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Let me say right at the outset that I’m not an obvious choice for reviewing this application. I’m not a designer, and I don’t currently work on maintaining any websites; I have little use of software for working out effective color schemes in my day-to-day life and work. These facts might make me either entirely the wrong person to assess ColorSchemer Studio 2, or just the right guy.
I used to be involved in running the website of a big local authority, and I have seen first-hand the damage that can be done by untrained eyes when the thought arises “Wouldn’t it be nice just to add a little splash of color to this page?” With ColorSchemer, this needn’t be such a big problem any more.
This is a really clever app that simplifies the work of coming up with effective and attractive color combinations for websites or any screen design work. You don’t need to be a professional designer to appreciate its great features or to find it useful whenever you do need to work with colors.
Have you ever needed to do some simple photo editing or creation, but didn’t want the hassle of opening up Photoshop, or are too afraid to learn it? Then Acorn is for you! It’s a lightweight image editor that allows you to do many of the functions of more advanced programs (such as Photoshop), but doesn’t have quite the same learning curve or price.
Developed by Flying Meat, Acorn is an image editor that allows you do paint, draw and crop photos. It is also jam-packed with other features and a range of useful filters.
We reviewed an earlier version of Acorn last year, but will be covering new features and exploring the basics in greater depth today.
There comes a time in the life of a designer where they seek methods to make their already beautiful design magnificent. The grid system is one of these such alternate methods, with many application developers, both online and offline, creating their own for a specific purpose. Two popular examples in the web field are the 960 grid system and the blueprint framework. Slammer takes this to a whole new level, adding in powerful tools to manipulate your grid system framework across all platforms.
Slammer, developed by Ringce, is an advanced layout tool that allows web and interface designers alike to create and tweak their layouts to align with a grid system, golden sections, harmonious sections and the fibonacci series.
Loren Brichter of atebits has become a highly acclaimed OS X/iPhone developer in recent years as the man behind Tweetie, but that’s not all he’s worked on in the past. Today we’re going to delve into another atebits application – Scribbles.
Put simply, Scribbles is a lightweight tool for drawing on your Mac. It reminds me of Microsoft Paint, but with all the power and flair you’d expect from an OS X application. Deceptively simple at the outset, the power behind what you can do with Scribbles is remarkable.
3D modeling applications are notoriously complex and can take years to learn. Complicated modeling tools, infinite material setting variables, lighting radiance adjustments, multiple cameras, UVs, etc., it can all be quite daunting and frankly unnecessary for someone looking to create a quick mockup. Enter Google SketchUp, an amazing free application for creating professional (non photo-realistic) 3D models on the fly.
Though SketchUp is relatively simple compared to more robust 3D applications, it still has a ton of features… too many too enumerate here. This review will briefly cover some of the principal features and tools in SketchUp and offer a little insight into how you can create complex geometry in a jiffy.
It is fairly well known that using mind maps to organize information and solve problems can have a huge benefit on the way we think, learn, and remember. But how many of us actually do it?
MindNode Pro, developed by MindNode, is an application for creating simple and stylish mind maps. You start with an idea or anything you can think of, and from there branch off wherever your mind leads you. MindNode Pro allows you to produce these mind maps quickly and efficiently in a visually appealing style. This review will cover what MindNode Pro is capable of, and how it could benefit you.
For almost two decades now, Adobe’s Photoshop has ruled as the ultimate image editing tool on the Mac and PC. It offers a comprehensive toolset that is difficult to challenge, and doing so would be a major undertaking for any company. However, over the years, Photoshop has become increasingly bloated with unnecessary features. So why pay $600 for something, when you can find cheaper (and in some cases, better) alternatives?
Acorn from Flying Meat Software is one such Photoshop alternative that encompasses simplicity and power in a very intuitive user interface. It can handle most of your image editing work, right from the simple tasks to those involving some levels of complexity.
Until recently purchasing a scanner, I commonly found myself taking a digital photo of a document to import it into my Mac. Results were rarely perfect, and I was never completely satisfied with the result. Prizmo is a new application which caught me eye, allowing you to adjust the perspective of a digital photo.
Completely altering the perspective of a photograph is a technically impressive operation, and uses the latest technology in OS X Leopard. This review will outline the features which make Prizmo such an interesting photo manipulation tool.
I feel it’s safe to say that most of us are accustomed to using an application such as Photoshop for image editing. I’ve been using it for years, but have recently started to find that – for tasks such as editing images for the web – it’s far too feature packed and resource consuming for my needs.
I was intruiged to hear about Pixelmator, an OS X only image editing tool designed with speed, simplicity and a great user interface in mind. It lacks the raw power of Photoshop, but provides a great, flexible tool for graphics editing and photo manipulation. It’s a fairly recently launched app, but has already undergone several updates, adding widely requested functionality.
This review will take a look at the features offered by Pixelmator and let you know whether I think it’s a tool worthy of being branded a Photoshop competitor.
