Paint.net
leo04
Posts: 375
Anyone here heard of Paint.net? Anyone used it?
I have gone to the website and it claims to be "nearly" as good as Photoshop. I don't use Photoshop, I can't afford it.
I am looking at this because I would like a way to make a UV map for the male gens to female models.
I would appreciate any help with this. I have no idea how to even begin.
Thanks.
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Comments
I used to use it 15 years ago but found Gimp better
Affinity can be a nice choice and it's now totally free: https://www.affinity.studio/get-affinity
It can really help if you mean you want to make a gen texture based on a UV layout. But if you mean making a UV Map, you have to go for using a 3D software (e.g. Blender) rather than a 2D painter / image editor ~~
I am going to buy Adobe Photoshop Elements & Premier Elements 2026 this year. It's $149.00 for both USD but might go on sale sometime during this whole Black Friday / Cyber Monday business.
Your other choice is Gimp 3.0 has now officially been released.
Also, if you sort of want to "Paint by Numbers" to teach yourself painting textures, you can use the Layers function in either software, and make on opaque overlay that you paint through in a "paint by numbers" methodology used different brushes, masks and the like. Use another gens texture as the "Paint by Number" guide you are mimicking, sort oof like tracing to copy a drawing you probasbly did as a child a few times.
Or just download the PureRef free software and with that you can create an overlay that you paint by numbers right through.
I bought the 2022 version when I retired and use the Photoshop Elements all the time, the Premier Elements is missing some key features on the Mac side (no green screen... really?) and got shelved on arrival.
I considered updating my Photoshop Elements but someone here pointed out that Adobe no longer "sells" it, it's a 3-year license for use. The price is little enough that it's not too bad to have to relicense it in three years if it's something you really use but I thought I'd mention it in case you weren't aware (as I wasn't).
I used the "Photography" plan (Photoshop + Lightroom) for 10 years. At the beginning of this year, Adobe increased the price to $19.99 per month. Last September, I decided to cancel my Adobe account. The cancellation fees are high (see image).
Now I'm using GIMP, and I can do everything I used to do with Photoshop; it's just a little slower, and the workflow is slightly different. And it's free!
I've used Paint.net a lot. Yes, you can do many (all?) of the same sorts of things in Gimp, but Gimp and Paint.net have a very different philosophy behind their respective interfaces. I tend to find Gimp a lot more confusing to deal with, while Paint.net I find fairly easy to get a handle on. I'm told the interface of Gimp is a lot more Linux-like in its sensibilities. I have used gimp from time to time, though... but usually have to follow someone else's tutorial ("click this menu over here, now go to that doohicky and click that button over there") monkey-see-monkey-do style when I'm doing the particular action I'm trying to accomplish. My guess is, if I used Gimp a lot more, I'd get more used to the Gimp interface... but its way of doing things is different enough from what I expect that I usually just escape back to Paint.net, largely because I'm already largely familiar with Paint.net
It's largely a matter of preference and taste, though.
Some people swear by a particular program. Some people swear at it. I'm one of those more likely to swear at Gimp.
Arent the Elements versions overly simplified? I havent looked into it, but would assume Gimp and Photopea etc are better than Photoshop Elements, likewise Da Vinci Resolve better than Premier Elements.
Seems like 149 dollars could be better spent elsewhere.
Maybe only benefit would be access to various .PSD templates from marketplaces like Envato and so on, but some of those can be opened in other software. Da Vinci Resolve is extremely popular and will have ecosystem of people making templates also.
I dont have Photoshop on work computer, so just use Photopea whenever I need photoshop at work. It feels exactly the same for simple tasks, and everything is where I expect it to be in Photoshop so doesnt require any re-learning of a new system.
I assume they steal your data, but so what.
Paint.net is what I use when I need to do some quick image edition for work, it works quite well for that and I find it quite easy to use. Never tried to do anything advanced with it though.