Book Image

Getting Started with Paint.NET

Book Image

Getting Started with Paint.NET

Overview of this book

Paint.NET is a free, reliable program that rivals the most expensive photo editing programs currently on the market.Paint.NET supports plugins, which add image adjustments, effects, and support for additional file types. They can be programmed using any .NET programming language, though they are most commonly written in C#. This book will teach you everything you need to know to edit and manipulate images. Written with very clear walkthroughs, hands-on tutorials,and amazing resources, this book will turn you into a photo wizard with Paint.NET. The book starts with simple tool-based tasks, introduces you to the workpane and then builds up to more complex areas taking a deep dive into the commonly-used features of Paint.NET. With this book, you will learn how to do everything from making simple adjustments to full artistic rendering with tools not available in any other program. Starting with the very basics of photo editing, you will gain an understanding of the basic principles of manipulating images. From layering to special effects, this book will give you all the knowledge you need to create images that leave a lasting impression. This book has everything you need to make amazing, artistic photos using completely free software. Filled with fun exercises and valuable information, you will learn how to master every tool and every effect in Paint.NET. Within minutes, you will be able to resize images, make adjustments to brightness and contrast, and apply color correction. By the end of this book, you will be working with layers and effects to create images that rival some of the most advised and expensive pieces of software. With simple exercises and information, this book will take you from absolute novice to an accomplished photo editor quickly and easily.
Table of Contents (15 chapters)
Getting Started with Paint.NET
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Selecting an area


Selecting an area will give you the ability to isolate an area. Once you have the area selected, you can cut it out from your image, remove anything not selected, add an effect to the selected area, or change it in some way.

In the previous chapter, we learned about making selections with the selection tools. Now that you have learned how to make selections, let's get to work and see what you can do with them.

The following screenshot shows an image of a piece of art from the 2012 Symbiosis Festival:

Let's say that we would like to isolate just the artwork and erase the background to use on a flyer. There are a few ways to do this.

You could use something like the Rectangle Select tool to select just the artwork and the surrounding area and then navigate to Image | Crop. However, you will still have the sky in the background; this might be the time to use the Magic Wand tool.

Because there is so much contrast between the artwork and the background, we'll use the Magic Wand tool...