ImageEditor
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Pixelmator's photo-editing app is coming to the iPhone
After testing the waters on Mac and iPad successfully, Pixelmator is now bringing its highly rated image editor to Apple's iPhone. Finally. Most notably, the application will feature new editing elements to assist while you're on the go, including a distort tool that lets you warp a photo to your liking and see the changes in real-time. The soon-to-be universal iOS app is going to be available for $5 starting tomorrow, or as a free update to people who already own the iPad version. Oddly enough, the Pixelmator app seems to have disappeared from the App Store in recent hours, but we're sure it'll be back there in time for tomorrow's scheduled launch.
Google buys Snapseed developer Nik Software, raises the eyebrows of Instagram shutterbugs
Google makes a lot of acquisitions, some of them more important than others. Its latest purchase might skew towards the grander side, as it just bought imaging app developer Nik Software. While the company is known for pro photography apps like Capture NX and its Efex Pro series, the real prize might be Snapseed, Nik's simpler image tool for desktop and iOS users. Both Nik and Google's Senior Engineering VP Vic Gundotra are silent on the exact plans, but it doesn't take much to imagine a parallel between Facebook's buyout of Instagram and what Google is doing here: there's no direct, Google-run equivalent to Instagram's social photo service in Android or for Google+ users, and Nik's technology might bridge the gap. Whether or not Googlegram becomes a reality, the deal is likely to create waves among photographers of all kinds -- including those who've never bought a dedicated camera.
GIMP 2.8 gets a major facelift
Popular Mac, Linux and Windows image editing app GIMP has been updated to version 2.8. This latest version overhauls the UI to offer a new single window mode that lets users edit images, choose tools and set up docks all within one window. Earlier versions of GIMP had multiple windows for tool sets and images, which was confusing for some users accustomed to a single window work environment. If you like the multiple window paradigm, don't worry as GIMP lets you choose between multiple or single window mode. Besides a new UI, GIMP 2.8 lets you setup multiple column dock windows, edit text on the canvas and group layers. It also streamlined the saving and exporting of images. You can read the full list of changes, which includes many smaller tweaks, in the release notes for version 2.8. The GIMP 2.8 source code is available for free from GIMP's website and requires you to compile the code before you can run the app on your machine. Binaries packaged for installing on the Mac will be available soon. While you wait, you can check out an excellent overview of GIMP 2.8 from Ars Technica.
Laminar for iPad is a good Photoshop Touch alternative
I liked Photoshop Touch when I reviewed it earlier this week, but one big issue was the file limitation of 1600 x 1600 pixels. Looking around the App Store, I found an interesting alternative with a similar feature set, Laminar. It runs on the iPad 1 and 2, and best of all, it can load and output higher resolution files. Laminar is currently on sale for US$0.99. It has 60 built-in features, supports layers and masks, and has a selection of frames and borders. There are also one-touch filters for quick auto adjustments, as well as auto white balance and Gamma correction. Of course there are curves, shadow and highlight adjustment, noise reduction and crop tools, as well as a feature that lets you add text in a variety of fonts. You can email your photos, or send them to Twitter, Facebook, Dropbox or set up an FTP destination. I've used the app for a few hours and found it intuitive, and there is some help built in. The GUI isn't typical, but it doesn't take long to adjust to it. I found I could really do just about the same things to my images I could do in Photoshop Touch, although the controls and screen in PS are prettier. I asked the developer about file sizes, and he said the app can output roughly 15 MP images on the iPad 2, and 3-4 MP images on the iPad 1 due to memory constraints. There is no limitation on the size of file imports. In use, I found the operation of filters and transforms noticeably slower than Photoshop Touch could do them, but I was working with substantially bigger files. Rendering a wooden frame on my iPad 2 took just under a minute. It's a heavy load for the iPad CPU. Having said all that, I do like the program, and at $0.99 it's a steal for a full-featured image editor. You can find some demo videos and more information at the website for the app. I also suggest you get a look at Snapseed and Photogene which are also capable editors. I think Laminar is an interesting alternative to Photoshop Touch. It doesn't have the magic 'Photoshop' name, but it is worthy of your consideration. Here are some screen shots I grabbed while using the app on some of my images. %Gallery-149213%
Ice Cream Sandwich may have a built-in photo editor to help your pictures turn out halfway decent
If you envision Ice Cream Sandwich -- the latest iteration of Android -- as a revolutionary update that satisfies every single one of your geeky lusts, we sure hope you've been aching for a photo editor. It appears that AndroidPolice has hunted down a variety of icons and logos presumed to be associated with the feature, but it's not certain if these will actually appear in the final build. The icons hint at a smattering of image editing tools: crop, sharpen, flip, rotate and a selection of 19 possible photo effects are among the options. Again, this is highly speculative, and rumors such as these will likely ramp up as we approach the official announcement. 'Course, we won't scoff at the idea of a native photo editor in Ice Cream Sandwich, but we're sincerely hoping this won't be the coolest thing about the new OS at Tuesday's announcement in Hong Kong. [Thanks, Paul]
Making the most of Preview.app for image editing
Inspired by Bear Grylls's (of Discovery's Man vs. Wild) "make the most out of your situation" scenarios, I present you with a tutorial for making the most out of Preview.app. While not as powerful as graphics editing powerhouse Adobe Photoshop, Preview can oftentimes get you from Point A to Point B -- and sometimes quicker too. Like Bear Grylls, you'll need to parachute out of a plane and into the house of a friend who doesn't have Photoshop -- just kidding. First, a little bit of background. Preview comes pre-installed on Mac OS X, and it's the default image viewer on the system. For PC-to-Mac converts, you could think of it as the Microsoft Paint of OS X; except that it can do a whole lot more. Besides the ability to open a host of image file formats (JPG, BMP, GIF, among them, and even PSD and AI files), Preview can also open PDF files natively. I actually prefer it over Adobe Acrobat for opening PDFs, as I find that they open much quicker using Preview. And like Adobe Reader, Preview contains advanced features, such as annotating.
Iris: One window image editing for Leopard
After a public beta that started at Macworld Expo 2008, Nolobe today shipped Iris, a new image editing application for Mac OS X. Nolobe is the same company that brings the world Interarchy, a popular advanced FTP client. What separates Iris from the competition is the single-screen user interface that dispenses with a lot of the traditional floating palettes that clutter screens with other applications. While it's a 1.0 release, a quick tour of the trial download shows that Iris is a surprisingly full-featured image editor supporting most major file formats, advanced compositing tools, and color correction machinery that lets you fix or enhance your favorite photos.Iris requires Leopard, and can be purchased from Nolobe for $79. If you'd like to take Iris for a spin, download the free trial.
Widget Watch: Photo Drop "10 sec photo editing"
Photo Drop (not to be confused with the photo batch processor we mentioned a while back) is a nifty Dashboard Widget that promises "10 sec. photo editing." Basically, you drag an image file from the Finder and drop it on the widget (in the Dashboard). You're then able to resize or trim the image and add one of 8 effects (e.g. reflection, rounded corners, etc.). When you're done you can drag the image off the widget back into the Finder, or save it to the clipboard or Desktop. The Photo Drop site has a couple of screencasts to give you a sense of what it can do. I think the concept of doing simple edits in a Dashboard widget is a good one, but I'd like to see more functionality (e.g. cropping, rotation, etc.). Photo Drop is a free download from dropping, Inc.[via Cool OSX Apps]
Beta Beat: ImageWell v3 beta
ImageWell calls itself the "the free and lean image editor" and it is, indeed, both free and lean. It's one of those apps that "just works" and doesn't try to do more than it should. We're fans of ImageWell here at TUAW. It makes our jobs easier. Recently I noticed that the ImageWell 3 beta was available for download and I jumped on it like a rabid dog. Guess what? It "just works" even better.ImageWell rocks for quick and easy edits to images. Just drag an image onto the well, make your adjustments (like cropping, rotating, watermarking and/or resizing) and send the file to the local folder, FTP server or iDisk of your choice. It supports .Mac, WebDAV, FTP and SFTP for uploads. A few simple clicks is all it takes and you'll generally be done with what you needed to do in about the same amount of time it would take for Photoshop to even launch. You can even add text, shapes, thought clouds and balloons with ease without having to launch another app to dress up your pic.Although the basic application is free, ImageWell now also offers a registered version that includes some additional bells and whistles, like more shapes, styles, gradients, and batch resizing. You can upgrade to the registered version for $9.95 during the v3 beta, but the regular price will be $14.95.The interface on ImageWell 3 is a bit different than version 2.x. (no more drawers!) and I was a tad confused by that when I launched it - I'm quite the creature of habit. But once I figured out where things had moved to I felt at ease again. The online help and documentation is very good. though, so if you're confused too, just fire up the help pages and you'll be all set. ImageWell 3 requires OS X 10.3.9 or greater, and is a Universal Binary. If you're looking for a lean and mean image editor, give it a try.
Seashore, open source image editor
The Gimp isn't the only open source image editor in town. Seashore may be quite basic in its functionality, but it's pleasant to use and the source code is freely available. Seashore employs many of the tools you're familiar with, like the lasso, marquee tool, smudge, erase, position, paint and more. Plus, there are several brushes and textures to choose from. Export options include JPEG, JPEG 2000, PNG, TIFF and XCF (Gimp). Seashore also supports layers and alpha channel editing.Seashore is free, universal and requires Mac OS 10.3 or later.[Via FreeMacWare]
ImagePlay, an open source, layered image editor
I stumbled across another interesting (and free) image manipulator in Apple's downloads section by the name of ImagePlay. It's actually an open source editor with versions available from Sourceforge for OS X, OS 9 and even Windows, but because of that open-sourceness it doesn't appear to be utilizing all the abilities of CoreImage like ImageTricks does (correct me if I'm wrong). However, ImagePlay does offer a few key features, such as layers, various effects and filters, as well as the incredibly handy ability to offer an estimated file size when exporting various image formats such as JPEG, PNG, BMP (uh, why?), Photoshop, TIFF and even QuickTime.While it obviously isn't Photoshop, I'm sure ImagePlay can still find its place in plenty of people's Application folders. This handy little image editor is available at either Apple's Downloads section or from its home at Sourceforge for the amazingly low price of $0.
