Free Paint program for Mac OS X
Posted by Mathieu Jobin Wed, 04 Oct 2006 00:00:00 GMT | 15 comments
As most of you might already know, I really like Apple products, especially their shiny new computers with Mac OS X. They keep saying its read out-of-the-box and you can do whatever you want from Day one. no other software necessary. its actually true. but there is one software missing that I can't beleive they did not include. Its a Paint program. There is no paint program shipped with Apple. I suppose its because most Apple user used to be designer and all needed Photoshop. but I don't need photoshop, I don't want to pay for it and I don't want to pirate it either.
So here comes, I have taken a screenshot for my desktop (for my next post) onto my clipboard and I need to paste it somewhere. Holding onto my paste I am hunting down Free Paint software for OSX.
I actually found quite a few.
First google result returns TuxPaint, some kind of kiddish paint program. Probably very good for 3-5 years old kid who wants to learn how to use the mouse and draw stuff. but ain't really what I was looking for.
Then I remembered the obvious The Gimp. Being a Linux user for many years, I know The Gimp as the de-facto imaging program under linux. But The Gimp still requires X11 to run, which is not as slick as I would expect and X11 also prevented me from pasting my image contect onto the gimp. BAD. Good news is that it got much faster than it was last year. anyway, lets move on.
ArtRage another totally different alternative. I could not do what I wanted but I discover what many people might like to play with. The paint tool is a pleasure to use. for all the artistic people within you, try this one out. its something to see going.
more seriously there is Seashore which is a port of the Gimp apparently. Mac-ized. Pretty sweet. I've done what I needed pretty quickly. It also got much stabler that last time I tried it, about a year ago. definitely a good pick.
and The one that is gonna stick into my applications folder. Pixen. just like Seashore I've been able to do what I needed. but it just look slicker. ain't a port of something else. worked perfectly. well actually now that I remember correctly, it crashed on the first paste. but I restarted the application and it worked fine.
so conclusion both Pixen and Seashore are good pics. ArtRage deserve a try for his artistic behaviour and if you got a kid you might want to install TuxPaint, just and only for him ;)
Happy painting ;)
Update: apparently PhotoShop Elements is also very good and inexpensive (ie. cheaper than Photoshop ... $150US) but I have not tried it as I was looking for something Free.
