There are a lot of cool photo editor tools for your Windows PC. When I say a Photo editor, many hardcore names might be popping into your head, like Adobe Lightroom CC, Adobe Photoshop, and so on. Yeah, they are all amazing and heavy software tools, no doubt. But I’m sure most of you agree when I say that it is often the simple things that produce the best results off the bat. Thus, you must know how to Outline Text Using PaintNET.
I know that you have looked at your massive 10-gigabyte software and wondered (while waiting for that behemoth to load) whether all this was necessary to make a new corny profile pic for yourself. You would have been just fine with a simple smartphone photo editor, and you know it!
Speaking of simple but effective tools, you know about paint.net. Well, it is a free photo editor software that runs on your Windows PC. It requires Microsoft’s .NET framework, but what’s dope is that it installs it automatically during the setup of the tool itself, in case your system does not have .NET 4.0 framework. Cool! These simplistic tools prove that these so-called “professional” photo editors, which are expensive AF, are overhyped and overrated. You can Outline Text Using PaintNET.
Well, that’s just me. Who knows, you might be right to use a heavy editor tool on your photos because we always win in our own books. You are welcome to use whatever tool you like because it’s your choice, and I respect that.
Well, now that we’ve agreed that you were wrong, let us see how to use Paint.NET and how to do cool stuff like outline text with it.
Existing PaintNET users might say that there are plugins available that reduce our work and can write text outlined as it is. Though it makes a lot of sense, some users like me can’t be asked to download an entire plugin to do something silly as marking text boundaries. I need every last byte of my data plan so I can promptly spend it on YouTube watching something stupid.
See also: How to Remove Watermark from Photos Quickly
Note for Noobs: I want to point out that installing this takes a crapload of time. I don’t know if it was only in my case since I had to install the .NET framework separately for some reason. But it did take quite a long time to install this tool. I wanted to put this on here in case you don’t already have Paint.NET and found this post under the possibility of searching for easy tools that you can use for text decoration. You can get it for free over here and then Outline Text Using PaintNET.
There is a paid version of this, which makes you the cool kid, I guess, but I don’t find anything missing from the basic version. You can be a good lad and donate to the good people behind this tool, using a button at their site that says the same. Okay, End of Note.
See also: How to Make Background Transparent in Paint.NET
How to Outline Text Using Paint.NET
- Use the include Text tool to create the text you want. It’s the one that has the letter A for an icon. It is better to keep the font size on the bigger side to make it easier for you down the line. Seriously, use something huge, like 58 or 72 font size.
- Using that selection tool called the magic wand, select the entire text area on your canvas. If you can’t seem to select everything, check if the Add (Union) option is selected up in the top left corner of the window. It allows you to select all the letters in the text simultaneously.
- In the bottom right corner, there is an option that says Add new layer. Click on it, and it will add a new blank layer on top of the text window you have already created. This will not overlap it completely, as the letter’s outer shapes will still be under selection.
- Select the paintbrush option and fill the color in the area of the outlines. You can pick whichever color you want them to be in.
- While the letters in your text are still selected, go to the Effects menu and select the “Stylize” and “Outline” options. You can change the thickness of the outline for your text by moving the Thickness slider. The same goes for the intensity slider. Take it all the way to the maximum, which happens to be 100, which will make your outlines completely solid.
- Time for the magic wand again! Use the magic wand tool, and this time, select only the inner parts of the letters. Then. Click delete, so you get to clear out the errors. Now, all you get is your text’s outline, and the inner parts are empty by choice.
- Save your masterpiece either by pressing Ctrl+S or from the File->Save option.
This is how you can Outline Text Using PaintNET in a jiffy! Was that so hard? As I said, it is the simple tools that often lead to easy roads to your goals. Since you have now learned the simplicity of Paint.NET, go ahead and start creating stuff on it.
