Today, we’re gonna talk about the free Photoshop substitution called Paint.NET. Apparently it is supposed to be the best freeware when it comes to photo editing, so, I thought, why not test it?

And, don’t worry, in Paint.NET you can still use Photoshop brushes with a little help from one plug-in but we’ll talk about it later.

When I went to download Paint.NET, the first thing that stunned me was the size of that software. 1.6Mb! Now, that’s small! It’s probably fast as well!

So, download was quick. Installation, not so much but to work with it is real fast. Of course the interface and the features of Paint.NET can’t come nowhere near the features on Photoshop, but keeping in mind the price difference (Paint.NET is free) and the average need of the designer-beginner, Paint.NET can be just fine.

So, here is the procedure on using Photoshop brushes in this free application:

Get Paint.NET
 1. Download Paint.NET here (direct download link) ->
 2. Paint.NET homepage ->

Get Paint.NET Custom Brush Plug-in
 1. Download Custom brush plug-in (direct link) ->
2. Custom brush plug-in download page ->
To install Custom brush plug-in just place it to “Paint.NET/Effects” folder.

Get Paint.NET Custom Brushes
1. Paint.NET Custom brushes are basically .png files, ideally 100px x 100px, 96dpi
2. Such png files need to be copied to “My Documents\Paint.NET User Files\Custom Brushes”
3. In Paint.NET go to Effects -> Draw with custom brush (make sure you installed the plug-in first)

Photoshop brushes, .png version LITE

Please note: These brushes are downloadable in .png format. Since those are not in 100px x 100px (96dpi) the best way to use them, is to import them into Paint.NET using “Layers -> Import from File” command.

Get the FULL PREMIUM (18 brushes) Swirled Floral Edges Photoshop brushes set (including commercial license) ->

And Voila! That’s it!

So, if you’re hungry for more brushes, there are 22 Photoshop brushes sets with a total of 700+ HiRes professional brushes with commercial license in my little Shop. Prices start at $9.99 and they’re so cool and huge that they’re worth every single cent. And more. Don’t believe me? See for yourself ->

P.S.
If you want to convert the original Photoshop brushes to .png yourself here is the tutorial. This one is made for Paint Shop PRO, but the procedure for converting PS brushes to .png is the same ->