DrawIt
DrawIt is an easy-to-use, powerful image editing and drawing application designed for the Mac. It features entirely non-destructive editing, live filters, powerful vector tools, a standard collection of basic shapes and also a clear and intuitive interface.
For Version 3.4, the interface has been given a major upgrade. DrawIt now makes extensive use of Leopard-only features and it shows. No part of the interface has been left untouched; Filters have been given a major overhaul and now look even better, and besides the standard layer-list, there's now a nice grid-view showing beautiful previews of individual layers and groups. Besides interface changes the Vector tool has also improved, allowing you to place points on a sub-pixel level.
Tags: graphics , design , drawing , image , cards , vector
Opinions:
I hope it works as good as it looks on the screenshot
@danishkirel: the application is CoreImage powered. If your iBook's graphic card is not CoreImage enabled (what I believe), all the work will be done by your CPU instead of relying to your GPU, hence the slow… Too bad, cause it use to be snappy on a recent graphic card…
@danishkirel: the application is CoreImage powered. If your iBook's graphic card is not Quartz enabled (what I believe), all the work will be done by your CPU instead of relying to your GPU, hence the slow… Too bad, cause it use to be snappy on a recent graphic card…
I really like the workflow of this app - it is simple and intuitive. But on my iBook G4 it's so damn slow and it crashes way too often. I would probably like it a lot, but I simply can't use it.
@bitnix: FYI Drawit was around before Pixelmator as far as I know.
The icons look strikingly similar to those in Pixelmator. Take a look at for instance the Eraser, the Bucket, the Selection tool, etc. Not that it would hurt the user experience (after all, the icons look nice), but it leaves a feeling of this being a follower rather than a tool that wants to take the lead in the competition.
Overall it feels quite clunky. Some things may work sometimes, yet, does not work other times. For instance, I was about to resize a star shape that I had created, and once I switched over to fullscreen mode (by hitting shortcut key 'f'), I couldn't drag or resize that same shape, until I left fullscreen and went into windowed mode again. Still, on another try, I couldn't replicate this (mis)behavior, although I'm positively 100% sure that it was impossible to resize said shape at the first try. Things like that...
And how do I paint on a pixel-by-pixel basis? (i.e. pixel art) When I drag the size-slider for the Brush pencil, down to as low as it gets, for whatever reason, nothing shows when I paint.
While I do realize that this app just recently went into a new major version, and it might have a few kinks related to its new incarnation, I think there are urgent glitches that needs to be taken care of. And if I were to decide, I'd lower the price a few bucks, so as to stand up against the two other beasts in the arena; Acorn and Pixelmator.
On the positive side for DrawIt, it shall be acknowledged, that it DOES have an appealing look and a welcoming interface. It HAS potential; everything is there, the idea, the interface, the icon/logo, the name, all of which are pretty well thought out, BUT, it needs robustness, as in hassle-free, non-interrupted operation. And, it also screams for its developers' attention to re-evaluate and overhaul every part of what it does, in order to make the needed steps fewer, to accomplish each and every task.
Good luck to the developer with further improvements in this app. Again, it looks nice, and shows promise, but graphic designers - especially Mac using such - de facto demands everything to be meticulously well streamlined in the applications they use. And I would say, that stays true even for the non-pros out there.