For those people who want to do a little graphics editing without spending the big bucks needed to purchase a top-of-the-line program like Adobe Photoshop, the GIMP has long been a good substitute. The problem, at least for Mac users, was that there was no native version of The GIMP, so – much like those people wanting the power of OpenOffice, GIMP users for Mac were forced to install X11, a graphics interface that allows programs such as OpenOffice and The GIMP to run on Mac OSX. The problem was that the programs never felt like native applications. They used their own open and save dialogs, and since they were in effect operating in their own enclosed system, were not able to take advantages of many of the niceties offered by the operating system, such as integration with other system services.
Enter Seashore. Seashore is a simple graphics editing program, based on The GIMP’s codebase, but written to be a native application. It is not ready to take over for The GIMP (it doesn’t have nearly as many features, nor have all the effects and filters been ported over yet), but, for a program only at version 0.1.9, Seashore is certainly stable and is definitely usable, albeit only for simple projects.
For those who have used graphics programs in the past, Seashore’s interface will seem quite familiar. The main part of the screen, obviously, is the image being worked on, while the tools and filters available are stored in floating palettes, which allows the user to move them out of the way, or select them to be used.
Some of the nice features Seashore currently offers are circular and rectangular select tools, freeform and polygon lasso tools, for selecting areas of an image, pencil and paintbrush tools, as well as a color selection tool, to allow the user to exactly copy the color used in a portion of an image.
Seashore also has text tools, to enable Seashore users to add text to an image, as well as an eraser tool, paint bucket tool (for “dumping” paint on a section of the image being worked on), plus gradient, stamp, and pattern tools.
In my opinion, on of the nice tools that Seashore has – a tool that hasn’t always been “standard” in lower-priced or free graphics tools – is the idea of layers. In cheaper/less developed programs, adding text to an image will replace the image “under” the text with the text, meaning that if the user later decides to move the text, it is impossible, since the text has been burned into the image. Photoshop and The GIMP, as well as Seashore, use what are called Layers. In this way of editing graphics, text will be in its own layer, which means that the image is still present, but not visible. So, if text needs to be moved, this is possible, as it has not (yet) replaced the image underneath. For exporting, you have the option to “flatten” the image, which will destructively merge the layers together, keeping only the uppermost information, but for editing, no edit is permanent.
Finally, Seashore can import and export a number of formats, including GIF, JPEG, JPEG 2000, TIFF, PNG and The GIMP’s native format – XCF. This enables Seashore to share its work with other programs and platforms.
As mentioned earlier, Seashore already includes brushes and stamps, all of which are configurable to be used with any tool. So, when using the eraser tool, one is not forced to erase with a rectangular shape, but can choose an oval, a circle, or any number of more scattered patterns, for a gentler eraser tool. Those same tools can be used with the paint brush as well.
In my experience, Seashore is growing into an excellent tool. Development seems to be steady (although perhaps a bit slow, which is understandable when working on a project with so many facets), and each new version seems to bring with it more features and more speed. While certainly not yet at the level to act as a replacement program for a user of Photoshop or The GIMP, Seashore is definitely moving forward.
