: Software….lite

By: g | No Comments » |

Anyone having been in the design game will tell you about the bane that is software. Since the day I first sat in front of Swivel 3D on a Mac back in what seems like the stone age, I knew that software was going to be the best and worst thing since sliced bread.

Over the past (number deleted) years, I have spent sooo much money on software it’s not funny. From image editors to 3D apps, money has gone out the door as I, like most of my counterparts, attempt to keep up with the digital. Recently I have slowed down, though on the other side of the studio 4.5k was dropped in Adobe’s lap recently as we needed to get the industry essential tools up to date. On this machine though I have slowed right down with my last major purchase being Maya, which I am amused to say has not seen too much action as I have all but left the 3D world behind for now.

Over the past few weeks I have been gearing up for a new pet project that has been sitting with me for a very long time and is not in the least bit work related. With the fog of war lifting, I am looking into the various bits and bobs I’ll need to pull this project off and being digitally based, I’m looking for a few new tools. One of the biggest ones I need was a new image editor. We have Photoshop CS3, soon to be 5 on one machine but on mine, I only have Painter IX, which great as it is, just has never gelled with me for image manipulation – like its name suggests, it’s a painting tool, not an image manipulation tool and I sorta dislike its interface. So what to do? I really didn’t want to do the spend and buy yet another license of Photoshop and besides, I am offended that for multiple seats, Adobe does not offer any form of discount. If I want another Suite, it’s another 4.5k. Sorry Adobe, not happening.

Historically, lite apps or ones by small players have always been, well, not so great. There have been the exceptions though they were usually gobbled up by the big boys if what they were doing was any good. This is why I guess companies like Adobe have managed to get so big and infiltrate the design industry, there just wasn’t the chop from other players. Times have changed though and all sorts of people are getting in on the act and while there are still many half arsed tools on the market, there are some very good ones.

It was in looking around for something new (and cheaper) I found Pixelmator, a very Mac specific image editing tool. With a free try out and a total cost of some $60, I had to try this. Up until now I been relegated to using Firework MX as my main image editor, tedious to say the least and waiting for the other machine to be free to use PS CS3 is not an option. My requirements were simple enough, to be able to open image files, edit them, clean them up, occasionally do some creative work with them and save them out. I’ll still use Fireworks to get the finished images into web ready state, as I have all my templates set up and it is still king of the roost for web stuff. As a bonus, if I could use it to also do some digital painting, then that would be cool too, though I have an app on the way designed just for that and one that’s not as clunky as Painter to use.

Well, Pixelmator has turned out to be one of these ‘very good ones’.

Today I had some image editing to do. We took a bunch of product shots and I needed to get them sorted. Work like this is usually the true test of any app and I have to say Pixelmator passed with flying colours. I managed to do everything I wanted/needed to and did so without thinking about it; Pixelmator is new yet friendly and most of the commands and menus are so close to things like Photoshop that it took no time to work my way around it. And it’s fast. Being just for Mac, and then just for OSX 10.5+, the designers have designed a system that takes full advantage of the Mac OS and hardware. I would have to say that Pixelmator if the fastest image app I have used to date

….And as a big plus, Pixelmator is awful pretty. It’s just nice to look at.

I could go on, but this is not that sort of place. My point here is that times are a changing. Though all the options are not there just yet, there are at least serious, yet affordable ones where once there were none. Pixelmator for one offers me all the tools I need to do the work I need to do, is maximised for my system and carries none of the fat so many legacy apps seem to have accumulated. It manages to do this for a fraction of the price of something like Photoshop. I think it’s well worth supporting….

Footnote: I am one of those people that accept that there is no one tool meant for everything. I doing what I do I might use two to three different apps, all maximised for doing one particular job very well. I have found that apps that try to do it all, usually do so at the cost of speed , or more importantly, functionality.

 

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