Acorn: Simple but Powerful Image Editor
Do you want to edit images but can’t afford Photoshop? Are the free editors either too complicated or not powerful enough? Just released today, Acorn from Flying Meat Inc. is here to solve all those problems and more. Acorn is designed to be a simple, fast, but still powerful image editor. It does not take up much of your system resources, but it still has “Fancy math to keep your pencil strokes from having sharp edges, squeezing all the performance out of your computer’s GPU as possible, and simple innovations to make your life easier.” What are these simple innovations? Hit the jump to find out!
As you can see, Acorn has all the standard tools of an image editor. The big difference, however, is that everything is laid out in a simple, easy to use format withoutsacrificing power. Not only are the tools easy to use, but the filters are also powerful yet still simple.
In addition to the standard image editor features, Acorn also has made some unique innovations. Some of these innovations include using Acorn to take screenshots and take pictures with your iSight, chaining together image filters for unique effects, Python and Objective-C plugins, and it is powered by your GPU (Graphics Processing Unit). Some features you might only expect to see in image editors such as Photoshop are layers, full screen editing, tablet pressure sensitivity, vector shapes and text layers, and magic wand selections.
After playing with Acorn for a while, I have decided that I don’t really need Photoshop. I never use any of it’s advanced features that aren’t also included in Acorn. If you are looking for a powerful but simple image editor, look no further than Acorn from Flying Meat Inc. It is available from their website for the bargain introductory price of $39.95.
Hey cool…I saw this app linked to from the Rogue Ameoba site. Totally recommended.
It’s looks cool and no mistake, but CMYK would be cooler
Maybe it’s because I had vmware fusion running at the same time (though not really doing anything), but I found it slow to the point of being unusable on my macbook pro (2.2).
Pete, I have no problems at all with the speed (also using a MBP). The app is very snappy!
It looks like you can only work at 72 dpi, is this the case?
Not quite Pixelmator but I like how the keyboard commands are similar (if not exactly the same) to Photoshop. The resize canvas/image tools are very nice as well.
[...] OS X image editor realm lately. From new applications competing with Photoshop like Pixelmator and Acorn, to specialized tools like Skitch and Picturesque, there is no shortage of applications for the Mac [...]
Where can you get this