Phenquestions
A new version of the Windows image editor Paint.net, Paint.net 4.2.9, has been released on January 31, 2020. The new version of the image editor includes significant performance improvements as well as other changes and bug fixes.
Paint.net 4.2.9 is the first stable update of 2020; it is available for desktop versions of Windows and can be downloaded from the developer website or the Microsoft Store. If Paint.net is already installed, it should notify the user about the update so that it can be downloaded and installed. A click on the Settings icon and the selection of Updates > Check Now runs an update check immediately as well.
Paint.net 4.2.9
The biggest change in Paint.net 4.2.9 falls into the performance category. The developer of the application managed to reduce overall memory usage of the image editor by up to a third by eliminating the "per-image scratch buffer". The change is not the only performance related improvement in the new version.
As far as memory usage is concerned, usage was also reduced when "working with many tools" by "consolidating homogeneous tiles" and when printing.
Performance of certain operations has been improved as well. The developer lists the following items with improved performance:
- History actions such as undo, redo, or commit (by switching from NTFS compression to multithreaded LZ4 compression for history files).
- Undo and Redo with complex selections.
- Image > Flatten.
- Invert colors and desaturate adjustments.
- When saving files.
- Effect rendering.
- Finishing actions of most tools.
All of these improvements should be noticeable when using the application.
The new version of Paint.net includes two new translations (Hebrew and Slovak), and a new "busy spinner" icon that is displayed when the Magic Wand or Paint Bucket tools are being used in the editor.
Paint.net 4.2.9 features several fixes, among them several crash fixes. Last but not least, two plugins were updated as well in the new version.
Closing Words
Paint.net is a high quality image editor for Windows that is updated regularly. The updates include fixes but often also improvements or new features, and that is one core reason why the program is popular.
Now You: which image editor do you use, and why?
