Acrylic is still in beta, but a comparison between a few key areas shows where the program is heading and how it will compare to Photoshop.It's been a big year for both Microsoft and Adobe. As 2006 approaches, Publish.com takes a look at one potential challenge to Adobe Photoshop's dominance: Microsoft's Acrylic.
Lately, Microsoft has been tweaking the beta for Acrylic, a Photoshop-like application that will be part of the Microsoft Expression suite when it releases sometime next year. (Download the beta here.) Dismissed almost immediately by the Photoshop faithful, yet welcomed by the Photoshop senior product manager in his blog, Acrylic is sure to cause some ripples in Adobe's pond.
Microsoft bought Expression, software originally created by Creation House, in 2003. Expression now combines the power of vector-based drawing with high-end image manipulation.
For example, in Acrylic, you can paint using what's called "skeletal strokes" and then turn an image into a vector-based brush—similar to what you can do with Adobe Illustrator line drawings. After using the new brush, you can then export the vector image. There's a beauty and simplicity about the program in how it marries raster and vector drawing.
A comparison to Photoshop makes sense because designers may want more vector-base control over their images. Most importantly, for those who work in a Microsoft development environment, Acrylic lets you export in a proprietary XEML format and share graphics with Visual Studio users. Although Microsoft has not released pricing as of yet, Acrylic may also be attractive if it costs significantly less than Photoshop.
The comparisons begin to break down when you examine two critical factors. One, Acrylic is a much less mature product in terms of usability and interface design. That's to be expected from a beta product, of course. Most notably, however, Acrylic lacks many of the professional features found in Photoshop, such as precise layer control, CMYK channel editing, incredible extensibility through third-party plug-ins, and color management.
Microsoft has time yet to correct these deficiencies. But for the moment, here's how the two products compare in five important categories:
Export Capability
The beta version of Acrylic does not show you this option in its dialog box, but Microsoft product manager Wayne Smith explained that the shipping version will let you export alpha channels. This means you can export an image into PowerPoint or any other program with a transparent background, not just a white one.
Of course, Photoshop has supported alpha channels for several years. Where Photoshop beats Acrylic hands-down in terms of exporting is when it comes to PDF files. This is not a surprise given that Adobe owns the PDF format, but Photoshop lets you export individual layers as PDF, file comments, and supports the latest version of PDF.
Developer Support
Anyone who works at a large company that has standardized on the Microsoft development platform knows that everything will change with the Windows Presentation Layer and Windows Vista. Acrylic supports that platform with an "Export to XEML" feature. With it, designers can export graphics that retain their specific settings. If the development team sends back images, you can read them back into Acrylic.
XEML is a proprietary format and is not supported by the industry. Conversely, if you export layers in a Photoshop document as a PSD file, you can rest assured that most illustration, image-editing, and page layout programs will support it.
Selection Options
Acrylic includes a handy method of selecting pixels in a document. You can use the magic wand tool and then add and replace sections of the image. Of course, Photoshop has included this feature for years, but Acrylic presents a more intuitive Toolbox (shown in the upper right) instead of forcing the user to memorize cryptic key commands.
Photoshop CS2 now provides a robust Color Range selection feature that allows you to control exactly which pixels are included in your selection, based on color criteria and other factors. You can even load presets for selecting color ranges, and use the eyedrop tool on the image for selecting colors.
Image Effects
Some of the image effects available in Acrylic might remind you of Corel Painter in that you can perform artistic renders on an image, such as this painted glass window effect. There is only a small subset of effects available, however. In Photoshop, Adobe provides 100 effects and supports third-party plug-ins, which are widely available.
One of the most useful effects in Photoshop CS2 is the new Smart Sharpen tool, which lets you zoom in close to an image and apply effects within a specific radius, using a specific angle, and with a much higher degree of accuracy and control than Acrylic.
Color Correction
The Acrylic beta uses a simple and straightforward approach to managing colors. You can control the monitor profile used for editing, and select a proofing profile. Smith admitted that Acrylic is not really intended as a print production tool and is focused more on helping people create applications for the Windows platform.
Photoshop, conversely, provides a wealth of color correction features. New Bicubic Smoother and Bicubic Sharper image interpolation techniques use powerful sampling algorithms for the best view possible when working with detailed images.
Graphics Tools 
