Confused when moving from Corel Photo-Paint to Paint.NET - some advice please

[Yossu]

I've been a long-time user of Corel Photo-Paint. Never a power user, just used it for touching up photos and a bit of messing around (adding captions, etc). The version of PP I have (X3) doesn't work on Windows 10 (understatement, it fairly well destroys Windows actually!), and I don't feel like paying hundreds for the latest version, so I've been looking for something else.

 

I'm trying to get my head around Paint.NET, but am getting stuck, probably because I'm thinking in terms of the way PP works. For example, when I add something to an image (text, shape, etc), it is created as an object that can be moved, resized and edited.

 

By contrast, if I add (say) text to an image in Paint.NET, the text is fixed on the image, almost like a bitmap. I can't select it, can't move it, can't resize it, can't change the text, etc.

 

Anyone able to advise me? How do I add (say) text in such a way that I can move and edit it afterwards?

 

Thanks

[BoltBait]

Welcome aboard!

 

Corel Photo-Paint is somewhat like CorelDraw! in that you can create shapes/text boxes and move them around, re-edit them later, etc.

 

Paint.NET has that capability to a limited degree.  The big change here is that once you've created a shape or text you get handles that you can use to move that shape around, change the shape's size, etc. But, once you're happy with the location/size/etc. you press the Finalize button on the toolbar and that shape/text becomes a bitmap and therefore can not be edited the same as before.

 

The best way to learn Paint.NET is to learn how to use layers.  Keep your objects on separate layers so that if you need to recreate something you can do it without affecting the other parts of your creation.

 

 

[MJW]

2 hours ago, Yossu said:

By contrast, if I add (say) text to an image in Paint.NET, the text is fixed on the image, almost like a bitmap.

 

It's really more than being "almost like a bitmap." It essentially is a bitmap. As soon as you "finish" the text, it's converted to pixels, the same as any other pixels in the image. Once completed, the pixels have no separate existence as text.

[Yossu]

I can see that layers allow you to keep "objects" (I know they aren't objects in the PP sense) separate, but it's a shame they can't be edited afterwards.

 

Thanks to both of you. Shame about this, as it was a feature I used a lot in Photo-Paint.