Free Mac Image Editors (alternatives to photoshop and fireworks) − 26 March, 2007
As you know, I recently switched to using my Mac full-time. I bought this mac a little over a month ago and it's served me incredibly well. Being a jack of all trades, but mostly a creative guy, I found it was time to go back to my mac ways from before I was a nerd. I kept the PC but I use it mainly for testing. In the meantime, I've had to find tools on the Mac that I had on the PC to do my everyday tasks I was beginning to take for granted with the PC.
I do a lot of screenshots in my line of work. When you're building an online application and your development team is halfway around the world (literally) the only way you can get your work done sometimes is to have a great way to show what's on the screen. For screenshots, I use a program called Snapz Pro X. Personally not a big fan of the name, but I couldn't live without the program itself. It's a bit pricey for a utility app ($69) but 100% worth its bits in gold, as it were. When I was on the PC I used Snag-it from Tech Smith (only $39.95). Snag-it runs more smoothly. It has more options like scrolling to capture a long page. While it's not yet Vista-ready, I did very much appreciate that Snag-it came with its own very basic image-editing controls for adding text captions, arrows, cropping and resizing the screenshot. Lacking those in Snapz Pro X, I had to go to the market to see what was available. Here's what I found:
Forget GIMPshop. It's too complicated to install (requiring you to dig out your install disks to add non-standard X11 to your my OS). GIMP is an a popular alternative to Photoshop and no doubt has many more features than the others I'm reviewing here, but someone needs to figure out how to take this application to the masses. Until then, it's going to be popular with its intended audience - namely people who will go to any length to not buy Photoshop.
Seashore and Image Well are pleasant alternatives for me. Both succeeded at getting me everything I need as both a developer AND a blogger. Which is to say, A) they are free and B) they can crop, resize, save as multiple formats, add basic lines and boxes and text and are very easy to learn.
Seashore (an open source, freeware application) starts off with a traditional whiteboard - leaving it up to you to fill it in with photos and do your image manipulation from there. You can use different pencil types, brushes and it even has a lasso tool. As far as features go, it's much more feature-rich than Image well. So I use Seashore when I want to take an image such as as screenshot and annotate it or crop it. With Seashore you can apply image effects to your photos as well - blurring, color alterations, sharpening, for example - but they put a premium on the bare necessities. It's a great app for my purposes. While I do more graphics in Photoshop (and perhaps would do more in GIMPshop if I could get past the installation hurdle), opening Seashore doensn't take as long and it's very effective at getting me what I need to communicate with my team in short order.
Image Well (a closed-source, freeware with option to upgrade application) is great for the everyday blogger. It helps you basically take an image and save it for the web. So if all you want to do is resize a high-res image, for example, or crop a larger image, then image well is perfectly suited for that. Very basic. Very easy to learn. Just open an image and "save as." It offers watermarking, PNG, GIF and JPG compression, but no text or selection or image enhancement tools. One thing that I know many bloggers enjoy with Image Well is that it can automatically rename an image for you with a random name so that you're not accidentally over-writing images of the same name on your sever when you upload it. Image well offers additional features with an upgrade that may rival Seashore, but from the looks of it, nothing I wouldn't rather just save my money for.
Final note, if you've got some insight of your own you'd like to add to this review, please don't hesitate to give me feedback. I thought it might be time for me to use an online application to edit images, but even I'm a bit hesitant to do that. For now, I'm satisfied with my freeware options and won't soon feel a need to try anything new for a while.
I do a lot of screenshots in my line of work. When you're building an online application and your development team is halfway around the world (literally) the only way you can get your work done sometimes is to have a great way to show what's on the screen. For screenshots, I use a program called Snapz Pro X. Personally not a big fan of the name, but I couldn't live without the program itself. It's a bit pricey for a utility app ($69) but 100% worth its bits in gold, as it were. When I was on the PC I used Snag-it from Tech Smith (only $39.95). Snag-it runs more smoothly. It has more options like scrolling to capture a long page. While it's not yet Vista-ready, I did very much appreciate that Snag-it came with its own very basic image-editing controls for adding text captions, arrows, cropping and resizing the screenshot. Lacking those in Snapz Pro X, I had to go to the market to see what was available. Here's what I found:
Forget GIMPshop. It's too complicated to install (requiring you to dig out your install disks to add non-standard X11 to your my OS). GIMP is an a popular alternative to Photoshop and no doubt has many more features than the others I'm reviewing here, but someone needs to figure out how to take this application to the masses. Until then, it's going to be popular with its intended audience - namely people who will go to any length to not buy Photoshop.
Seashore and Image Well are pleasant alternatives for me. Both succeeded at getting me everything I need as both a developer AND a blogger. Which is to say, A) they are free and B) they can crop, resize, save as multiple formats, add basic lines and boxes and text and are very easy to learn.
Seashore (an open source, freeware application) starts off with a traditional whiteboard - leaving it up to you to fill it in with photos and do your image manipulation from there. You can use different pencil types, brushes and it even has a lasso tool. As far as features go, it's much more feature-rich than Image well. So I use Seashore when I want to take an image such as as screenshot and annotate it or crop it. With Seashore you can apply image effects to your photos as well - blurring, color alterations, sharpening, for example - but they put a premium on the bare necessities. It's a great app for my purposes. While I do more graphics in Photoshop (and perhaps would do more in GIMPshop if I could get past the installation hurdle), opening Seashore doensn't take as long and it's very effective at getting me what I need to communicate with my team in short order.
Image Well (a closed-source, freeware with option to upgrade application) is great for the everyday blogger. It helps you basically take an image and save it for the web. So if all you want to do is resize a high-res image, for example, or crop a larger image, then image well is perfectly suited for that. Very basic. Very easy to learn. Just open an image and "save as." It offers watermarking, PNG, GIF and JPG compression, but no text or selection or image enhancement tools. One thing that I know many bloggers enjoy with Image Well is that it can automatically rename an image for you with a random name so that you're not accidentally over-writing images of the same name on your sever when you upload it. Image well offers additional features with an upgrade that may rival Seashore, but from the looks of it, nothing I wouldn't rather just save my money for.
Final note, if you've got some insight of your own you'd like to add to this review, please don't hesitate to give me feedback. I thought it might be time for me to use an online application to edit images, but even I'm a bit hesitant to do that. For now, I'm satisfied with my freeware options and won't soon feel a need to try anything new for a while.
watermarking
Seashore Save
welcome screen
Gimp Warning
color chooser
edit mode
preview mode
Seashore pallette
iDisk upload
FinderScreenSnapz001.png
save as
Seashore Final Image
Gimpshop install screen
edit mode original image
Seashore tools
final image
watermark placement
Seashore Whiteboard
The Usual Suspects
save as
Seashore color chooser...
Seashore pallette
randomize image name
