Tag Archive for 'bitmap'

Acorn: The Leatherman Tool of Image Editors

Icon for Mac OS X image editor AcornThe more I try out image editors Pixelmator & Acorn, the more Acorn’s simplicity and new perspective on the interface grows on me. Pixelmator is looking to be just about perfect for those people who need a Photoshop Elements style app with low overhead at a sweet price point.

Acorn, on the other hand, seems to be carving out a new niche, and developer Gus Mueller has shown in some of the details that’s he’s not trying to compete with Photoshop (or even Pixelmator), rather he’s attempting to do something new & unique. From the single, unified tools palette to the Option & Control key resizing & crop features (with the live pixel dimension display on the bottom left of the window frame) to the live brush size on the brush slider, Mueller demonstrates that he’s been using graphics software, he’s been frustrated with some things, and he’s thought of a way to make it painless, effortless and intuitive.

Once you’ve worked a bit in Acorn with some of these novel approaches to old habits, you’ll soon wonder why it was never done this way before.

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by George Coghill
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Pixelmator & Acorn: Quick Comparison Review

A quick overview comparing the two new image editors Pixelmator and Acorn by designer John Whipple. I would have to agree with most of his points. The one thing I really, really like about Acorn is the handy resizing & cropping keyboard modifiers: hold Option and drag to resize, hold Control and drag to crop. It’s a very clever and very handy way to do things quickly. The zoom slider at the bottom of the window is nice as well. Oh, and the integrated screenshot tool.
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by George Coghill
View my cartoon character and logo illustration portfolio
Contact me to get started on your own custom cartoon illustration projects.

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Cartoon Art & Halftones Tutorial: From Inkjet Printer to Photocopier

Halftone cartoon comparisonA cartoon illustration & design project for a friend’s party required the resulting art to be suitable for reproduction on a photocopy machine. After some trial, error, Google search, trial, error, Google search, trial, error I discovered the magic combo that allows you to create a halftone in Photoshop for an image and print it out on your inkjet printer so the art will be perfect for photocopying.

This technique is perfect for flyers, newsletters or any other short-run printing needs you have where the cheapness of a photocopy is desired, but so are grayscale images.

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by George Coghill
View my cartoon character and logo illustration portfolio
Contact me to get started on your own custom cartoon illustration projects.

Be sure to check out my live and recorded drawing, sketching & vectoring videos.

Acorn: Handy Lightweight Pixel-Based Image Editor

Screenshot of single palette pixel-based image editor AcornA new image editor snuck in under the radar a few days back: Acorn. It’s a pretty nice lightweight alternative to Photoshop for either users who don’t need all the bells and whistles the Adobe juggernaut has to offer, or would like to have a companion app for those times when you just need to do some quick edits and don’t want to fire up Photoshop just for an annotated screenshot.

If Adobe has Photoshop Elements, you could call Acorn “Photoshop Molecule”.

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by George Coghill
View my cartoon character and logo illustration portfolio
Contact me to get started on your own custom cartoon illustration projects.

Be sure to check out my live and recorded drawing, sketching & vectoring videos.

Genopal Color Scheme Generator Software: Weird Name, Cool Tool

Genopal color scheme generator software: sample color scheme

Genopal is a color scheme generator software application I just stumbled across, and it’s pretty interesting.

Instead of the standard color wheels most color scheme generator/explorer software programs utilize, Genopal doesn’t give you the option of choosing a color model such as Complimentary, Triadic and such. Instead there are two sliders, one for Color Diversity and one for Lightness Diversity. There’s a “Generate” button which them cycles though color schemes as analagous or as wild as you set the sliders.

Continue reading 'Genopal Color Scheme Generator Software: Weird Name, Cool Tool'

by George Coghill
View my cartoon character and logo illustration portfolio
Contact me to get started on your own custom cartoon illustration projects.

Be sure to check out my live and recorded drawing, sketching & vectoring videos.



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