Popular “image editor for humans” Acorn for Mac was updated to version 3.0 a few hours ago, and after trying the app with some images I had on my desktop I can say it’s one the best updates I’ve seen on the Mac platform recently. Acorn 3.0 not only brings a series of refinements and optimizations that make the app faster, more reliable and overall more stable – it also introduces a whopping 50 new features that aim at enhancing your experience with Acorn without overwhelming you with functionalities unlike some other pricey image editor for OS X and Windows we know very well. Plus, if you’ve been an Acorn user for a while you know you can expect elegance and minimalism from the app’s interface that’s always readable and accessible. I am a big fan of Acorn so maybe I’m a little biased in judging the app, but I think we can all agree version 3.0 brings a terrific new feature set that turns Acorn into an easy to use & powerful image editor.
Among the new features, layer styles: with drop shadow, inner shadow, bevel and more Acorn allows you to apply effects to layers and revert back at any time with a simple CMD+Z. PSD import and export have been improved, there are new filters to play with, and a cool “Multistop Live Gradients” technology that enables you to apply more than 2 color gradients to your text or images. Text support, indeed, was improved in version 3.0: you can apply gradients on text and shapes, rotate text upside down to get to the layout you want, and you can convert text into Bezier shapes, too. Other new features in this 3.0 update include “Instant Alpha” to automatically remove unwanted pixels from an image, and a Quickmask functionality to select and move layers around by just hovering over them with your cursor. The Quickmask works really well, and combined with the layered screenshot capabilities of Acorn it makes for a great tool for Mac bloggers (see screenshot after the break). Last, Acorn 3.0 can export layered documents to PSD and PDF.
You can check out the full release notes here. Acorn 3.0 is a huge update that’s temporarily available at the discounted price of $29.99, but users who bought the app from the Mac App Store when it was released a few months ago will get the update to 3.0 for free. Once again, Acorn is the image editor for humans, and an excellent alternative to Photoshop or Pixelmator for OS X users.
