Saving a project

[Mickmac]

Hi, I am new to Paint.NET, just downloaded it today. I used to use ACDSee, but it started to jam up on me, so I removed it. I used ACDSee mainly for putting text on images, to display on my website, as I do not have photoshop. I had a go at labeling an image with Paint.net, and it works fine, but when I tried to save it to a folder in my pictures, it saved the entire page, not just the image. After I have finished labeling an image, how do I save it ? Is there something I must do before I go to "file", "save as" ? Thank you, Mickmac :?:

[Crazy Man Dan]

I'm unsure as to what you mean by "saved the entire page". Would you be able to post the image as you see it?

I'm going to take a guess and recommend checking the File Type drop down and ensuring it's set to .jpg or .png or something of the sort. If you added a layer for the text, when you click Save PDN will default to the native .PDN format which will save the entire project, preserving your layer information.

If that's not it, a screenshot would help us help you.

Cheers!

[Mickmac]

Hi Crazy Man Dan, I am not sure how to show you what I am seeing, but when I used ACDSee, I put the label on the image, hit the "done" button, then clicked on "file", "save as", selected the folder in "my pictures", and saved the labeled image ( only the labeled image, not the whole ACDSee page ) When I use Paint.NET, I label the image ( cannot see a button anywhere, like "apply", or "done" ) clicck on "file", "save as", select a folder in "my pictures", and when I look in that folder, instead of just having the labeled image, I have the whole Paint.NET page, the page I was using to label the image. This is no good to me, I just want the image itself. I must be doing something wrong when I try to save the image. Is there something I must do between labeling the image, and trying to save it ? Thanks again, Mickmac

[Crazy Man Dan]

You mean it's saving a screenshot of the entire application window? I've never heard of this before.

Using File -> Save As... should save only the current canvas, the image you're labeling. What type of file is the final image in your folder, and as what type of file are you saving it (the extension in the drop down at the bottom of the Save window)?

[Mickmac]

Hi, I checked the drop-down box when I clicked on save as, and it was on "Paint.NET v3.08[*.pdn] when I changed it to "jpeg" it saves the image only. I noticed that I have to fill the entire area, ( the box that the image is in ) when I save it, but it seems to be working fine now, very easy to use. Thanks for your help, Mickmac

[Crazy Man Dan]

I thought that might be it...

The Paint.NET v3.08[*.pdn] file type is Paint.NET's proprietary file type. This file preserves the information of each individual layer so you can independently edit them again later. Paint.NET is the only application that can open this file.

So, when you double-clicked the PDN to open the file, it opened in the only program that could open it, Paint.NET. It wasn't saving the application window as a part of the image, it was opening the image in the application window. Just like how if you double-click a .doc file, it opens Word and displays the file - the file itself is just the text, but the Word interface is necessary to manipulate it. Here, the file is just the image, but the PDN application window is necessary to display and edit it.

Files such as JPG and PNG are universal and can be opened by just about anything that deals with images, so if you need to use the file somewhere other than Paint.NET, you should save in one of these formats. Note that any layers in the image at the time will be flattened when the file is exported, since these file types do not support layer information.

I'm glad it's working for you! Happy PDNing.

[Mickmac]

Thanks for taking the time to reply, I like this product, and will probably use it every day. Mickmac