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Photoshop alternative for Mac

Hi

I bought Photoshop Elements 4.0 for Mac some time ago, but I never really liked the interface. I recently downloaded the trial for Photoshop Elements 6.0, but, though the interface is better, it's still not what I'm looking for.

So I was wondering if anyone could suggest some alternatives in approximately the same price range?

I know of Apple's Aperture, but as far as I'm aware it's more a program for making your camera images look perfect and not a program for adding effects and filters, making collages of several imgaes, etc., right?

Thanks 🙂

MacBook, Mac OS X (10.5.1), 2.0 GHz - 2GB RAM - 80GB HD

Posted on Jun 10, 2008 12:47 PM

19 replies

etresoft

Level 9

51,038 points

Jun 12, 2008 11:11 AM in response to Rune Neesgaard

Rune Neesgaard wrote:
Thanks for the suggestions all. I will look into them all. Gimp doesn't seem to be my cup of tea either (sorry Floba :)), but Pixelmator seems worth looking more into.

Download the trial first and see if you like it. It is a very pretty, modern, appealing, and ultimately incredibly frustrating interface. I bought Pixelmator hoping to get away from Adobe myself. Now I'm happily back in the fold with Elements 6.

Just what do you want to do that Photoshop or Photoshop Elements can't do? That should help to narrow down your options (to almost zero).

The only other tool that I would recommend as having features that Photoshop does not is Corel Painter. It isn't cheap. It is cheaper than Photoshop but more than Elements. I can do some wonderful things that Elements cannot. But then, it also can't do some basic things that any freeware image editing tool can do. Supposedly it can, but they just don't work. It would be infuriating if I didn't have Elements to handle those details.

Jun 12, 2008 11:40 AM in response to etresoft

"...and ultimately incredibly frustrating interface".

Why is it frustrating you think? I think it looks nice at first sight, but I haven't used it for long so maybe I'll end up getting tired of it to.

It's not that I want to do things that Photoshop can't - I just don't like the interface of Elements. But it seems that unless I want to use all my savings I'll have to buy Elements 6 (or maybe Pixelmator).

etresoft

Level 9

51,038 points

Jun 12, 2008 3:33 PM in response to Rune Neesgaard

Rune Neesgaard wrote:
Why is it frustrating you think? I think it looks nice at first sight, but I haven't used it for long so maybe I'll end up getting tired of it to.

It isn't that I got tired of it. I tried the fancy interface on some real files. The work nice on small files but it locks up (with beachball) on bigger files. And those lockups happen on operations where you didn't expect it and there is no progress bar. You just have to wait until the beachball goes away.

Jun 12, 2008 3:54 PM in response to etresoft

Okay. Yeah, well, that does sound very annoying. It seems as if Elements is the only proper solution if I don't want to pay a lot of money (for me at least). And who knows, maybe I'll like the interface in 7.0 whenever that gets out 😉 But I will still give all the suggestions a go.

Thanks for the help all!

Photoshop alternative for Mac