Rick Brewster

I GOT THE DOMAIN! I FINALLY GOT IT!!!!!!!!!!1 🥳🎉 Paint.NET is now at paint.net! Well, it will be just as soon as I push all the buttons to migrate content and set up redirects from getpaint.net etc. For now it's just a "hey go here" redirect page.

forums.paint.netPaint.NET 5.2 Beta (build 9793)This should be the last beta release of Paint.NET 5.2 before the final, stable release which I'm planning for the day of-or-after the release of .NET 11. That should be the second week of November. Th...

I just posted what should be the final beta for Paint.NET v5.2. There's a bug fix, a new translation (Uzbek), a plugin SDK nuget package (finally!), and a new Nearest Neighbor (Antialiased) resampling mode for the Move Pixels tool forums.paint.net/topic/134610...

The Wine packages have some good progress to report as well. PNG and JPEG are now fully operational, including metadata. GPU effect plugins that use Sergio Pedri's ComputeSharp.D2D1 are working now. Stability and memory usage should also be greatly improved.

The final/stable release of 5.2 should be some time in early November. I'll be timing it for roughly the same time as Microsoft's official release of .NET 11.

Nearest Neighbor (Antialiased) is very similar to what the emulator community calls "bilinear sharp." It upscales to the ceiling of the requested scaling factor (e.g. from 100% to 700% instead of from 100% to 632%), and then bilinear downscale to the target (700% -> 632%).

This retains the blocky/pixelated look of Nearest Neighbor, but with the added effect of antialiased edges. This works for both scaling and rotation. (Credit to ConcernedApe's Stardew Valley for that sprite)

forums.paint.netPaint.NET 5.2 Beta (build 9771)This beta update fixes several bugs reported in the previous build, and fixes compatibility for some effect plugins. Changes since 5.2 Beta (build 9762): Fixed tooltips not displaying for the History ...

I just posted an updated beta for Paint.NET 5.2, build 9771. It has some bug fixes including compatibility fixes for a few plugins. Check it out: forums.paint.net/topic/134594...

learn.microsoft.comDWriteCore overview - Win32 appsDWriteCore is the Windows App SDK implementation of DirectWrite.

DWriteCore is an official redistributable version of DirectWrite that Microsoft released which is intended for down-level (old Windows) and cross-platform (!) use. learn.microsoft.com/en-us/window...

Although I think they scaled back the "cross-platform" goals, it's not like you can use it on Android. Maybe someday. Or maybe by "cross-platform" they meant Win10, Win11, and XBOX ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ In any case, it does seem to work on Wine!

I just posted an updated beta for Paint.NET 5.2, build 9771. It has some bug fixes including compatibility fixes for a few plugins. Check it out: forums.paint.net/topic/134594...

github.comGitHub - paintdotnet/Paint.NET-on-Wine: Download packages and issue tracker for Paint.NET-on-WineDownload packages and issue tracker for Paint.NET-on-Wine - paintdotnet/Paint.NET-on-Wine

The experimental Wine packages have been receiving regular updates as well, which you can see over on their separate releases page: github.com/paintdotnet/...

Notably, I integrated DWriteCore so that text rendering is consistent and stable. I also got UI animations to work, sidestepping WINE's implementation of UIAnimation.dll that is mostly just empty stubs.

forums.paint.netPaint.NET 5.2 Beta (build 9762)Welcome to the first beta for the 5.2 update! This new version has new effects and also has a big focus on performance, quality-of-life, and infrastructure improvements which prepare for the big 6.0 v...

The first beta for Paint.NET v5.2 is now available! There's a few small additions and some bug fixes since the last alpha build. Check it out 😊 forums.paint.net/topic/134583...

I'll make sure that there's a new build of Paint.NET-on-Wine for every update of the standard Paint.NET package, but now I can more easily push out builds with targeted fixes and extra debugging information.

Someone even got it to run on a Mac 😯 This was not on my bingo card for this decade Obviously still lots of rough and sharp edges, but this is major progress seeing as how it hasn't been able to boot on Mac since 2014 or so

The first beta for Paint.NET v5.2 is now available! There's a few small additions and some bug fixes since the last alpha build. Check it out 😊 forums.paint.net/topic/134583...

github.comGitHub - paintdotnet/Paint.NET-on-Wine: Download packages and issue tracker for Paint.NET-on-WineDownload packages and issue tracker for Paint.NET-on-Wine - paintdotnet/Paint.NET-on-Wine

Experimental Wine 🍷 support has been moved into a separate package with its own Releases page and Issues tracker: github.com/paintdotnet/... It has installation and run scripts, no need for /wine anymore. And I'll be updating it independently(-ish) from the main Windows release.

Alright everyone, message received. I was not expecting this response, I honestly had no idea before I made the post Like I said, the code is experimental. A proof of concept showing that PDN-on-WINE is possible. It's not finished. I can literally just delete it. It won't be part of the next build.

This post is unavailable.

YES I DELETED THE POST. People are still quote tweeting it and getting the wrong idea about everything.

This post is unavailable.

Experiments don't always yield positive results.

forums.paint.netPaint.NET 5.2 Alpha (build 9719)This new alpha build introduces 8 new effects, fixes some crashes and other glitches, fixes compatibility with some old plugins, and adds some debugging options to assist with the WINE effort. You can...

A new alpha of Paint.NET 5.2 is now available, build 9719, and has 8 new effects along with some bug fixes. Check it out! forums.paint.net/topic/134545...

There are also some new command-line parameters being used to aid in the WINE effort. These disable things like UIAnimation, Composition, and the use of Win11's DisplayInformation.

These aren't generally useful, the WINE effort is in a separate branch. I'm just trying to prevent merges from getting too painful. Should have something interesting to share relatively soon tho. Finishing 5.2 is the priority.

A new alpha of Paint.NET 5.2 is now available, build 9719, and has 8 new effects along with some bug fixes. Check it out! forums.paint.net/topic/134545...

The new effects are across 4 of the submenus: - Artistic: Linocut, Mosaic, Pointillism, and Stained Glass - Color: Ordered Dither - Distort: Spherize, Waves - Stylize: Halftone

forums.paint.netPaint.NET 5.2 Alpha (build 9688)This new alpha build has a quality of life improvement for the Move tools, support for CICP metadata, and good quality HDR->SDR tone mapping when opening HDR images with supported file types (includin...

11 July

I just pushed a new alpha build for Paint.NET 5.2! This is the build that adds support for CICP metadata and HDR->SDR tone mapping when opening HDR images of a supported type (AVIF, HEIC, JPEG XL, JPEG XR, PNG) forums.paint.net/topic/134511...

paint.netPaint.NET - Free Software for Digital Photo EditingPaint.NET is free image and photo editing software for computers that run Windows.

11 July

I previously talked about the new CICP and HDR->SDR tone mapping support here: bsky.app/profile/rick...

Rick Brewster@rickbrew.bsky.social

Some new functionality I'm adding for the upcoming paint.net v5.2 release, which will be in the next alpha build: - CICP metadata support - HDR -> SDR tone mapping support when loading images

paint.netPaint.NET - Free Software for Digital Photo EditingPaint.NET is free image and photo editing software for computers that run Windows.

Some new functionality I'm adding for the upcoming paint.net v5.2 release, which will be in the next alpha build: - CICP metadata support - HDR -> SDR tone mapping support when loading images

(That screenshot is sRGB, so the example is illustrative, not literal. It's unfortunate that Windows 11 still does not have a good way of capturing HDR or WCG (wide color gamut) screenshots.)

And, voilà, PDN v5.1.12 vs. v5.2 shows sRGB versus the correctly imported Rec. 2020 color profile via CICP:

paint.netPaint.NET - Free Software for Digital Photo EditingPaint.NET is free image and photo editing software for computers that run Windows.

Some new functionality I'm adding for the upcoming paint.net v5.2 release, which will be in the next alpha build: - CICP metadata support - HDR -> SDR tone mapping support when loading images

Now, I don't really consider HDR to be an important scenario for paint.net, not yet anyway. But I do consider CICP and HDR to be a necessary part of the foundation for a modern image editor. When you toss an image into PDN, it's important that it looks correct!

For example, a PNG image is allowed to have CICP metadata without also having an ICC profile. If your PNG viewer/editor does not support CICP then that image will default so sRGB and won't look correct. Chris Lilley's blog post has a good example: svgees.us/blog/cICP.ht...

paint.netPaint.NET - Free Software for Digital Photo EditingPaint.NET is free image and photo editing software for computers that run Windows.

Some new functionality I'm adding for the upcoming paint.net v5.2 release, which will be in the next alpha build: - CICP metadata support - HDR -> SDR tone mapping support when loading images

Then, because PDN 5.2 is still limited to SDR, it will automatically tone map from HDR to SDR (BGRA UI8, aka BGRA32). When PDN 6.0 adds high bit-depth support the image will be imported as RGBA UI16 (still SDR). When 6.x adds HDR support, it will be RGBA FP16/FP32 and HDR.

The plugin itself won't need to change for any of this to work. Here's another example where the image, a Cyberpunk 2077 screenshot taken in HDR (PQ), has blown up brightness in PDN 5.1, but looks quite decent in 5.2:

paint.netPaint.NET - Free Software for Digital Photo EditingPaint.NET is free image and photo editing software for computers that run Windows.

Some new functionality I'm adding for the upcoming paint.net v5.2 release, which will be in the next alpha build: - CICP metadata support - HDR -> SDR tone mapping support when loading images

(The HDR->SDR image doesn't look exactly like the SDR image because it's not supposed to. The SDR version was created and/or tone mapped differently by something else.)

The plugin doesn't have to do this tone mapping itself. It provides the RGBA FP16 or RGBA FP32 bitmap to PDN, the CICP values, sets IsHdr=true, and optionally specifies the image's "content max luminance" (MaxCLL) value.

paint.netPaint.NET - Free Software for Digital Photo EditingPaint.NET is free image and photo editing software for computers that run Windows.

Some new functionality I'm adding for the upcoming paint.net v5.2 release, which will be in the next alpha build: - CICP metadata support - HDR -> SDR tone mapping support when loading images

github.com0xC0000054 - Overview0xC0000054 has 138 repositories available. Follow their code on GitHub.

That's a result of using Direct2D to transform from SMPTE ST 2084 (aka "PQ") to sRGB. But no tone mapping because neither myself nor Nicholas Hayes (aka null54 aka 0xC0000054 github.com/0xC0000054/) knew what to do next at the time.

In 5.2, with an updated AVIF plugin that utilizes PDN's new FileType plugin system with CICP, HDR, and tone mapping support:

paint.netPaint.NET - Free Software for Digital Photo EditingPaint.NET is free image and photo editing software for computers that run Windows.

Some new functionality I'm adding for the upcoming paint.net v5.2 release, which will be in the next alpha build: - CICP metadata support - HDR -> SDR tone mapping support when loading images

Paint.NET does not yet have HDR support, and any plugins that were capable of importing HDR into SDR had to do the tone mapping themselves. This resulted in some pretty poor results -- HDR tone mapping can get pretty complicated and it's very confusing.

You can easily end up with images that look washed out, or whose brightness is completely blown up. Here's an example of how the current AVIF plugin handles the SDR vs. HDR version of the same image which you can download at wide-gamut.com/test/image-hdr :

paint.netPaint.NET - Free Software for Digital Photo EditingPaint.NET is free image and photo editing software for computers that run Windows.

Some new functionality I'm adding for the upcoming paint.net v5.2 release, which will be in the next alpha build: - CICP metadata support - HDR -> SDR tone mapping support when loading images

CICP, or "code independent code points", is a way to encode an image's color space using just 4 bytes. Obviously it's not as flexible as an ICC profile, but it can do some things ICC can't and it's only 4 bytes. It can do PQ and HLG (both HDR), for starters.

svgees.uscICP in PNG, explained • Chris Lilley

CICP comes from the land of video, but has surfaced recently as a standardized way to encode HDR in PNG images, among other things. @svgees.us wrote a fantastic blog post about it last year: svgees.us/blog/cICP.html PDN 5.2 will support reading and writing CICP for PNG images.

btw if you go to paint.net and you get what looks like a search engine, it means your DNS still hasn't updated If it looks like this then your DNS is up-to-date:

And when you're making a post here or elsewhere about Paint.NET, just type Paint.NET. No need to use "paint .net" or "paintdotnet" or "/paint.net" or (my favorite) "Paint.NET" (with invisible zero-width space). No need to fear the auto-linkification of the text.

Finally in December the latest (previous 😂) owner started hosting content that was all about Paint.NET, trying to deceive users into thinking it was the official website. Bad links, ads, etc. They were making money off of my registered trademark.

And that's how it became a slam dunk case of trademark infringement and domain squatting. With the help of a lawyer, I GOT THE DOMAIN.

So now when you want to find Paint.NET just open up your browser and type in paint.net somewhere, hit enter, and there you go. No more confusion. I've been trying to get this domain for 22 years. This is a big fucking deal.