Pixel: Cheaper alternative to Photoshop?

Could you live without Photoshop? With Pixel, you just might be able to.

We’ve posted about budget alternatives to Adobe’s Photoshop many times on this site. Seems a pity I’ve missed one of the better alternatives out there for several years running, however.

Pixel is a commercial piece of software still in beta development. While it’s in beta dev, you can snatch it for $32, although that price will likely increase once the full-blown version is released.

Pixel is surprisingly small, fast, well-devised and featured . One of the things I can’t live without in Photoshop are the layer-styles, but Pixel has its own unique adaptation that has the potential to grow beyond Photoshop’s. The order of individual layer-styles (Bevel, for example) can be changed relative to other layerstyles. Another unanticipated feature was animations, which can be selected when creating a new file. Pick your number of frames and navigate through them with the included GUI. It, of course, features layers, paths, channels, image-slicing, paintbrushes and vector-shapes. Pixel sports an interface that seems almost lifted directly out of Photoshop, with similar palettes and toolbars. Closer inspection reveals its own unique options, however. A palette of great use to me was the Web-tools, which got my slices optimized without opening a separate interface.

Other features that surprised me were animations and

One of the coolest features of Pixel is that it runs on EVERYTHING. Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, BSD, and even more obscure OSs like SkyOS, eComstation, MorphOS. As one who uses Mac OS X, WindowsXP, Win2000, and Linux everyday, this comes as a remarkable selling point; I can use it on every one of my systems, legally!

Pixel ain’t free, but it secures a price-point that is easily positioned to compete with the $600 you could drop on Photoshop.