Pixel image editor
Not a Photoshop killer yet, but Pixel is an interesting low cost (US$32) alternative for your image editing needs. The software runs on OSX (no Universal Binary yet though) besides many other operating systems, is developed by Pavel Kanzelsberger, a Slovakian programmer. It has not even been released as a final product and it already won many awards.
It's a fast and small application that supports most scanners, printers, tablets and image formats. It can do layers and most color modes including 32bit/channel images that can be edited in full HDR quality. It has layer effects, some special animated brushes, retouching tools and many filters. As an output besides the classic formats you have many web formats that include image maps and GIF animations. All in all, the features avilable are equivalent to PS CS with some extras, which is quite impressive for an application that has been developed by a single person. See some interesting renders and filter effects below.
Disco
Fractals
Sine plasma
Snow
On the downside, it doesn't feel like a native OS X application. It uses an extra bar for the the menus. Although it resebles Photoshop quite a bit it doesn't not fully behave like PS, which drives me crazy sometimes.
It's still an unfinished application, so if you're uncomfortable running betas, just sign up to be notified when the final product comes out sometime this year.
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Hmm.
It seems like a clone of Photoshop, but like you said it definitely doesn't have an OS X feel to it. I tried the demo three times and it crashed on me three times. It did impress me enough to keep an eye out for it though. Maybe when it becomes a final release I will research it a little more.
On the 3rd image, I thought
On the 3rd image, I thought you were trying to include some subliminal messaging in there. I could see type, but thought it was just my eyes. Didn't realize until the 4th image that it was a "demo" watermark. :)
It's amazing that one person has developed all of this, and for different platforms!
It is truly amazing...
I wonder if the guy has all the machines to run all these systems?
Hrm
I saw an article about this earlier today. Looks better (though a lot less free) than Gimp, however, isn't Adobe going to get them for copying their interface? It looks almost exactly like Photoshop, which is good for users, but bad for the developers, legally speaking.
Also the interface wreaks of "Linux port", but I suppose I can't blame the developer too much since it's available for SO MANY different platforms.
yeah, i was just about to
yeah, i was just about to say something like gimp.
i dunno. the endeavour of building something like psp seems futile to me.
you could invest a bilion in it, and still you wont beat it.
after all these years of psp, i still cant find something important enough to put my finger on it. and bury it. its classic. its standard. the rest is beta.
sure, some progs have nice features. but you find the same consistency and care about the details anywhere.
although im a bit scared about adobe's plan to release a new v. of psp like in every year.
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always outnumbered, never outgunned
I'll stick with GIMP
So it's a Photoshop-a-like, but developed by just one person? So what happens if he decides to stop developing (or he's no longer able to)? I'll stick with GIMP for my cheap image editing needs, thanks; at least I know that should continue development until the year dot. What's more, GIMP is pretty much the same on all platforms and very rarely crashes (I know it's a Beta, but it still shouldn't crash 3/3 times).
I think what we need from independant developers is something new, something that Adobe do not do - like hardware accelerated image manipulation; there's loads of scope for this with the fancy graphics cards all computers seem to have these days, and developing for just the Mac should guarantee consistency. In fact, are there any such projects for the Mac? I know some individuals are developing very impressive hardware accelerated graphics tools for the SGI platform, imagine all that top-of-the-line dedicated graphics hardware being used to it's full potential... 2D image editing suddenly becomes trivial and with instant results.
With Tiger and CoreImage
With Tiger and CoreImage we're starting to see some. I know I've heard of a few (none the level of Gimp or anything yet) but wasn't interested in them since my card can't handle CoreImage.
All of a sudden eh?
I don't get why people have suddenly taken to this CoreImage thing, why didn't they bother before? Maybe it just makes doing powerful graphics programming easier, I don't know the details, but boo to Apple for taking so long to make such an API if that's the case!
Coreimage
People 'suddenly' talk about it because it has suddenly been part of OSX. CoreImage (and ImageIO) does make programming graphics application much easier. ImageIO allows you to read and write all basic images formats and CoreImage allows you to use (and create) filters very easily.
The only reason I had the courage to start my own image editing app (see ChocoFlop.com) is that CoreImage/ImageIO made it so 'easy'. Haveing a full-featured, stable app is still a lot of work but without Apple's APIs I'd still be writing a blur filter and an jpeg2000 compressor.
Interesting
Hm, I just gave it a try, and although it's incredibly unstable on mac os x, it does seem to be worthy of attention and a waking eye as it continues to develop. I like the HDR support and the general breadth of features.
I look forward to seeing how this continues to progress!