Paint.NET

The only reason why I am so cranky is because the program I've used for many years, the program I've installed on at least 300 computers, the program that I recommended to every family member who wanted to edit their pictures, the program that I would like to see become a full photoshop replacement, is now so hideous that it hurts my eyes!

On my PC I have a lot of Adobe software and Sony Soundforge wich I use for sound-editing and not a single one of them has a system-color as a background. They all have a grey background. The argument "vast majority of software tries to respect the user's theme settings in order to blend in better" doesn't make any sence when all the professional software I have does not change the background depending on wich theme is installed.

I honestly don't beleave that someone actually complained about the grey background, a background that you will find in any sound/movie/image editing software. If someone complains about something that is perfectly normal, just ask him to name a peace of software that does what he wants, that will shut him up, simply because that software doesn't exist. Well, it might exist, but it will probably be some crappy peace of software and not pro-software like Adobe Premier or Adobe Photoshop.

Oh well, I made my point and I stand by it. I hope you guys understand my frustration with something as simpel as "a background".
I can honestly say that I use Paint.net every single day.

The only complaints about the gradient background were from the guy who stated -- and very correctly, I might add -- that it was causing tonal misjudgements or something. Basically, having a lighter color around the image at the top, versus darker at the bottom, made it harder to judge tones in the image itself. The other complaint was from the guy with the hideous color scheme, which I am not worried about.

For reference, here's how Paint.NET looks in the 5 standard themes across Vista and XP.

Vista screenshot


XP - Luna Blue


XP - Luna Olive Green


XP - Luna Silver


XP - Classic

Here is a replacement for PaintDotNet.Core.dll. Close Paint.NET, drop this into the installation directory, which is usually C:\Program Files\Paint.NET, and then restart Paint.NET.

It will force the background color to be #C6C6C6 (the color you see in the Vista screenshot). However, if you don't like that color then you can set the registry key, HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ SOFTWARE \ Paint.NET \ BackgroundColor , to the hex color of your choice. It should be a string (REG_SZ) and be 6 hexadecimal digits, such as "c6c6c6" or "ffffff" (without quotes). To make this affect all users on the computer, set the same key except go into HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ *.

Anyway, tell me what you think. I am not planning on having this registry key around in the next update to 3.xx, and in 4.0 if it's important enough then I'll have a setting in some dialog for it.

Beatifull, the .dll file changed it back to normal. Paint.net is beatifull once again
Will this dll work in future releases? Because then I'll make a backup before I update to the next version.

No, that DLL will certainly not work in a future release. By then I should have a better, or at least more permanent, solution.

I sure hope it didn't take too much time away from our version 4 to fix that cutuffall up. As you can guess I really don't care what color the background is or what theme you use as long as its not black.

I enjoy what ever you put up there for us Rick, its a fine program and I appreciate you sharing your expertice and time working on this first class artwork program for us all.
ciao
OMA

actually black wouldn't be a wrong choice to a background color because it's neutral so is gray and white, everything else is just ... er ... not-neutral?? anyways just a thought...(I'm getting way to much obnoxious)

Grey is the default color in the majority of the editing software. Nobody can or will complain about it simply because it's the standard.
When you go for black or system colors or anything else people aren't used to, you risk getting unsatisfied users.

I blogged about it here, http://blog.getpaint.net/2008/07/10/pai ... ackground/ , and have been getting responses back that say "Yes, grey is the answer." Now the question is ... which grey? #808080 and #7f7f7f are "50% gray" by one definition, but don't take gamma into account.

What does Photoshop do other programs use?

Anyway I can change the background color?
I kind of liked the olive color..
lol

Edit:whoops, im stupid. Thanks Rick

You know Rick, I would love a color wheel in the prefences to change this background color. This would make it alot easier for somebody like me that loves to compare my work against multiple color schemes and the like. That to me would be a solid resolution to this problem and would also develop more benefit for image creation.

A safe bet would be the same color as Photoshop uses. Wich is #c0c0c0. Photoshop is and will always be the most popular editing software. So there is no harm in using the same color.

Actually, Rick, using a non system color would fix my unreported Aero issues I am getting when Paint.NET is minimized

I have no idea what you're talking about?