“Microsoft has quietly launched the beta program for its new illustration, paint and image-editing tool codenamed Acrylic. It is aimed at graphics pros working in print, web, video and interactive media,” Grace Aquino writes for PC World. “According to Microsoft, Acrylic is based on Expression 3 (formerly from Creature House). It combines both pixel-based painting with raster- and vector-graphic editing… To run the beta, you need Windows XP Service Pack 2 installed on your computer.”
“The 77MB Acrylic beta is available as a free download [Windows-only] from Microsoft’s site, and expires October 2005,” Aquino reports. “More details, including a shipping date and support for Mac OS X, were not available.”
Full article here.
It’s all crap I tell you. Somebody hit me again on the head with a hammer!
That silence you hear is the sound of graphics professionals not caring in the slightest and continuing to work on their macs.
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
who cares?
MNXT451 and Tommy Boy id like to shake your hands!! how about a job at my company! only requirement is you hit me on the head with a hammer when you walk in my office!!!
Why does everyone think this is a Photoshop competitor? This app derived from Creature House Expression, which was first brought to the market many years ago by Fractal Design – you know, the people who brought Painter to the market. In effect, this app can be called Painter, but with vector strokes. I still use version 3, which I bought a few years ago. It’s really a nice app in its own way – with an interface that isn’t very Mac-like, although very functional and if you are openminded, you come to appreciate it.
If you can forget that it is not Photoshop and not Illustrator – it doesn’t want to be – this is a nice app with which you can create beautiful artworks. I was sad when Microsoft bought up the company. Now I don’t know if this app has a future on the Macintosh. We need more apps like this one at reasonable prices. I bought this app around $200 or $250. Show me another app which offers painting/drawing in vector strokes, with ink, chalk, watercolor effects. There isn’t any out there that I know other than Illustrator. I really hope that Microsoft will bring a Mac version. Please, don’t judge this app because it’s now Microsoft, and don’t judge this app for not being a true Photoshop or Illustrator. It’s an app in its own right.
Been there, done that. The program SUCKS. It’s a glorified Paint program that has the system requirements of a supercomputer to use. Typical MS bloatware. Why won’t they either finish Longhorn or fix XP first?
I usually don’t do this, but the MW is “enough” as in I’ve had “enough” of Microsoft’s nonsense.
If it comes from Microsoft and has the word “graphics” in it you can be assured that it is a complete and total peice of crap software. NOTHING MS EVER releases will ever be considered a “Photoshop “killer.
BTW – I checked on their DL page and you must be running WinXP with SP2 for it to work properly. It is not compatible with Win2K. WTF!?!?!?!
Greetings and Salutations,
JadisOne I didn’t appreciate your comment! When I see you I’ll be sure to throw a pie in your face! And then I’ll slip a twenty dollar bill in your shirt pocket!!
Yeh, like I’ll give up my AMAZING Adobe Creative Suite for a piece of BETA software from a company that cannot even make a decent OS, even though it has been trying since 1985.
Can you imagine the offices of USA Today using Acrylic:
“We’ve got to get this paper to press in 25 minutes, what’s the hold-up?”
“Sorry boss, Acrylic keeps crashing every time we try to export a PDF. I think we need to buy the PDF export plugin, only $499 from Microsoft.”
“But Steve Ballmer told me Acrylic was better than CS2, you mean to say I can’t create a PDF?”
“No, not unless you…. oh wait, it’s crashed again. Can you call the press room and ask them if tomorrow is OK. Hopefully we’ll have Creative Suite 2 re-installed then. What do you want me to do with these copies of Acrylic?”
“Well if you put the disks in an oven for a while then bend them, they make great ash trays.”
so MDN reports earlier on napster/erricson teaming up…(yeah yeah..i can see the relation to apple there) and now this….isn’t photoshop made for PCs too?!?! so WHY is this mac news….this isn’t competing directly with macs since macs compete anyway with photoshop for XP……what the world….
as a graphic designer, I can only say this….yawn
Hey Billy Boy,
I guess my comments struck a nerve.
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How does it stack up to GiMP???
insult billy and get paid….
i hate you billy!!! and i hate everything you make!!
MW wrong…everything u do is wrong
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I actually loved the app ‘Expression’ (of which Acrylic was morphed from) but the development was halted as soon as M$ took over… It was way ahead of it’s time – in the day.
I sometimes use it (still), but Illustrator had just gotten so much better…
From the company that can’t even design a decent OS…yet another “bought” product that they have ruined. Bet everyone at Adobe is rolling on the floor laughing. All these announcements from Microsoft about what they are “doing” is bad for productivity—they’re making everyone lose time with all the laughter. Or putting them all to sleep; take your pick. The ratio of failed, money-losing products to successful products is getting larger. Everyone waiting for Shorthorn has got to be discourage at how Microsoft waste time and energy on it’s attempts to conquor the rest of the electronic world.
If this is intended to compete with Adobe, I thiink that’s GREAT! They need competition to frive the industry forward. Plus, MS pissing on Adobe can only be a good thing for Adobe’s relatonship with Apple.
If it isn’t a competitor to Adobe, then that’s fine too. More products, more options.
This just in: Microsoft has just announced a “Critical Flaw” in the beta Acrylic program.
Hello, my name is Johny Habisco, I’m the lead developer of Acrylic.
I say this on behalf of my remote staff of 200 programmers in Bangdali India….BITE ME!!!
I liked the app Expression too — there was a Mac version. Actually you could download Expression for Mac from MS’s website until they changed the name to Acrylic.
It is NOT a Photoshop-type program (unless MS has added a lot of junk to it). It was a really nice vector-based paint program. After Expression came out, Illustrator copied their functionality, although I think Expression’s features were still more robust. With Illustrator Adobe just tacked on the basic functionality of Expression.
I’ve never had any problems with it being processor-intensive as JadisOne claims. I used it on a Pentium III around 1988-1990, and it worked fine. More recently I installed the Expression 3.3 beta for OS X, and it works like a charm (although I rarely use it) … although the interface is so clunky it’s a bit of a turn-off.
My comments about it not being processor-intensive are about Expression, not MS’s Acrylic, which I have not used.
Embrace the future.
The real IT world knows that this is one of the killer applications that MS is preparing to infiltrate the photoarts market that Apple has previously dominated. This, in conjunction with .Net will change e-commerce and real commerce in ways that most can never fathom.
This is a pre-emptive volley by MS to destroy the previous and last remaining stronghold that Apple holds in graphic arts field.
Consider this as “war declared.”
©
Review through Slashdot:
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/06/11/1851231&tid=152&tid=109&tid=185
But I’ve seen several articles that say it’s a Photoshop killer so it’s fair to compare. Can I quit yawning now?
Photoshop killer hahaha. Just that they are marketing it as such is a joke. BTW, note to Microsoft, right now you need fewer enemies, not more. Please please piss off Adobe.
Expression was kinda a cool concept, but man look at one of those drawings in keyline view and the problem becomes apparent. They get too complex. If you need to paint, use Photoshop, or better yet, Painter. This tool violates a design axiom, ‘just because you can, doesnt mean you should’. Can you do painted style graphics in vector, sure, but doesnt mean you should.
That Microsoft is now selling this just makes it even more of a bad idea.