Must-have filters and plugins for graphic applications

Here is a list of great filters and Color Picker plugins that work in multiple applications, including Pixelmator and VectorDesigner. The essential ones are free, so you can power up your favorite graphic apps without having to spend a cent!

Converting Photoshop .abr brushes to .png using Gimp

Although it's not mentioned anywhere in the documentation, Gimp is able to use Photoshop .abr brushes. This means that we can save the brushes as .png images, which can then be used as brushes in Pixelmator.

Pixelmator 1.2 Draftsman released

It seems today is the day for graphic application releases - earlier today VectorDesigner was updated, and now the much-awaited Pixelmator 1.2 Draftsman has been released too! The updates include curves, grids and rulers, a masks palette, a polygonal lasso tool, a more in-depth help file, and many more Automator actions.

The masks palette makes working with selections and masks much easier, and the help file is great for beginners or for finding out the use or shortcuts of a tool. The images illustrating the effects of the filters and other tools are a very useful learning aid, enabling you to see what effects they will have without having to test each one. Unfortunately there aren't previews for the Quartz Composer filters, but I guess we can't have everything ;)

All in all I'm very pleased with Pixelmator Draftsman, and the regular updates give me confidence that Pixelmator will keep improving steadily. Keep up the good work, Pixelmator team!

Download: workflows to batch convert Pixelmator brushes

In a previous post I explained how to manually convert .png brushes for use in Pixelmator. After many trials and errors, I was finally able to make an Automator workflow to convert batches of brushes automatically. As Pixelmator doesn’t have the actions I needed in Automator, I had to use the new “Watch Me Do” feature, so these scripts probably won’t work in Tiger.

I was unable to get Pixelmator to apply the specified actions to each images in a batch, so I got around this by having it repeat the actions multiple times. Unfortunately it will continue repeating these actions the specified number of times even if there are no more images, so I made multiple scripts to enable you to choose the one closest to the number of images to convert: this way you won’t waste too much time waiting for it to finish. Read under the cut for step by step intructions.

How to convert brushes for use in Pixelmator

Most brushes available for download are offered in both the .abr format of Photoshop brushes and in .png format, the latter of which Pixelmator should be able to use. However, if you've ever tried using these brushes in Pixelmator, you know that all you get is a solid block of color. The reason for this is that brushes in Pixelmator need to have a transparent background to work. Unfortunately Pixelmator doesn't yet have the ability to turn white backgrounds transparent - but it does have a "Mask To Alpha" filter, which makes black transparent. We can use this filter to manually convert brushes:

Pixelmator tutorials

Last updated: 3 June 2008

Pixelmator is a relatively new but very promising image editing application. You can click here to read the Pixelmator user manual, or you can check out the following links to tutorials I have found:

Text & image tutorials

My tutorials:
Converting .png brushes for use in Pixelmator
Converting Photoshop .abr brushes to .png using Gimp
Batch converting brushes for Pixelmator

Wooster's tutorials:
Blueprint and Sketches
Reflection and Gloss
Disco Effect
Using the Color Picker
Using Automator with Pixelmator
Manga Scanlation

Other tutorials:
Abduzeedo.com

Video tutorials

Sebastiaan's tutorials:
Creating a Graduated Neutral Density filter
Removing red eyes
3 ways to sharpen images
Making a realistic drop of water
Creating rounded corners and a reflection
Creating a Badge

Other video tutorials:
JustinSeeley.com
Bernskiold.com
ScreenCastsOnline.com
Expert Village
Smokey's Video Tutorials
Agupoli on YouTube (Spanish)

The sites in the "Other tutorials" and "Other video tutorials" categories have links to their various tutorials on their own sites.

Abduzeedo has tutorials for creating some stunning effects, but unfortunately they are all missing some steps, and the author doesn't seem to answer questions in the comments. You can still learn new things by following the tutorials though, even if you aren't able to exactly replicate the effects.

The video tutorials mostly just walk you through basic features of Pixelmator, but check through them to see if there's anything useful to you.

If anyone knows where to find any other Pixelmator tutorials, please leave a comment! ;)