Grid Maker Effect

Grid Maker Effect is an add-on designed for Paint.net, which enables you to generate grid lines and checkerboards that can be easily applied to photographs for emphasis.
It features a couple of customizable options that can be tackled with ease, even by those less experienced with this image editing application.

Easy Paint.net integration

There is no installation kit involved. Instead, you can simply copy the downloaded DLL file to the "Effects" directory of Paint.net's folder. This works even with a portable edition of the graphic processing tool.
If Paint.net's already launched, it's necessary to restart it to finalize setup and gain access to the new plugin. You should be able to find it in the "Effects" menu. It's marked by a puzzle piece that can be found next to the entry of all external extensions.

Create grid lines or checkerboards

The main configuration panel of Grid Maker Effect is small and gives you an overview of all settings. It's possible to opt between grid lines and checkerboard mode, as well as to adjust the grid size by moving a slider or by entering the numerical values.
Furthermore, you can use the brush width, apply modifications to the foreground only, and swap colors. An aspect worth taking into consideration is that photo effects can be previewed in real time, so it's not required to commit changes, view the results, and undo the action or delete the second layer if you're not satisfied.

Compatibility issues with newer Paint.net

Grid Maker Effect hasn't been updated for a long time and it doesn't seem to be in development anymore. We couldn't get it to work with the latest version of Paint.net. Nevertheless, you can still use it on older editions.