Free image editing software for Mac

Poststructural Pub
1

There must a be a nice Mac guru out here somewhere …

OK, I’ll admit it: I’m cheap, and I’m lazy.

There. I said it. Now on to my question:

I’m designing a t-shirt using cafepress.com, based on a Euro-sticker I have (it’s about a 4" wide ellipse). I have an image of it on my computer, but the resolution is crappy. I need to enlarge the image and resolution so it will print nicely on a t-shirt. I tried doing it at work (Windows machine) using MS Office Picture Manager to blow up the image (400%), then in MSPaint, I tried cleaning up the fuzzy edges that resulted, but it’s painful at best.

Based on the above parameters, can someone recommend a Mac-compatible package that I can use? I’ve poked through the downloads section on apple.com, but like I said - I’m lazy, and I don’t want to try 12 packages before I find the one I want, and also, I’m cheap, so I won’t pay for anything, especially since this is a one-off kinda thing.

Any suggestions, Oh great collective knowledge of Chiffdom??

TIA!

2

The Gimp. It’s practically Photoshop.
http://www.gimp.org/macintosh/

3

http://opensword.org/Pixen/ may be of help.

Jef

4

I like the GIMP program, and it is very powerful, but it may take some getting use to. It’s user interface is at times not self explanatory. Fortunately, searching the online “How To” documentation will provide you with most any information you need. Learning how to use it is worth while in my opinion, but, other than Paint and Open Office’s version of Paint, I have not used any other similar programs. Unlike Pixen, it runs on multiple platforms.

One tip, make the image about 2X the size you will print it at and then scale it back to the print size. I have found that it makes mistakes smaller and looks better.

5

I’ve had trouble with two major aspects of being a Mac owner. Finding the right image editing program and finding something I can use for website design and editing. Otherwise, I totally get the Mac thing.

A lot of people swear by GIMP, but I’ve had trouble getting used to it. I’ve got an OLD version of Photoshop Elements. 2.0 or something. It’s … well…2.0ish…I used something like version 9.0 of Paintshop on the Windows machines and I got pretty comfortable with it and I just can’t find something that quite works for me.

The web software is a big problem. I’m mostly having to just go back to Windows for that. NVU seems good, but I keep running into problems with it I can’t solve.

6

I use Seashore for my little projects. It’s apparently like a pared-down simplified version of the GIMP. I haven’t tried anything exactly like what you’re doing, but it very well might work.

7

Hi fyffer

Do you have access to a vector graphics package at home or work?

Converting it from an bitmap image to a vector graphics image should allow you to scale it more accurately.

This open source program apparently does vector graphics on the mac

http://inkscape.org/download/?css=css/base.css

David

8

Inkscape is pretty cool. Like Macromedia Freehand and just as difficult to use.

I have GimpShop which is the Gimp with a Photoshop-like user interface design.

I never use it though because I have Macromedia Fireworks, the greatest graphics program evah.

9

Thanks for the Gimp suggestion!
Once I realized it was basically standard linux fodder, I found it on a linux box at work, and within an hour or so (of my company’s time - Shhh!), I created the image I wanted, and it’s ready to go to press!

I did put Gimp on my Mac at home last night, but it didn’t seem to work for me. Granted, it was late, and my eyes were crossed, so praps I’ll try again later.

Anyway, thanks again.

-The Fyffer