[Feature Request] Grow/shrink selection option, expand/contract selected area

[BdR]

I've been using Paint.NET for a long time now and it's great. I mainly use it for sprite editing, create text logos, icons etc. so mostly game related.

 

Currently there's no grow/shrink selection option, which would be usefull for many applications.

• uniformly adjust selections
• outline/inline letters for logo design
• outline parts of photos
• foreground/background separation
• etc

 

The way I do it now is copy all and switch over to GIMP, do some selection manipulation, mark it with a certain color and copy back into Paint.NET. It works, but not a great workflow. I could do it all in GIMP but that takes forever as it's such a pain to work with. The Paint.NET option "Effects -> Stylize -> Outline" comes close but it's not as flexible, and the plugin mentioned in this other thread doesn't quite cut it.

 

Ideally it really should be a main feature imho. I much rather work with just Paint.NET instead of GIMP, so I feel like expand/contract selected area is a key missing feature at the moment.

 

Edited Saturday at 02:58 PM by BdR

[Welsh Yellow Cheddar]

Hello @BdR,

 

There is a plugin "Edge expander" that I use to increase the size of objects.

There is also a plugin to do the opposite, "Erode" will shrink the object.

I hope this helps.

[BoltBait]

If you just want this for text, maybe you just need this plugin:

 

BoltBait's Text Fun Factory v2.2 - Updated April 29, 2024 - Plugins - Publishing ONLY! - paint.net Forum (getpaint.net)

 

 

@Rick Brewster this issue has already been filed in the official repository as issue number 2959... where I provided some code.

 

[Rick Brewster]

Yes that one is tagged as being for 5.1.x

 

Once 5.1 is released there will probably be a few bugfix releases (there always is). Then I'll tackle some smaller features 'n things like this.

[BdR]

@Rick Brewster @BoltBait Nice, good to hear this new feature was already on the radar, thanks. Couldn't find issue 2959 on the official repository, but anyway looking forward to it 👍

Edited Sunday at 02:01 PM by BdR

[BoltBait]

2 hours ago, BdR said:

Couldn't find issue 2959 on the official repository,

I was talking about the official repository with the source code to paint.NET, which is private. 

[Rick Brewster]

4 hours ago, BdR said:

Nice, good to hear this new feature was already on the radar, thanks.

Yeah, @BoltBait has been bugging me for this for awhile now  It's definitely a useful feature, but it does need a little bit of UI design so it can integrate well into the app.

 

I'm also considering making it extensible, with support for "selection transform" and "selection generator" plugins. So "expand/contract selection" would be a transform, while "select all pixels with some criteria" would be a generator. But that'd probably be later.

 

Right now I'm just focused on landing 5.1.