Paint.NET is the best free image editing software and a free alternative to the paid Adobe Photoshop. Adobe photoshop is a premier commercial photo editing program and very popular among graphic designers.
The software development has its own story that the project was developed at Washington State University as an undergraduate senior design project mentored by Microsoft, and is currently being maintained by some of the alumni that originally worked on it. It was originally intended as a free replacement for the MS Paint software that comes with Windows.
BetaNews interviewed project lead Rick Brewster to gain insight into Paint.NET, which he calls “Photoshop for everyone.” Paint.NET was written from the scratch and is completely separate from Microsoft Paint on your Windows computer in every way except for its name. Digital photographers and artists can enhance their images with its features and effects.
This Full edition includes the .NET Framework 2.0 and installs it automatically if necessary. If you already have the .NET Framework, you can download the standard version. Currently the Paint.NET v2.6 is 3.4MB, while Paint.NET v2.6 with .NET Framework 2.0 is 49.1 MB. If you download the former package due to its smaller file size, and do not have .NET installed, it directs you to the Microsoft site to download the Microsoft .NET Framework Version 2.0 Redistributable Package (x86).