Paint.NET

<p>Does anyone here use Paint.NET for Digital Darkroom processing? I am surprised at how extensive it is and how many plugins are available to make it more usable and all for free.<br>

I also use Gimp 2.6.111 and it works just as well and its also free.<br>

How does Adobe market Photoshop with so many free and very much user-friendly programs out there?</p>

Even if you paid full price, Photoshop would cost a fraction of what a good lens costs. Serious photographers want and

need the best tools.

<p>Free software has come a long way, but I won't waste my time trying to convince anyone, except to say that you can probably do everything you could possibly need to do to an image using free software like paint.net, gimp and several others (and that's not even counting the linux side of things, where there are already free image editors that work in 16 bits per channel). You can do even more if you're willing to use both the camera make-provided raw converter/editors and the free image editors.</p>

<p>In fact, most people could probably do all they need with one of several free image viewers, let alone full-blown image editors.</p>

<p>It's not 1999 anymore.</p>

<p>But then, I'm not a constant camera and lens upgrader either. Come to think of it, I guess I am a constant software upgrader, since it's always free.</p>

Photoshop has a lot of momentum and far better documentation than the freebie image editors. It supports 16-bits per channel workflow, which can make a huge difference in final results. Photoshop also supports AdobeRGB and other color spaces, which I feel does little more than confuse photographers nowadays. I prefer GIMP over Photoshop, but probably will be using Lightroom 3.4 now that it supports Fuji EXR.

Here is a comparison of Paint.net and GIMP. Apparently GIMP runs faster on Linux, because it starts up in 4 seconds for me (not 2-5 minutes) with 12 Mp JPEGs, and never hangs or crashes. Looking at Paint.NET help, it seems it has almost everything GIMP has, except sophisticated JPEG encoding control.

http://www.techairlines.com/2010/01/15/gimp-vs-paint-net-image-editing-first-class-flyer/

<blockquote>

<p>How does Adobe market Photoshop with so many free and very much user-friendly programs out there?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Because there's also an entire ecology built up around Photoshop, both in other Adobe software but also simply in mind share. If you're a contractor or shop making a living with graphics the price of the entire Adobe bundle is entirely reasonable.</p>

<p>I've been playing around with Gimp recently. It's quite nice actually. Since it supports ICC profiles it's also usable for serious photography work.</p>