Paint Net is free and easy to use!




Paint.net is a good editing program if you just want to do some basic photo editing. Yet, it has some more sophisticated tools also.

Here are some edits you can do with this photo editng software.


Resizing Digital Photos
Go to Image - Resize. Select pixels and enter the height and the width that you want. If you check Maintain Aspect Ratio, the original proportions of your photo will remain the same. I usually do this. You only have to enter the width or the height and the other dimension will adjust accordingly. You can also just reduce the size of your image by percentage.


Sharpening An Image
Go to Effects - Sharpen. Your picture will automatically be sharpened slightly and you will see what it looks like. Move the slider to sharpen your picture more or less. The process is very simple.

The one thing that more sophisticated software has the Paint.net is lacking is the ability to see the two images side by side. For example, in some other photo editing software programs, both your original image and the edited image will appear on the screen.

This is helpful when determining just how much of an adjustment, such as sharpening, you like and how it compares to your original photo.





Color and Other Adjustments
I was surprised at some of the sophisticated tools that are available. As in the expensive software Photoshop, there is a magic wand, which allows you to select an area of the photo of editing. You can adjust the tolerance level so that more or less of the selected area is chosen. Once an area is selected, you can do various edits, such as saturation or changing the colors completely.

You can also work with layers. Very nice.



Red Eye Removal
This is a common feature in many photo editing programs. Go to Effects - Photo - Red Eye. I had to search a bit to find this tool. Also, I found it a bit difficult to use.

There are many other features and tools available. This is a useful program…and once again, the paint net download is free! Go here: Paint