Paint.NET - Photoshop for Beginners
One of my dreams I hadn't had the chance to fulfil was to learn to design graphics for websites. Now, at last I'm getting to it - not real logos or icons yet, but the mockups of the complete page layouts as the first and easiest step. (Actually, to my surprise, it was much easier than I thought).
At this stage, it's not done for business purposes - we have a good graphic designer - but for self-development, though we never know what we might need tomorrow. And while I have downloaded an e-book on Photoshop and have been reading it and trying to play with the software, my first mock-ups are done using Paint.NET, a free substitute for powerful graphic processors that most professionals use.
Paint.NET is available for download at getpaint.net |, and I can safely recommend it to anyone who is just learning how to design websites. It can't do everything that Photoshop or Fireworks can do, but it's still powerful enough, and at the same time so easy to use, you can figure out most of it intuitively without ebooks or lessons with a tutor; trial and error will do it. After all, when you are at the start, the main goals are to find the harmony in colours and positioning of your elements, acquire your own style and try playing with different palettes and geometrical patterns. Once you have exercised enough with the basics, you can proceed to learn cool and sexy features of the more powerful (and expensive) graphic processors.
What can Paint.NET do?
A lot. Gradients for example. Applied to a couple of stripes, they immediately make your simple 2D mock-up look professional. Also, there are several different blurs and distortions, a Relief feature (when I figured out how to use it properly, I managed to achieve some sexy effects), a red eye removal for photos and various features aimed at adjusting colours (take a grey image of a computer and make it blue, green, golden or whatever you need for your design using Levels, or take a dark photo and brighten it up using Brightness and Contrast). I've just named the features I use most often; there are a lot more.
Oh yes, there are layers too.
I have to warn you though. The thing is highly addictive. Not so long ago I tried to make soft-boiled eggs for me and my daughter. I put them on the oven and went back to the computer to make "just a couple of small adjustments" to one of the files. An hour later I had to eat two very hard bolied eggs (they reminded me of the ones baked on a campfire and were quite good), make a new one for Janna and clean the pan.
This site is designed using Paint.NET. I didn't have to touch Photoshop.
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Last modified: 20.10.2009
