Comments on: Top 5 Alternatives to Photoshop For Mac Users

By: Tonio Loewald

Tonio Loewald — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 03:15:09 +0000

Photoline is the closest thing to an alternative to Photoshop I’ve seen, bar none (including Corel Paintshop Pro, which I used for many years).

Virtually every alternative listed lacks layer masks and layer effects — except Photoline. For any serious user this essentially makes them all an exercise in frustration — putting a drop shadow into Pixelmator is like taking a time machine back to 1994 (Photoshop 3).

Next there’s vector object support — Photoline has editable bezier curves, the other’s don’t. (Photoline even has autotrace support — something that used to be in Illustrator and got taken out.)

The current version of Photoline (15.5) addresses most of my gripes with the program, both user-interface-wise and functionality-wise. It still has a butt-ugly icon, and the website still looks like amateur hour.

By: Tonio Loewald

Tonio Loewald — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 03:07:38 +0000

Color-It was a great program, but the OS X version isn’t Intel-native and doesn’t support layers. Enhance — Color-It’s more full-featured “big brother” was never ported to OS X.

By: Pauline

Pauline — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 03:05:16 +0000

Portrait Professional is available for the mac. I have it on mine.

Pauline

By: CZ

CZ — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 09:16:04 +0000

Does anyone know which one of the above (if any) have warp brushes, for shrinking or enlarging specific parts of the subjects? I had Paint Shop Pro for almost 3 years and loved the ease of brush use.. Now trying to find something similar for Mac.

Thank you in advance for suggestions!!

By: Sarah

Sarah — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 12:38:22 +0000

I recently started using pixelmator. It works good so far but I couldn’t figure out how on earth to resize an individual layer or selection. Please if someone knows how reply to my comment.

By: DMW

DMW — Sun, 24 May 2009 13:31:10 +0000

I concur.

I stupidly just went and purchased this product based on this websites recommendation without (yes, again, rather trustingly) checking the technical specs. That will teach me to trust this site: never again, obviously his research is sub-standard.

By: Yuri Nakamura

Yuri Nakamura — Thu, 07 May 2009 10:52:39 +0000

Thanks for giving me info on these sites!
My Pixelmator trial ended and I needed to edit some pics.
<3

By: Marnen Laibow-Koser

Marnen Laibow-Koser — Wed, 06 May 2009 21:16:01 +0000

Don’t forget GraphicConverter. Although it’s primarily good (great!) at converting formats, it also does some editing.

Scribus, despite being advertised as an open-source page layout app, is actually really nice for vector drawing.

I won’t use GIMP until an Aqua version comes out. I’m generally fine with X11 apps, but they are not acceptable for anything involving sophisticated typography (and most of my graphic work involves type), since advanced typographical features don’t seem to survive the Mac-to-X font conversion process.

By: Web Design Singapore

Web Design Singapore — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 15:06:09 +0000

I am going to say a big thanks!! to this post. I been searching for Photoshop alternative for mac quite sometime! The only one free image editor I found is Seashore which is super suck. Haha once thanks again this wonderful reviews solve my hard time!

By: Aislinn Hinyup

Aislinn Hinyup — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 20:11:34 +0000

In your opinion, if you had to choose a second and third best what would it be? I create small ads for magazines and do some graphics for web design?