Mac Users Identify Yourselves!

You know, the Gimp has replaced PS for me. It's not QUITE there, but it's darn good. And for free you cannot beat it.

Create does everything except bitmap editing. So you'll still need either Photoshop or the Gimp to do actual image editing, touching up photos or character illos or stuff like that. But Create is much more useful than any of the three apps you mentioned for creating character sheets -- it's a page layout tool that also acts as a vector-based illustration tool. Yeah, for creating character sheets, I've never encountered a program that's nearly as well-suited as Create.

The sheets thumbnailed above were made ENTIRELY in Create.

And Create can USE image files -- you can drag and drop any image, pdf or text file (or RTF) into a Create document and resize, apply styling, duplicate, lay out, all that, to the image itself. You just can't actually paint or smear or "Photoshop" the image at all.

So I'll create the base sheet in Create, come up with a character illo in the Gimp and then stick it into the Create file overtop the "Character Image" box. Works a charm.

Seriously, Create is a mind-blowing tool for the price. You will NOT regret buying it.
 

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Just in time for Halloween

I found some nice Halloween screen savers at the following website:

http://www.skyrocketsoftware.com/index.html

They are offering some Halloween screen savers (for OS X) as a free download. Of course, if you like them you can purchase a more robust version of the same.

I'm not sure if they all are free, but I downloaded the the cemetary screen saver, just in time for a Halloween. It is nice to see so many companies beginning to support the Mac.

And once World of Warcraft arrives, I'll be a really happy camper. :D Tomorrow they will be closing the open beta in preparation for the next stress test/open beta.
 
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barsoomcore said:
You know, the Gimp has replaced PS for me. It's not QUITE there, but it's darn good. And for free you cannot beat it.
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I'll have to look into that as well, then. I haven't been looking for a Photoshop type program but if it's solid and free I'll definitely take a closer look!

barsoomcore said:
The sheets thumbnailed above were made ENTIRELY in Create.
Click to expand...

Those look great! While I did buy Office 2004 with the G5 (which is here and I'm nearly done with the time consuming process of copying everything over from the G3, which, unfortunately, was too old to take advantage of the new Target Firewire Setup Assistant; very pleased with it!) to stay compatible at work for both my wife and I, we've never had much use for Photoshop or Illustrator type programs. Maybe that will change but for now I'm mostly looking at something like PageMaker/Canvas for layout purposes.

Create's website looks promising and your sheets are very much akin to what I'm looking to do myself.

barsoomcore said:
Seriously, Create is a mind-blowing tool for the price. You will NOT regret buying it.
Click to expand...

Thanks!

DrSpunj
 

DrSpunj said:
Maybe that will change but for now I'm mostly looking at something like PageMaker/Canvas for layout purposes.
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Well, I don't know what your budget is, but IMO nothing beats InDesign for layout. PageMaker is pretty much dead, now. Adobe has either stopped supporting it or will soon. But ID is a great program. Expensive, but great. I used to use Quark, and maybe their OSX version is much better, but ID blew doors on previous versions of Quark.
 

Unless you're laying out full-on magazines, complex art books or other big projects, InDesign is overkill. Create is what, $500 less? At least? Honestly, for home users, even for home business people, InDesign is a waste of money. Buy Create -- it will do everything you need, easier, more friendly-like, more Mac-like, for 20% the cost of InDesign.

I agree it's a great program. I used to work with the QA lead on InDesign -- it's a great product and they deserve their success with it. But for those of us who don't want to spend $700 on a piece of software, Create is the real door-blower.

I suggested to the Create team that they use the "Object Name" field to display the item selected. Two days later they posted a new version with that feature implemented. They turn out new versions regularly -- and you don't have to pay for the upgrades. Free support on their message boards, talk directly to the developers -- and the product seriously does so much cool stuff you spend hours just playing with it to see what else it ca do.

Using Create reminds you why you bought a Macintosh. It rewards exploration and experimentation.
 

Sorry if I'm coming across all fanatical and crusader, but I feel REALLY strongly about Create. Guess that was obvious. :D

I really believe in being part of the community of developers and users for the platform. If we're all helping each other out we make the whole platform stronger and more fun. So products like Create, like Nisus Writer, and the open-source products like the Gimp and OpenOffice, I think should be supported and evangelized throughout the community.

So that's what I do. Not meaning to diss anyone, or seem all "I know better than you." Just feeling strongly about it.
 

If you didn't come off as fanatical and a crusader, I would doubt you as a true Mac-head. :)

I agree InDesign is overkill for most, but it's just so beautiful to use. I've never used Create. Does it have a fully-functioning demo? I'd be up for giving it a shot, since I won't be able to afford to upgrade ID anytime soon.
 


I went into the local Mac store today (and btw, they moved into a larger location are it is now a very sweet store--not an actual Apple store, but close enough). Anyway, for the first time I was able to see live, in person, the 30-inch cinema display. I don't think you can truly get an idea of what this monitor is like until you see it in person. Simply amazing. I'd kill for that monitor.
 

Barsoom, I've been looking at Nisus and am intrigued. Now, what about an Excel replacement?

(I may eventually upgrade my copy of Office to 2004, but, honestly, I use so few of the features, not to metion don't even use Entourage or PowerPoint at all... it seems like overkill. I also am always interested in finding ways ot minimize my dependence on Microsoft. The smaller Mac apps also seem a lot more "Mac-aware", like making use of Services, drawers, the WebKit, the rendering engine, etc.)
 

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