ander

Is there a way to get Paint.NET to automatically fill deleted areas with the current background color? That'd be a big time-saver. If not, maybe this option is planned for a future release...?

Okay, a new layer being "transparent" because it has no background color... I get it. Nope, still doesn't work. I'm missing something. When you say "run the drop shadow plugin," could there be more to it than I realize? Unfortunately, I've run out of time. I just captured a drop shadow from someone's webpage and used that. I must say I don't see the point of creating a plug-in that requires people to what kinds of images it'll work on, and whatever else they need to know to get even the slightest results. I've even searched the forum and started a new thread and everything---much more than many people have time for---and I'm still in the dark. Something's wrong here. It only applies a drop shadow to an object all by itself on a transparent layer. Try it that way. I assure you, that's how it works in every program. Some just hide it.

Okay, so you add a transparent layer? How do you do that? (No clues on the Layers menu or in Layer Properties.) Then you copy the image to that layer, select the part you want to apply the shadow to, and apply the effect? Or am I still making wrong guesses? Considering how often people must want to do this, it'd be great if there were some simple, clear instructions. (Oh, I already said that, didn't I?)

I'm trying to create a drop shadow in Paint.Net. At first, all I found about doing this was a long, involved tutorial on doing it manually. This is such a universal effect, I was quite surprised it wasn't considered a standard thing and built into the app. Now I've found the Drop Shadow effect (http://users.telenet.be/krisvandermotte ... fects.html), downloaded it, and unzipped it to my Effects subfolder. But when I try to use it, nothing happens. (In other words, it has "no effect"---har, har.) I'm using a rectangular image. I just want to add the shadow to its right and bottom sides. I enlarged the canvas by about a third, to the right and bottom, to make room for a shadow. Then I selected the image area (assuming the effect is applied to a selected area, right?), opened Drop Shadow, fiddled with the settings, and tried to apply it---but nothing ever appears. Am I missing something obvious? I've now read that the image must have transparency for this to work. (Don't know why, though; I used Paint Shop Pro before this, and it could apply drop shadows to anything.) So I've saved the JPG I was working with as a PNG instead (which has transparency, right?). Still no luck. Hints? And wouldn't it be a good idea to include a few simple instructions with these kinds of things?

That's exactly what I was doing (as I described, just with more words). I tried it over and over---but all I could do was stretch the pasted selection. However, I tried it again just now and it worked fine. It must've been a bug in my current session, when I posted. Software... ya gotta love it. Sorry for the confusion. Cheers, ander

I'm trying to do something that seems quite simple, but I'm completely baffled. I want to select part of an image, copy it, paste it into the same image, then move the copied part to a different place in the image before adding it. (I don't want to change the copied area; I just want to add content that is the same as the copied area.) When I try this, here's what happens: 1. I select an area using the Rectangle Select tool. 2. Edit menu > Copy 3. I clear the selection: Edit menu > Deselect. (Maybe this isn't necessary, but I don't want to replace what I've copied with the same thing, right?) 4. Edit menu > Paste 5. Even though I've cleared the selected area, the pasted area appears in the same place I copied it from. It's selected, with control dots around it. 6. I switch to the Move Selected Pixels too and try to move the pasted area. I zoom in so I'm sure I'm dragging inside the area, not on any of its control dots. Nonetheless, all I can do is expand or contract the area, as though I were dragging a control dot. What am I doing wrong? Also, on the Tools palette, why do the Move Selected Pixels and Move Selection tools both say "Shortcut key: M" ? (Two tools can't have the same shortcut, can they?) Thanks, Ander

Thanks for the replies, guys. Before switching to Paint.NET, I used an older version of PaintShop Pro. It had a color-picker that showed not only every color, but their entire dark-to-light ranges too. (See http://www.baycongroup.com/paint_shop_p ... .htm#Panel at the "Color Panel" section.) This was very intuitive; you just clicked the general color you wanted, then dragged your mouse pointer to fine-tune your choice. (Of course you could also type in specific color-codes if you knew them.) I knew about Paint.NET's "More..." section, but it looked like it just allowed you to type in specific codes and to use the sliders to adjust them. Now I realize that "HSV" means "Hue, Saturation, Value." So to make your selected color darker, you move the V slider to the left. I don't suppose users are expected to automatically know that. But hey, successful computing is full of such bits of geekness. So there you go---once you know it, you know it. Cheers, ander

Hi, Paint.Net seems great, but the color-picker (wheel) baffles me. For example, I wanted to select a dark blue color. There is no dark blue on the wheel---nor any other dark color that I can see. The colors only go from white (near the center) to fully saturated colors (around the rim). I imported a screenshot containing a dark blue color, and selected the color with the Eyedropper tool. Paint.Net showed the correct color, but the selection point on the color wheel moved to halfway between white and full blue. What's more, when I moved the selection point, then put it back to approximately the same place on the wheel, I now had a light blue. WTF? Will someone please explain what I'm so obviously overlooking? Thanks, ander