To achieve this tutorial, you will need the feather plugin installed on your paint.net release. We will start from an elephant in the savannah. The goal is to crop the elephant.

And now the steps to perform this tutorial :

1/ Add a new layer (CTRL + SHIFT + N);

2/ Select the white color as primary color (left click on the white color);

3/ Select the zoom tool (« Z » key) and then zoom in to reach a level of detail where you can see the aliasing between the elephant skin and the background of the photo;

4/ Select the line/curve tool (« O » key);

5/ Draw lines and curves along the elephant skin, the goal is to surround it entirely. We will repeat this operation many times to completely surround the object. Use the 4 points on the line to give a curve effect that really encompass the elephant;

6/ When the elephant is completely surrounded by white lines, select the magic wand (« S » key) and then click on the white line to select it;

7/ Switch to the bottom layer (the elephant one);

8/ Press SUPPR key to delete the selection;

9/ Select the magic wand tool (« S » key) and then click on the area outside of the elephant. This area is now entirely slected. If that’s not the case, press the CTRL key and click on the deselected areas outside of the elephant in order to add these to the current selection;

10/ Press SUPPR key to delete the selection;

11/ Select the top layer and delete it (CTRL + SHIFT + DEL);

12/ Perform a feather effect (Effects menu > Object > Feather) with the following parameters : feather radius at 1, effect strength at 1 and true feather ticked. This will soften the elephant skin edges.

Here we are with a nice cropped elephant. In order to realize this complex cropping, it took me 40 minutes. Based on your mouse agility, it may take less or more time to do this.

You can now use your cropped object in order to insert it on another photo :

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First, here is the starting picture :

As you can see, it has a very nice chimney from which we will make smoke emerge.

Here are the steps to add smoke on this picture :

1/ Add a new layer (CTRL + SHIFT + N);

2/ Select the area next to the chimney top with the ellispe selection tool (S key);

3/ Apply a cloud effect (Effects menu > Render > Clouds) with the following values : scale at 110 and roughness at 0.90;

4/ Deselect (CTRL + D);

5/ Apply a motion blur (Effects menu > Blurs > Motion blur) with the following settings : angle at 90° and distance at 80;

6/ Apply a SinWaves effect (Effects menu > Distort > SinWaves) with these params : amplitude at 5 and horizontal period at 15. This effect will create the wave aspect of the smoke.

7/ Apply a gaussian blur (Effects menu > Blurs > Gaussian blur) with a radius of 2;

8/ Apply a glow effect (Effects menu > Photo > Glow) with the following values : radius at 5, brightness at -15 and contrast at 45;

9/ Switch the layer blending mode (F4 key) to screen mode;

10/ You can perform a gradient (S key) on the smoke density (in order to simulate the dissipation) with the following values : transparency mode and linear and then perform the gradient from bottom to top.

Here is the final result of the house with the smoke coming out of it :

To perform this tutorial, you will need the following paint.net plugin :

• le magical plugins megapack.

The nice thing is that you can reuse this technique for other contexts such as a cup of coffee, a cigatte, a fire, etc…

To write this original tutorial, I started from this tutorial photoshop that I have adapted to paint.net with few modifications.

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The final render will be quite simple (free circles) but we could apply principles for more complex mix of forms.

Let’s have a view on the steps now :

1/ Start from a white paper that we will errase : CTRL+A to select everything and then Suppr to delete the white background.

2/ Draw free black circles on the empty sheet. We use the « O » key to select the ellipse and we draw a first circle. We then use the magic wand (S key) and we click on the circle we have just drawn to select it. We perform a first copy/paste (CTRL+C then CTRL+V) to obtain a second circle than we will position on the right side. We perform a second paste (CTRL+V) to position the last black circle at the bottom intersection of the others. This gives you the following result :

3/ We will create three additionnal layers on top of the first one (CTRL + SHIFT + N x 3).

4/ We select the first layer (background) in the layer stack (F7 key to make it visible).

5/ We select the area inside a first circle with the magic wand (S key). Don’t forget to select as well the intersection with the others circles. To extend the selection, press the CTRL key and then click on the area to be added to the current selection.

6/ We select the second layer in the layer stack.

7/ We select the first color of our choice (here the blue) in order to perform a gradient (G key) from top to bottom. We unselect (CTRL + D). We now have this result :

8/ We will perform twice the steps 5, 6 and 7 with the remaining colors (red and yellow). Each time, we select the background layer (the one at the bottom of the layer stack) to select the empty circle with the magic wand and then we select the first empty layer (number 3 and then number 4). We then pick up the right color for the empty circle and we perform again the gradient. We obtain this result, almost complete :

9/ We will merge the layers with a blending mode allowing a nice visual effect. Therefore, we select the top layer of the layer stack. We select its properties (F4 key) and we switch the blending mode to « multiply ». We then merge it with next layer (CTRL + M). We perform again this operation until the last layer (blending mode change and then merge with next layer).

This allows to obtain this final result :

Here we are, hope it was helpfull for you and it gives you a good view on what can be achieved from a layer prospective under Paint.Net!

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To perform this tutorial, you will need the « feather » effect plugin that can be downloaded here.  To install it, just uncompress the .dll file in the effects directory of your paint.net insallation folder and then relaunch paint.net so that it can initialize with the plugin.

The cropping technique is essential in order to perform complex merges from different pictures. So it is important to undersand and manage it.

The idea there is to make the lawn disappear. Here is how to proceed :

1/ Duplicate the layer (Ctrl + Shift + D);

2/ Select the newly created layer;

3/ Use the extract channel effect with the following parameters : HSV – Hue (Effects menu > Color > Extract Channel);

4/ Use the magic wand (S) in global flood mode (earth icon);

5/ Adjust tolerance to 40%;

6/ Click on the « green » area of the picture, this will select the biggest part of the green area on the picture;

7/ If the selection isn’t perfect (green parts not selected) : press the Ctrl key and click on the missing parts to select these;

8/ Select the bottom layer;

9/ Press the Suppr key;

10/ Select the top layer and delete it;

11/ Use the feather effect with the following values : Amount 4, Strength 4 and Shrink.

That’s it, nice work, isn’t it?

By looking at the result, you can feel it is a bit too aliased. This is especially true because of the white background. For a cleaner result, you can use the outline effect (Effects menu > Object > Outline). This will give you the following result :

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It is better to have a frame a bit larger than the picture to frame. If you don’t know where to find frames, check out there.

Then, here are the steps :

1/ Open the picture to frame;

2/ Paste in a new layer the frame (open the frame, select it with CTRL + A, then copy it with CTRL + C and finally paste it in the newly created layer with CTRL + SHIFT + V);

3/ Adjust the frame to the picture to surround it tightly;

4/ Merge the layers (CTRL + M).

Here is the final result :

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So here is the starting picture for this tutorial :

And now, here are the steps to follow on to age this picture :

1/ We switch it to sepia (Adjustements menu > Sepia or Ctrl + Shift + E);

2/ We add a bit of noise (Effects menu >Noise > Add noise) with the following parameters : Intensity at 15, Color Saturation at 250 and Coverage at 100;

3/ We create a white border (Effects menu > Render > Border) with the thickness parameter set to 5;

4/ We select an area starting next to the white border plus few pixels and we invert the selection (CTRL + I). We now have a selection encompassing the white border plus few pixels;

5/ We perform a dents effect (Effects menu > Distort > Dents) with the following parameters : Scale at 15, Amount at 60 and Quality at 2;

6/ We modify Hue and Saturation (Adjustements menu > Hue/Saturation) with the following parameters : Hue at 0, Saturation at 110 and Lightness at 10.

And here is the result :

To perform this tutorial, you will need to download paint.net of course but also to use the following plugins :

- Ed Harvey package;

- border effect.

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If you’d like to keep the transparency on edges of the picture so that it fits well with any page background (even if it isn’t white), you need to save it as gif or png and not jpeg as the jpeg doesn’t support the transparency layer.

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1/ Start from a blue screen;

2/ Add a new layer (Ctrl + Shift + N);

3/ Select the top layer and fill it with white (F key);

4/ Add noise (Effects menu > Noise > Add noise) with the following values : Intensity at 100, Color Saturation at 0 and Coverage at 100;

5/ Perform a zoom blur (Effects menu > Blurs > Zoom blur) with the following values : zoom amount at 100, horizontal centering at 0 and vertical at -1,10;

6/ Edit layer properties and switch blending mode to  »Overlay » and adjust transparency to 100;

7/ Merge the layers (Ctrl + M).

Here is the result :

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And now, here are the different steps :

1/ Select the clouds area (S key with 50% tolerance);
2/ Create a new layer (CTRL + Shift + N) and select it;
3/ As primary color, select a blue (code A0CBFF) and as secondary color, keep the white;
4/ Perform a clouds effect (effects menu/render/clouds) with the following parameters : scale at 600 and roughness at 0.50;
5/ Modify brightness and contrast (ajustements menu/brightness and contrast) with the following values : brightness at -75 and contrast at +60.

6/ Create a new layer (CTRL + Shift + N) and select it;
7/ Draw lines to define the flash within the sky (P key);
8/ Perform a feather effect (effects menu/object/feather) with the following parameters : amount at 2, strength at 2 and grow mode;
9/ Repeat this effect (CTRL + F);
10/ Perform a motion blur (effects menu/blurs/motion blur) with the following parameters : angle at 25° and distance at 8.
11/ Perform a shadow effect (menu effects/stylise/drop shadow) with a purple gradian (R: 134, G: 120 and B:193) and the following parameters : offset X at 0, offset Y at 0, Blur Radius at 8;
12/ Merge the layers.

And here is the final result :

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Here are the steps to follow in order to create a parchment from scratch :

1/ We start from a transparent sheet;

2/ We select the area where we want to create the parchment (S) and then we select DED898 as primary color code and EFE6C0 as secondary color code;

3/ We perform a clouds effect (effects menu > render > clouds) with the following parameters : scale 1000 and roughness 1,00;

4/ We perform a dents effects (effects menu > distort > dents) with the following parameters : scale 15 and amount 50;

5/ We add noise (effects menu > noise > add noise) with the following parameters : intensity 50, color saturation 0 and coverage 100;

6/ We perform a motion blur (effects menu > blurs > motion blur) with the following parameters : angle 0° and distance 5;

7/ We duplicate the layer (CTRL + Shift + D);

8/ We apply an outline effect (effects menu > stylize > outline) on the new layer;

9/ We edit layer properties and switch it to multiply mode;

10/ We merge the layers (CTRL + M);

11/ We perform a drop shadow effect with the following parameters : offset X at 5, offset Y at 5 and blur radius at 5.

Here is the final result for your medieval parchment, you can easily add text to it :

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