Photoshop competitors have come out of the woodwork in recent years, starting with Pixelmator and more recently Affinity’s new Photo app. In between are a few hundred photo enhancement, paint, and drawing apps which fill specific needs, but at a much lower price point than Adobe’s Create Cloud’s monthly rental fee.
The latest to hit my Mac’s screen is Cosmic Brush. I’m not sure if it’s merely a colorful way to doodle over a photo or create a radiant piece of neon art, but the results speak for themselves.
The first screen shot image has ‘doodle’ written all over it.
Cosmic Brush brings multiple tools and options to fullscreen mode, including layers, color sets, undo and redo, and the all important customizable color palettes. Keyboard shortcuts make it easy to navigate through and around an image, matched with trackpad gestures.
Unique to Cosmic Brush and obviously resembling the name are the brushes; 3D-Shaded Brush, Plasma Chain Brush, Translucent Brush, Halo Brush and others. Yes, there’s even a built-in eraser because, well, you know; trial and error is your friend.
Cosmic Brush can be downloaded and used free from the Mac App Store, so you can get an idea of how it works. To remove the advertising and add more tools, including more layers, and multiple paper color options, the pro version will set you back a few dollars.
I can see how the effects generated by Cosmic Brush, even in the free version, could be useful. They’re cool and colorful but altogether limiting. Every example given indicates Cosmic Brush could just as easily be renamed Neon Brush.