Duotone

Duotone is a Paint.net plugin designed to help you apply a duotone effect to your images. It represents a halftone version of a picture that superimposes a high-contrast color halftone over another one. The extension comes packed with a couple of customization preferences that can be easily tackled.

Easy integration with Paint.net

In order to install this extension, all you have to do is copy the downloaded DLL files to the "Effects" directory of Paint.net, whether we're talking about an installer or portable edition of the image editing application.If it was launched prior to performing the file copying operation, it's necessary to restart it to finalize setup. From this point on, you can access Duotone from the "Effects" menu.

Apply halftone effect and customize preferences

The configuration panel has a simple design and layout, putting two color wheels at your disposal for picking the preferred color for each halftone. Alternatively, you can input the numerical values of the red, green and blue channels or click on two arrows to increase or decrease the number. Any of the two settings can be reverted to default with one click.Another aspect worth mentioning is that modifications made to the photograph can be previewed in real time. This way, you don't have to apply changes to be able to view the new picture and undo your action or remove the last created layer if you're not pleased with the outcome.

Evaluation and conclusion

While it's true that Duotone hasn't received updates for a long time, we haven't come across compatibility issues with the most recent version of Paint.net in our tests. It didn't cause the software utility to freeze, crash or indicate errors. The picture was quickly rendered while we tinkered with settings during the previews and after applying them.