Photoshop alternative for Mac

Photoshop has no serious competitors aside from Gimp, whose interface is even more appalling. If your needs are exceptionally simplistic then Acorn might suffice:

http://flyingmeat.com/acorn/

Starting with free:

Seashore
Graphic Coverter

Search on MacUpdate

Regards

TD

Aside from being very powerful and free of charge at the same time [Gimp|http://darwingimp.sourceforge.net> and it's interface approach is very appealing (and not appalling 😉 ).

floba

Personally I'm with orangekay on the GIMP (and thanks for the morning laugh). The GIMP was built to run in Linux, and it has all the Linux sort of conventions for everything. It does not work remotely like any Mac program you have ever used, nor is it particularly like the Photoshop GUI. If you are used to Mac programs and Photoshop conventions you will have a lot of habits to break.

There is a version that has been tinkered with to be both more Mac-like and more Photoshop-like in its conventions, called GIMPshop. It is donationware. There is also a non-free version of GIMP that runs in the Mac GUI, as opposed to the regular GIMP which runs in X11, called MacGIMP.

http://www.gimpshop.com/
http://www.macgimp.org/
http://www.gimp.org/

Try out the GIMP and see what you think. An interface is very much a matter of familiarity and taste. Perhaps you would like it.

You might also want to take a look the "new kid" which many people like (I didn't, but if you prefer the Elements6 interface to the older Photoshop interface you might). It's called Pixelmator:

http://www.pixelmator.com/

It is in the same price range as Elements.
Francine


Francine
Schwieder

PS--Aperture is not an image editing program in the sense of making composites, applying special effects, and so on. It does basic corrections to color and lighting of digital photos, and is mainly a tool for organizing and batch processing massive numbers of digital photos.

Message was edited by: Francine Schwieder

Hi floba;

I think that is a matter of opinion. Personally I think appalling is about the only thing the language cop will allow me to use here.

Allan

It seems like I'm the only one around who feels comfortable with Gimp. So it shall be 🙂 But at least it's a reasonable alternative to Photoshop - and that's what was asked for.

floba

There are a number of technical deficiencies in Gimp aside from its interface (unless they've recently implemented usable spot color support and soft proofing facilities) that make it unsuitable for use in serious production environments which is a big part of what keeps Photoshop where it is. I'd never dream of insinuating that Photoshop should win any usability awards as it is absolutely rife with flaws, but those of us who've been using it for longer than most of the Gimp team have been out of diapers simply aren't having our needs met by anyone else at present.

OK, I see Gimp might not be that feature-rich as Photoshop and have some drawbacks. But it's OpenSource and when one considers its pace of development in the past it might catch up some time...

Greetings,

What you want is a full copy of Photoshop CS3 or CS3 Extended - there is no substitute for Macs or PeeCees.

You will never be happy with anything else, and I speak from experience - I bit the bullet, saved my bucks, and bought it. Not the whole CS3 suite, just Photoshop Extended. Save yourself a lot of grief and unhappiness.

I'm not a graphics designer, but I am an advanced amateur photo bug and I like to have the freedom to create as I want to.

Good Luck - Cheers,
M.
********

Francine Schwieder wrote:

You might also want to take a look the "new kid" which many people like (I didn't, but if you prefer the Elements6 interface to the older Photoshop interface you might). It's called Pixelmator:

http://www.pixelmator.com/

It is in the same price range as Elements.

That is the program I use too and it is really great. And for a very affordable price.

If you run Parallels or Fusion on your Mac then there is a windows program called Xara Extreme or
Xara Extreme Pro.

I have CS3 Photoshop and it is very nice, but Xara is far easier and quicker (to me) to generate artwork with for logos and other stuff than photoshop and it is inexpensive as well. Xara's interface is far friendlier than any other vector graphics program I know of.

It's too bad Xara's developers haven't released a Mac version. If they did they could take big slice out of Adobe's Photoshop pie.

Kj

Rune

I would agree that the mother of all photo-editing programs is the full version of Photoshop. However, it is very expensive and personally I could not have used it had it not been that my job had provided it.

As others have mentioned, there are several alternatives. I have tried most of them and personally I would recommend Photoshop Elements (the latest version - 6 I think - has received good reviews) or, as also Francine mentions, Pixelmator.

For most of my work I use "The Big Kahuna" (Photoshop) 🙂, but a little to my surprise, I find myself using Pixelmator more and more often, especially when editing on my MacBook (at least if it is not too advanced). Pixelmator answers more needs than I expected and I like how quick it is (it uses the graphic card/chip as accelerator).

I used Graphic Converter for a while, but I prefer those I have mentioned.

All the best and good luck in your search -
Espen 🙂

jim.robinson33@ntlworld.com

The problem with Gimp is ugh, the problem with any open software.

The thing is that Photoshop lets you get the job done, whether you are advanced (it seems to me) or just want to pack the layers for GLSL shader.

I tried to use Gimp - yes it has plenty of functionality, even more than Photoshop i would say but i found myself looping with frustration to get a certain effect i could do naturally with Pshp (something to do with painting over selection mask channel).

Its like difference between OS X and Linux - linux has the alot of functionality. But I want something tested and workable where i can just press the power button and do the work! That's why i've never bothered to install Linux on my ibook (i use Fink and macports to get all my fav unix tools :D)

I know some things like Apache, and Subversion work, because they are modular and do not rely on a complex interaction, and... feel free to speculate on other reasons.

Problem with complex GUI software is that people only do what they feel like depending how tired they are done with the day jobs. Things like usability consistency etc. are complex processes and nobody is willing to do a full-time job for free!