Pixelmator or ???

[Carlos Camacho]

I need an alternative to PhotoShop for my new Mac. I'm thinking of purchasing Pixelmator, especially as it helps support a Mac dev (i.e. not mega-company who destroyed by GoLive app :lol: )

Anyhow, I like the demo. Not crazy that it doesn't give more options for outputting web-ready images. (Uses standard Mac file saving window).

I know about the Gimp, not sure why I deleted it. I think I also tried the native, non-X version as well.

I'm going to give SeaShore and MacCinePaint a go next.

Any advice?

p.s. Now where did my Color-It! registration # go? lol

[reubert]

I was most impressed with Acorn (http://flyingmeat.com/acorn/) when investigating image editors in that price range. Though then I went and bought photoshop because it just does everything and you can't really compete with that.

[kodex]

Adobe has some great educational discounts if that helps anything at all. Other then that I can't recommend any other applications.

[Hairball183]

Where could you find a non-x version of Gimp? (By X, I assume you mean X11 and not OS X)

[diordna]

As a registered user of Pixelmator, I do not recommend Pixelmator. John Gruber likes Acorn, and he is usually right about such things.

[Leisure Suit Lurie]

Try some of these, Carlos:

http://osx.hyperjeff.net/Apps/apps?sub=9&f=editor

[Muskrat]

I got Pixelmator through MacHeist, which wasn't a bad deal, but I can't recommend it for anything in which you want a lot of precision and professionalism. It lacks things like the ability to indicate dimensions for selection sizes in pixels, it doesn't have the ability to put grids over images, there aren't any vector tools, it lacks a lot of buttons and shortcuts that make working with PhotoShop intuitive (you have to explicitly switch to the zoom tool to get precise zooming on your image). I am, however, a big fan of the GIMP. It's still not as easy and polished an experience as PhotoShop, but with a little extra work you can do anything in it that you can in PS.

What is fun in Pixelmator, though, is the ability to take a picture with a webcam and apply all of CoreImage's neat reflection filters and make crazy kaleidoscope pictures for hours.

[backslash]

Where could you find a non-x version of Gimp? (By X, I assume you mean X11 and not OS X)
Google gimp.app

[OneShot]

If it's pixel art you are doing, then I recommend Pixen highly. Over all nice and simple package and its free.

http://opensword.org/Pixen/

SeaShore is also very nice/free.

[AndyKorth]

My friends and I had been using Pixen for a while, but I've found it to be a little buggy. It probably is still the best thing for pixel editing work. I have noticed that files saved on a PPC won't work on an Intel Mac and vice-versa. Heh... Unless you're doing animation or layers in Pixen, you're better off always saving in png anyway.

[Carlos Camacho]

What ever happen to that painting app from years ago. Back when Photoshop was at 2.0. It was pretty popular.

I will check out everyone's recommendations.

[AndyKorth]

There's a new image editing application just released today:

http://nolobe.com/iris/

I figured people might be interested, in case anyone is still looking for alternatives. It retails for $79.

[FreakSoftware]

Photoshop Elements half bad. If you're not using the high end features, it does everything that Photoshop does. Certainly more than Pixelmator...

[xtiank]

Hi Carlos, probably not appropriate but interesting nonetheless is 'Artrage' - ive used it for years and its the best low impact drawing and painting software there is and i's definitely wholemeal - the developers are very nice and based in rural New Zealand....


I also wanted to ask you something if you dont mind, I noticed in your (now quite old) post about the development of 'Nanocrisis' that you developed and used 'OpenTeddy' - a piece of software that I love and use on windows when I need to. I have seen other (now dead) links to mac os x versions of it and would love to use it without having to boot another machine.... so im wondering if you have or know where I might find a mac os x compiled version of it?


many thanks

Christian Krupa

[Carlos Camacho]

Artrage is very very cool. I think I would like to buy it if I ever get a tablet as a present.

Nanocrisis
Actually, I am not the developer of this game.

lol

[ThemsAllTook]

Nanocrisis and the OpenTeddy port were done by Alex Ni/phydeax, who seems to have disappeared from this community a few years ago. I happen to have an old build of OpenTeddy from him, though. Mirrored here: http://www.sacredsoftware.net/temp/openteddy-mac.zip

[xtiank]

eeeeeeee!

lovely thanks so much, works a treat - cant believe this app hasn't gone further...

[green_ghost]

Though not full featured like photoshop, this looks interesting - Scribbles.
Going to give it a go.

http://www.atebits.com/software/scribbles/