image editor

Pixelmator was already one of the great deals in Mac software, offering Photoshop-style image editing at a fraction of the price.

Now it's even better: for a limited time, you can get Pixelmator 2.1 for just $14.99. It normally sells for $59.

Actually, it's been $14.99 since June, but the just-released version 2.1 adds a wealth of new features -- including Mountain Lion support -- while keeping that tantalizing price.

For those unfamiliar with it, Pixelmator offers advanced image editing via a Photoshop-like interface. Said CNET's Jason Parker in his review of an earlier version: … Read more

In case you missed it last week, I wrote a little treatise on why I'm returning my new iPad and buying a Kindle Fire. Apparently the story had some legs; it got picked up on Yahoo, and last night CNBC invited me to appear on "Street Signs" today (which airs live at 2 p.m. ET). Fun!

There was, of course, plenty of cheapskate mentality fueling that, er, fire, so you might be wondering if I've flipped my lid with today's deal. I mean, seriously: pay...for software?!

I know, it's crazy talk. But … Read more

It may not be a mobile version of Adobe Illustrator, but Skitch can handle basic image annotations and sketches exceptionally well. It's easy to learn, its tools work well, and it can even export your work to Evernote.

Getting started with Skitch is simple. From the Home screen, you can open up a blank canvas, import an image from your gallery, or take a new photo with your mobile device's camera. Also new to Skitch is a feature that lets you pull up and add annotations directly onto a Google Map, which is perfect for giving detailed or … Read more

If you're looking for a full-featured image editor at a relatively low price, Pixelmator fills the bill nicely. Sporting a smooth Mac-friendly interface, Pixelmator offers a layout much like Adobe Photoshop with separate toolbars offering standard selector and paint brush type tools, a color-picker, a layer manager, and a brush picker with large array of options, from "follow direction" to multiple jitter settings. Pixelmator also has support for Adobe Photoshop brushes.

Also like Photoshop, Pixelmator comes with all the image manipulation tools you might need for adjusting color, saturation, brightness and contrast, and many more. If you … Read more

Picasa for Mac is a free app from Google for importing, editing, organizing, and sharing photos. The first time you launch it, Picasa can quickly search your hard drive (or select folders) for your existing photos, pulling them into the Picasa interface without actually duplicating them and taking up drive space.

Picasa's interface feels un-Mac-like at first, with a nonstandard scroll bar and even slightly fuzzy fonts--but it's still instantly recognizable (and usable) by anyone familiar with iPhoto, thanks to its similar toolbars and three-pane organization with folders and albums. Picasa makes it easy to create slideshows, movies, … Read more

Camera+ helps you take better images with tons of features and a unique tool layout that helps you get the look you want quickly. The app offers several options for making unique-looking images out of photos on your camera roll, or you can snap pictures from within the program using Camera+'s extra tools. When taking a picture, you can use a 5x zoom slider for close-up shots, a stabilizer that automatically takes the shot when your hand is most stable, and a grid overlay so you can line up your shots as straight as possible.

Once you've got … Read more

Picasa for Mac is a free app from Google for importing, editing, organizing, and sharing photos. The first time you launch it, Picasa can quickly search your hard drive (or select folders) for your existing photos, pulling them into the Picasa interface without actually duplicating them and taking up drive space.

Picasa's interface feels un-Mac-like at first, with a nonstandard scroll bar and even slightly fuzzy fonts--but it's still instantly recognizable (and usable) by anyone familiar with iPhoto, with similar toolbars and three-pane organization with folders and albums. Picasa makes it easy to create slideshows, movies, and collages, … Read more

For novices, editing images can be a daunting task. That's why it's important to have a program that makes the whole process as friendly and effortless as possible. Unfortunately, Free Image Editor is not that kind of program.

The program's user interface is both unattractive and unintuitive. Three rows of tiny command buttons run across the top of the window. We had to hover our mouse over each one to find out what it's supposed to do. The only Help feature we could find was a link to the publisher's Web site, and even then, … Read more

Far more robust than Microsoft Paint, but nowhere near as loaded with features as Photoshop, Paint.NET occupies a niche perfect for users who want a free image editor that has more than resizing and inverting. Version 3.5 includes an enormous number of stability tweaks and menu adjustments, as well as a couple of new minor features and some Windows 7 love, too.

One of the biggest changes makes the program's installation far less obvious. The new version automatically downloads and installs the program's prerequisites, including the latest Microsoft .Net version and Windows Installer. It will update … Read more