Paint.NET

You can read all about HD Photo here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_Photo

NOTE: This is a BETA release. Eventually it will be built-in to Paint.NET though.

.NET Framework 3.0 is required for this plugin to work. This is built-in to Windows Vista, or you can download it for XP here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/deta ... 634C3BF043

You must also have Paint.NET v3.20. Earlier versions of Paint.NET will not work.

Installation Instructions:

1) Copy HDPhoto.dll to C:/Program Files/Paint.NET/FileTypes
2) Restart Paint.NET (if it was already started)

If you installed to a place other than "C:/Program Files/Paint.NET" then substitute the appropriate directory name.

Download: http://www.getpaint.net/files/zip/HDPhoto.0.4.zip

Change Log:

v0.1, April 5th -- Initial release. Expires on June 1st, 2007.

v0.2, April 28th 2007 -- Added ability to open images that are not 32-bit BGRA. Also added ability to save in 24-bit format. This version now expires on July 1st, 2007.

v0.2 (again), June 16th, 2007 -- Recompiled and re-uploaded. Expiration date is now September 1st, 2007, and also will expire if Paint.NET reports that it is version 3.20 or newer. July 4th -- reuploaded version that should work now.

v0.3 -- September 8th, 2007 -- Recompiled and re-uploaded. Removed date-based expiration in favor of version-based expiration. This plugin will cease working if Paint.NET is upgraded to version 3.20 or newer (which doesn't exist yet -- the plan is simply to have the plugin integrated by then).

v0.4 -- December 14th, 2007 -- New release that works w/ Paint.NET v3.20. Version expiration now set so that it won't expire until Paint.NET v4.0.

When saving, selecting quality 100 means lossless?

Correct.

If I am understanding this correctly, image quality is as good(or better) as PNG and image compression is comparable to JPG?

What about a Label?
"Quality is set to 100 so the compression will be lossless, blah blah" when lossless.
"If you select a lower quality you will loss details" or something...

@Buzz: I think you cannot compare WDP and PNG/JPG as there is a lossy and lossless mode.
So in lossless mode the filesize can be better than PNG and in lossy mode the thing beats JPG far away.
(Quick and dirty explanation)

A quick and dirty explanation is just fine.

Thanks Bob.

Great plugin Rick, but other than PDN, does anyone know of any programs that can view HD photos (that's free )? I've gone for that HD Photo Porting Kit but nothing seems to have changed; then again I could have misunderstood its purpose and it's not what I thought it was. Having said that, I haven't restarted my lappy yet....

Yeah this is just a beta/test plugin. The final version, once integrated in to Paint.NET, will have a quick explanation that 100 = lossless.

Windows Vista had Ver. 3.0...? Cause i saw the preview... Right...?

PNG: 149KB
JPEG highest quality: 99KB
HD (lossless): 107KB
HD (Quality at 95): 80KB

EDIT:



PNG: 160KB
HD (lossless): 184KB

Pretty nice; every image is unique compression-wise.

As far as those two images, I have found that darker images almost always take up more space when working with the same dimensions and compression quality.

not when the PNG is compressed with PNGOUT. not even HD Photo beats that.

My Paint.NET has been crashing lately whenever I try saving a pic. Is that coz I don't have this? Or something else?

No -- it is something else.

If Paint.NET is crashing, please send me the crash log (pdncrash.log should be on your desktop -- there's an e-mail address listed at the top).