Slashdot Mirror

Some other options include:

DxO PhotoLab for photos. I found on1 RAW wasn't all that responsive and I wasn't happy with the interface. I found myself needing a new editor and DAM when I bought a new DSLR since Lightroom 5 had no support the EOS 80D. I wasn't about to pay monthly for anything by Adobe and tested a few other options including Luminar by Skylum and on1 RAW. I found that PhotoLab produced better-looking photos with less hassle. The down side is that DAM functionality is lacking and they really need to start at least supporting keywords. Now I mostly work with image collections for a given event and that satisfies my needs. Hopefully they can add keywording and additional metatagging in the near future.

Luminar I tried with the idea that the DAM module would be along "any day now". Well, it's been about a year. And it's probably going to be another year before they have a beta. So avoid. Especially if you don't like waiting for images to load since Luminar is also dog slow.

For graphics editing another option aside from Affinity Photo is Acorn from Flying Meat . Gets the job done, is snappy performance-wise, and inexpensive, while having the power of PS. And has been around a long time. But it's Mac only so be aware of that.

And I agree with others' statements that image editing software on Linux is... shall we say, lackluster. I've tried GIMP, and digiKam, and DarkTable and they're just not that great. Getting even moderately interesting images out of them takes a huge amount of work. Sometimes it's very much worth it to pay the money.

*shrug*

nick

Notes for the App Store version of Acorn which is now sandboxed:
The magic Acorn uses to automatically change the file type popup as you type in the Save sheet no longer works, for your security.
Using JSTalk to open up images that have not been recently opened will fail.

Can I point to apps like Acorn and Paint.Net and Pixwlmator and Krita and others instead? These are all apps that were started long after GIMP was, and yet have managed to support things like 16 bit colorspaces, and other things.

While they might not all be FLOSS, I would argue that all of them are better than GIMP because they are far more usable, have far better support for colorspaces and high bit depth, were developed AFTER the GIMP was (and in less time), and don't have insulting names. I am not kidding about the latter btw, the GIMP folk have drawn a line in the sand when it comes to the name, but they are simply wrong there (like they are on so many things). It is childish, it is insulting, and it is unprofessional.

But that isn't why I avoid GIMP, it is because of the glacial pace of development, the horrible usability, the utter lack of non-destructive editing, and so many other factors,

As the list at the start of this post, small teams can produce high quality tools. The GIMP team has been spinning its wheels (and arguing what color they should be) for years and years, and after they release 2.8 (sometime this decade?) it will still pale in comparison to Photoshop 7. And that was released a decade ago.

In the mean time I rarely open Photoshop, unless I have something really hardcore to do. 95% of the time the aforementioned Acorn does what I need. I can't say the same about GIMP.

I can't think of any apps that would really need access to things not on that list

Accessing FireWire devices. Accessing Bluetooth devices. Making your application scriptable. (The entitlement for Apple events, used by AppleScript on Mac OS 7-9 and Mac OS X, is marked as one of "a couple of temporary exception entitlements that will be going away.") Taking layered screenshots. Loading third-party plug-ins that add functionality to a given application but aren't usable as stand-alone applications by themselves.

(keeping in mind that mounted hard drives would presumably come under filesystem)

There isn't an entitlement for accessing any file, other than using an Open or Save dialog. For example, a program for backing up the user's files is limited to the Movies, Music, Pictures, and Downloads folders unless the user chooses each file using an Open dialog followed by a Save dialog. And I don't see any entitlement for being able to open and save all files in an entire folder; otherwise, it'd be "files and folders the user has selected using an Open or Save dialog" instead of "files the user has selected using an Open or Save dialog".

that still make sense in the app store context.

So that we don't trip up on definitions and talk past each other, what does "the app store context" mean to you?

"screw it, they can exist outside the app store"

The persistent worry is that there won't be an "outside the app store", much as in the transition from Windows Mobile 6 to Windows Phone 7.

http://flyingmeat.com/acorn/

Costs $50. Did you mean Gimp?

Photoshop would be replaced by Acorn, which would get a bunch of resources dumped on it. Illustrator is replaced by Inkscape. Quark Xpress makes a comeback to replace InDesign. Apple iWeb, Softpress or Karelia Sandvox or someone steps up to the plate to replace Dreamweaver. Fireworks is replaced with DrawIt. And Flash is replaced by Anime Studio or something. In any case, there's a great number of companies that would be ready to jump into the fray should Adobe choose to pull out of the Mac market.

For Mac users, there are Pixelmator and Acorn. For web users in general, there is Aviary.

I am not aware of a single application that really leverages the new technology found in Snow Leopard

For what it's worth, Acorn 2.0 is 10.6 only.

There is no replacement for all of Photoshop's functions, but the majority of the functions normal people use can be found in Pixelmator or Acorn. For added points, Acorn has a Python powered plugin interface.

This guy did a great comparison of three new image editors for OS X that use Core Image. All of these apps let you move the image while using a filter dialog box.

http://jonwhipple.com/blog/2007/10/29/image-is-everything/

The three apps are Pixelmator, Acorn, and DrawIt.

WItness that Mac OS X 10.4 and later come with a complete set of Photoshop clone construction tools. See Acorn, DrawIt, Pixelmator and even later versions of GraphicConverter. Adobe dragged their heels too long.

A few things I personally couldn't live without that are missing from this list

* VoodooPad - for general note taking, todo lists, etc
* TextMate - self explanatory
* Camino - for web surfing
* Paparazzi! - for taking quick screenshots or thumbnails of web pages
* Colloquy - irc client
* twitterific - interface for twitter
* NetNewsWire - Feed reader

If you have a good systems admin, then Linux/Solaris is certainly mature for the cooperate desktop.

As far as Mac OS X application offerings, have a look at OmniGroup's offerings. I believe that OmniOutliner is currently bundled with many Mac models.

Lucid Information Systems, one of the companies where I work (shameless plug) has business laptops on offer with most of the OmniGroup products and VoodooPad among many other useful tools pre-installed.

OS X is ready for the business world!

There are a couple gesture programs for OS X that you can use. FlyGesture is way cool, and from one of the best indie deveopers around, but at 24.95, it's a little pricey. CocoaGestures is free, but not quite as cool.

The nice thing about either of these is that you can use them with any browser.

Believe it or not, a personal wiki might be one way to go. If you happen to be on a Mac, Voodoopad is a great standalone app that I use quite a bit; there are others available, and on other platforms.

There's an article here, Getting things done with VooodooPad, which combines the GTD concept. I've got my own notes here as well. I use the app for meeting and project notes, and the auto-linking wiki goodness puts it all together.

Lately, though, I'm experimenting with the single plaintext file todo list using tags.

I'd recommend Voodoopad Lite. It's not open-source, but it is free as in beer. You can always upgrade to the professional version of Voodoopad for $25 later on.

• VoodooPad: An excellent WYSWIG Wiki-like notebook
  
• Circus Ponies NoteBook: A visually impressive note-taking app that looks like a real lab notebook.
  
• Hog Bay Notebook: Similar to the above, but lightweight and with IMHO superior outlining facilities.
  
• PersonalWiki : A desktop interface to the web-based ZWiki.
  
• Devonthink: A note/snippet/document management system, which includes semi-supervised classification algorithms.
  

There's a Mac OS X wiki that does just that.

It's called VoodooPad and information can be found:

http://flyingmeat.com/voodoopad.html

Go download Voodoo Pad. It's a Mac app that is essentially a personal wiki. Rocks my socks.

Ah, if we're talking Mac OS X then you might want to look at VoodooPad. Quite a bit cheaper (has a free version actually), and seems to do much of what the poster wants.

I wanted to point out a nifty piece of software- VoodooPad ( http://flyingmeat.com/voodoopad.html ) which will export it's wiki contents to the iPod notes folder (in the latest version, 1.1 alpha).

It turns your ipod into a Wiki on the go... Here's a great writeup of the software from
Oreilly entitled "Wiki meet iPod"- http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/3164

Disclaimer- I wrote the software.

-gus