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DotPDN's Paint.net is a free photo-editing software program with a lot to offer, especially for the zero price tag. I know its not Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, Corel Painter, or Affinity, which have so many hundreds of features, it takes years to learn them all. But it does have the basic skill set to edit your photographs, its intuitive, and its easy to use.

Note: be sure to click the link to getpaint.net provided here and above. Searching for Paint.net online could lead you to sketchy downloads that might have bloatware or worse hitchhiking on the file.

The editing features include:

The one big problem is the Lasso tool. Unlike Photoshop and its cousins, Paint does not have a Polygonal or Magnetic Lasso, so selecting objects is NOT an easy task.

Paint.net desktop canvas and menus

With a little practice, you can master the Lasso tool using the Crtl and Alt keys with the mouse.

Press and hold the Ctrl key while you outline the target object. As long as the Ctrl key is pressed, you can start and stop the Lasso until the entire object is selected. If the selected area exceeds the objects boundaries (in other words, if you have drawn outside the lines), press and hold the Alt key with the mouse to deselect the unwanted areas.

Use the Magic Wand to select large areas, then use the Lasso to refine the selection. If the Wand selects too much, decrease the Tolerance Level from 50 down to 40, 30, 20, etc., until the selected area is smaller and more manageable. If the background is less cluttered than the foreground object, use the Magic Wand to select the background, then select Edit > Invert Selection (Ctrl+I) to make the foreground object active.

If you cut the foreground object out of the background, you have to choose Layers > Add New Layer (Ctrl+Shift-N) before you paste the object back onto the canvas. Unlike Photoshop and its cousins, which automatically create a new layer as soon as you choose Paste, Paint requires you to add new layers for each object you cut out and then paste back in.

To reselect a previous layer, click/select the layer in the Layers palette, then click anywhere on the canvas. The selection outline surrounds the entire canvas, so its hard to determine exactly whats selected. Choose the Move Selected Pixels tool (top right on the Tools palette). When the cursor changes to a cross with arrow points on the ends, position the cursor anywhere on the selected object, then hold down the mouse button, and drag the object to its new location.

Use the Lasso tool or the Magic Wand to select target areas

To edit the background (change the color, add a pattern or design, or just remove it), click the background layer on the Layers palette, then choose a new background. Select a color from the color palette or use the Color Picker to choose a color from the existing image. Select the Paint Bucket from the Tools palette and click the background to fill with the new color.

Notice the background layer is not a solid canvas. Theres no color on the area behind the foreground object. So what if you want to move or resize the foreground object? You have to select and fill the entire canvas.

First click the background layer on the Layers palette. Choose Edit > Select All (Ctrl+A), then choose the Paint Bucket again and click the canvas background.

Resize the foreground object without resizing the entire image is another tricky task thats nothing like the other photo-editing programs.

First you have to select the layer in the Layers palette, then use the Rectangle Selection tool to draw a selection outline around the foreground object. Select the Move Selected Pixels tool and notice that eight circular handles appear in the corners and mid sections of the selected area. Move the cursor (which turns into a hand) to one of the corners, then click the mouse, and drag the foreground object up or down to resize larger or smaller.

Text is also a challenge. You cant just start typing the text without adding a new layer first, else it will become part of the layer thats selected in the Layers palette. With the text in its own layer, you can move it, size it, duplicate it, rotate or flip it (through the Layers menu), but you cannot change the font, the color, or modify the existing text. (One forum mentioned changing colors under Adjustments> Hue/Saturation, but I could only manage to change it from black to white and back.) So if you hate the text colors or misspell a word, you have to delete the layer and reenter the text.

When the text layer is selected, you can use some of the Special Effects Filters to enhance the text, such as Effects > Distort > Bulge. You can also change the Blending Mode after the text is entered. Select the text layer in the Layers palette, click the Properties button (bottom right of the Layers panel)looks like a wrench, then choose a Blending Mode from the drop-down list, such as Color Burn, Reflect, Overlay, and more.

Change the background color, enter text, and add some special effects

My best advice: Play around with it and have fun. Just remember to download Paint.net from the legitimate getpaint.net URL. Beware of download links in other places that might have hitchhiker files attached to the Paint.net download. They could dump bloatware or junk files onto your system.

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8 tips to help you get started with Paint.net - PCWorld

BOULDER, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Significant advances in combining natural language processing (NLP) with other forms of artificial intelligence (AI), primarily machine learning and deep learning, are making enterprise virtual digital assistants (VDAs) more intelligent and useful. Over the next 3 to 5 years, natural language AI will continue to improve and sentiment and emotion recognition AI will evolve. According to a new report from Tractica, these advancements and other market factors have expanded the use cases for enterprise AI-driven VDAs beyond customer service & marketing into other applications which will generate significant direct software revenue.

VDAs will become an increasingly significant interface that enterprises can use for both externally-facing and internally-facing purposes. Externally-facing use cases include handling customer service, marketing, and commerce transactions, while internally-facing use cases include running enterprise application software, productivity and collaboration applications, and administration functions. Tractica forecasts strong growth in enterprise VDA software revenue, rising from $1.3 billion in 2018 to more than $8.9 billion in 2025.

While the use of VDAs has not reached mass-market adoption at either the global or country level, the market for AI-driven enterprise VDAs is beginning to show signs of maturity, particularly for the customer service & marketing use case, says principal analyst Mark Beccue. VDAs in these application areas are becoming more common and vendors are able to show real-life ROI.

Tracticas report, Virtual Digital Assistants for Enterprise Applications, examines the market and technology issues surrounding enterprise VDAs and presents profiles for key industry players throughout the ecosystem. It analyzes how enterprise VDAs will be used across multiple channels in four key use cases: customer service & marketing, e-commerce & sales, business applications, and healthcare VDAs. Tractica also presents global market forecasts for enterprise VDA software, segmented by region, solution type, and use case, covering the period from 2018 through 2025. An Executive Summary of the report is available for free download on the firms website.

About Tractica

Tractica, an Informa business, is a market intelligence firm that focuses on emerging technologies. Tracticas global market research and consulting services combine qualitative and quantitative research methodologies to provide a comprehensive view of the emerging market opportunities surrounding Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, User Interface Technologies, Advanced Computing and Connected & Autonomous Vehicles. For more information, visit http://www.tractica.com or call +1.303.248.3000.

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Virtual Digital Assistant Use Cases Expand in the Enterprise Sector, Driving Software Revenue to $8.9 Billion in 2025, According to Tractica -...

In3D Slash, modeling is done as if you were chiseling a block of stone. The main tools are the hammer and trowel. The hammer removes one block at a time, while the trowel adds it. Sometimes it feels like youre working inMinecraft, just without the zombies.

It also has other interesting functions. For example, you can project pictures onto the work surface as a stencil in order to make a model based on logos, text, or real life objects.The free version is quite good, but if you are willing to pay for the premium, school, or professional versions, you will get a wider range of colors, higher-resolution modeling, collaboration options, and other extras.

This is no doubt a basic program, but its approach to modeling is so different that it makes you think innew ways. If you only work with a few blocks, the results might feel blocky, but just as in pixels, more blocks equal higher resolution.

3D Slash can be used asa web-based version or an on-device app. The application is more powerful and has more tools, this is due to the limitations of web browsers. Then again, for non-paying users some functions of the app are limited.

Company support is good and active. In case you need it, they have a section with tutorials, too.

Cost:Freemium

User experience: Excellent, controls and UI are straightforward. Modeling is done bysubtracting blocks.

Learning curve: Gentle, quick to pick up and get started with

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2019 Best Tinkercad Alternatives - All 3DP

Amazon flourished over its first two decades with little opposition and less scrutiny. A new coalition and a report unveiled Tuesday make clear that era is over.

The coalition, Athena, comprises three dozen grassroots groups involved in issues like digital surveillance, antitrust and working conditions in warehouses. The goal is to encourage and unify the resistance to Amazon that is beginning to form.

The report, from the Economic Roundtable, a nonprofit research group that focuses on social and economic issues, delves into the largely unexplored topic of what Amazon is costing the communities where it has warehouses. The short answer: a lot.

While the simultaneous arrival of Athena and the report are a coincidence, they are linked by their attempts to understand and ultimately influence Amazon's push into almost every aspect of modern life. The internet conglomerate hired 97,000 employees over the summer, nearly the total employment of Google. The report is bluntly titled "Too Big to Govern."

"This is a company functioning at a scale that was previously left to government," said Tom Perriello of the Open Society Foundations. Founded by billionaire George Soros, Open Society is providing some of the seed funding for Athena. The coalition is raising $15 million to cover its first three years.

"It has incredible impact," Perriello said of Amazon. "Who could possibly shape its future and direction?"

Amazon, like Facebook, Apple and Google, has drawn the attention of Washington regulators, state attorneys general and at least a few politicians in the past year. The central question being asked about all of the companies: When does a tech platform become too big and powerful, ultimately hurting the society it once dazzled?

In Amazon's case, the situation is particularly complicated. Its aspirations long ago exceeded online retail to encompass fresh groceries, devices that connect your home to the internet, front-door and neighborhood surveillance, professional services like plumbing and contracting, health care, government procurement, internet infrastructure and Hollywood entertainment. Just about everything, really.

Amazon declined to comment for this article.

Amazon operates fulfillment centers in Chattanooga and Charleston in Southeast Tennessee among five such distribution facilities across Tennessee. The company employs more than 6,500 people in Tennessee and has committed to adding 5,00 jobs in Nashville paying an average wage of $150,000 at one of its new operation centers. Amazon has invested more than $6.5 billion in Tennessee.

Athena springs out of several unexpectedly successful grassroots efforts to rein in Amazon's power.

Last fall, the retailer was forced to begin paying a $15 hourly minimum wage nationwide. In February, it abandoned plans to establish a new headquarters in New York after opponents mobilized against Amazon and the politicians who had approved the deal. This month, an attempt to stack the City Council in Seattle, the company's hometown, with members more acceptable to Amazon backfired with voters.

These setbacks could be attributed to many factors, but one of them was the influence of labor and immigrant organizations. Now some of those groups are joining together under Athena.

"We're learning from what makes Amazon back down, and looking to replicate that as much as possible with as many people as possible," said Dania Rajendra, the Athena director.

Athena will be run from New York, but the real work will be done out in the field where most of the member organizations are. They include the Awood Center, a Minneapolis nonprofit that has organized Amazon workers from East Africa; Warehouse Workers for Justice, which is based in Chicago; and Fight for the Future, a group that focuses on digital issues, in Massachusetts.

In a separate move on Monday, Fight for the Future and other groups called on Congress to investigate Amazon's surveillance products, including the Ring front-door monitor and Rekognition facial tracking software. The products threaten "our privacy and civil liberties, especially in brown and black communities," the groups said.

The effort against Amazon will not be easy, said Lauren Jacobs of the Partnership for Working Families, a coalition member in Oakland. Amazon is projected to have $238 billion in sales this year with 750,000 employees.

"This is a David and Goliath story," she said. "David took what he had and turned it into a winning strategy. We're taking what we have the voices of the members of our various organizations, our collective knowledge and experience and deep understanding of the economy around Big Tech, and the experience we've had with making this company shift its behavior and trying to build a more humane economy."

Athena's $15 million budget is modest for the scale of change it hopes to bring about. "This is grassroots democracy," said Barry Lynn of Open Markets Institute, a Washington think tank and coalition member focused on antitrust issues. "There's no money in it. Just people."

The name Athena is associated with democracy, freedom and wisdom. But it has another advantage for the coalition.

"We didn't want to have Amazon in the name People Against Amazon or whatever because part of the strategy is to offer a better vision for how the economy could work," said Stacy Mitchell of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, a nonprofit in Maine that opposes corporate concentration and advocates local community development. "To be for something, not just against."

Sheheryar Kaoosji of another coalition member, the Warehouse Worker Resource Center in Ontario, east of Los Angeles, said Athena was not planning a boycott of Amazon but was more interested in trying to sway it including its employees and customers.

"Half the households in America have an Amazon Prime account," Kaoosji said. "That gives them a huge amount of power to change the company."

His group is dedicated to improving conditions in what is sometimes called "the goods movement sector."

Amazon workers and Amazon customers exist in two different worlds, the Economic Roundtable said. The report calculates that a little more than half of Amazon warehouse workers in Southern California live in substandard housing. And for every $1 in wages, they receive 24 cents in public assistance.

"Every day, ships, trucks, trains and airplanes bring an estimated 21,500 diesel truckloads of merchandise to 21 Amazon warehouses in the four-county region (in California)," the Economic Roundtable report said. It calculated that Amazon trucks last year created $642 million in "uncompensated public costs" for noise, road wear, accidents and harmful emissions.

Among the report's suggestions: that Amazon raise its minimum wage to $20 an hour, that it require its logistics subcontractors to do the same, that it provide child care at its warehouses and that it build affordable housing in its logistics communities.

The report draws on California Public Records Act requests filed with communities with Amazon facilities. Many of them nevertheless came up empty. The report noted that very little of Amazon's business was known to anyone but Amazon. Communities are in the dark.

"Our conclusion is that it's time for Amazon to come of age and pay its own way," said Daniel Flaming, a co-author of the report. "This means paying its full costs to the communities that host it and the workers who create its profits."

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Report: Amazon is hurting the communities where it has warehouses - Chattanooga Times Free Press

Global Free Space Optics Communication Technology Market report offers an in-depth analysis of the scope of current and future market trends and an overview of the technology, product specification, and forecast details. The upgrading standard is assessed dependent on intelligent examination that gives authentic information on the worldwide Free Space Optics Communication Technology Market. Limitations and improvement points of the future are combined after a noteworthy comprehension of the improvement of the Free Space Optics Communication Technology market 2019.

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L3 TechnologiesMostcomAOptix TechnologiesSkyFiberFsona NetworksAnd Others

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Highlighted Points in This Report:

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Key questions answered in this comprehensive study-

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Free Space Optics Communication Technology Market Global Opportunities 2019 by Industry Size, Growth Rate, Price, Trends, Share, Revenue and more -...