What is Reddit's opinion of
Pixelmator?
From 3.5 billion Reddit comments
➔ Pixelmator website
By popularity on Reddit, this Service is:
84 reviews of this app found across Reddit:
I love like everybody loves to love the open source idea, and I love it like anyone else. But The Gimp is a shitty piece of software made by bossy people with a distorted idea of what UX means that don't like to listen to user's criticism. (Downvote at will, now)
It is a "Photoshop alternative" in the Linux land for the simple reason that not a single other software exists for editing or creating images.
If you're on a Mac and not willing to pay Adobe hundreds of dollars, do yourself a favour and invest (less than) 15$ in Pixelmator
As mentioned, you want Paintbrush.
But I'm gonna give a shout out for Pixelmator. Its $30 on the App Store, but there are often discounts and sales. It does everything I ever needed in Photoshop and has a beautiful interface.
Lots of updates are coming in v2. Here is a preview of some of them.
http://www.pixelmator.com/sneak-preview/
Not sure if what you're looking for will be there or not. It is still a relatively new app though. They have made some pretty great stride and it is fun to watch it's development. Hopefully with all the exposure they've gotten through the app store and the influx of cash, they can bring even more to the table in less time.
I used to pirate PS, but now I just use Pixelmator. it doesn't have everything I want and some things are easier to do in Photoshop, but Photoshop is 10x the price of Pixelmator, it damn well better have some additional features. One thing I really miss is layer styles. A lot of the other things I was missing seem like they will be taken care of in v2.
Pixelmator - excellent painting and photo editing. Slick UI lots of photoshop features and great price from the App Store. http://www.pixelmator.com/ Very slick ui. The magic wand tool is way easier to use than photoshop too!
I really like Pixelmator, I would say it's more like Photoshop, but way more intuitive and seems pretty light as well. It's not free though, but there is no subscription. http://www.pixelmator.com/mac/
If you are using a Mac there is another very good option between the free GIMP and the more expensive Lightroom or Photoshop.
This is Pixelmator.
This app works very much like Photoshop. It will cost you about $30.
There is a free 30 day demo that you can download if you want to give it a try.
Using QGIS and Pixelmator. The fonts used are Paneuropa Highway and Cardo; several shapefiles (files containing geographic information for use in a GIS) were used. I might do a more in-depth making-of/tutorial later if there's enough demand.
Except there's a bug where the eyedropper tool takes the displayed pixel color after factoring in the color profile, instead of the RGB values of the pixel.
Every time you use the eyedropper to select a color you've drawn with earlier, it becomes slightly lighter or darker. This makes it unusable.
The bug exists because OS X's color selection is flawed: every application that uses OS X's built in color selector has this problem. You can recognize the built in selector from the fact that it pops up a window like this. TextEdit uses it too. I'm referring to the looking glass button, which works like an eyedropper except for the entire screen.
The only application that doesn't have this as far as I can see is Photoshop, because it uses it's own implementation for color selection that takes color profile into account. I don't know if Pixelmator has this problem or not.
Take a look at Pixelmator in the App Store
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pixelmator/id407963104?mt=12
Here's a link to their website.
I believe it is about $15 (I already bought it so I can not see the price anymore in the App Store).
Pixelmator is is very good for the price.
All I can say is that touchpad is going to blow your mind. More than anything else that is going to completely ruin you on non-Apple notebooks.
You mentioned photo editing. One must-have app that you may not need if you already have to pay for something from Adobe is Pixlemator. It is absurdly good and ridiculously cheap. It does everything I've ever needed Photoshop to do and far, far more, its UI is far better, it's 30 bucks one time, and the they've been constantly adding new features and functionality for years for no additional charge. I can't say enough good things about this app. Think of it as a "pro-sumer" version of Photoshop.
Regarding batterylife, I'd say the biggest thing would be to never install Flash on your Mac, and when you need it in the browser just switch to Chrome. But in general, use Safari. It's faster and less of a memory hog.
Seconded. $50 will get you a month's access to all the Adobe programs. If you are a student, $30 a month. I switched from a standard Production Premium license to Creative Cloud.
That said, there are cheap(er) alternatives out there. Vollol already mentioned the main open source applications.
CorelDraw is cheaper than Illustrator for vector work, about $200. If you are on a Mac, I've heard Pixelmator (http://www.pixelmator.com/, $30) is OK as a Photoshop clone.
I'm not saying these are completely equivalent (there is a ton of depth to the aforementioned Adobe programs), but you could make a professional looking flyer with them.
Gimp but the interface of GimpShop is far more closer to Photoshop's interface.
If you use a Mac, Pixelmator is always a solid alternative. Not as robust, but offers most of the standard features that you find in Photoshop.
Then there's web based alternatives such as Aviary. Which provide the basics and a few filters and effects.
Get the trial first: http://www.pixelmator.com/try/
Definitely excellent for reasonable needs, with quite snappy performance. On the other hand, if you rely heavily on plugins or certain PS-only features, you should go with the latest PSE.
I've used Pixelmator for around 9 months, and threw away my Photoshop CS.
I refused to be tied to Adobe's subscription model, so I've looked for alternatives to their software. I personally use Pixelmator (Photoshop Alternative) + Polarr Photo Editor (Lightroom Alternative)
There are other great alternatives out there, such as Affinity Photo, which I heard is better than Pixelmator.
I use Pixelmator from time to time, it is essentially a functional Photoshop redesign. I still do use Photoshop for some things, Pixelmator has come a long way and can do most things, but there are still things that you just need Photoshop for. I do like the look of Pixelmator much better, and I like how a lot of the adjustments and filters work. Last time I tested, content aware fill seemed to do a better job in Pixelmator than in Photoshop, so that was cool.
I would suggest Pixelmator. It blends Photoshop and Illustrator vector capabilities. It's very simple to use and it's updated often with new features. I was a light Photoshop/Illustrator user myself and it does the job!
Take a look here : http://www.pixelmator.com
There are certainly other options though. Hope this helps!
> Funny, that's how I'd describe the bloated Office.
I don't like the interface ribbon, but the performance is good, it is a little bit heavy on the install size though. On the other hand it has everything plus the kitchen sink. All the functions you can think of and they work.
> This is a great example of what I'm talking about: http://www.pixelmator.com
Hey that's not bad at all. Now why doesn't it have proper channels support, higher bit depth support and proper support for windows. And of course color management.
Oh but they're spending so much time and effort on shitty filters. Great. This is what I need, more crappy filters.
Pixelmator is very nice and relatively cheap (though not free and open as GIMP). There's a free trial to test it out.
Affinity Photo is still in beta but looks promising. (Their Affinity Designer app is great too)
I just took a look at their site, and they say that "Repair" is only available on the iPad Air or later, so I imagine it'll be on the retina iPad mini. I'm just about to try it on mine.
You're right, though; if you hadn't posted this comment, I wouldn't have known it wasn't supported on all hardware.
Only Marked2 sparks an interest for me in that bundle, and that would be more than 50% cheaper to buy on its own. A discount on stuff you don't need is not a good deal.
And those photo editing apps look bad. Just grab a copy of Pixelmator and you're set.
Like everyone else, I use Lightroom for 95% of my edits on personal work. I usually only use Photoshop at home for web stuff, so cropping exactly, logos, vectors and things like that. I went for the $10/month Creative Cloud photographer's bundle when that came out, and I've felt it's worth it. But if you don't need Photoshop, Lightroom is significantly cheaper if you just buy it outright, especially if you're a student.
However, if I had a Mac, I'd check out Pixelmator. It's only $30 and seems to do a lot of what Photoshop does. I haven't actually used it, but it gets good reviews. I'd still buy Lightroom separately for most editing work.
I'd say the closest modern equivalent is Acorn. Pixelmator is great too, but Acorn is free if you can't afford the full version.
In short, Pro has a single window interface and many more advanced features.
Pixelmator Team has made some amazing videos about some of the functions.
pixelmator Pro: http://www.pixelmator.com/pro/ Just pixelmator: http://www.pixelmator.com/mac/
If you have a mac, get Sketch 3. There's a trial. It's amazing.
Sketch 3 and Pixelmator are my favorite two graphics programs forever.
I'm sure you've heard of Pixelmator, but I'm finding it to be extremely powerful for almost everything that I need to do with images. So much cheaper than photoshop, and you don't have to deal with Adobe CC.
Pixelmator, maybe? Not free, but cheap and worth every cent.
Else there's the free, very simple, and limited Seashore as well as the free and open GIMP.
I use and like Pixelmator. It's probably not a 100 % replacement for all tasks, but it does everything I need. (and I've used Photoshop since 5.0.)
Pixelmator has a free trial, so you can test if it's enough for your needs: http://www.pixelmator.com/mac/try/
I'm constrained to OSX, and while gimp is brilliant (and Seashore too for that matter... native window version of gimp feels and runs a little better without x11) I've decided to go with Pixelmator... It's as close to photoshop as doesn't matter, only £20 and I'll use it for more and more stuff..
http://www.pixelmator.com/ - £20 - OSX
http://www.getpaint.net/ - free - WIN
http://www.gimp.org/downloads/ - free - OSX/WIN
All support layers, so I'd copy in a high-res version of the mappings as the background and work on top.
Very good question.
Designer does his thing on Photoshop. I export PNGs from Photoshop and slice them in GraphicConverter. At work GraphicConverter has not been working correctly with transparent PNGs, so I've turned to Acorn. I prefer GraphicConverter because it tells me the height/width of my selection so that I can be precise when slicing. I've tried slicing on Photoshop but it seems to slow me down.
Once I'm done working on a site's images, I load them onto PNGenie for optimum size.
If I weren't doing this for a living, I'd probably go with something like this (as opposed to Photoshop): http://www.pixelmator.com/
I'm not saying that Pixelmator is not a great replacement... I'm just saying that any job I have will probably expect me to know how to use Photoshop.
Here are the popular alternatives in the app store, which have been mentioned before. They all have free trials on their product website, so click the links, try them out and find out which one suits your needs.
- Affinity Photo - $49.99
- Pixelmator - $29.99
- Acorn - $14.99
Sorry, I don't think this feature exists, even with Vectormator.
I searched, gave up and bought Affinity Designer for 70$.
Cheers!
For basic Photo adjustments and Video editing, the Mac comes with an application called Photos and you can buy iMovie for a few dollars from the Appstore.
If you want to be a bit more creative with Photo editing try Pixelmator
It now asks, "Which El Capitan app does the tutorial on p. 46 focus on? (first tutorial in the digital edition)?". The answer is "Notes" (I had to download a PDF for the magazine in a quite shady website, so thank me). Or, if you want to skip that, http://www.pixelmator.com/exclusive/.
You won't find it for "cheap" because it's not cheap. 9.99/mon for the Photoshop/Lightroom bundle is the best deal you're gonna get. If you don't want to pay monthly, I suggest one of the free alternatives mentioned here. If you're on a Mac, Pixelmator or Sketch are both good, cheaper alternatives.
I use Pixelmator for image stuff. Just make a selection of what I want blurred and use the gaussian blur filter.
/u/SHIT_KICKING_DICK who, I might add has quite the imagination when it comes to online identities, is correct in that most even half-way capable image editors out there can blur something.
Another mac-related thing! If you don't want to pony up the subscription fee for Adobe, there's a damn good alternative called Pixelmator: http://www.pixelmator.com/
The great thing about coding is you can use a notepad app and still manage, if you know what you're doing. If anyone knows any good ones, chime in!
I use Adobe CC, but I've also used Coffee Cup, which is a good basic editor.
Final Cut Pro (video editing) - http://www.apple.com/ca/final-cut-pro/
Pixelmator (photo editing) - http://www.pixelmator.com
Sketch 3 (graphic design) - http://bohemiancoding.com/sketch/
All only on Mac.
If there's any budget available, you could look into Pixelmator, available for OS X, and now iPad as well.
For free, there's Affinity Photo, currently in open beta. Once released, it will be a paid app.
I wound up having a few mishaps with Hugin, and eventually went with AutoPano, with a lot more success.
Actually, Pixelmator and Sketch are great alternatives for the $50/Month. Many people in many graphics positions have made these tools part of their workflow. As for me, I am sticking with the Adobe stuff.
> It's sad, I have tried many with no luck.
Which have you tried, so we don't recommend them again?
My favourite at the moment is Pixelmator, but if the release version of Affinity Photo will be as good as Affinity Designer, it will become a tempting alternative.
Got to be honest. It sure is impressive what you have built and that it is able to run in the browser, but the mockup you are creating lacks the "wow factor" and because of that it doesn't really mesmerize me enough to do both, make me watch the 4min. video or try the tool itself.
Just as an example with a certain "wow": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZp7BvQJnU8
Even Pixelmator has got a good popping video: http://www.pixelmator.com/
Or Affinity Designer: https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/
The first (iOS) shows something unbelievable, which draws attention.
The other two show common tasks that have a certain difficulty in existing tools and make them appear easy in favor of the promoted tool. The key is that they showcase stunning artwork and not a seemingly 'boring' webpage.
Maybe it's all about the choice of the example. Maybe get something more contemporary?
I've tried this project couple of years ago, with no luck - couldn't run anything with it. If it would be as polished as Wine is, I'd use it for http://www.pixelmator.com/mac/ which is kind of a (much) cheaper alternative for Photoshop.
This sounds to me like a choice Apple made when developing iPhoto. Reducing the resolution of the live preview of your edits means less performance hiccups. This is a standard technique with live GUI animation; try pinching to zoom a page in Safari, for example, and you'll notice the same thing happen.
I assume you've poked around in iPhoto's settings to see if there's a related option? Fail that, you may simply use iPhoto's "Open in external editor" option. Preview can perform much of iPhoto's basic photo manipulation, and third-party apps such as Pixelmator go well beyond it.
>It's just so clunky and slow.
Funny, that's how I'd describe the bloated Office. But yeah, docs also doesn't feel super slick.
If you already have photoshop, of course you'd use it. I'm talking about 80% of users who need to do some image editing and would never spend $600.
This is a great example of what I'm talking about:
You should be able to do this with the free and open program seashore or the pretty cheap Pixelmator.
With both the steps would be to start the program, create a new, empty image with the designated size of the final image, and then drag'n'drop the other images into it.
Scale and arrange them to your needs and save/export your result as a new image.
Use Pixelmator instead of Photoshop. If you want a better native app, support its development!
This is an indie app made by two brothers over in the Netherlands. It's pretty good for home use.
That being said, it's definitely not replacing Photoshop. I've been a designer for 8+ years now, and at the office there is no replacement for the Adobe suite.
Be thankful there aren't hardware dongles. I've used software before that required a USB key to be plugged in while the application was open, and it fucking sucked.
Pixelmator. It's $30 and does everything most people need.
Might also want to look into Photoshop Lightroom or Aperture (I like Lightroom more, but Aperture's much cheaper and others like it more) for image organization and simple processing.
And make sure it's part of Adobe CS 5.5 Master Collection.
Seriously though. If you actually want something closer to Photoshop with layer management etc, but for a fraction of the price, consider Pixelmator.
If you have a Mac: Pixelmator
If you're on a PC (Win/Linux): GIMP
Otherwise, your platform isn't supported by Photoshop anyway.
I said this in a comment above, but feel like repeating the sentiment....
Adobe: You could have a whole lot more customers if you offered a reasonably priced non-commercial license for your products. At the ridiculous price of $699, most amateur users will find an alternative.
You can download a free trial copy here. Last's about 30—40 days.
http://www.pixelmator.com/pro/free-trial/
Unfortunately there is no discount if you've previously purchased Pixelmator. Full price.
I think the developers will be putting all (most) of their energy into PXM Pro. Maybe a few more updates for the Classic version. But I wouldn't expect any more features. Only bug fixes.
Below in an earlier post I mentioned some features that have been removed from the Pro version.
https://www.reddit.com/r/pixelmator/comments/7guc3p/pxm_pro_missing_features_complaints/
Pixelmator may be more up your alley. I've been using it since near its release and I wouldn't ever go back to Photoshop.
Pixelmator is to Photoshop as Sketch is to Illustrator (both better than).
It's not just the big closed-source companies that don't do things for Linux, but also small devs. Mac OS has Adobe and Microsoft, yes, but they also have a successful smaller dev culture which puts out some tremendous software. Some if then makes the jump to Windows, but almost never Linux.
I'm thinking along the lines of, say, Pixelmator and 1Password.
It's not free (though cheap), if you're on an Apple device: http://www.pixelmator.com. It's very ram efficient, supports Adobe files and some of their application add-ons, great UI and very easy to use.
There's Acorn and Pixelmator — both maybe a little more than you'd like to spend, but pretty great apps. There's always GIMP, which is great for editing and is free, but won't organize photos or upload to Facebook.
You can actually edit RAW in Photos, it's just not obvious.
Sorry that the most of you weren't successful the last time. Hopefully this time it stays. This is the deal site: http://www.pixelmator.com/exclusive/
The deal is exclusive to MacFormat readers so you have to answer a question directed steht readers. But that shouldn't be a problem since I posted the direct link...
From what I can tell this version is permanent but probably won't receive updates, but I'm not sure about that. So for really long term, the purchase oft he AppStore version might still be necessary, but is well worth it in my opinion!
I guess you're in the UK? I'm in US
I hope it's a not a country exclusive promotion... I'm using this link http://www.pixelmator.com/exclusive/
I checked the AppStore first but of course it's not free on the AppStore(you'd get free upgrades on there if it was...)
Honestly though I'm going to just but this software for my Mac at $29.99—worth it.
Hope you get it to work sorry it's giving you trouble 🤕
I don't know about also working with Pages/Word/PDFs documents, but here's what I can suggest :
Serif Lab's Affinity Suite has alternatives for both Photoshop and Illustrator. If I remember correctly, they'll have a competitor to Adobe's InDesign ~~by the end of the year~~ (edit : in 2016, according to their website), which could possibly help in replacing Acrobat Pro. A 10 days trial is available for all of their products.
Pixelmator also seems pretty good, though coming from Photoshop, I don't really like its workflow. A 30(?) days trial is available.
Adobe also offers Acrobat Pro without subscription, if I remember properly, but at a very high cost which might not be worth it for the your usage.
Am I the only one who thinks Chrome is rapidly turning into a bloated dumpster fire? I spend more time in Safari these days. Even Firefox feels faster again.
Couple of other thoughts:
If you work with MySQL, Sequel Pro is priceless (and free!)
If you don't mind spending a bit of money on your tools, Pixelmator is a much, much, much better alternative to torturing yourself with GIMP
> a full OS with professional grade software
You are checking off specs and hand waving over actual usage.
In reality, a "'full OS" means desktop OS with all the legacy cruft (especially Windows because of backwards compatibility).
Artists, for example, use sketchbooks for recording concepts on the go. iPads are great for this, and there's software that's sophisticated enough to do most things without needing traditional desktop apps.
I mean just check out how far Pixelmator has come.
Insanely cheap and powerful image editor.
Layers, vectors, -you name it. Basically it does all the shit 95% need Photoshop to do and more, is easier to use, and looks better to boot.
Seriously cannot recommend this photo editing app enough. They also have excellent tutorial vids on how to do all the common shit people need editors for.
And they keep making it more and more full featured without requiring more money. I want to high-five them I think.
Sketch may be what you're looking for. It's possible Pixelmator may be of some use, as well.
If all else fails, there's always Adobe's suite of products.
If you're on Mac and don't want to pay 240 a year for PS and illustrator then might I suggest buying Sketch and Pixelmator. They're both incredible products for vector and raster editing and you can get a life time license for $160 for both in total.
Links because I can't figure out how to link on alien blue: http://bohemiancoding.com/sketch/ http://www.pixelmator.com/
While we're on Photoshop alternatives, may I recommend Pixelmator?
It lacks some of the more pro level features of Photoshop, but is plenty powerful for most uses, fast, and well priced.
For free my recommendation is Seashore (which is based on GIMP but so much better on the mac) It's not as full featured as some other paid apps but it has plenty of capability for someone just starting out. I would try this and see if it suits you more than native gimp. http://seashore.sourceforge.net/The_Seashore_Project/About.html
But for only $30 (USD) you can get the very powerful editor Pixelmator. This is my tool of choice these days. Many people and even companies have ditched PS for pixelmator. I know even $30 can be too much for some but this is an absolute steal for the price.
2 word clouds for free. :)
Yelp reviews were preprocessed with Python, by simultaneously converting the data from JSON to a tabular structure, tokenizing the words in the review, counting the positive/negative words, and storing bigrams and trigrams in a dictionary to later be exported for creaitng word clouds.
All data analysis was performed using R, and all charts were made using ggplot2. Pixelmator was used to manually add relevant annotations when necessary.
You can view both the Python and R code used to process and chart the data in this GitHub repository. Note that since Yelp prevents redistribution of the data, the code may not be reproducible.
You can download full-resolution PNGs of the two word clouds [5000x2000px] in this ZIP file [18 MB]
I primarily use Adobe Lightroom (Aperture has been officially discontinued by Apple). I really like Lightroom, but I really dislike Adobe. If I have to do any serious post-processing, I'm trying to transition over to Pixelmator which is a $30 alternative to Adobe's Photoshop.
If you own a Mac give Sketch a try. If you don't feel comfortable with it in the first 30 days(the trial period), go with Photoshop.
Why start with Sketch? Arguably, it has a less complicated interface than Adobe's software. The downside to this is that you can't go crazy with graphical design. But considering the current trends that shouldn't be a problem. I should also mention that it's targeted towards app design. Probably that's why it took off like it did. Everybody wants a mobile app.
Photoshop is also a solid pick. It gives you a bigger market to sell your designs. But it might have a steeper learning curve for some.
So it depends a lot on which type of client you are after. A startup doesn't care if you use Sketch, since startup people like to use the latest software. Bigger companies are likely to ask external designers to deliver PSDs, because the in-house designers only use Photoshop(license reasons).
Me, I don't do any agency work anymore, just personal projects. So Pixelmator and Sketch are my weapons of choice.
For money, there's Pixelmator. It's not as complicated as Photoshop, but more advanced than Paint.
Oh, and for free there's Pinta, which is modelled after Paint.NET (so sort of Paint on steroids).
If you're on a Mac you could give Pixelmator and Sketch a try. Pixelmator is only $15 and is a pretty slick raster editor. Sketch is vector based but fine tuned for web and app design - it has pixel snapping and exports png and svg.
Nothing beats Photoshop for photo editing though.
Not entirely legal but you can download Creative Suite 2 for free directly from Adobe. The Mac version only works on Snow Leopard though.
I use Aperture, but also have Photoshop Elements and Pixelmator for some additional editing.
I also use Photoreviewer, which I love, for selecting pictures after I go out shooting. It is a godsend.
I feel confident saying that the GIMP will never be in widespread use by professional photographers. Pixelmator stands a chance. If I didn’t already have Photoshop as part of my Creative Cloud subscription, I could make do with Pixelmator for all the work I need Photoshop for now. I can’t say that about the GIMP, it’s not even close.
I think you’re looking for Pixelmator then. $30, has most of the features of Photoshop including RAW, 16-bit, CMYK, content aware fill, and OpenCL optimizations. It also has a great UI. So, everything the GIMP is missing.
>Once upon a time you could buy a copy of PS and decide that the new version wasn't worth the cash for an upgrade
And eventually that version would stop working. For example, Photoshop CS2 only works on PowerPC, not any Mac made in the last 8 years. Other Photoshop versions were broken because of OS updates.
Back in the day, it was possible to skip one upgrade, without any big problems. I did that too. The difference being that upgrade pricing was higher than the full membership costs now. That’s great for new users, they’ll never have to purchase the full version, saving a lot of money from the start.
As for existing users who bought the boxed versions, like me: I can hop off the treadmill if I end up hating Creative Cloud (I don’t.) My boxed CS5.5 will likely work for a few more years.
>image editing software has been mature for a long long time.
I disagree, look at the mess GIMP is – after many years of development – and how much work still needs to be done. Also look at all the improvements Adobe makes on Photoshop. Or Pixelmator.
There are free trials of both Sketch(Vector graphics) and Pixelmator(Bitmap Graphics + some vector shapes), give them a try. They're not at all expensive either if you should consider to buy.
Adobe's products are also on free trial, and the new subscription model should be affordable to even students.
Gimp and Seashore are free, Pixelmator costs $23 in the Mac App Store.
All of them should be more than enough fir the task.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the only free (and decent) photo editing app for OS X is gimp.
Or you could shell out 30 bucks and get Pixelmator.
If you are on a Mac, you might want to give Pixelmator a shot. Honestly though, I'd probably stick with PS Elements since it has 95% of what you might want for photography without all the bloat that has been added over the years to cater to graphic designers, 3D artists, etc.
If you are still in university you can also check out Adobe's academic pricing, which is quite reasonable and will allow you to upgrade to future versions later on.
Photoshop Elements 10 and Premier Elements 10 will work on both Macs and Windows.
Pixelmator is a great inexpensive alternative to Photoshop.
You can download a 30 day trial copy of Pixelmator here
If you're on a Mac I'd point you to Pixelmator instead of Gimp, which is a lot more friendly than GIMP, and while not as full features as Photoshop, it's much cheaper.
I'm not familiar with alternative image editors on Windows, but there may be some.
Here’s a sneak peak of 2.0 ‘Chameleon’ features just in case people aren’t aware. Looks like some significant new functionality. I’m greatly looking forward to this.
So your problem isn't so much "Lion broke Photoshop", more "Lion broke my ability to pirate Photoshop." Awesome.
If you're really a designer, pay for your tools. You buy Photoshop once and you can use it for years. How many jobs would it take to earn that money back?
If you're just dicking around, try Photoshop Elements. Mac App Store link, it's 80 bucks. Or try Pixelmator, which is a great, award winning app: MAS Link, $30 and there's a free 30-day trial on their website.
Please, folks, find a way to pay for the tools you use every day. Pirating it just isn't fair to those of us who create those tools (even heartless, soulless, gigantic megacorps like Adobe).
You can try Pixelmator for 30 days and a purchase from the MAS currently includes a free upgrade to Pixelmator 2 when it gets released. Ars Technica has a relatively recent review.
Yup. The iPad was a flop from day one, the Galaxy S is selling ten times as much as the iPhone 4, and nobody wants to buy anything from the Mac App Store.
They're doomed, man.
If you're on Mac, take a look at pixelmator! It's very light weight, you should take a look to see if it will suit your needs. It has the 'advantage' of being designed for MacOSX.