paint.net 5.0 alpha (build 8368)

[Rick Brewster]

First, check out the post for the first alpha to read about all the latest changes, additions, and fixes. There's a lot!

 

This build is now available via the built-in updater as long as you have opted-in to pre-release updates. Enable "Also check for pre-release (beta) versions of paint.net" and then click on the Check Now button. You can also use the links below to download an offline installer or portable ZIP.
 

Here's what's been fixed since the first alpha build:

• Fixed: Canvas/UI controls will now properly detect that the GPU does not support Direct3D 11, and then revert to software rendering instead of crashing
• Fixed some flickering in the image thumbnail list at the top of the window
• Fixed: If a 24-bit TIFF is opened and then saved as a 32-bit TIFF, it will no longer have incorrect SampleFormat metadata
• Fixed a few minor high-DPI bugs
• Improved: The updater and offline installer will now start faster
• Improved performance on ARM64 in a few places
• Fixed some crashes in plugins, and some other odd glitches, caused by a bug in .NET 7's Form.ShowDialog(IWin32Window) method.

System Requirements

• Windows 10 v1809+ or Windows 11
  • NOTE: Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 SP1 are no longer supported.
• 64-bit CPU and 64-bit version of Windows
  • Both Intel/AMD x64 and ARM64 are natively supported.
  • NOTE: 32-bit x86 is no longer supported.
• Optional:
  • A pen or drawing tablet that supports Windows Ink
• Recommended:
  • A CPU that supports SSE4.2 AVX2, which includes most CPUs released since 2013.
    • Note that AVX2 is not required. It simply helps performance, especially at app startup.
  • A discrete GPU such as an NVIDIA GeForce, AMD Radeon, or Intel Arc
    • or an AMD Radeon APU (a type of integrated GPU)
    • or an Intel Iris Plus or Iris Xe integrated GPU
  • The GPU must support Direct3D 11. Otherwise the CPU will be used for rendering, which will have poor performance.
  • An Intel CPU with an Intel "HD" or "UHD" iGPU works fine but will probably not show much, if any, performance improvement over previous versions of Paint.NET (which used the CPU for most rendering). The default quality used across the app (e.g. in distortion effects, and the Move Selected Pixels tool) will be automatically lowered to compensate.

Downloads

Offline installers, portable ZIPs, and deployable MSIs are available over on GitHub. The "web installer" will be available at a later date.

 

Here are direct download links for convenience:

• Installer (x64): https://github.com/paintdotnet/release/releases/download/v5.0-alpha.5.0.8368.3690/paint.net.5.0.8368.3690.install.x64.zip
• Installer (ARM64): https://github.com/paintdotnet/release/releases/download/v5.0-alpha.5.0.8368.3690/paint.net.5.0.8368.3690.install.arm64.zip
   
• Portable (x64): https://github.com/paintdotnet/release/releases/download/v5.0-alpha.5.0.8368.3690/paint.net.5.0.8368.3690.portable.x64.zip
• Portable (ARM64): https://github.com/paintdotnet/release/releases/download/v5.0-alpha.5.0.8368.3690/paint.net.5.0.8368.3690.portable.arm64.zip

[Rick Brewster]

I've been testing on the AMD Radeon iGPU that comes built-in to the new AMD Ryzen 7950X CPU and, I gotta say ... not bad! It does a decent job, good enough that I didn't have to default it to the low-performance tier like with Intel HD/UHD. Even on my Intel Core i7-12800HX laptop, with an Intel UHD 770 iGPU, it's really bad -- except when I tell it to use the NVIDIA dGPU, of course! Hopefully this bodes well for future CPU releases from AMD, especially the less expensive ones.

[NekoSam395]

Testing on my Asus X409UJ laptop, with nVidia MX230 GPU, it has a lot of performance as of build 8361, great job! 😸👍

[null54]

For plugin developers this build also has a new PixelKernels.ReplaceChannel method.

[MJW]

Can't say I'm happy to have now become a Paint.NET HD second-class citizen.

[StephanP]

Dutch translation reviewed and adjusted as necessary in Crowdin for next release.

[BDP]

Another successful update - thank you

 

Brian

[ReMake]

Layers -> Rotate / Zoom

The contents of the Tiling Mode drop-down list do not display the translation, although Wrap and Reflect in the Polar Inversion effect are displayed translated.

   

Quote

I might just get rid of the checkbox entirely ... it's leftover from the original implementation from 2004 (IIRC) and it's not really necessary

 

@Rick Brewster, you're probably right, because instead of the Transparent option, the None option should be displayed.

Edited November 30, 2022 by ReMake

[Rick Brewster]

22 hours ago, ReMake said:

Layers -> Rotate / Zoom

The contents of the Tiling Mode drop-down list do not display the translation, although Wrap and Reflect in the Polar Inversion effect are displayed translated.

 

Fixed -- there was just a simple typo in the code.

 

The tiling modes are now None, Repeat, and Mirror, and are now correctly loading from the translation

 

[ReMake]

@Rick Brewster, is it possible to increase the size of the window with the contents of the list in the Resampling drop-down list.

 

[BoltBait]

16 minutes ago, ReMake said:

@Rick Brewster, is it possible to increase the size of the window with the contents of the list in the Resampling drop-down list.

 

 

If not possible to increase the size of the window, perhaps he could increase the size of the drop-down area.

[ReMake]

13 minutes ago, BoltBait said:

 

If not possible to increase the size of the window, perhaps he could increase the size of the drop-down area.

 

Yes, I meant the size of the drop-down area.

[Rick Brewster]

That dialog already has a lot of dynamic layout logic so it can accommodate languages like German. I'll see what I can figure out.

[Rick Brewster]

Okay it looks like it was missing a Math.Max() in there

 

[Damjan]

Brush smoothing/stabilization doesn't seem to work with a mouse. I can't see any difference with it enabled or disabled. I expect it to make my lines smoother as if I was using Bezier curves. Is it a tablet exclusive feature? Also, would there be any way to adjust the "strength" of the smoothing?

[Rick Brewster]

1 hour ago, Damjan said:

Brush smoothing/stabilization doesn't seem to work with a mouse. I can't see any difference with it enabled or disabled.

It does work with a mouse. It's not a tablet/pen exclusive feature. It helps the most with a mouse, which I can only sample at the monitor's refresh rate (at most).

 

1 hour ago, Damjan said:

I expect it to make my lines smoother as if I was using Bezier curves.

That's not what it does though. I never said it does that.

 

1 hour ago, Damjan said:

Also, would there be any way to adjust the "strength" of the smoothing?

Not at this time. The underlying algorithm, Catmull-Rom splines, has a tension parameter, but it's already set to the optimal value of 0.5. (a value of 0 is no smoothing, and 1.0 would produce strange results in this context)

 

For 5.0, the smoothing is intended to be fairly subtle and is aimed at eliminating the kinks you get from lower frequency input. It helps with both mouse and pen/tablet drawing, but you'll get the biggest difference with lower frequency input devices like mice (and my Wacom tablet, apparently -- it's not as good as the much cheaper UGEE tablet I also have!).

 

Here's an example of unsmoothed vs. smoothed. You'll see in the unsmoothed path that is has several "kinks", a few of which are highlighted. This happens because the brush stroke is drawn as lines between each point sent over from the input device (a mouse in this cases).

 

The path smoothing functionality may be expanded in the future, but for now this is how it's intended to operate.

 

[Damjan]

Oh okay, looks like I misunderstood what it's supposed to do. Thanks for the clarification.

[ReMake]

@Rick Brewster, I don't find in PaintDotNet.Strings.3.resx strings for Sobel and Prewitt algorithms.

 

[Rick Brewster]

4 hours ago, ReMake said:

@Rick Brewster, I don't find in PaintDotNet.Strings.3.resx strings for Sobel and Prewitt algorithms.

 

Looks like the code to load those strings is ... missing. Simple fix

[Omninano]

Wow, incredible work on this 5.0 release, Rick!! Your love and dedication to this amazing product is never ending! Tablet usage is getting a whole lot easier!

It will be awesome to see the Popular Feature Requests post get updated when this goes publically live!

 

What I really can't wait for is the ability to be able to select multiple layers at once in a future update! Being able to move different layers around on the canvas at the same time will be *chef's kiss*

[Rick Brewster]

This new setting got missed in the change log, "Auto-scroll when drawing at the edge of the window"

 

[Rick Brewster]

The beta is now available!