Follow
Design

What are the best apps for creating artwork for GameSalad?

3
Options 
Considered
5
User 
Recs.
Last 
Updated
Related Questions
Activity
Ad
Have feedback or ideas?
Discord logoJoin our community
on Discord
Here’s the Deal
Slant is powered by a community that helps you make informed decisions. Tell us what you’re passionate about to get your personalized feed and help others.

3 Options Considered

3 Options ConsideredPricePlatformsTethered capture
Pixelmator
OSXNo
Photoshop
Windows, macOSvia Bridge
Inkscape
Windows, Mac, Unix–
See Full List

Pixelmator

Francisco
Top Pro

Beautiful, easy to use UI

•••
Pixelmator's interface is pleasant to look at, easy to use and specifically optimized for OS X users, making it very intuitive for long-time Mac users.
zoji.io
Top Pro

Sync works flawlessly using iCloud

•••
You can work across macOS and iOS devices seamlessly.
Francisco
Top Pro

Inexpensive

•••
Pixelmator costs just $30 on the App Store. Additionally, it often comes bundled with other software that you might also find useful bringing the price down.
Francisco
Top Pro

Feature rich

•••
Not only does Piexelmator provide easy to use tools that you should expect in any image editor, it also has rare tools such as layer styles, liquify tools and OS X optimized, fast image manipulation engine among others.
zoji.io
Top Pro

Clean Interface

•••
Easy to hide/show the few boxes used in the interface like Effects, Styles, Shapes, Colors, etc.
Francisco
Top Pro

Loads quickly

•••
Gives you common image editing capabilities almost instantly.
Francisco
Top Pro

Powerful effects

•••
Dozens of visual effects available, easily discovered from the visual Effects Browser, broken into categories. Effects have interactive dialogs and live preview.
Francisco
Top Pro

Great performance

•••
Pixelmator's image engine is specifically optimized for use with Macs, providing one the best performance results available on OS X.
Francisco
Top Pro

Supports layer styles

•••
Layer styles allow non-destructively applying effects to a layer.
Francisco
Top Pro

Multiple-display support

•••
Pixelmator can be used across any number of monitors.
Know any negative aspects of this option?
See 9 more ProsSee 9 more Pros

Photoshop

Francisco
Top Pro

Packs a staggering amount of functionality

•••
Photoshop is the most fully featured image editing software available today allowing you to perform highly advanced image manipulation. It has tools for RAW image adjustments, lens correction, retouching, image stitching, HDR, fixing framing. It supports most professional color modes and file form...
Francisco
Top Pro

A cheaper, standalone version called Photoshop Elements is available

•••
A stripped down version of Photoshop, called Photoshop Elements can be bought as a standalone application for $100.
Francisco
Top Pro

Includes powerful content-aware tools

•••
Photoshop includes content-aware tools such as content-aware fill that can fill in a select area based on what surrounds it.
Francisco
Top Pro

Creative Cloud Photography subscription includes Lightroom

•••
Lightroom is another image editing software from Adobe that's specifically designed for photo editing and managing of large quantities of digital images.
Francisco
Top Pro

Trove of plugins that extend functionality are available

•••
A wide variety of plugins that add new effects, improve existing functionality and simplify workflow are available.
Francisco
Top Pro

Integrates with Creative Cloud

•••
You can save all projects directly to the Creative Cloud allowing you to access them from any device and with any relevant Adobe software.
Francisco
Top Pro

Mobile companion apps available

•••
There's a free mobile app available for iOS, Android & Windows Phone.
Francisco
Top Pro

Industry standard

•••
Photoshop is used by professionals everywhere in a wide variety of fields including photography, graphic design and digital art. It is the de facto standard for image manipulation. If you've seen a magazine ad featuring a model, you've probably seen the effects of Photoshop. You won't...
Francisco
Top Pro

Lots of tutorials

•••
There's a huge number of both free and paid tutorials available online. Websites like Lynda.com offer premium high-quality, in-depth tutorials, but there are plenty of free alternatives to be found on YouTube, blogs and specialized sites on the Internet.
Francisco
Top Con

Latest versions of Photoshop are subscription-only

•••
While you can still buy CS6 from 2012 without needing a subscription by contacting Adobe support or the cut-down Photoshop Elements, any full-version version of Photoshop past CS6 requires a subscription.
Francisco
Top Con

Expensive

•••
The standalone version of Photoshop costs $19.99/month, though it can be leased as part of the Creative Cloud Photography bundle that includes Lightroom for $9.99/month.
Francisco
Top Con

Asset management capabilities are lacking

•••
In Photoshop asset management is done through a separate program called Bridge. As Bridge is supposed to be a file management tool for not just Photoshop's files, but for files generated by all of Adobe's applications it covers a breadth of capabilities, but not depth.
Francisco
Top Con

Batch editing of images is not straightforward

•••
Photoshop is designed to work extensively on one image at a time and while batch editing support exists, it's not that intuitive to use.
Francisco
Top Con

Learning it can take some time

•••
While you can relatively quickly learn how to perform a few basic image editing tasks, understanding Photoshop's ins and outs can be difficult. It's partially due to the sheer amount of functionality that Photoshop packs (and understanding that some of the advanced functionality can take a...
See 12 more Pros & ConsSee 12 more Pros & Cons

Inkscape

Add Video or Image
Francisco
Top Pro

Free and open source

•••
Inkscape is GPL-licensed and maintains public repositories.
Francisco
Top Pro

Cross-platform

•••
Pre-built binaries are available for Windows, Mac and Linux. Inkscape can be built from source on additional platforms.
Francisco
Top Pro

It's really easy and fun

•••
Edit and create vector graphics with Inkscape.
Francisco
Top Pro

Opens lots of file types

•••
Inkscape supports many common formats for import (including SVG, Photoshop and Illustrator) and its plugin architecture allows more to be added.
Francisco
Top Con

Very slow startup on some systems

•••
Depending on factors like how many fonts you have installed, Inkscape can take upwards of 30 seconds to launch.
Francisco
Top Con

No Gradient Mesh tool

•••
Gradient Mesh or a comparable tool is not available in Inkscape.
See 4 more Pros & ConsSee 4 more Pros & Cons

5 Community Recommendations

zoji.io
Francisco
Callixtus
Request recommendations from the community
No highlighted recommendations.
I Recommend...
Help millions of people make better decisions.
Each month, over 1.7 million people use Slant to find the best products and share their knowledge. Pick the tags you’re passionate about to get a personalized feed and begin contributing your knowledge.
undefined