Pixelmator vs. GIMP

In order to revamp our company's website we need to redo some of the graphic art and so I went out to search for a good vector and pixel graphic editor. The only good vector graphic editor I found beside the overpriced Adobe tool was Inkscape which does the trick but it runs inside X11 which is not really user friendly but I am not going to pay over $600 for a program that is rarely use. Now, for the pixel graphic editor there are more choices available and I ended up having a look at Pixelmator and GIMP.

At the first glance there is raw power (GIMP) against a nice UI which works nicely with the Mac's Automator and iPhoto (Pixelmator). At the beginning the slick look and feel of Pixelmator won me nearly over and I considered it to pay $60 for a license pretty seriously. Then I started to do my first image which was to create an image which contained the company image and logo for the normal and one for the selected state. For the selected state I wanted to create a button with rounded edges.

These are the steps to create that image and in both tools these steps were quite similar probably because both of them got the same inspiration from Adobe's Photoshop:

• Create a Layer for the Image Logo at the top left (unselected portion)
• Create a Layer for the Image Logo at the bottom left (selected portion)
• Create a Layer for the Company Name on the Top
• Create a Layer for the Company Name at the Bottom
• Create a Layer for the Button Background with a Rounded Rectangle shape
• Fill in the Button with the desired color
• Create a Layer for the Button's Text

Everything was homing along until I hit the issue with the Rounded Rectangle shape. There I was not able to create that with Pixelmator even though later I learned that there is a way using the Refine Selection to create them. In GIMP that was a none issue because the rounded corners where available as tool options and this steps was done right away.

Conclusion:

GIMP: a powerhouse indeed which great features allowing precise editing (as far as I could evaluate). The drawback is that it is an X11 application meaning that it does not follow the Apple's keyboard layout and program design. Especially if for any reason X11 goes corrupt one has to restart the Mac (happened for me using Inkscape).

Pixelmator: nice, slick and slimed down to the average user needs. So if you are requiring a Mac OS X UI and are willing to pay $60 then it is worth it.

My Verdict: I will keep using GIMP but keep an eye out on Pixelmator. For now the eye candy is not worth $60 because I still would need GIMP from time to time.

Have fun - Andy