Too many years ago, I toiled away in obscurity, creating graphics for newspaper ads, magazines, and brochures, using tools from some prehistoric era. Today, I can create any type of image effect in seconds, including painting flames.
Paint Brushes On Fire
Mac paint apps come and go. There isn’t much you can’t do with Photoshop and a dozen years of toiling away in Adobe’s bit mines. Or, you can go the point and click route with apps like Flame Painter. It paints flames. And swirls. And crazy designs that were unthinkable just a generation back. Take a look.
This is as unconventional as a painting app can get on the Mac. The tools are similar to those of other apps.
Control color by using standard sliders for hue, add gradients, lighten, darken. Control brushes by size, width, softness, focus, and much more.
You can lock in a photo in the background and paint over it. Three modes allow you to Ribbon, Follow, and Flame. Curves are incredibly smooth, as are gradients.
Flame Painter is remarkable because it does easily that which is difficult in other apps (Photoshop, I’m looking at you). It loads and exports images in PNG, TGA, TIFF, JPG, and BMP.
It’s the kind of tool that inspires creativity, rather than being creative and finding a tool to express it. That said, despite the obvious value, it’s something of a limited function app, one of many that a graphic artist may use for a project.