Seashore (software)

Seashore is a free and open-source image editor for macOS, similar to Photoshop/GIMP, with a simpler Cocoa user interface.^[2][3] Seashore uses GIMP's native file format, XCF, and has support for a handful of other graphics file formats, including full support for TIFF, PNG, JPEG, JPEG2000, and HEIC and read-only support for BMP, PDF, SVG and GIF. Seashore offers fewer features than Photoshop/GIMP, but is intended to be easy-to-use and to run natively on macOS. It includes layers, alpha channel support, gradients and transparency effects, anti-aliased brushes, tablet support and plug-in filters.

Seashore

Original author(s)	Mark Pazolli
Developer(s)	Robert Engels
Initial release	16 January 2003; 22 years ago (2003-01-16)
Stable release	3.0[1]  / 1 July 2022; 2 years ago (1 July 2022)
Repository	github.com/robaho/seashore
Written in	Objective-C
Operating system	macOS
Type	Raster graphics editor
License	GPL-2.0-only
Website	AppStore

After several years without maintenance, development was restarted by Robert Engels in 2017 to allow it to run on newer versions of macOS.^[3] Seashore version 3.16 was released in December 2022 and is considered stable.^[4]

The latest release is distributed via the Apple Mac App Store.^[5][3]

Features

Seashore has many of the basic features found in graphics editing software, including:

• Full support for the XCF file format
• Reading and writing TIFF, PNG, GIF, JPEG, JPEG 2000 and HEIC file formats
• Reading BMP, PDF, SVG, PICT, and XBM file formats
• Layers and layer merging effects
• Text layers
• Individual editing of layer channels
• Transparency effects and transparency in gradients
• Arbitrary selection regions (i.e. through a lasso tool)
• Anti-aliased paint brushes
• User defined brushes and textures
• 6 gradient effects
• Graphics tablet support
• Plug-in filter effects
• Core Image Filters
• Color levels and histograms

See also

• Free and open-source software portal

• GIMP
• Pixelmator
• Paintbrush
• Comparison of raster graphics editors