![]() ![]() ![]() You can unlink the mask transformation from the color to do things like move text around while keeping a background mask in place. Layers can be masked, grouped, and you can command-click to load layer transparency as a selection. Layer SupportĪnother staple of modern image editing is layers, and Acorn's layer support is decent enough. Other than that, brushes in Acorn will be fine for most needs. I don't hold up Photoshop's brush as the standard but clearly it is harder to make a soft stroke in Acorn. I don't expect a lot of depth from a basic image editor's brushes but one complaint I have about Acorn brushes is that the falloff of the softest edge is still hard at the edge:Ĭompared to Photoshop's 100 percent soft brush, Acorn drops off the edge too quickly: So you won't be getting watercolor wet-on-wet effects like a proper paint program-the results aren't convincing.Īt first, it looked like the Acorn brushes maxed out at 100 pixels, but Acorn can actually go up to any size when using the control-option modifier or command-]. Acorn's not really meant to emulate real-world media, like Painter or ArtRage try to do, and the few media brushes are just image stamps with Brush Designer setting tweaks. ![]() Of the tablet support features, only pressure sensitivity is supported, so angle-based brushes are static. The basic brushes feel very nice and the Brush Designer gives you a lot of customization of the brush controls. "Precision mode" slows the cursor down to give sub-pixel precision to some very broad movements using a mouse can get you very accurate strokes. In the dropdown menu next to the brush tip preview, presets include textured pencils, felt-tipped angled pens, watercolor, and some cheeky effects like planet stamps. BrushesĪcorn comes pre-loaded with a lot of pen tips and paintable image stamps. ![]() And of course, the staple of all image editors. Most of the basics of a modern image editor are there: 64-bit code, multiple undos, pen tablet pressure support, good gradient controls, layers with masks, quickmask, clone, dodge, burn, smudge, live cropping, color profile support, Boolean selections and feathering, gradients, and text tools. The tools in Acorn are better fleshed out. The only Photoshop-style shortcut I find missing is command-spacebar-click for zoom, since command-= requires taking your hand off the mouse and a tablet pen doesn't have a scroll wheel and this is a pretty common standard for zooming in image editors.Īcorn also has an image thumbnail browser, but it's pretty bare bones: Acorn doesn't pretend to be as powerful as Photoshop, and developer Gus Mueller hasn't reinvented the wheel where there's no need to do so. There are more key shortcut and workflow similarities to Photoshop, like guides being created by dragging off of the rulers and other things, but you get the idea. X to flip foreground and background colors.holding the command key toggles the Move tool.control-option mouse click interactively resizes the brush.You can use option-scrollwheel for zooming and, for those coming from Photoshop, you'll be comfortable with a lot of the Acorn key shortcuts and modifiers: With the exception of the layer style/FX popup, palettes are non-modal, so you have lots of room to customize a workspace and keep clutter to a minimum. Small things add up to give Acorn a really pleasant workspace. When I first saw the interface a couple years ago, it reminded me of The GIMP-never a good thing-but after using it for a while, it was clear that the interface is far tidier and compact than the open source image editor. Almost all of the application's interface is concentrated in one large palette, which hosts the tools, contextual tool options, and the active document's layers.Īs you can see, it all fits well inside a 1440x900 MacBook Pro screen, with plenty of room for both work and Doc Brown, art critic. It's not brimming with animated transitions and its overall gray look means it's good at staying out of your face to let you focus on your images. The InterfaceĪcorn's interface is similarly minimal and tastefully executed. People with smallish laptop SSDs are always looking for ways to save space, so compact apps are a plus. It's listed as 14.6MB on the Mac App Store, but it's actually 31.9MB on the disk, which is still amazingly small for a program with this robust a feature set. One of the first things you notice about Acorn is its tiny footprint. We decided to hold out for the next major release-so here we are with a look at Acorn 3.1.2 for the Mac. In addition to the basic picture editing features of GraphicConverter, there are a variety of advanced features, effects and filters which are comparable to image editing programs such as Photoshop.When we reviewed Pixelmator 1.6.2 eight months ago, many readers were quick to demand a review of their favorite Mac OS X image editor: Acorn. ![]()
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