The New Wave

Update (18:20h 29-09-2007): Original comments have been inserted at the end of the article - Your Host

Update (13:50h 26-09-2007): Thanks to Mr. Gruber for pointing to this item, and thanks everybody for coming by. - Your Host

Pixelmator has arrived, and just when I was processing cover art, scans and stuff to add to my iTunes collection. Here are some rushed first impressions, where I compare it to Acorn, the venerable Graphic Converter, iPhoto, and of course Photoshop.

Palettes

Holy mackerel Batman. Pixelmator has palettes. A lot like Photoshop all undocked. The fact that they’re in the new HUD* fashion doesn’t discount the fact there’s a lot of little windows floating around. I like Pixelmator’s popped out selected tool effect in the Toolbox, but it’s not enough of a new approach to the fundamental problems of tools onscreen.

Pixelmator’s Toolbox (paint brush selected)

Acorn’s single palette combining Layers, Tools and Operations

Full Screen Mode

Pixelmator feels the most calm, right along with iPhoto. I like the menu bar pop out too. Acorn needs some control to adjust, or more simply, a darker background for this mode.

Pixelmator and iPhoto have this right.

Cropping

iPhoto has this nailed. I prefer it to Photoshops because of the grid it shows. Both Pixelmator and Acorn don’t seem to have the ability to crop and straighten in one operation, which is just the nicest thing when importing photos or scans. Graphic Converter’s Trim just doesn’t cut it.

Filter Operations

We’re all about even nowadays with the introduction and adoption of Core Image. Implementation varies and of course Photoshop boasts the widest range of filters and plugins in the imaging softscape. Graphic Converter’s list of Core Image filters are a pain, and the fact that Photoshop drops you into dialogue boxes and stuff is a drag. I like Acorn’s chaining of filters, but it being a separate window seems like a disadvantage to me. Pixelmator’s share the same difficulty.

A dead heat except that Acorn offers an animated preview of the range of effects available when you select a filter.

Fast Image Creation

I love love love ‘New from clipboard’ that Acorn, Photoshop, and Graphic Converter all have. Pixelmator please make it easier.

Levels and Adjustments

Pixelmator and Photoshop have this well in hand. Acorn sends you to the filters menu, which is fine BUT will take some getting used to. I like iPhoto’s tools here for simple adjustments.

This Evening’s Verdict: Acorn

Acorn is pretty much the right price in an awesomely neat and tidy package. My favourite so far. Pixelmator rules Graphic Converter, the latter is showing its age and inconvenience AND LACK OF LAYERS. Photoshop I have and use for most of my heavy processing, but it’s less compelling each day. iPhoto is just great for sorting, basic image adjustment and creating libraries and albums.

This is going to be interesting to watch and use while this new wave of Core Image apps uncurls.

*A brief note about HUDs. Apple’s HUD’s are not HUD’s. They’re recoloured palettes, and while they may present a calmer aspect onscreen, they share all the problems that palettes have: variable size and location, image obscuring, palette management requirements, and others…

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You’re currently reading “The New Wave,” an entry on Jettison Canopy

Published:: 25.09.07 / 8pm

Category:: Graphic Design, Software

giromide@gmail.com 25.09.07 / 9am

Is it just me, or is Graphic Converter’s Text tool terrible? Also, I find it too similar to Gimp in *nix, in that it has a bulky, bloated feel to it.

Acorn’s heart is in the right place. Like Coda, it aims to be a neat, easy way to get something accomplished that doesn’t really reinvent anything. And, they’re listening to those of us who need a few non-bloaty features like JPEG compression added to it. The development team was quick to respond to a catastrophic crash caused by the program when applying certain filters to a transparent layer.

Man without Plan 11.10.07 / 9pm

I’ve always found that GraphicConverter is impossible to do any serious graphical editing in; the tools are just impossible to use, from the mouse cursors on down. It has, in the past, been the Swiss Army Knife of format conversion, but more and more of that is being built into Mac OS X directly.

Unless GC’s UI has improved greatly, I don’t see any reason to include it in a serious comparison of graphical editors. It is a fabulous kitchen-sink batch conversion tool and that is basically all.

akatsuki 11.10.07 / 9pm

There is also Iris and who knows what else waiting in the wings. I agree that Acorn is the most pleasant thus far to use, but I am curious whether it will scale up in features and still maintain the usability

mark 11.10.07 / 9pm

For me a huge problem with both acorn and pixelmator is the lack of a polygonal lasso. I use this tool a lot for removing backgrounds etc. Photoshop lives another day… sadly.

Derek 11.10.07 / 9pm

Does Acorn have a stamp tool? This is really the only thing I need that iPhoto doesn’t have. I know pixelmator has it.

zenrain 11.10.07 / 9pm

I tried acorn, and got annoyed at having to switch between the different tool sections to do things very quickly. While pixelmator has more windows, it doesn’t require the constant switching I found Acorn required.

giromide@gmail.com 11.10.07 / 9pm

Mark, you should ask that of the Acorn and Pixelmator teams. Chances are a polygonal lasso could be in a future release.

I would hope their approaches are to simply get the baseline out there and build from there. I also hope they don’t let their products bloat. Such is the constant struggle of software development.

I think a more serious comparison could be written after Iris and Elements 6 release, both of which are waiting for Leopard. As the OS X team offloads more features into frameworks, the chances of more tools like Acorn and Pixelmator are higher. In fact, I’d love to see some more action in the vector graphics area. As far as I know, Lineform is about the only game in town for sub-CS3 vector graphics.

Nico.ash 11.10.07 / 9pm

I a sorry, as ia don’t really know anything about those programs, but did you consider Gimp / GimpShop for mac ? It is a X11 app so it isn’t a native mac os X app, but it’s free and it works for me.

Brandon 11.10.07 / 9pm

I can only hope that Pixelmator steps up it’s game and finally free us from the chains of Photoshop and it’s overprices. It just seems like adobe has given up on making an intuitive UI.

quietjim 11.10.07 / 9pm

I tried Pixelmator out today and a small feature I really like is the halftoning. I’m sure you can do this in other apps but this one made it easy and obvious to create black and white halftones that print GREAT on a copier. I suspect a lot of the people who read this have higher end stuff…but we still produce a monthly newsletter “old school” (laser original– B&W copier) and this is going to make a world of difference in photographs.

One worthy point of comparison is tablet support… as in, does the software support tablets, and if so, how well are they supported and how well can you draw with them?

Chad 11.10.07 / 9pm

You might want to add these to your next head-to-head-to-head.

GIMPShop - http://gimpshop.blogspot.com/
GIMP - http://www.gimp.org/
SeaShore - http://seashore.sourceforge.net/
ArtRage - http://www.ambientdesign.com/artrage.html
Pixen - http://opensword.org/pixen/
Pixel - http://www.kanzelsberger.com/pixel/?page_id=12

DaveF 11.10.07 / 9pm

Nice overview. I’ve given Acorn and Pixelmator an quick demo and I like both. But they each lack a critical tool for my basic needs.

Acorn: No free rotate tool.

Pixelmator: No vector-style primitives (squares and circles)

The first to get the missing tool likely gets my $$$.

Your Host 11.10.07 / 9pm

I am sure we’ll be seeing a lot of development in all these apps and it remains to be seen if features can be added without a lot of pain and suffering.

@Graphic Converter: It feels to me like an old fashioned app, and is hard to get any production work accomplished in. It’s focused on being a swiss army knife though, and for opening and converting files from one type to another, it’s pretty great. The text tool is painful and the preferences are just nuts.

@The Rest of the New Wave: Release of programs like Iris and others are impending, and it remains to be seen if there will be any radical departures from current UIs or ideas in this field. I sure hope so.

@F/OSS Derivatives like GIMP and descendants: If you’re comfortable using things from X windows and don’t mind their quirks, then have at ‘em. I am a software junkie as well as a graphic designer with a technical streak a mile wide and am always interested in tools that can improve my workflow. So far many of the design tools hailing from the *NIX side of things are capable but a pain. And these guys all squandered their chance to do it differently, opting instead for reimplementation over originality.

@Opening salvos: Acorn and Pixelmator represent first moves, and are by no means complete. Their feature sets don’t attempt to duplicate Photoshop except that they get a lot of stuff for free from Core Image. These are focused on being useful apps quickly and as time passes they will reveal the design philosophy more and more.

@Future Head-to-Heads: I intend to follow this up, but like I said at the top, there is a lot of work when doing head to heads so it’s gonna take some time. Also there is a wide range of software to compare (thanks Chad for the list), so I will be choosing carefully (criteria to be determined).

Yeah, Gimp and GimpShop are too much like OpenOffice. They essentially just copy an expensive app without improving, adding, or stripping much of anything. They’re ambitious but too focused on being the same thing as Photoshop or MS Office.”

Matt 11.10.07 / 9pm

Are screenshots of Iris available anywhere? I find it hard to get excited about it based on how ugly their website it. It implies they don’t actually know any artists.

Gus Mueller (The Acorn Dev) 11.10.07 / 9pm

You can actually change the background color for the full screen in Acorn- it’s just a hidden pref. Hold down the option key when choosing “Preferences” from the Acorn menu, and you’ll get the pref for it. I wasn’t sure if the majority of folks would care about that, but I knew some would. (keeping as few prefs as possible has always been a goal for Acorn)

LuxoJR 11.10.07 / 9pm

giromide - The docs for Acorn say it does support tablets - specifically Intous and Contiq tablets from Wacom. It mentions brush tool, but I don’t know if other tools support it tablets as well.

marlwin 11.10.07 / 9pm

well I feel that pixelmator is playing the same game as GIMP. Duplicate photoshop, look at the palettes and menus. But with a nice UI, though.

I’m quite impressed by Pixelmator but I don’t underestimate the simplicity and quality of acorn. Don’t remember if Acorn have a color management…

DaveF - Pixelmator does support basic vector images. Create a selection and use Edit > Stroke.

Dodo 11.10.07 / 9pm

I think that what makes pixelmator an interesting app is the fact that the UI, menus and shortcuts are so similar to photoshop’s that it’s really easy to start and be productive.

But this is even its biggest flaw.

At the end it’s just like photoshop ‘express’; and ‘PS elements’, that will hit v6 this february, has more features for a similar price tag.

What they need to offer ( at least in my opinion) is something different. For example in all these products (PS included) I really miss instruments that help you when mocking up websites, flyers and all those design stuffs that require the use of grids. A few features aimed at simplifying the building of layouts would be really appreciated by web-designers.

Anonymous 11.10.07 / 9pm

Can you do arbitrary rotations in Acorn?

Jordan 11.10.07 / 9pm

Do either of them offer pattern support? I can’t find this in either Acorn or Pixelmator. At the moment, the only piece of software I can see that does is Pixel.

AJ 11.10.07 / 9pm

I splurged on Pixelmator today, but I think I’m going to ask for a refund. Maybe I’m too attached to Photoshop, but doing web mockups is what I do 99% of the time and the default Cocoa text control palettes just don’t cut it for even semi-serious typography. No ability to change case, spacing, leading — sorry, I need that. I don’t think you even get a proper text box — unless I’m missing something. Likewise, a Pantone swatch library and vector shape tools are de rigueur in my daily work.

zenrain - Yes, but after that I’m at a loss how to make changes. In particular, how do you change stroke attributes? This method seems to require perfect drawing skills. I need to put down a polygon and easily tweak line thickness, color. Then change the size of the polygon and point placement.

This kludge using selection paths is too cumbersome for me.

Erik J. Barzeski 11.10.07 / 9pm

Methinks iWeb has screwed you over. This article is virtually unreadable right now. There’s a large image at the top which contains text and all manner of goofy things.

Erik said: There’s a large image at the top which contains text and all manner of goofy things.

Erik, it’s the hasty graphic I made from screengrabs of the Acorn and Pixelmator websites. It’s weird but now I am loathe to change it.

LKM 11.10.07 / 9pm

As for Pixelmator vs. Acorn: I bought both, but mainly use Pixelmator. It just has way more features than Acorn. Pixelmator’s layers are second only to Photoshop, and people used to PS will have no problem getting used to Pixelmator’s palettes (in fact, the palettes and menu structure often mirror that of Photoshop).

So if you’re looking for a Photoshop replacement, Pixelmator is the only game in town.

JiHO 11.10.07 / 9pm

Nice comparison. The bottom line being however that currently nothing is good enough to replace photoshop. Too bad since Photoshop is a bit clunky mess IMHO.

@giromide@gmail.com

About the vector stuff, if you are not too afraid of X11 apps, try Inkscape for OS X. It has a very nice UI (not very nice looking but very nice in how it functions), very much mac like in the end: simple in appearance but very powerful when you get to know all the keyboard shortcuts, tricks and all that. The next release should look nicer on OS X also. Alternatively you can try a development build:

http://inkscape.modevia.com/macosx-snap/?C=M;O=D

umijin 11.10.07 / 9pm

Iris isn’t really a graphic editing app. It’s for unique input via your iSight or other attached camera.

You can record videos, time-lapse photography, webcam, as well as spycam.

That being said, I think their UI approach to the app is similar to PixelMator and Acorn - simple and uncluttered.

umijin

This is not the same app.

http://nolobe.com/iris/

I’m a bit affraid of their design too..

Bruno 11.10.07 / 9pm

If you’re doing comps for web or otherwise, you don’t want to be playing in a bitmap editor like Photoshop in the first place. What you want is a program that supports the ability to position and manipulate “placed” bitmaps without altering the originals (like rescaling and resampling).

This requires a layout application like InDesign, QuarkExpress, etc. But an illustration program will substitute in a pinch and offers you the benefit of the best tools for web image creation. So think Illustrator, Inkscape or Lineform.

Illustrator is a lot less buggy and poorly implemented than Photoshop in many respects, making it a clear winner for the web. Better antialiasing, rasterizing, resampling and saving using “Save for Web”.

In Photoshop you can’t even make a proper circle or rectangle - not with its path tools and not with its selection tools - they all get buggered when you finally stroke them.

My worry about Pixelmator is what someone else already mentioned. The program’s first version looks to be following to closely in Photoshop’s footsteps rather than re-inventing the interface to elevate it above PS. PS is nearly 15 years out of date, time for something different.

You want to see some creative new features and interfaces? Take a look at Lightzone from Lightcrafts - especially the ZoneMapper (you won’t want to look at the PS Levels window again).

Tonio Loewald 11.10.07 / 9pm

Good summary, but let me add:

A lot of Pixelmator’s core functions (e.g. selection) are broken — no anti-aliased selections, and the marquee doesn’t select correctly (many apps, but not Photoshop, share this problem).

Another thing you missed is that Pixelmator only implements about half as many Core Image filters as Acorn, and Acorn offers more direct manipulation (my theory is that the Pixelmator team spent their effort animating the stupid string instead of actual useful functionality).

DBL 11.10.07 / 9pm

Erik said: There’s a large image at the top which contains text and all manner of goofy things.”

“Erik, it’s the hasty graphic I made from screengrabs of the Acorn and Pixelmator websites. It’s weird but now I am loathe to change it.”

DEFINITELY — change it. It looks exactly like a misformatted webpage, with a great bit annoying flash popup on top of it, obscuring it. Often I close webpages like that on site. I thought I just got lucky that most of the text was still readable. Anyway your graphic is definitely not giving the impression you intended…

Kenneth 11.10.07 / 9pm

You forgot to mention the most important thing:

Acorn, Photoshop and, I think. Graphics Converter all support tablets. Pixel-shit-mator doesn’t. I’ve tried them all with my Wacom Graphire4.

@Kenneth: At least we know where you’re coming from.

@DBL: I’m working on, Thanks for reading past it.

smarl 11.10.07 / 9pm

The big problem I have with both Acorn and Pixelmator is that they are incredibly memory hungry. Open up a 5 megapixel image from a $200 camera, do a couple of actions and watch your machine start grinding, searching for more memory. I have 2 gigs of RAM in this machine. That should be enough.

I just downloaded Seashore, that someone linked to before, and the memory footprint is negligible, even with multiple levels of undo. That’s the gimp engine for you, I guess. iPhoto is generally okay, and of course Photoshop can handle huge images. They need to work on their memory management before I can even consider these guys, since most of the time I’m working with big images.

ChrisC 11.10.07 / 9pm

@DaveF

Acorn does have a free rotate tool, Filter > Geometry Adjustment > Affine Transform… And just like every filter, it includes a live preview.

Several things pushed me to Acorn over Pixelmator (Graphic Convertor was never in the running), Gus Mueller’s track record, the lack of hype (so sick of the “Delicious” way of things), but what finally sold me on Acorn was its plugin support. I don’t know Python, but I’m learning Objective-C, and with several plugins already available and Pixelmator’s response to plugin support > http://www.pixelmator.com/support/viewtopic.php?t=14 - that nailed it for me.

Jettison Canopy » Blog Archive » Good. Bad. 26.10.07 / 11am

[...] Almost done with the sequel to The New Wave. [...]

Jettison Canopy » Blog Archive » Good/Bad 26.10.07 / 12pm

Jettison Canopy » Blog Archive » Image is Eveything 28.10.07 / 4pm

[...] comments for The New Wave were excellent, and there were some good suggestions for other programs that one might compare. I [...]

Image Is Everything | Jettison Canopy 29.10.07 / 12am

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The New Wave

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The New Wave

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