Book Review: Getting Started with Paint.NET

Paint.NET is a free graphics editor originally created by a college student, Rick Brewster, using the .NET Framework. I've been using Paint.NET on & off, since 2005 for basic image editing. I have always marveled at the utility of this Windows freeware & often wished I could explore more of its features. It looks simple on the surface but it has scores of functions.
You can selectively color parts of an image using Paint.NET

Though I'm not an absolute beginner, when Packt Publishing offered me a review ebook copy of Getting Started with Paint.NET by Andros T. Sturgeon & Shoban Kumar, I lapped it up to read & explore the features I've never tried.

The book was an easy read. It has all the attributes of what I think makes a good technical book. Though there is the official Paint.NET documentation and plenty of tutorials online, this book does a good job of consolidating vital information & explaining how the image editor's features can be used for practical scenarios with useful tips. Samples -

Let's say you take a photo in a heavily shaded area on a bright day. You love the photo, but everyone's eyes are too shaded, and there is bright glare in other areas. What Auto-Level does is bring the light and dark areas into a normal range.

Once you click on another area of your document, the text will become part of the image and cannot be edited. For this reason, it might be a good idea to always place your text on its own layer rather than directly on the image you are working on.

The shortcuts of the features are well-highlighted and it made me realize how well they can conserve time.

At just 136 pages, it just scratches the surface and it felt like it got over too soon. The ebook version (which includes ePub, Kindle, PDF formats) currently sells for Rs 198 and that looks like a good deal.

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