In addition, (almost**) all adjustments and effects now use the GPU, resulting in much higher performance by leveraging Direct2D’s imaging and effects system with pixel shaders implemented using Sergio Pedri’s fantastic ComputeSharp.D2D1 library. This improves performance, and also helps battery life on laptops. More of the UI is now using using the GPU, including the Layers and History windows, the ruler, the image list at the top of the main windows, and the UI for the Curves and Levels adjustments. In v5.0, support for the GPU has been greatly expanded. In v4.1, GPU acceleration was added to a few effects (blurs, mostly). Paint.NET, since v4.0, has already been using hardware accelerated rendering for drawing the canvas to the screen.

Support for more brush shapes and types, including custom brushes, will be making an appearance in a future update.

The newly rewritten brush engine is supported by all of the brush tools: Paintbrush, Eraser, Clone Stamp, and Recolor. This also enables new styles of drawing, such as the following which was drawn with a spacing value of 200%: The default is 15% which does a great job, but sometimes you need finer control. There is a new spacing property in the toolbar. Path smoothing, sometimes called stabilization, is now implemented (enabled by default in the toolbar):

Most devices support this, including the Surface Pen and various drawing tablets from Wacom, UGEE, and more. Support for the Windows “pointer” input system (aka “Windows Ink”) is required. To get the update, scroll all the way to the bottom to the big bold “Get the Update” text.īack by popular demand*, pressure sensitivity is now supported, enabling you to draw beautiful, natural-looking brush strokes (see above). Almost all of the built-in effects and adjustments now render using the GPU, greatly improving their performance and quality. Welcome to Paint.NET 5.0! This major update has many performance improvements, new features including pressure sensitivity for pens and drawing tablets, and a brand new effect plugin system with GPU rendering support.

Paint.NET 5.0.9 instaling