Alpha Blur

Dedicated to Paint.net users, Alpha Blur is a small-sized plugin made to apply alpha blur to your photographs. It features a couple of intuitive options that can be easily figured out, even if you're new to this advanced image editing application.

Easy to install and access

There is no setup pack involved, since all you have to do is copy the downloaded DLL file to the "Effects" folder of Paint.net, whether you have an installer or portable edition available. In the following step, you can launch or restart the tool if it was already running, in order to commit changes and get access to Alpha Blur.
It can be quickly spotted in the "Blurs" submenu of the "Effects" menu, thanks to a tiny icon that resembles a piece of puzzle, which can be found next to all Paint.net extensions originating from external sources.

Apply alpha blur to photographs

The control panel is small and has a simple structure, displaying only the slider required for adjusting the alpha radius. If you want to get more accurate results than the ones produced by moving the slider, you can either enter the numerical value of the radius in the dedicated box, or click on two arrow buttons to increase or decrease this number. The setting can be reverted to default anytime.
Worth mentioning is that image modifications can be observed in real time, so there's no need to go through with the effects just to be able to check out the new photo and undo the action or remove the last created layer if you're not pleased with the outcome.

Compatibility issues with newer Paint.net

We failed in our attempt to get Alpha Blur up and running with the latest version of Paint.net in our evaluation. However, we must also keep in mind that it hasn't been updated for a long time. It still works smoothly with older editions of this graphic processing utility, though.