How do you stop Paint.NET from creating a new canvas upon program execution?

[delete12345]

Whenever I start Paint.NET, I always see a blank canvas ready for me to be drawn. I thought of changing the settings/preferences for Paint.NET to turn off the "Create canvas upon startup." I have failed to find a Settings/Preferences menu.

How do I turn off "Create a new canvas upon startup" for Paint.NET? Thanks.

[jim100361]

There are no settings that I am aware of. I would assume that the design to provide a blank canvas upon opening is because it is intended to provide a default cirumstance for all users who open the program without having selected something to work with.

If you go into the menu and open an image, the starting canvas disappears and is replaced with your file image. If you set Paint.net to be your default program and if you're in Windows Explorer and you double-click on your image to open it, you don't get the canvas as it is replaced with your selected image.

[Rick Brewster]

You didn't give any reason why you'd want this behavior to be different.

[delete12345]

Whoops! I forgot all about this post here.

My reasons for this feature:

1. Whenever a Paint.NET power user opens up Paint.NET, the user may wish to use their own preferred starting canvas. It can be either completely white, it could be entirely in pink (R: 255, B 255, G: 0) to start off making new sprites, or it could be completely empty. By empty, I mean that there aren't any canvas, and that user must create a new canvas to start off their day.
   
2. Instead of loading up the default canvas (completely white), the power user can edit a few variables of their choices to make the canvas feel welcoming. Like what jim100361 mentioned, one wishes to see the last project that was closed in the last session open up upon startup, so that they may continue their work immediately. What jim100361 mentioned is a one of many workarounds. The other workaround is more technical. It's something that involves changing registries in Windows OS (something that I've done on my own laptop, Windows Vista).
   
3. Another reason is to start Paint.NET up without any canvas open. Some people personally prefer dragging their projects from Windows Explorer into Paint.NET. Then they can easily switch tabs and do some comparing and editing stuffs. If the default canvas were to open up at startup, some of the time, these power users may wish to close the default canvas.
   

All of the reasons above may or may not seem non-trivial to casual users of Paint.NET. I do believe a new setting won't affect any users at all, but may give power users an opportunity to change how they work in the Paint.NET environment.

I hope these reasons are enough to satisfy a bump. Sorry for the one-month-old reply.

[Ego Eram Reputo]

Your best bet is to create your own custom template. The idea is to save a template with the correct dimensions, coloring, layer structure, etc..., then open that with Paint.NET.

Here's how:

1. Resize the default blank canvas (Image | Resize or Ctrl + R) to suit yourself.

2. Add such layers and elements that you want to have present when the template opens.

3. Save the image to a location you can find again. Use the file format *.png for a single layered template, *.pdn for multi-layered. Name the file appropriately so it can be easily recognized (hint: make the filename descriptive).

4. Open Windows Explorer and navigate to the newly created file. Right click on the file to open the context sensitive menu, select Properties.

5. Under Attributes check the box that say "Read-only". This will ensure that the file is unable to be overwritten, so it will always be available as your correctly sized template. Click Apply then OK to commit the changes.

From within Paint.NET, use the File | Open Recent submenu to select the file, or alternatively use File | Open and navigate to the file. Outside of Paint.NET, double click on the template to start the application and automatically load the template file.

[avim1968]

Hi

Just to add to what Ego wrote,

after you make that template picture do the following

1. create a new shortcut for paint.net on your Desktop.

2. edit its properties and add the path and name of your template

after the program name PaintDotNet.exe (with space between)

like in the example below.

D:\programs\Paint.NET\PaintDotNet.exe d:test1234.png

3. close the properties window.

4. make sure that this shortcut is read only too.

5. click on the new shortcut and it would start paint.net and automatically load your template picture.

6. just make sure not to forget to use "Save As" and save under a different name 1st ;-)

Avi

p.s.

You can also rename the shortcut and add the template name to it like "Start test1234.png" or any other name

this way you can make Paint.net open a different templates each time based on a different shortcuts :-)

(this is what I do all the time for different projects i have)

Edited August 4, 2012 by avim1968

[delete12345]

Thank you. I'll try out some of these steps when I have time to tinker my laptop around.

[avada]

Hello!

 

Old thread, but the issue is the same. I pretty much never used it. It was always a nuisance. When I open paint.net not directly with an image, I have an image on the clipboard, which is useless to paste on the pre-determined sized canvas. I always need to close it and then open it again. Otherwise I may want to drag&drop an image, in which case the default canvas is also of no use.

 

I think it would be more productive if paint.net would show a few basic options, without creating a canvas. Such as, create canvas from clipboard image (dimmed if no image on clipboard), open image, create new canvas, maybe recent images option. Allowing people to chose what they want to do instead of presuming they want an empty canvas, with the size pre-set.

[Zagna]

32 minutes ago, avada said:

I think it would be more productive if paint.net would show a few basic options, without creating a canvas. Such as, create canvas from clipboard image (dimmed if no image on clipboard), open image, create new canvas, maybe recent images option. Allowing people to chose what they want to do instead of presuming they want an empty canvas, with the size pre-set.

Just do Ctrl+Alt+V on startup, it pastes from the clipboard and replaces the default canvas.

[avada]

On 9/10/2022 at 12:42 PM, Zagna said:

Just do Ctrl+Alt+V on startup, it pastes from the clipboard and replaces the default canvas.

I guess it's a decent workaround.