AuthorTopic: Good Pixel Art Programs for Mac?  (Read 22979 times)

Offline Alexanator28

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Good Pixel Art Programs for Mac?

on: June 01, 2014, 12:46:08 am
Hello everyone!
   I have been on this forum for about a week and want to get a good program for my art. I have a mac, so I can't use GraphicsGale. Grafx2 is something I tried, but ended up breaking my mouse's driver because only my drawing tablet moved the mouse after that (I got it fixed with a restart, but I don't want to have to restart after every drawing). I also have Photoshop, but it is kinda frustrating to use the tools that are not really designed for pixel Art. I love how GraphicsGale has the animation and color count features, so I would like something like that. And also, I am broke, so maybe a free program would be nice. Thanks for reading this!

Offline FrostPumpkin

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Re: Good Pixel Art Programs for Mac?

Reply #1 on: June 01, 2014, 01:08:05 am
Hey ! I'm on mac as well and I've been using photoshop forever and never had any problems considering pixel art. I would even say that it has nearly all the tools you need for PA. I don't see how it's a problem that tools ain't designed for pixe art since they do the job.
You can animate in photoshop as well (depends on the version but if it's recent you should have it). I'm not a photoshop nor color limitations expert but looks like photoshop is pretty ok considering color count and palettes as well.

Offline Kasumi

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Re: Good Pixel Art Programs for Mac?

Reply #2 on: June 01, 2014, 02:01:18 am
Try ASEPRITE. It's free, open source, and easy to use but fairly powerful. It's my pixel art program of choice even on Windows.

Has animation, no color counting, though. The program has 200% view that you can't zoom out from by default. To change this, follow the steps under "Why do I see double sized pixels?" here: https://code.google.com/p/aseprite/wiki/FAQ You can't zoom less than 100%, though, so if you're working bigger than your screen you'll have to scroll.

Any other questions, ask. (Admittedly, I've never used it on Mac, but I have used both the windows and linux builds.)
« Last Edit: June 01, 2014, 02:02:49 am by Kasumi »
I make actual NES games. Thus, I'm the unofficial forum dealer of too much information about the NES

Offline Alexanator28

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Re: Good Pixel Art Programs for Mac?

Reply #3 on: June 01, 2014, 03:31:31 am
@FrostPumkin
I know photoshop has the pencil tool and everything, but I just get so annoyed when I can't use, for example, the paint bucket tool because 2 colors are close to each other and it just fills the whole page. Probably the main reason I dislike Photoshop is because everybody talks about Grafx2 and GraphicsGale, and other programs specifically for pixel art.

@Kasumi
I have seen Aseprite on different forums, but needed a real suggestion to try it out! I will see if it will do the job!



Ok so I tried Aseprite, and started playing with the different tools and colors. I was moving my drawing tablet pen to draw, and I guess it got stuck? Anyways, it pushed my cursor to a far top left corner of my screen, and both my normal mouse and my pen couldn't move, making me have to restart my computer. Have you ever had this problem, and is there an easy solution?
« Last Edit: June 01, 2014, 05:00:21 am by PixelPiledriver »

Offline Mathias

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Re: Good Pixel Art Programs for Mac?

Reply #4 on: June 01, 2014, 05:56:31 am
I know photoshop has the pencil tool and everything, but I just get so annoyed when I can't use, for example, the paint bucket tool because 2 colors are close to each other and it just fills the whole page.
. . .

WHAT now?

PS is great for pixel art. Not meant for it, no. But you can set it up so it is.

For your paint bucket issue, simply set the tolerance to 0 and nix AA.
« Last Edit: June 01, 2014, 09:41:04 am by Mathias »

Offline Kasumi

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Re: Good Pixel Art Programs for Mac?

Reply #5 on: June 01, 2014, 05:58:47 am
I have never had the problem on windows. But I guess it is a known problem for mac sadly:
https://code.google.com/p/aseprite/issues/detail?id=266&q=mouse&sort=-modified&colspec=ID%20Type%20Status%20Priority%20Milestone%20Owner%20Summary%20Modified 
https://code.google.com/p/aseprite/issues/detail?id=263&q=mouse&sort=-modified&colspec=ID%20Type%20Status%20Priority%20Milestone%20Owner%20Summary%20Modified
:(

So... that's too bad. There's a beta here you could try to see if it's any better on that front: http://www.aseprite.org/beta/ (But... it has some other issues, so I'm not sure it's worth it.) It also has a new release coming soon, but no idea if it fixes this. Can't think of much else to do. Now I know not to recommend it to mac users until I know that's fixed. Sorry it made you have to restart.
« Last Edit: June 01, 2014, 06:01:23 am by Kasumi »
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Offline PixelPiledriver

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Re: Good Pixel Art Programs for Mac?

Reply #6 on: June 01, 2014, 06:09:56 am
I have a friend that runs Graphics Gale on a mac with an emulator.
But I think he also mentioned that it lags a bit while using some tools.
And knowing that it is, we seek what it is... ~ Aristotle, Posterior Analytics, Chapter 1

Offline Alexanator28

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Re: Good Pixel Art Programs for Mac?

Reply #7 on: June 01, 2014, 02:48:26 pm
Oh, I didn't know you could do that on Photoshop with the paint bucket. I guess Photoshop isn't that bad at all. Do you guys know if it can animate as well?

About Aseprite, I will try the beta, but maybe I'll stick to Photoshop for now.

Offline TwilightEdgeSoftware

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Re: Good Pixel Art Programs for Mac?

Reply #8 on: June 03, 2014, 06:36:28 am
PikoPixel is a free editor for static (non-animated) pixel art:
http://twilightedge.com/mac/pikopixel/

Offline LarkoftheRiver

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Re: Good Pixel Art Programs for Mac?

Reply #9 on: June 30, 2014, 09:57:26 pm
I use Photoshop for my pixeling and animating. Always have. Its great for both, and can do even more so you can, if you like, branch out to other digital art forms.