If you can't afford to purchase software, you can still find free software to create and edit images. Some of this software is developed by individuals, and some is feature limited or an earlier version of a more advanced program. In some rare instances, there are no strings attached, but most often you will need to provide information to the company by registering, or endure ads or "nag" screens.
1. The GIMP for Mac OS X
© The GIMP
GIMP is a popular open-source image editor originally developed for Unix/Linux. Often lauded as the "free Photoshop," it does have an interface and features similar to Photoshop. Because it's volunteer-developed beta software, stability and frequency of updates could be an issue; however, many happy users report using GIMP for OS X without significant problems. GIMP is not compatible with Mac OS 9 and earlier.
2. Seashore
© Seashore
Seashore is an open source image editor for Cocoa. It is based around The GIMP's technology and uses the same native file format, but was developed as a Mac OS X application and not a port of The GIMP. According to the developer, "It features gradients, textures and anti-aliasing for both text and brush strokes. It supports multiple layers and alpha channel editing." Although it does not yet have a lot of features and development has been slow, many users prefer it over running The GIMP because it doesn't require X11 to run, and is therefore much easier to install.
3. Pixen
Pixen is a free (donation-ware) graphics editor for Mac OS X. It has been specially designed for pixel artists, but is also suitable for other types of pixel-based illustration and animation. It offers layers capabilities, animation features, a tile view, and features for working with restricted palettes. You can even assign a separate tool and color to the right mouse button.4. GraphicConverter X
GraphicConverter is a multi-purpose graphics tool for converting, viewing, browsing, and editing hundreds of image types on the Macintosh platform. If there is a file format or image processing task that your existing software can't handle, chances are that GraphicConverter can do it if you're willing to tackle the learning curve. GraphicConverter is a worthwhile tool to have on-hand, but needs some serious work in the usability department. GraphicConverter is not free, but you can use the shareware without time limitation if you don't need batch processing features.5. Chocoflop
Reader-recommended Chocoflop is being made available for free while it is still under development. Chocoflop offers non-destructive image editing, painting and selection tools, dozens of adjustment filters and effects, RAW support, rich text, and CoreImage filters support. Currently the only documentation for Chocoflop is a sparsely-populated wiki or the user forum so learning it may be a challenge if you have little photo editing experience. Once a final stable version is released, Chocoflop will no longer be free.Last Updated: Nov. 2009
