06:PAINT.NET-powerful & free

Last week, I talked about how life would not be worth living without some of my favorite software tools (just kidding...I actually CAN enjoy my life without any technology. My time in the woods is a lot more fun!)

My favorite software tool is something I've used for years called "PAINT.NET". It is completely free, and is one of the most powerful graphic design tools out there. I am not one to go buy expensive software if there is something that will do the job well and meet my exacting standards. PAINT.NET is one of those tools.

For high end illustrations, designers like Adobe products, particularly Adobe Illustrator, which currently costs $20/month to license it. Coupled with Adobe Photoshop (another $20), you can do almost anything you want to work magic on your images. Two other excellent illustration products are Gimp and Inkscape, and both are also free.

Gimp is the closest thing to PAINT.NET because it works with pixels. Inkscape however is what is called vector illustration software. Inkscape is tough to learn, but I've been able to do some cool things with it. I use Inkscape for advanced work, and will talk about it in another blog post.

Many of us (particularly those who have been around a long time) started our graphics experience using the program Microsoft Paint. (I'm not a Mac user, so can't address that.) PAINT.NET is a full replacement of that with 100 times more capability, but is not 100 times more complicated. In many ways, its interface is similar to Paint.

I use PAINT.NET for modifying images and for creating completely new images. These may be logos, backgrounds for web pages, illustrations and diagrams, callout boxes, web buttons -- almost anything that I can visualize. I often use royalty-free images from the web and doctor them up to suit my needs.

PAINT.NET creates images in all the major graphics formats: GIF, JPG, PNG and PSD. Images can have transparent backgrounds if saved in GIF and PNG formats.

My favorite aspect of using PAINT.NET is that you can use "layers". This allows you to separate all the various components of an image onto different layers and then combine them for the final image. This gives you an enormous amount of flexibility in moving things around, enlarging them, changing colors, fonts, etc. without messing up some of the other elements that are part of your image.

Here is my logo for PetNetTucson.com. It was created by an artist in India for $5 on Fiverr.com. Over time I have modified it continuously to meet all kinds of web needs. This is the image you'll see on my website header now.

Importantly, you can save these layers in the proprietary PAINT.NET format "PDN", so that you can come in later and tweak the image to easily make changes. Once you've got everything right, you save a version in your chosen image format - GIF, PNG or JPG.

I do not intend to teach you to use this product in my post today. I would encourage you to go get a copy for yourself and install it. Their site is getpaint.net. The site has a very active user forum which is enormously helpful, and other training resources. For more training, head to YouTube and search for PAINT.NET and you'll find a wealth of tutorials there.

If you go to my PetNetTucson.com site, you'll see plenty of examples of my graphics. Everything there was created using PAINT.NET.

Learning a tool like PAINT.NET takes time and patience, but you will find yourself creating images almost immediately that you never thought were possible. Even if you have few visual talents, PAINT.NET can transform your images into works of art!