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Horsepoo!!! · Sep 22, 2005, 09:24 PM

Ok...I can now say that OS X has 3 excellent cheap graphics apps...and they're all unique.

The first, we all know: OmniGraffle 4.0

It's a powerful vector-based diagram/flowchart program that can be used almost like you would Illustrator. With it's new bezier curve feature, you can draw just about anything in it.

The second, some of us know, it used to be slow but it's gotten faster: Pixen 2.0

Pixen 2.0 is still in (public) beta but this is an amazing pixel-based sprite/icon creation program.

The third is brand new as far as I can tell: Rita 1.0.3

A freehand graphics app that allows an 'infinite canvas' as the author puts it...what you draw becomes vectorized and can scale to any size without showing pixels. This type of thing has existed in many high-end apps but never in a 20 dollar shareware app.

All these apps are either free (Pixen) or are pretty cheap compared to commercial alternatives.

wataru · Sep 22, 2005, 11:30 PM

Everything I use is free: Gimp.app for bitmaps and Inkscape for vectors. Seashore is also a very nice looking up-and-comer.

Horsepoo!!! · Sep 23, 2005, 01:22 PM

Originally Posted by wataru

Everything I use is free: Gimp.app for bitmaps and Inkscape for vectors. Seashore is also a very nice looking up-and-comer.

Free but I wouldn't call them 'excellent' apps and some aren't really OS X native (except for Seashore.) Gimp, in particular, has an awful UI.

osxrules · Sep 23, 2005, 05:20 PM

I don't like the GIMP as I feel it isn't near as user friendly as Photoshop. The fact it is X11-based sucks too. I do like Inkscape though and I would take that over Illustrator any day.

However, those other programs look nice so I'll definitely check them out. I really wish Apple would do something to make unix stuff more integrated in OS X. X11 is really bad with slow launch times and bad performance. In GIMP on my Mac Mini with 1GB Ram, the brush jitters when I'm drawing. In Photoshop, I get real-time transparent overlays with transforms and no jitter. Plus the brush setup is much better - GIMP seems to include a lot of bitmap brushes and few vector ones.