Now is the best time to get Pixelmator - even if you already own Photoshop
We have covered Pixelmator many times so far, and we’re generally both impressed and satisfied by the software (if you learn to live with some flaws and omissions it’s perfect ;)) and now if you were holding off to buy it it’s the best time ever, as this almost professional graphic design software is only $15! That’s A LOT lower than the cheapest Photoshop edition. Get it now here
We have teamed with Hype4 to bring you an awesome PSD design template with buttons, icons, popovers, polls, graphs and more! Only 5$ and it's good for commercial use!
The creative guys at Hype4 are starting an awesome initiative to make web and apps look better, by offering super cheap template elements that anyone can use for any project. The set includes icons, textboxes, buttons, popovers, calendars, polls and graphs. Each element can by modified (colour etc.) by layer styles, which gives you total flexibility and ease to fit them into your projects. And all this for $5. Get yours now on FIVERR by clicking: HERE
More images after the break.
Now we know why Facebook bought Instagram ;)
After a rather disappointing plunge in the ratings just days after lanuching on NASDAQ, Facebook strikes fast with a completely new product – maybe hoping to bump up the ratings a little bit. Or maybe just using some of Instagram’s ideas for it’s own purposes. I remember, that after the transaction Facebook stated that it’s not going to change or shut-down Instagram. Now another app has come forth, with Instagramesque filters and batch uploading, and with those millions of users it’ll probably kill Instagram slowly. Sure, the filters aren’t as good (yet), but more people are gonna use it since it integrates with Facebook’s timelines so well and lets them upload a bunch of photos (up to 30) at once.
The app also steps a little away from the current mobile aesthetic, which is a good thing. Seriously though, an app like that wasn’t probably made in a day (or week) so the development must’ve started before the Instagram acquisition. But the bottom line here is that this will probably kill Instagram in the long run, so Facebook sort-of-misguided us saying that they won’t shut the app down ;)
If you seriously need it here’s an app store link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/facebook-camera/id525898024?ls=1&mt=8
Steve Jobs said that Android's biggest problem is being fragmented, but new rumors suggest a different resolution iPhone!
There has been all the fuss about how fragmented Android is, especially in comparison to it’s direct blueprint inspiration – iOS. But with all the surfacing rumors about a 4inch iPhone 5 (or New iPhone) it might actually cause Apple to fragment it’s devices as well. At least a little bit.
So here’s the most current comparison of resolutions for iOS and Android mobile devices:
| iOS | Android | |
| Phones | 320×480 640×960 (2x) iPhone5 (?) 640×1096 ? |
ldpi 240×400 ldpi 240×432 mdpi 320×480 hdpi 480×800 hdpi 480×854 hdpi 600×1024 xhdpi 640×960 |
| Tablets | 1024×768 2048×1536 (2x) |
ldpi 1024×600 mdpi 1280×800 mdpi 1024×768 mdpi 1280×768 hdpi 1536×1152 hdpi 1920×1152 hdpi 1920×1200 xhdpi 2048×1536 xhdpi 2560×1536 xhdpi 2560×1600 |
As you can see making a universal Android app is kinda hard, as you need to either make it the way “flexible websites” are made (which will results in Tim Cook mocking the stretched apps once again) or doing it for all those resolutions. Apple has only two resolutions with a 2x option. And if the new iPhone will stay the same 640×960 it won’t have any problem with a fragmented app ecosystem and/or app size.
But for all of you who need a quick resolution reference – enjoy! It’s always so hard to find it in a neat table without plenty of scrolling ;)
iPad2 only, but still it's a nice way to sketch some projects on the go, and finish them on the real PS at home
Adobe has just released Photoshop Touch for the second generation iPad. The software was present on the Android platform since november, but apparently it wasn’t so easy to port. The good thing is that they didn’t use that “toilet paper roll logo” this time, going for something a little bit more classy. The software itself will probably be expanded with new features as soon as the third iPad gets here and Android tablets will get a power boost. But for now it’s probably the most powerful image editor out there, just a little bit ahead of PhotoForge 2 (which is also great but lacks some features).
In this video they emphasize the ease of use and sharing, which might suggest it’s pointed mostly to casual users editing their facebook pictures, but time will tell if it’ll be adopted by professionals as well.
You can download the software here:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/adobe-photoshop-touch/id495716481?mt=8
Just like Content Aware fill made us go "WOW" the last time, Adobe comes back with features that will force us to drool over them
Content Aware fill is an extremely useful tool, that helps us intelligently covering missing parts of the image, or removing an object from a background. But that’s not all, cause in CS6 Adobe comes back with more content-aware goodness. Apparently some mad scientists worked day and night and figured out a formula that can even do content aware move, expand and more. See the video below.
Photoshop took some cues from Pixelmator on UI design?
Finally, after many apps have shown that darker interfaces are easier to work with (even some Adobe Apps had these) the change is coming to the flagship product. It took about 20 years for them to realize that, which is typical Adobe-slow, but apparently cheaper competition breating down their backs with new features (pixelmator 2.0 is really getting there, although it’s not there … yet) maybe they decided to improve everything they possibly can so they’ll stop using customers. Especially after those odd decisions that only the two last versions of their products can be upgraded to the most recent one – the rest having to buy it all over again.
A lot of people have been struggling with quicklook and Photoshop, so who's to blame here? Adobe or Apple?
Neither. In fact in most cases the blame is on the user side. First of all check your file handling, because maximize compatibility might be set to “Never”. That’s one culprit that does that. Did that help? If not there’s another thing that makes QuickLook show only a white rectangle instead of the PSD file. The problem is the color profile – you have to embed it in the file or QuickLook will be VERY confused. Poor ol’ QuickLook. Doesn’t matter if it’s CMYK or “DISPLAY”, just remember to embed it while you’re saving your PSD’s and all will be fine and dandy.
That helps A LOT while browsing for that one PSD from a year ago ;)
The annotations just got a lot more fun!
After Evernote acquired Skitch – the annotations editor, some people were afraid that it will cease to exist and instead be merged into the evernote app itself. Good news is that it’s not entirely true, since the Mac app is now free, and we just got our hands on the iPad version which is even better.
To review and annotate designs has never been easier and more fun. Touch controls for apps like that are an amazing improvement of the workflow. The only downside is that it sometimes freezes the iPad completely, but I guess it’ll be fixed. You can download Skitch for iPad for free below:
http://itunes.apple.com/pl/app/skitch-for-ipad/id490505997?mt=8
MacUpdate posted a new bundle deal in which you get $700 worth of apps, fonts etc for $49,99. Those deals are pretty common lately, and they usually contain one gem, that’s worth the whole deal. This time it’s a bundle (300$ worth) of 6200 commercial use fonts, so getting that for fifty bucks is a great deal!
Go and buy it at: https://www.mupromo.com/
Rating: 
Galleried is an awesome app for finding great web designs, managing a collection of inspirations (some call them "stealing enhancers") between your devices. The App is 8Eur for the Mac, and has a free companion app for both iPhone and iPad. They sync through dropbox, so you’re always up to date with your findings no matter the device. The selection is made from a couple of sites that feature good design and 9 out of 10 times it gets the right sites. Sometimes we can see something that doesn’t quite fit, but in general there’s plenty of inspiration there. I think it’s the best app of that kind for any designer so you should get it right now! It’s worth the money.
A while ago I tested the Content Aware Fill feature of Photoshop by removing myself from an image of some mountains. It worked surprisingly well, so I decided to do the exact same test with Pixelmator now. Above you can see the original photo. It took 3 separate content aware steps to do both images. The first step was for the whole part to be removed, and then the other two to remove little artifacts and errors afterwards. See the results after the break.
Adobe Flash on the iOS platform was a hot topic for quite a while. Many handset makers (like samsung or htc) even put the ability to play flash content inside their ads, to differentiate their phones from in their opinion a crippled product like the iPhone. They omitted from these ads the facts about battery and procesor usage when flash is on. Who cares if you can use it for 10 minutes, but you can use flash. Yay! The truth is that even Adobe finally realized, that web wants to be more efficient and less processor heavy – not only for mobile devices. They released their own HTML5 authoring tools, and now in the next step – they’re abandoning the development of flash for mobile platforms completely. That means that in a few years flash in the mobile space will be even more non-existant than it is now. Good!
Funny to see their whining though – saying that it was Apple who killed mobile flash. Well Apple also killed the diskette, and nobody’s complaining about that now. The same fate will meet flash soon enough.
Also don’t get me wrong. I love Adobe Flash app. It’s the best creative vector-drawing editor ever. The tools are perfect for drawing (far easier to use and more fun than illustrator’s). But flash is much better for animation and cartoons, than websites. HTML5 is the future and we’re all ready for it!
Image credit: I Love Design.com
It’s 2011, so saying that someone should update their website through editing HTML files (or as some people say “programming” ;)) sounds quite insane doesn’t it? Maybe so, but is the ease of updating worth the compromises on quality? Sure, some CMS driven sites can be pretty interesting, but it’s hard for them to have a distinct style, that doesn’t look like it’s a set of boxy templates. Apple’s website seems boxy at first, but it breaks most template rules by having each page look completely differently – as if it was designed for a fine printed book, and not through a set of CMS templates. Sure the main page is just a big banner with some smaller ones below, and that can be easily customizable through some backend, but once you get to any page it will look almost like it’s taken from a full-colour manual, rather than one-design-fits-all-template.
The point here is – should smaller websites (like a small hostel, a pet shop, a cafe) really use CMS, or go for something unique, creative and new. What I mean is that they should have each page designed as a separate website, using a set of overall rules, but even breaking the text in just the right place. Sure CMS is necessary for news sites, blogs and e-stores, but the internet itself is actually going into stagnation.
We had that Flash-explosion a few years ago where websites were made into all-flash-all-singing-all-dancing animated multimedia presentations, and that was fun … for a while. Then Flash started to recede towards HTML5 animation and simplicity. But the CMS underneath it all is I think what keeps the real creativity still in the box.
Maybe we should think about it – maybe the web after a few years of finding it’s way, is actually going back to imitating fine-printed books, magazines and brochures? Maybe the attention to every detail, every word and every image would lead us away from square thumbnails with “float: left;”, a small margin and justified text on their right side?
I sure hope so…
So I had the big “2.0” for a couple of days now and I can honestly say that it ALMOST got me to the point where I can sell my Photoshop license and go have a party for the money. Sure it’s lacking CMYK support – but most printers nowadays even for big posters prefer RGB anyway, or even no color profile at all. The most annoying thing is lack of Layer Styles, but I’m almost sure they’ll turn up in some 2.x iteration sooner or later. The other annoyance is the color palette which is not a part of the Pixelmator interface, just like the previous type tool was. It should be more streamlined, easier to use and better looking (better UX)
The rest of the added tools are good and/or sufficient for day to day creation, and it’s now possible to do website layouts and posters, which could’ve been done in PXM before, but not without frustration. Now it’s ALMOST completely there, and I’m starting the slow (and potentialy painfull) move towards it instead of the big brother. The Vector Tools are AMAZING by the way – and Adobe could learn a thing or two from the Pixelmator Team on this one.
With Hype and Purple hitting the Mac App Store there are also nice and cheap tools for HTML5 animation, so being a designer on a budget loses the dogma of doing crappy products because of underpowered tools. The tools are there, now it’s up to us to get that creativity rolling.
I think PXM 2.0 is 9 out of 10 stars, but it’ll surely get to the whole 10 in the next couple of months. Good!
So Pixelmator 2.0 is finally here! We’ve been through delayed launch dates, lots of anger in their website comments, lots of feature requests and Apple Design Awards. Between all this an idea has emerged that this little, 30$ app can replace the 700$ pro app from Adobe. Looking at PM2.0 I can say once again – “it’s close but not yet there”. Which shouldn’t really be of any surprise – Photoshop was developed years ago and got layer support in version 4! So that’s understandable. For me PM2.0 has all the tools I need but one – it’s lacking layer styles. That one single invention in Photoshop is now as ubiquitous in my design as layers themselves. The ability to add simple stylings (color overlay or even a shadow) without creating new layers. That’s the main thing that is going to keep me from using PXM for some of my professional work.
The other thing I found a little annoying is the color palette. It jumps out as a completely style-less window from OS X and jumps out randomly. The order of tabs there is awful. Who needs those crayons? All we need is a color spectrum, a color wheel and swatches, that can be used as a constantly on, styled palette (meaning it should have dark windows like the rest of them and better UI). That’s a big design flaw.
On the other hand the new type tool is pretty good and there’s enough functionality there (including finally opening PSDs with editable text) to stop complaining. The dodge, burn and sponge tools are pretty good too. Famous Content-Aware-Fill isn’t as good as in Photoshop and sometimes needs a little help from some clone-stamping, but it’s a nice effort for their first try.
I really like the vector design tools – here we have a feature (pen tool, freehand pen tool and shapes) that is actually done BETTER than in Photoshop. Good job Pixelmator team!
As for the rest of the App there are a lot of little refinements here and there, so I decided to take it for a spin and design my next pro layout exclusively in Pixelmator. I’ll probably post some shots from the process and some more insight next week. If you don’t have it yet go to the Mac App Store now:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pixelmator/id407963104?mt=12