This update is focusing on small fixes, performance improvements, and getting some infrastructure ready for future releases.

Pen/stylus support (pressure sensitivity) is finally coming back in 4.3, but the initial groundwork for that is in this release. If you’re not using a pen or a stylus then you should see no difference in this release, but it’s also really important to verify that that’s the case! If anything has changed then it’s very important to report that to me. I’ve redone a lot of the input stack to use WM_POINTER if available, but the “classic” path is still there for handling regular mouse input.

To get this update, make sure you have "Also check for pre-release (beta) versions" enabled in Settings, and then click on the Check Now button. (Unfortunately alpha/beta releases are not currently available for the Microsoft Store version of the app.

There’s also a direct download link over on the forum.

Changes since 4.2.5:

• Improved input handling systems to use WM_POINTER, which enables glitch-free drawing when using a pen or stylus (e.g. Surface w/ Pen) (see here: https://forums.getpaint.net/topic/113173-the-first-5mm-of-a-freehand-line-are-straight-when-using-a-tablet/ ). This will also be the basis for adding pressure sensitivity in a future release (v4.3). Note that Windows 7 is unaffected by this.
• Greatly improved performance of layer thumbnails when switching between images
• Fixed a crash (OutOfVideoMemoryException) on systems with hybrid GPU setups that are configured wrong. This seems to be a bug in Windows and DirectX. A "hybrid GPU" setup is an Intel iGPU or AMD APU paired with a discrete GPU in a laptop.
• Improved handling of the dreaded "NoHardwareDeviceException" crash: The user will be notified of how to fix this. It happens only on 2nd generation Intel Core systems with NVIDIA "Optimus" GPUs (GeForce or Quadro) when the NVIDIA Control Panel is set to force apps (or just Paint.NET) to use the NVIDIA GPU. This is a bug in the NVIDIA driver and/or in DirectX.
• Improved performance of Move Selected Pixels, Shapes, and Gradient tools when releasing the mouse button at the end of drag-and-drop gesture. Previously, anything rendered between the last mouse "move" and "up" events was re-rendered, resulting in the appearance of a delay/lag.
• Fixed some clipboard image handling for plugins (regular Copy/Paste is unaffected)
• Improved window chrome/theming when the app is running in Remote Desktop on Windows 10
• Fixed images being pasted incorrectly from Outlook 2016/365. This is actually a bug in Outlook: it puts PNGs on the clipboard that are arbitrarily cropped and scaled for some reason, and specifies they are the preferred format to use when pasting. This completely boggles my mind, it’s just really weird, I can’t imagine why it’s done this way.
• Changed: The size of the default/initial image ("Untitled") is now scaled exactly by system DPI setting (previously scaled by integer/floor of DPI setting). So at 150% DPI scaling this image will now be 1200×900 instead of 800×600.
• Fixed some high-DPI layout bugs with the Layer Properties dialog, while also preparing this UI for future additions
• Updated bundled WebPFileType plugin to v1.3.1.0 (thanks @null54!)
• Updated bundled DDSFileTypePlus plugin to v1.9.8.0 (thanks @null54!)
• Changed: SSE2 is now required for 32-bit/x86 systems (prevously, only SSE was required). See blog post: https://blog.getpaint.net/2019/10/14/paint-net-v4-2-6-will-require-sse2-on-32-bit-x86/ 

This is a pretty straightforward update, adding WebP (*.webp) support and fixing a few important bugs (like copy-paste from Firefox).

If you’re using the Windows Store release, you should get the update automatically within the next 24 hours. You can also force an update check by following these instructions.

For the Classic release, you should be offered the update automatically within the next week or so. You can get the update sooner by going to ⚙ Settings → Updates → Check Now. You can also download and install it directly from the website.

Changes since 4.2.4:

• New: WebP images are now supported due to bundling @null54‘s excellent WebPFileType plugin (v1.3.0.0)
• Fixed: Pasting images from Firefox’s "Take a Screenshot" feature was resulting in swapped red and blue channels due to mishandling of DIB_V5 clipboard data using the BI_RGB value for bV5Compression (thanks @null54 for the fix!)
• Fixed crash at startup (for both app and installer) on Windows "N" editions due to missing mfplat.dll (Media Foundation Platform)
• Updated bundled DDSFileTypePlus plugin to v1.9.7.0

Enjoy!

This hotfix addresses some crashes and hangs that were happening when saving DDS images in certain formats.

If you’re using the Windows Store release, you should get the update automatically within the next 24 hours. You can also force an update check by following these instructions.

For the Classic release, you should be offered the update automatically within the next week or so. You can get the updater soon by going to ⚙ Settings → Updates → Check Now. You can also download and install it directly from the website.

Because 4.2.2, 4.2.3, and 4.2.4 are all kind of the same release (the latter two are hotfixes), here are the full set of changes:

Changes in 4.2.4:

• Fixed a hang, which sometimes also resulted in a crash, when saving DDS images in certain formats (e.g. BC1/DXT1)
• Improved: Reduced CPU usage in the COM interop system, which should help reduce overall power consumption

Changes in 4.2.3:

• Fixed: A missing DLL, vcomp140.dll, was preventing the bundled DDSFileTypePlus plugin from loading on some systems

Changes in 4.2.2:

• New: AV1 (*.avif) images can now be opened (saving is not supported). Windows 10 v1809+ and Microsoft’s AV1 Codec are required (download: https://www.microsoft.com/p/av1-video-extension-beta/9mvzqvxjbq9v)
• New: DirectDraw Surface (*.dds) support has been greatly improved due to bundling @null54‘s DDSFileTypePlus v1.9.6.0 plugin. All DX10/DX11 formats should now be supported (e.g. BC4, BC5, BC6H, BC7), and encoding (saving) will make use of the GPU to greatly improve performance. Note that it’s no longer necessary to use the ".dds2" file extension.
• New: 4-bit saving is now supported for PNG, BMP, and TIFF
• New: The palette selection menu will now indicate which palette is currently active (thanks @null54 for the implementation!)
• Improved: The maximum image size is now 262,144 x 262,144 pixels, up from 65,535 x 65,535 pixels. This is mostly for accommodating very tall or very wide images.
• Improved: Startup performance has been improved for multi-core CPUs
• Improved: Startup performance has been improved when a lot of custom shapes are installed
• Fixed: EXIF metadata of type Float and Double are now supported. This ensures GeoTIFF metadata is preserved. 
• Fixed: Opening an image should no longer flicker due to the transparency checkerboard being drawn first
• Fixed: TGA images that are 16-bit with 1-bit alpha with a zero’d out alpha channel are now treated as opaque. This allows images from 5CC Map Maker (for Close Combat modding) to work. Thanks @null54 for the fix!
• Fixed: JPEG XR’s file extensions (*.jxr, *.wdp, *.wmp) are now registered with Explorer
• Fixed: Pasting images that use RGB pixel ordering should now work (this affects PaintTool SAI)
• Fixed a crash when manually typing in a very large number for the zoom level in the status bar

Enjoy!

This hotfix addresses an issue that was preventing DDS images from working on some systems.

See the post about the 4.2.2 release for more information on all the goodies that are now included

If you’re using the Windows Store release, you should get the update automatically within the next 24 hours. You can also force an update check by following these instructions.

For the Classic release, you should be offered the update automatically within the next week or so. You can get the updater soon by going to ⚙ Settings → Updates → Check Now. You can also download and install it directly from the website.

Changes since 4.2.2:

• Fixed: A missing DLL, vcomp140.dll, was preventing the bundled DDSFileTypePlus plugin from loading on some systems

As a reminder, here are the changes that 4.2.2 had compared to 4.2.1:

• New: AV1 (*.avif) images can now be opened (saving is not supported). Windows 10 v1809+ and Microsoft’s AV1 Codec are required (download: https://www.microsoft.com/p/av1-video-extension-beta/9mvzqvxjbq9v)
• New: DirectDraw Surface (*.dds) support has been greatly improved due to bundling @null54‘s DDSFileTypePlus v1.9.6.0 plugin. All DX10/DX11 formats should now be supported (e.g. BC4, BC5, BC6H, BC7), and encoding (saving) will make use of the GPU to greatly improve performance. Note that it’s no longer necessary to use the ".dds2" file extension.
• New: 4-bit saving is now supported for PNG, BMP, and TIFF
• New: The palette selection menu will now indicate which palette is currently active (thanks @null54 for the implementation!)
• Improved: The maximum image size is now 262,144 x 262,144 pixels, up from 65,535 x 65,535 pixels. This is mostly for accommodating very tall or very wide images.
• Improved: Startup performance has been improved for multi-core CPUs
• Improved: Startup performance has been improved when a lot of custom shapes are installed
• Fixed: EXIF metadata of type Float and Double are now supported. This ensures GeoTIFF metadata is preserved. 
• Fixed: Opening an image should no longer flicker due to the transparency checkerboard being drawn first
• Fixed: TGA images that are 16-bit with 1-bit alpha with a zero’d out alpha channel are now treated as opaque. This allows images from 5CC Map Maker (for Close Combat modding) to work. Thanks @null54 for the fix!
• Fixed: JPEG XR’s file extensions (*.jxr, *.wdp, *.wmp) are now registered with Explorer
• Fixed: Pasting images that use RGB pixel ordering should now work (this affects PaintTool SAI)
• Fixed a crash when manually typing in a very large number for the zoom level in the status bar

Enjoy!

This update adds AV1 (*.avif) loading support, significantly improves DirectDraw Surface (DDS) support, adds 4-bit saving for PNG, BMP, and TIFF, fixes several bugs, and optimizes startup time.

If you’re using the Windows Store release, you should get the update automatically within the next 24 hours. You can also force an update check by following these instructions.

For the Classic release, you should be offered the update automatically within the next week or so. You can get the updater soon by going to ⚙ Settings → Updates → Check Now. You can also download and install it directly from the website.

Regarding the bundling of DDSFileTypePlus, which replaces the old built-in DDS support: The key word here is bundling. The plugin is now installed into a separate directory called Bundled (a technical detail that you shouldn’t have to worry about). If you already have DDSFileTypePlus installed into the FileTypes directory then it will not be loaded; instead, the bundled version will be used (usually … keep reading).

However, the bundled plugin is only updated when Paint.NET itself is updated, and @null54 will still be releasing DDSFileTypePlus updates independently of Paint.NET’s updates. If you want to, you can still install the DDSFileTypePlus plugin into the FileTypes directory. If the "user-installed" version (in the FileTypes directory) is newer than the "bundled" version, then the user-installed version will be used instead of the bundled version.

tl;dr — The DDSFileTypePlus plugin can exist in two locations: "Bundled" (which comes with Paint.NET) and "FileTypes" (where you normally install plugins). Whichever one is newer will be loaded, and the other one is ignored.

So, for many folks, you can just leave DDSFileTypePlus alone and it will automatically be updated to its latest version whenever a Paint.NET update is installed. But if a new version of DDSFileTypePlus is released and it contains a feature or a fix that you need, and you can’t wait, you can just install it like usual and it will be used instead of the (older) bundled version.

(Also, note that the .dds2 file extension is no longer necessary when using DDSFileTypePlus — whether it’s bundled or user-installed!)

Changes since 4.2.1:

• New: AV1 (*.avif) images can now be opened (saving is not supported). Windows 10 v1809+ and Microsoft’s AV1 Codec are required (download: https://www.microsoft.com/p/av1-video-extension-beta/9mvzqvxjbq9v)
• New: DirectDraw Surface (*.dds) support has been greatly improved due to bundling @null54‘s DDSFileTypePlus v1.9.6.0 plugin. All DX10/DX11 formats should now be supported (e.g. BC4, BC5, BC6H, BC7), and encoding (saving) will make use of the GPU to greatly improve performance. Note that it’s no longer necessary to use the ".dds2" file extension.
• New: 4-bit saving is now supported for PNG, BMP, and TIFF
• New: The palette selection menu will now indicate which palette is currently active (thanks @null54 for the implementation!)
• Improved: The maximum image size is now 262,144 x 262,144 pixels, up from 65,535 x 65,535 pixels. This is mostly for accommodating very tall or very wide images.
• Improved: Startup performance has been improved for multi-core CPUs
• Improved: Startup performance has been improved when a lot of custom shapes are installed
• Fixed: EXIF metadata of type Float and Double are now supported. This ensures GeoTIFF metadata is preserved. 
• Fixed: Opening an image should no longer flicker due to the transparency checkerboard being drawn first
• Fixed: TGA images that are 16-bit with 1-bit alpha with a zero’d out alpha channel are now treated as opaque. This allows images from 5CC Map Maker (for Close Combat modding) to work. Thanks @null54 for the fix!
• Fixed: JPEG XR’s file extensions (*.jxr, *.wdp, *.wmp) are now registered with Explorer
• Fixed: Pasting images that use RGB pixel ordering should now work (this affects PaintTool SAI)
• Fixed a crash when manually typing in a very large number for the zoom level in the status bar

Enjoy!

This update has some goodies in it. AV1 (*.avif) support has been added, DirectDraw Surface (*.dds) support has been completely upgraded by way of bundling @null54‘s excellent DDSFileTypePlus plugin, and there are some great performance improvements and bug fixes.

To get this update, make sure you have “Also check for pre-release (beta) versions” enabled in Settings, and then click on the Check Now button.

You can also download this by heading over to the forum where I’ve put a direct download link.

Change log:

• New: AV1 (*.avif) images can now be opened (saving is not supported). Windows 10 v1809+ and Microsoft’s AV1 Codec are required (download: https://www.microsoft.com/p/av1-video-extension-beta/9mvzqvxjbq9v)
• New: DirectDraw Surface (*.dds) support has been greatly improved due to bundling @null54‘s DDSFileTypePlus plugin. All DX10/DX11 formats should now be supported (e.g. BC4, BC5, BC6H, BC7), and encoding (saving) will make use of the GPU to greatly improve performance. Note that it’s not longer necessary to use the “.dds2” file extension.
• Improved: Startup performance has been improved
• Fixed: EXIF metadata of type Float and Double are now supported. This ensures GeoTIFF metadata is preserved.
• Fixed: Opening an image should no longer flicker because the transparency checkerboard was being drawn first
• Fixed: TGA images that are 16-bit with 1-bit alpha with a zero’d out alpha channel are now treated as opaque. This allows images from 5CC Map Maker (for Close Combat modding) to work. Thanks @null54 for the fix!
• Fixed: JPEG XR’s file extensions (*.jxr, *.wdp, *.wmp) are now registered with Explorer
• Fixed: Pasting images that use RGB pixel ordering should now work (this affects PaintTool SAI)

This is an important update that fixes many issues, including some crashes. It also adds JPEG XR file type support for Windows 8.1+.

If you’re using the Windows Store release, you should get the update automatically within the next 24 hours. You can also force an update check by following these instructions.

For the Classic release, you should be offered the update automatically within the next week or so. You can get the updater soon by going to ⚙ Settings → Updates → Check Now. You can also download and install it directly from the website.

Change log:

• New: JPEG XR file type support (Windows 8.1+ required)
• Fixed: Holding Ctrl when dragging a selection with Move Selected Pixels will again leave a copy behind (but only with the mouse)
• Fixed crashes when saving DDS images
• Fixed VTF file type plugin. It was not working in 4.2 except for images that were an exact power-of-2 size on each dimension.
• Fixed: .BMP files can be opened even if they’re not actually BMP images (they still need to be a valid WIC-supported file type such as PNG, JPEG, etc.)
• Fixed very bad performance when opening large images with embedded rotation metadata
• Fixed various crashes, such as when using File->New or Image->Resize, that sometimes happened if the previous update needed a reboot but either 1) it didn’t tell you that, or 2) it did but you didn’t reboot
• Fixed the problem that was causing the need for the aforementioned reboot in the first place (string resources file was locked by the thumbnail provider shell extension)
• Fixed: Text tool will no longer draw tiny text when an image uses dots-per-centimeter instead of dots-per-inch
• Fixed menu ordering of effect plugins that have duplicate names
• Fixed: The mouse wheel may now be used to scroll the Palettes menu in the Colors window (thanks @AndrewDavid for the suggestion and @toe_head2001 for the fix!)
• Fixed metadata handling that was preventing some images with EXIF tag 330 from being able to load
• Fixed metadata preservation for old images that pad EXIF string values with null terminators
• Fixed title bar text color when using certain custom accent colors in Windows 10
• Fixed title bar accent color when Tablet Mode is enabled