The dancing robots organisation

Just wanted to say,

happy holidays.

Dancing robots will be back in 2009.

I’m gonna talk today about free photoshop alternatives. I am writing this because i was browsing the other day and stumbled on this page. It’s the popular web shop Amazon where you can buy photoshop for $597, now that is a lot of money. So lets take a look at the alternatives shall we ? The ones I’m gonna review are : The gimp 2.6, Splashup and Aviary. you may notice that 2 of those are web based and all cross platform (Windows, Mac, Linux). The reason i’m not gonna review photoshop express is because it won’t run for some mysterious way. So let’s get on it.

The gimp

The gimp had been in the league a very long time. It is the image editor of choice for people who use Linux. I have used it before a long time ago, so lets see how it has evolved. The first time you open it it looks like this :

The first thing you will notice is that it looks nothing like photoshop, for example the toolbox has the options in them. After a bit of searching you will notice that everything is there, it is actually really complete. After some further exploration you will notice some differences, like the pen tool; it works the same but for some reason it feels smoother than photoshop. Another difference is the filter menu, now I’m normally am not a real fan of filter over filter use, but these are quite cool. Filters like the page curl or the film strip can come handy sometime. So, is there only good? No, it misses some things. Things like placing images or blending options, although it could be I just didn’t find it. Also what bothers me is the interface, it seem so inlogical, but that could be because I normally work with photoshop. Now there is a 3th party plug in called Gimpshop that recreates the photoshop interface.

After some playing around with it I decided is actually really liked it. although it isn’t as professional as photoshop it has some playfulness to it, it just invites you to play with it. Keep up the good work gimp team

Splashup

Next up, Splashup. Like mentioned before it is web based and free. It’s made in flash so it has no right mouse button and it looks like this :

What realy catches the eye here is that i does look like photoshop, a Gothic photoshop that is. I don’t really like the blackness here but that could work for other people I guess. When creating a new document you will notice that splashup is not made to Handel big images or print images, there is nowhere to set dpi and the biggest you can go is 1500 x 1500 pixels. If you want to open a photo you will notice something new: web 2.0′ness. You can import from flicker, facebook, picasa… you even get a shortage space on the web server for your files. Now the rest of splashup is quite featureless but I don’t think this is bad, This is no competition for photoshop nor do I think it wants to be. This is more for simple modifications on the fly, it’s easy and get the job done.

Aviary

Aviary is a rising star in the web image editing world, I have been following it for some while now. It is not just a pixel editor this is a package of tools, but i’m just gonna talk about Phoenix. It looks like this :

Although it also has nowhere to set dpi and has a maximum space of 2800×2800 pixels, it has shortcuts (the same ones that also work in photoshop), has blending options, masks … This is really impressive for an online tool. It also has a great community with some really skilled artists that openly share there works in .egg files (the avary psd). It really works nice and has that same playfulness that the gimp also has, the urge to create.

Please don’t take my word for these great program’s. Try em yourself see what you think about them. So go out and create!

Today we will talk about simplicity. This article is not just about using simplicity in designs, no this is about the full meaning of the word and how to use it everywhere. So what is this all about ? Let’s take a look shall we.

Simplicity is not the same as laziness.

A lot of people don’t understand why it can be so important. If you need to study an object before you know what it does, then it’s not properly build. This is also true with graphic designs. When you look at a flyer and you can’t see in the first 3 seconds what it is about, then that is a bad design. The problem with simplicity is that it’s easy to miss the thoughts that has been put in it. A big white poster with a picture of the product and the name on it, is that cheap? I don’t think so, every time you go past it you will see the product and the name of it. I admit it’s not difficult to make, but is that really important? Last time I checked promotion is about promoting the product not promoting the artist that made it.

Occam’s razor

Now how do I practice simplicity in my everyday life ? Quite simple (no pun intended): when you are presented two choices, take the simplest one. This is called Occam’s razor (one should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything). The problem with this life style is that you will learn less than you would if you took the hard road. It really depends on what you want. But if you face a difficult problem you know what to do.

Don’t over think it

I have seen a lot of people in my life that over think and over plan things in their life. I must admit that I’m sometimes one of those people. You keep on planning and planning till you realise the situation is already over. What is the right move to do here? Just go with the flow, see what happens and you have nothing to blame. Just try to keep it simpel