When comparing Cosmigo Pro Motion NG vs Paint.NET, the Slant community recommends Paint.NET for most people. In the question“What are the best pixel art / sprite editors?” Paint.NET is ranked 9th while Cosmigo Pro Motion NG is ranked 10th. The most important reason people chose Paint.NET is:
Unlike most photo editing software, Paint.NET is simple to learn and easy to use. This means less time is spent learning the in's and out's of Paint.NET and more time on photo editing. For those who only edit photos sporadically and don't have time to invest in learning complicated tools for editing, Paint.Net will suit your needs.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Good tilemap editing tools
Tilemap can be drawn with tools that automatically keep your palette of tiles consistent. Both free painting and tile-placing modes work in the same workspace allowing you to easily switch between workflows.
Pro Supports palette indexing
You can separate the color information out of the image file into a separate palette file.
Pro Onion Skinning support
You can use Onion Skinning to see surrounding frames to help create animations.
Pro Supports custom grids
The user can create normal rastered or custom grids with custom shapes, or they can just mix up all they want.
Pro Marquee select allows you to see your results
Pro Motion gives you a direct feel for the pixels: how they will lay down when pressed as soon as you've finished marquee selecting. It's thus very easy to drag around to get a perfect look, moving it a few pixels here or there.
Related to this then is the way you can play with single-color mode. You can drag-click the 'paste' to create different colored silhouettes of the selection. Even while zoomed in, you can see the exact pixels as they would be rendered if set down where your mouse is.
Pro The Developer is very active and helpful.
Pro Includes almost all original DPaint and PPaint functionality
Oldschool pixel artists will find all their beloved functions from the Amiga Pixel Art Programs, DPaint and PPaint. Such functions include smear, paint, color cycle, mirror, kaleidoscope, tint, smooth, fill with dither or random dither, fill with spherical color fade, auto outline, and tons more.
Most keyboard shortcuts are the same as those of DPaint, so you immediately feel at home with ProMotion. You can of course re-define them as you wish.
Pro Transparent 'color' behaves like any other color on the canvas
If you want to create a simple 'masking', it's very simple. Most normal paint programs have transparency, but what they don't let you do is treat transparency as if it were another pixel on the screen.
Typically, you are required to set up layers, and use eraser to block/unblock areas to get the effect you want. This is both long-winded and uncomfortable.
Pro Revamped Layer System (NG) support
Pro Motion supports the regular Layer System you would expect from Photoshop, but with the added support of animation layers (which have frames) and static image layers (for templates, backgrounds, or other static elements).
Pro Brush containers useful for animations
The user can copy any part of the frame or even whole animations and use them as brushes or just store them for easy re-use later.
Pro Offers drawing masks and brush capture masks
You can easily create a mask to protect part of the image against modification, or to exclude part of the image from the brush capture action. The mask is created either by selecting the colors (from the palette or directly from the image), or by drawing it using any of the available tools (pencil, line, circle, box, etc.) Once defined, you can freeze the mask or let the program update it, based on the drawing colors.
Pro Background color is accessible by right-click
Pro Motion gives you instant right-click access to the background color. This is useful in cases where pixels are very close to each other and you are not able to easily get the balance of each color right.
Pro Free limited functionality version
There is a free version available for Pro Motion that has a limited feature set but is a good way to check out the software. This is also a good choice for those who do not need many features but want to use a simple pixel editor. The limitations of the free version can be seen here.
Pro Gradient Tool
There's a Gradient Tool with several modes of dithering.
Pro Supports layers
Pro Easy to learn and use
Unlike most photo editing software, Paint.NET is simple to learn and easy to use. This means less time is spent learning the in's and out's of Paint.NET and more time on photo editing. For those who only edit photos sporadically and don't have time to invest in learning complicated tools for editing, Paint.Net will suit your needs.
Pro Free software
There is no charge for this software; but donations are welcomed.
Pro Lightweight
Paint.net provides a streamlined but effective core tool set. Support for advanced and niche features is provided through modular plugins, allowing the user to install only what's needed.
Pro Actively developed
The project is active and being continually expanded and refined.
Pro Active and friendly community
The forums are filled with tutorials, as well as people who are friendly and eager to help.
Pro Plugins allow extra functionality
Plugins can be made by anyone in the community, and are offered for download on the forum. They extend the capabilities of Paint.NET to cover most tasks.
Pro HiDPI support
Paint.NET supports fully HiDPI displays, with no scaling problems.
Cons
Con Pro version and upgrades come at a price
The Pro version of Cosmigo Pro Motion costs $39 and includes a number of features that aren't available in the limited free version.
If you have an existing Pro Motion license, it costs $19 to upgrade to the newest version or you stick with the feature limited free edition.
Con Supports Windows only
Pro Motion only supports Windows, but you can easily run it on macOS and Linux using Wine, PlayOnMac, PlayOnLinux etc.
Con Only available on Windows
Paint.NET is only available on Windows.
Con No project-based interface
You can only edit a single image at a time in Paint.NET. For example, in other tools you can open 5 or a 100 images at the same time, and stack those windows in all directions.
Furthermore, when you are editing in Paint.NET you can only "view" a single image at a time, even though you can have multiple images open. This limits your zooming ability, as the image will go fullscreen quite quickly, and hide parts of it behind the floating toolbars which can not be embedded anywhere on the screen.