# Mac App Store Best of 2013
Everyone needs to edit images at some point, but not everyone has the time to learn complicated super pricey image editing programs. This is why we created Acorn. Add text and shapes to your digital pictures. Combine images together to create your own. Work with layers to touch up your favorite photos or make something new from scratch. Do all this and more with Acorn.
Speed: Acorn 4 is a lot faster than its predecessors. And applying filters to large images is a snap.
Layer Styles and Non-Destructive Filters: Acorn has all of the filters you're looking for, and even includes a great interface to chain filters together to create unique effects. You can even save and modify your filters after you've closed and re-opened your Acorn image.
Curves and Levels: Use Acorn 4's new curves window and levels sliders to quickly adjust the color balance in your images.
Layers: Use layers and blending modes to make the most of photo editing by allowing easy placement of text and other objects without destroying the picture underneath. Layers allow you to try things out, and change your mind later on.
Tutorials and Documentation: Acorn comes with online documentation, tutorials, and a forum, so you don't have to learn by yourself.
Text: Acorn's text tools give you control over text while maintaining an easy to use interface. Everything is in the text palette from bold and italic to kern and ligature. There's even spell check. Convert your text into a Bezier Path to take it to the next level. Since Acorn's text tool uses OS X’s native text engine, you get full Unicode support.
Drawing: Acorn features brushes that let you draw, scribble, and sketch right on your image. Use a track pad, mouse, or even a tablet. Create your own brushes using Acorn's built in brush designer.
Erasing: Powerful eraser tools like Instant Alpha and eraser brushes make removing unwanted areas of your image both fast and fun.
Layer Masks: Use layer masks in your image to block out unwanted areas or to expose layers below.
Gradients: Acorn's multi-stop gradients place endless combinations of colors at your fingertips. Add and remove colors simply by dragging and dropping them in and out of the gradient preview window.
Vector Shapes: Acorn makes creating shapes in your image a breeze. Vector shapes let you make squares, circles and lines, and you keep the flexibility to change things later on. Add and subtract points from Bezier paths and rotate your shapes with the flick of a wrist. And if that wasn't enough- Acorn 4 introduces intersect, union, exclusion, and difference operations on selected shapes.
Screenshots: As long as Acorn is open, press the Command-Shift-6 keys while in any application. Acorn will make a screenshot of your entire screen. Your image will be brought into Acorn immediately, ready for work.
Selections: Make selections, invert them, feather, and even add a corner radius. Use Quick Mask mode for intricate selections. Or, if you're looking to quickly select an entire color, try using the Magic Wand.
Web Export: When you need to get that image size smaller and still looking good for the web, take a look at Web Export. Acorn provides an estimate for the export file size and lets you compare the compressed version to the original.
Photoshop Files: Acorn now offers improved support for loading PSD images, and for exporting your images as layered Photoshop files.
Performance: Acorn goes all the way up to 64. Bits that is. Faster performance means less time spent waiting and more time for creating.
Automate and Script Acorn: Automate Acorn using Automator, AppleScript, and even JavaScript by way of JSTalk. And there are plenty of examples for you to build on. You can even write custom plugins for Acorn using the Python scripting language, JavaScript, as well as Objective-C.
# New Stuff
* New international presets when creating a new image - A3, A4, A5, and A6.
* New Command: Layer ▸ Merge Visible to New Layer (shortcut Command-Option-Shift-E). This will add a new layer, which is a composite of all the visible layers. The menu item for Merge Visible will switch to Merge Visible to New Layer when the Option key is pressed.
* You can now paste an image into the brush designer's canvas, which will then take that image and turn it into a brush.
* New Crop preset: "Document". It adds a crop to the canvas at 90% of the canvas size, and will keep its aspect ratio when resizing.
* New AppleScript command: "add layer mask". Works on either the document or layer object, and if there's a selection on the canvas, that will be used as the mask (otherwise the command will add an empty layer mask). There is also a new Cocoa Script interface to it for the layer object- addMask:.
* When browsing for a new filter in the filters list, changing the front and back colors in the tool palette will now update the colors in the current preview filter.
* The Raw Image Import window now supports full screen editing.
* The gradient tool now has an optional blend mode when used on bitmap layers.
* Acorn will automatically hide palettes when Web Export is used.
* If you paste in dimensions such as "1256x408" into the width field of the new image window, Acorn will recognize that you probably want an image with a height of 408, and will automatically set that value for you.
* The eraser tool now has a precision mode option just like the brush tools do (this will slow down your strokes by 3x, making it easier to add small brush strokes).
* You can now click and drag with the flood fill tool to increase its base tolerance setting, just like with the magic wand and instant alpha tools.
* The tolerance setting for the magic wand will live update when you click and drag on the canvas - which will increase it by the base amount you have set.
* You can now reset individual values in a layer filter by double clicking on its label.
* New shortcut (command-option-shift-n) to create a shape layer.
* Spotlight indexing now includes the fonts in the image as well as the pixel count.
* Pressing the + in the Inspector Palette with the Option and Command keys down will add a new Shape layer (and holding down just the Command key will create a new Group layer, and holding down the option key will duplicate the current layer).
* You can now lock / unlock layers with the command-option-l shortcut.
* Acorn can now open up .pict files. Yes, really. Hello, 1984 called and wants its file format back.
# Changed Stuff
* If you have a bitmap layer which is completely transparent, the various transform tools will now let you know that they have no job to do. And if that empty layer has layer filters which generate pixels (such as Render Clouds), Acorn will ask if you want to flatten the filters before continuing.
* The Shape Generator sheet (under Shape ▸ Generate Shapes) will now remember previous settings.
* Acorn no longer lets you set the paragraph spacing of text objects to a negative value. This sometimes worked, even though Acorn was using APIs incorrectly to make it happen- you would get unpredictable results depending on the selected font, and the values were sometimes reset when you reopened a file.
* If the currently selected layer is invisible, the blend mode, opacity slider, and any layer filters it has will now be disabled in the filter palette until the layer is made visible again.
* Lots more, but we're running out of room- so check our release notes online for the full details.
# Fixed Stuff
* There's a ton of bug fixes in this release- make sure to visit our website to read the full release notes if you want the digs on every bug that's been squashed.
If you like Acorn, we'd love if you could take a moment and give it a nice review. It helps Acorn get noticed, which helps everyone in the long run.
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