Been looking for an open source alternative to Photoshop for Mac users that (unlike The Gimp) doesn't require the ugly X11? Of course you have. Along comes Seashore to solve your problems.
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Seashore
27 Feb 2007 04:12 pm
Comments (21)
Why? You can buy PS7 used for practically nothing.
LiveQuartz, though not open source, is, IMHO, further along than Seashore. Neither has been updated very recently, but I find LiveQuartz has more functionality and fewer bugs.
http://www.livequartz.com/?menu=livequartz_download&lng=en
Why? You can buy PS7 used for practically nothing.
Ideology, baby.
"Ideology, baby."
Life's really a bit short to use crappy software to make a political point that no one will ever get.
If you want to make an ideological point, use good software, but pirate it. Real punks go get sushi and don't pay.
Fireworks is also a great image manipulation app.
Life's really a bit short to use crappy software to make a political point that no one will ever get.
The Gimp is not "crappy software." It's very close to PhotoShop in its power, and I actually find its interface preferable.
"The Gimp is not "crappy software"
Only in comparison. Only in comparison.
I played with The Gimp briefly, and it seemed just fine for what it is. But Photoshop is fucking great software. The Gimp doesn't have anything close to its power, interface, or fit and finish.
To analogize: Linux isn't crappy software, but in comparison to OS X, it really is.
What Petey said.
X11 isn't crappy either, and I use it with either Enlightenment of a wm NeXT theme for a lot of things... Really like XMMS, the GIMP is fine, Sylpheed works, etc, etc...
But it's no Tiger running Photoshop, and neither is Linux w/the GIMP (and there's nothing like NetNewsWire, either.)
And TextMate is the most kicking editor I've seen.
Eh. I make do with Photoshop Elements. It has enough functionality to make me happy, at a reasonable price, and the box from the store works on Windows or Mac.
Hmm, no love for Graphic Converter X? It's not a precise analogue for Photoshop, but it's at least much closer than PS Elements, it's free, and it has some nice batch features that are superior to PS (or at least the last version of PS I used regularly). Plus, it has an Unskew feature that's brilliant for taking the perspective out of photos - just what an architect needs to make a picture of a building into an elevation-type base image.
"Hmm, no love for Graphic Converter X? It's not a precise analogue for Photoshop, but it's at least much closer than PS Elements, it's free"
You miss Matthew's point. This isn't about free software. It's about open source software.
Of course, I miss Matthew's point too, but that's besides the point.
(And GraphicConverter is indeed quite nice if you're not going to use Photoshop and aren't seized with irrational open source exuberance.)
I want something to read pressure levels on my old Wacom graphire tablet on OSX.
GIMP will see it as nothing more than a mouse. Yeah, there are some things that could maybe be re-compiled into X11 to support the tablet better, but the steep learning curve for compiling apps and drivers and such is what put me off of linux; I don't need that -- this is a Mac, dammit!
So I'll try Seashore and livequartz. Thanks, Matthew and Tony!
+1 on GraphicConverter. I've used it for like 6 years. For 90% of my needs I use it over PhotoShop. It's much less of a hog and loads in no time.
It's very close to PhotoShop in its power
By which, you mean 'its power for what I want to do with it'. Which is likely to be about 5% of Photoshop's feature-set. The list of people using the GIMP for funny photo-manipulations is a bit bigger than than those using it for pre-press with Pantone matching and separations.
The list of people using the GIMP for funny photo-manipulations is a bit bigger than than those using it for pre-press with Pantone matching and separations.
So, I would imagine, is the list of people using Photoshop for the one vs. the other.
Right up until the esoteric, legally challenging features that relatively few people care about, The Gimp is very close to Photoshop in its power. You've got a plugin architecture, a standard set of tools (brushes, clone, etc), the whole color maniuplation set (levels, curves, etc), layers, channels, and so on. In terms of their power to actually manipulate images, they're quite close.
I'll stick with the Gimp.. I tried both LiveQuartz and Seashore and they weren't quite good enough for what I need. No interactive rotation in seashore, no picking colors from the image in LiveQuartz. Would be nice to have a non-X11-based solution though.
Hey, wasn't photoshop designed for Macs in the first place? That's what my mac-using girlfriend says.
(I struggle not to break her mac when I see it sometimes.)
"Hey, wasn't photoshop designed for Macs in the first place?"
Pretty much all older graphic and page design software was initially designed for the Mac, including Photoshop. And if you go further back into the mists of history, you get odd facts like that even Microsoft Word and Excel were originally Mac only.
> Right up until the esoteric, legally challenging features that relatively few people care about, The Gimp is very close to Photoshop in its power.
While hardly "esoterica," I'll grant you that CMYK and Pantone support are more or less strictly concerns for print professionals.
I wouldn't say the same, though, for either color management or 16-bit editing.
Admit that it still comes up short.
Comments closed March 13, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
X11 need not be ugly. See enlightenment.org if you disbelieve. Still, it's always good to use native widgets, if for no other reason than avoiding unnecessary resource usage.
Posted by dj moonbat | February 27, 2007 4:38 PM