A big whole number update for this popular Photoshop replacement, featuring Quickmask, magic erase, layer styles, rotating text and shapes, multi-stop + live gradients, gradients on shapes and text, stroked text, new filters and fonts, and more.

Acorn 3 (release notes) is now available at the special introductory price of $30 (regularly $50).

According to Flying Meat, the top 10 new features:

• Layer styles
• Live gradients
• Quick Mask — Press the ‘q’ key to toggle it
• Instant Alpha — A new tool that works like a magic eraser
• Gradients on text and shapes
• Multistop gradients — Drag and drop colors into the gradient preview window to add, double click on a slider to change it’s color + opacity
• Can now export a document as a layered PSD or PDF
• Can now rotate shape and text objects
• “New Image from Clipboard” menu item in the Dock when running
• Can now add, subtract points from a bezier curve
• Can use canvas contextual menu to add a guide

For what it’s worth, un petit oiseau informed me that Acorn 3 and Mac OS X Lion play well together.

Acorn 3 is available from the Mac App Store. Alternately, you can download a 14-day demo here.