Whats a good, simple, cheap paint + drawing app/ programme for iMAC

I want something not too artsy but with a reasonable set of tools and something that can do all that Microsoft paint used to be able to do ie zoom right in and change things pixel by pixel I've just downloaded 'My paintbrush pro' and it doesn't look like I can do that even on it so I've just wasted £4.99. Also the programme is pretty slow and laggy. I tried to download Paintbrush + for graphics painting thinking it woudl be ideal but it said I needed the latest mac osx and I don't want to upgrade to the latest osx because i've heard it still has problems.

First, don't believe everything you hear. There's nothing wrong with Yosemite and soon (this September) El Capitan will be released. If you make good backups, you can always return to your previous version of OS X. As for a good paint program, you already have one built in to your Mac. It's called Preview. Read the following article.

If you don't like Preview (lets be honest its very very limited) then have a look a Mischief | Sketching, Painting & Drawing Mischief is FREE and for a few $$ you can get other features. It also has a infinite Zoom . . .
I'm sorry, but these days you get what you pay for, so don't expect much for £4.99 . . .

Mischief is really nice, minimal UI but very powerful . . . Then you could also look at the Adobe Photoshop/Illustrator killer Affinity Designer by Serif (has a 1,000,000% Zoom Feature too) and last but not least Pixelmator . . . All of these programs have excellent drawing capabilities, but f its just drawing, sketching, then Mischief is you man

I recommend GIMP - It's free and has all the features you mentioned (zooming & editing individual pixels) and more. It works on OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and later.

Hope this helped,

Sean.

Then you could also look at the Adobe Photoshop/Illustrator killer Affinity Designer by Serif (has a 1,000,000% Zoom Feature too)

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Hey Brent, I didn't know the Affinity programs were owned by Serif. I still have my original Serif Draw CDs from my old Windows days. I always loved their software; inexpensive, easy to use, and great interface. I also have Serif PDF Plus, which was their desktop publishing program for Windows. They even included several hundred free templates with it.

chscag said:

Hey Brent, I didn't know the Affinity programs were owned by Serif. I still have my original Serif Draw CDs from my old Windows days. I always loved their software; inexpensive, easy to use, and great interface. I also have Serif PDF Plus, which was their desktop publishing program for Windows. They even included several hundred free templates with it.

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Yea Charlie, they are here in a BIG way for us Mac users. They built Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo from the ground up to work on OS X. Doing this has given them a lot of freedom, to make them very powerful Apps.
They are in the process of delivering Affinity Publisher as well, but that isn't even in the Beta stage yet.
They won a Apple Design Award at WWDC 2015 for Affinity Designer and I would bet they will be there for Affinity Photo next year. They found that if they ported the Window Software over to OS X, then like a lot of other Apps that did this, UI/UX and Features would be lost between the two, and thats why they built if for Mac OS X.

Here is a good article with them talking about taking on Adobe, and I as a OS X user, get very excited. I have now completely rid my Mac of subscription Adobe Photographers Bundle. I can do all UI/UX/Web Design in one App. They are missing Pantone Support ATM, but it is on there Roadmap to be added with a lot of other Features. The true professionals out there, say this and 3D work is really the only thing missing for it to top Adobe, but people working 3D have dedicated Apps for that.

I bout both Apps for less than $100 AUD about $64 USD . . Bargain

chscag said:

First, don't believe everything you hear. There's nothing wrong with Yosemite and soon (this September) El Capitan will be released. If you make good backups, you can always return to your previous version of OS X. As for a good paint program, you already have one built in to your Mac. It's called Preview. Read the following article.

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Why are they releasing a new osx so soon after Yosemite though because it (yosemite) has problems right? Will el capitan be free as well? Do I wait until september for el capitan or just install yosemite? Hmm dilemma

You'll have to ask that question of Apple, however, Apple has been on a schedule of releasing a new version of OS X approximately every year. And again, Yosemite does not have problems as many of us are using it. (No operating system is perfect, whether it be Windows or OS X.) As I told you above, don't believe everything you hear. And yes, El Capitan will be free.

wave said:

Why are they releasing a new osx so soon after Yosemite though because it (yosemite) has problems right? Will el capitan be free as well? Do I wait until september for el capitan or just install yosemite? Hmm dilemma

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From my testing the El Cap Beta, I think Apple on on track, to bring back the stable, reliable and "everything just works" that was in Snow Leopard. There are a few new features, but its really going to be Yosemite on Steroids . . .

TattooedMac said:

From my testing the El Cap Beta, I think Apple on on track, to bring back the stable, reliable and "everything just works" that was in Snow Leopard. There are a few new features, but its really going to be Yosemite on Steroids . . .

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Ok thanks that makes me want to wait, I've been using snow leopard ever since I got an imac so I am accustomed to 'everything just works'.

If you wanted to take the middle ground I would suggest upgrading to Mavericks. Yosemite is good but many did not like the final update which included the new Photo app even though it still supported iPhoto as well. Mavericks will give you current security support and make the transition to El Capitan easier.
Mavericks also requires fewer upgrades to third party apps but check what you have is compatible first. Also check that your current computer is able to run Mavericks successfully.
El Capitan is currently in the Beta testing phase and it will be while before a stable public release and even then I'd wait a bit.
So Mavericks will bring you up to date with most current features, be fairly stable and should not be too difficult to adjust to.
If you decide to do this please get back to this forum for information on the best way to go about it and perform a complete backup of your hard drive first.



Sent from my iPhone using Mac Forums.

Anyone running a Mac that is memory limited to a max of 4 GB should get Yosemite instead of Mavericks if for nothing but it's vastly superior memory management.

I agree in principal, that is, I did see performance improvements upgrading to Yosemite but I ran mavericks for over a year with 4Gb RAM and no real problems however the processor probably comes into that too. 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5. I dont know what our OP has but would no doubt benefit from 8Gb +. I'm not sure if iPhoto will be included in the upgrade to Yosemite from Snow Leopard. If thats an issue.