directional keys to expand the radial gradient. That HSVGradient.dll (HSV Gradients) does seem to do the job (Effects > Render > Gradient... Then select Radial Corner). Only addition I wouldn't mind seeing ironically, bearing in mind the theme of this thread, is actually the ability within the tool to move the centre or the radial gradient horizontally and vertically precisely as for Vandermotten's Gradient tool. The latter also has an interesting four quarters colouring facility which could be useful with a radial gradient too but unfortunately on both counts that tool does not support radial gradients.

Could it be a file/folder path length issue? The path shown in that example is VERY long. I have no idea about Win10/NTFS/PDN character/folder limits but it would be the first thing I'd test even if only to exclude it. Try copying one of the problem BMPs to a new temporary folder in Documents and then seeing if the problem persists when using PDN.

Thanks for the replies. I installed the v2.0 Alpha Mask version which is what is linked to by the OP in the first post in this thread. The v1.1 indeed is marked as incompatible with PDN 4 > which is why I installed the v2.0, assuming that it was the last version and the one which would have been later updated for PDN 4 compatibility. As said it does seem to function correctly but I've only done minimum testing. The v1.1 version linked to by Ego Eram Reputo is as mentioned there too, like the tutorial I was using said, being installed in "Effects > Object". But v2.0 installs as I described 'loose' in the "Effects" menu likewise the completely unrelated Multi Color Gradient one. But if this is normal and that's where the two developers decided they should be instead of their earlier versions location then there is nothing to be concerned about presumably. However isn't it unusual that they changed the location? Edit1 I've been trying out that gold text tutorial again to test everything and it appears there is actually a problem but not with the Alpha Mask, its the Multi Color Gradient plugin that's not working properly. It should just apply the graduated colour to the selected text mask but it doesn't. It behaves weirdly so I just tested it on a completely new image and it simply didn't work. You can use the PDN's built in two colour gradient tool + other tools/plugins to create a similar effect to that suggested in the gold text tutorial anyway. But it is a pity that multi-color plugin doesn't work as I can think of other situations where it would have been very useful. Edit2 There's irony; just tried and failed to install the Multi Color Gradient plugin on my WinXP VM using PDN v3.5.11 (last version that supported XP). I thought that may have been because it was a basic PDN installation so I did not have an Effect > Object menu. So I installed BoltBait's Plugin pack for v3.5.11, no problems with that, everything working, Effects > Object menu added. But the Multi-Color Gradient plugin installed to Effects still didn't appear anywhere let alone Render where it apparently is meant to be. PDN v3.5.11 too old for this plugin version?

I've just been using a tutorial here for creating gold text and installed both this Alpha Mask and the Multi Color Gradient ones recommended for the purpose. I've installed plenty of Paint.net DLL plugins/packs manually before, its not rocket science, but these are the first ones I've used that have just been added straight to the main "Effects" menu. Indeed the tutorial says the "Alpha Mask" is found in "Effects > Object" and the Multi Color Gradient in "Effects > Render". That makes sense too because there are other related plugins in "Object" like Switch Alpha and Paste Alpha and similarly in "Render" there is another Gradient plugin. The question is there anything to be concerned about in them not having installed where they 'should' be? As far as I've been able to test them so far they're working correctly. I've tried deleting and re-installing but when Paint.net reboots they're still in the same place. So is this just because they're oldish plugins and not as compatible with recent Paint.net builds as they were meant to be?