Paint.NET has just been updated for the first time since April. Version 3.5.6 is a relatively minor update, offering minor performance improvements alongside a raft of bug fixes. The performance improvements involve minor tweaks to memory usage, which will only affect 32-bit users in a “few scenarios”, but should also help boost stability.

Two adjustment tools – Curves and Hue/Saturation – have also benefited from minor enhancements to both quality and performance. Another improvement will see Paint.NET behaving more intelligently when pasting images into an existing area of an image that has been navigated to.

Fixes cover a variety of scenarios, including a number of copy-paste operations – you can now copy an image in Windows Explorer and paste it directly into Paint.NET, for example. A couple of bugs that could potentially lead to data loss have been fixed too – neither situation was particularly common, but you can now save a JPEG file containing an embedded ICC profile as an 8-bit PNG without corrupting the saved file.

Existing Paint.NET users should already be aware of the update – it’s delivered automatically when you launch the program. In the meantime, expect the long gap between minor updates to the Paint.NET 3.x codebase to continue, as the program developers are now fully focussed on delivering a brand new version – Paint.NET 4 – for 2012.