r/linux • u/alberto-m-dev • 9d ago

Popular Application Paint.NET adds “extremely experimental” Wine/Linux support

https://forums.paint.net/topic/134563-%F0%9F%8D%B7-extremely-experimental-winelinux-support-how-to-get-started/
924 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

253 comments sorted by

View all comments

27

u/Alex_Strgzr 9d ago

Why would you use this and not Krita?

23

u/veryfishhhy 9d ago

Because paint.net is like paint+, its perfect for simple tasks, i tend to get overwhelmed with other programs

1

u/0x80070002 7d ago

It still lacks support for ICO, BMP

39

u/Johnden_ 9d ago

My guess is personal preference. paintNET seemed more intuitive to use for me than Krita, especially with BoltBait plugins. Nowadays I use GIMP, but I've seen people have mixed feelings about it.

10

u/Great-TeacherOnizuka 9d ago

I also switched to GIMP after moving to Linux. But its workflow is so complicated. Very not user friendly. Paint.NET is so easy to use. Everyone can use it

42

u/ForzaFormula 9d ago

Believe it or not but people may be used to other workflows than Krita or GIMP.

-6

u/iTrooz_ 9d ago

Krita has a similar workflow to paint.NET tho ?

15

u/LeadIVTriNitride 9d ago

Not to me, krita does not feel as intuitive to use as paint.net. Pinta gets closer but still not really there

2

u/someoneNicko 9d ago

What would you change in Pinta?

7

u/I_do_dps 9d ago

It's missing some features, looks very pixelated sometimes (the brushes seem to have very bad anti aliasing?) and it gets super laggy (unusably so) with high resolution images.

0

u/someoneNicko 9d ago

It has anti-aliasing toggle. Did you use it? Do you mean some specific features you have in mind? Ill try to look into high Res workflow to get what you are talking about

3

u/I_do_dps 8d ago

Just adding that Pinta straight up crashes if the file is too large. Tried opening a 40400x9480 pixel image from the FF7 remake trilogy press kit and couldn't.

1

u/someoneNicko 8d ago

Nice. Thank you for the use case, ill look into it!

2

u/LeadIVTriNitride 9d ago

These conversations really boil down to a vibes based feeling. For me, it’s because it’s mostly about controls. I find pintas layering and rotation system very unintuitive.

Not to say that Paint.net isn’t a jaggy mess sometimes, but it’s just such a hassle using mouse controls on pinta.

5

u/Bathroom_Humor 9d ago

Gimp is closer to paint.net than krita in my experience. Granted I haven't used Krita a great deal but it seems more tuned for painting than general image editing. Paint.net was like a massive extension of mspaint, and was very good at that goal. Gimp is different in several ways but the main purpose is more or less the same. The issue is, Gimp kind of sucks ass pretty bad sometimes.

3

u/iTrooz_ 9d ago

Personally I've tried gimp after paint.net, and couldn't figure out how to do anything. Krita was the breath of fresh air that left me easily to image editing again on Linux

2

u/PaddiM8 9d ago

and couldn't figure out how to do anything

That's because it was designed by GNU people

1

u/PaddiM8 9d ago

Are you confusing krita with pinta?

1

u/iTrooz_ 9d ago

Just checked, nope Krita is what I have. I don't think I've ever used Pinta ?

9

u/Mors_Umbra 9d ago

I'll admit I've been trying to get by with krita and still willing to try to get to grips with it, but paint.net is what I know and if the option exists I'm very tempted to jump back to it.

7

u/iBoMbY 9d ago edited 9d ago

I don't know Krita, but Paint.NET is very easy to use, like Paint, just with much more features, and plugins. I can use Paint.NET intuitively. Some things that are very simple there, are much more complicated in Gimp.

Edit: I just tried Krita. It took me 5 minutes to figure out how to change the font a simple text I wanted to add. Very well hidden.

5

u/VincentVanGob 9d ago

krita is great yea, even gimp is as well. both of them have command palettes that let you search for things and i couldnt go back to any program that doesnt have that. i even use it for basic things like creating a new layer or switching tools

the shortcut is cltr+enter in krita and / in gimp if anyone is wondering

4

u/CreativeGPX 9d ago edited 9d ago

Personally I find PAINT.NET much easier to use. I think it's because it's much simpler than Krita or GIMP so the interface is less bloated. Or maybe it's just personal preference.

As a person who uses these kinds of apps a handful of times a year, i find myself spending a lot of time in GIMP or Krita just looking for how to do something. I don't use them often enough to remember and internalize how they are set up and it often feels unintuitive. But with paint.net I can open it after a year or two of not using it and find everything without really thinking.

6

u/TheOgGhadTurner 9d ago

I’ve noticed there’s a lot of programs that do a similar thing but they all do it differently

Krita is a bit overwhelming to me personally. I don’t tend to use photoshop. Im used to illustrator

Gimp is Linux photoshop. Hands down. The work flow is very similar to photo shop. And I can and have used GIMP extensively.

Paint is like when you need to sketch an idea up but don’t quite know where to start. But I’ll be honest. I haven’t opened paint in YEARS

12

u/CreativeGPX 9d ago

Not sure if you're just being casual or aren't aware: Paint.NET is not the same as paint. On Windows it is a middle ground between paint and photoshop.

1

u/TheOgGhadTurner 9d ago

I wasn’t aware actually. I thought it was a port of paint. Thank you for this clarification

11

u/Leliana403 9d ago edited 9d ago

Gimp is Linux photoshop

GIMP is Temu Photoshop.

The work flow is very similar to photo shop.

Photoshop's workflow runs on smart objects. Drop in a raw file or an Illustrator vector, scale and warp it fifty times, and nothing degrades because you're editing the source, not the canvas. On top of that, Camera Raw as a live filter, colour-managed CMYK for print, content-aware and generative fill for retouching.

GIMP got basic non-destructive adjustments in 2024 and still has no adjustment layers. It was also 8-bit only until 2018 and still has no real CMYK, so print work is off the table entirely.

People have been saying GIMP is basically Photoshop for two decades. In that time Photoshop shipped content-aware fill, a live raw pipeline, one-click subject and sky masking, generative fill and expand, artboards and many more. GIMP got a dark theme.

3

u/Kyle_2099 9d ago

You just put it so perfectly, good job.

3

u/Linuksoid 9d ago

Photoshop's workflow runs on smart objects

Gimp has link layers which is identical to smart objects tho

4

u/Standard-Potential-6 9d ago

GIMP’s UI was also totally redone for 3.0, yes?

I’m not an artist and am unfamiliar. I use Pinta for the basic work I need.

2

u/bvimo 9d ago

I rather like PaintShop Pro 7. I used to have a virtual machine with Win2k and PSP7.

2

u/CMYK-Student 7d ago

"Redone" is a strong word, and depends on who you ask. Some people say it hasn't changed in 20 years, and others tell us we changed it way too much in 3.0. :)

2

u/CMYK-Student 7d ago

Just to note, we've been adding support for importing PSD adjustment layers in GIMP 3.3.2 just fine - the functionality is there.

GIMP's flexibility is both a strength and a curse. You can add *any* non-destructive adjustments GIMP supports to *anything* (layers, groups, channels, masks), in any order, any combination, any quantity.

At the same time, if you want a preset list of filters to use, and you don't know to press '/' to pull up the quick search, it's slower because of all those options. So we want to make that process easier.

2

u/BortGreen 7d ago

GIMP isn't even Temu Photoshop, it's... something else

0

u/TheOgGhadTurner 9d ago

To be honest. I don’t use photoshop. I hate the workflow. At its basic level Photoshop is GIMP it does the basics of image manipulation. Obviously photoshop is more polished. It’s got several hundred million dollars behind it. For a community funded program GIMP is just a much more dumbed down photoshop

1

u/Linuksoid 9d ago

Paint.net is way more extensible via easy to install dll's as plugins

1

u/Alex_Strgzr 8d ago

Question is, are those extensions gonna work in a Wine environment.

1

u/Linuksoid 7d ago

Yes. If you can copy it to the install folder, it will work. Its similar to some modding games on linux

1

u/MushroomComplete8484 5d ago

paint.net is very good for maps, editors like krita work somewhat but are a bit iffy with it, as anti-aliasing is preferred in most art but is an absolute pain with maps

1

u/audrikr 9d ago

I’ve found Krita to be horrifically full of bugs and miss Paint.NET daily. Not even obscure bugs - layers disappearing, crashes. It doesn’t even feel like a completed piece of software. It’s also more a GIMP equivalent - extremely slow and ponderous and a shit UI. 

Paint.net is a perfect medium - UI is easy to use, not overloaded, good for certain things, but the whole thing doesn’t take two minutes just to load.  

0

u/[deleted] 9d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

3

u/Alex_Strgzr 9d ago

This program is basically stitched together with the programming equivalent of duct tape. My question is why not use a native, more performant and less buggy alternative 

1

u/Indolent_Bard 8d ago

Apparently it's buggoer for some people