Pixelmator 2.2 Adds Extensive Shapes Support, New Video Tutorials Website

Does Pixelmator have proper alpha channel support yet?

Update - I checked out the trial and the answer's no, which is a shame. Lovely app to use though. Will keep an eye on it.

Their timing for this update couldn't have been more perfect!

As a pissed Adobe user I just bought it to encourage and support the competition. Just like we were supporting the back then very crappy InDesign 1.0 when we were disgruntled QuarkXpress slaves...

But I must say, even as a seasoned graphic designer I'm very surprised about the huge progress the developers made since the last time I checked this little Photoshop killer out a few years ago!

Keep up the good work but for Christ's sake never let the success temping you to sell your company to the ugly Adobe monster!

I've been keeping an eye on pixelmator for a while now, It's still not quite there but i will be seeing how things go replacing photoshop with it in my workflow on the next medium project i do.

It still runs better than photoshop that's for sure. One thing i'd love to see is an option for larger, non standard shaped tools, palettes and windows like those found in the recent iPad digital painting apps, for easier use with a pen tablet. It's already better than photoshop in this regard with less tiny, tiny interface elements but an optional reskin would be nice.

MagicSpaceApe said:

Does Pixelmator have proper alpha channel support yet?

Update - I checked out the trial and the answer's no, which is a shame. Lovely app to use though. Will keep an eye on it.

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Ooh, that's too bad. Adding that to the short checklist of admittedly challenging to implement features that are keeping me from switching. Still, it's so close you can almost taste it!

Pixelmator may not be "there" for professionals yet, but for consumers it seems to have almost anything they would want/need. and it may not be a Photoshop killer in feature set, but in price comparison they could start eating at Adobe's profits. $15.00 and you own it, vs Adobe's $19.99 p/month to rent Photoshop (if all you were looking at was Photoshop).

I'm happy to see Pixelmator getting significant updates. It's still not there yet for my use, but once it has layer effects and good tablet/pressure/painting support I might one day be able to ditch PS (I do love PS though so it's not going to be straightforward!)

I wouldn't even be considering switching in the long term if it wasnt for the Adobe CC nonsense.

I just updated to CS6 but still bought a copy of Pixelmator. Hoping in a couple of years when CS6 Photoshop gets long in the tooth, Pixelmator will be a good replacement.

mazz0 said:

I don't know the tool you're talking about, so I'm probably talking nonsense, but wouldn't any text editor that supports regexp based find-and-replace do what you need, regarding the DOM parsing?

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Regular expressions are a really seriously crappy way to handle DOM parsing, and a great way to screw yourself over.

If you can have a number of attributes in a tag, in any order, and tags can be nested any level deep, how do you write a regular expression to add a "has_foo" class to any div containing a link (at any level of nesting) containing an image with the "bar" class applied and "foo" in its alt text?

If you're not convinced, show me your regex and I'll give you an example that fails. Then tell me how long it took you to build that regex for just that one case.

Apple should buy Pixelmator

Reinforce the creative team and let them not worry about financial stuff, just on improving the software. Then Apple could still sell an even more pro-featured filled Pixelmator for the same $15 or even raise to say $30 and still they´ll sell a ton of copies keeping prosumers happy with a real competitive product against photoshop.

An image editor is really what Apple needs to fill in the prosumer and pro niche they should be looking at.

Since Adobe has announced they are dropping Fireworks (which was my one and only graphic package), I'm looking for alternatives. I'm not a graphic designer and I just 'don't get' Photoshop. I'm a coder and my main use are:

1. Prototyping an interface
2. Doing small edits to assets given to me by a graphic artist

For point 1, I found out that the excellent Sketch does the job. For point 2, I'm currently evaluating the possibilities I get from Pixelmator and I have to say that I'm fairly impressed! I just have to figure out how transparency is done and how optimization of graphics works with Pixelmator.

How is third party plugin support coming along for Pixelmator? Seems this was one of the main advantages Photoshop had over it.

IJ Reilly said:

How is third party plugin support coming along for Pixelmator? Seems this was one of the main advantages Photoshop had over it.

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There are Quartz filters which work with Pixelmator. Here's a link to some and how to get rid of the preview image in some filters (page 2):
http://support.pixelmator.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3429

I think it supported Automator actions in the past, then it didn't, and then it does again, although I haven't tried that myself. --But there is also information about that and the work-arounds in the Support/Community pages.

CrickettGrrrl said:

There are Quartz filters which work with Pixelmator. Here's a link to some and how to get rid of the preview image in some filters (page 2):
http://support.pixelmator.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3429

I think it supported Automator actions in the past, then it didn't, and then it does again, although I haven't tried that myself. --But there is also information about that and the work-arounds in the Support/Community pages.

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Thanks! It looks like almost all of this work is being done by one person!

I hope some day someone will re-create classic Photoshop filters like bevel and deco boco.

IJ Reilly said:

Thanks! It looks like almost all of this work is being done by one person!

I hope some day someone will re-create classic Photoshop filters like bevel and deco boco.

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Yes, a very small group started by two brothers. (Acorn is one guy.) There is a Quartz bevel/emboss filter, by the way.

Pixelmator devs have promised layer styles sometime this year --so that's cool. --With Adobe flaking out I think Px has extra incentive to get the layer stuff out as quickly as possible. (I can hope anyway.)

I've had a look at the trial, it's actually quite good - not too sure if it can fully replace CS6 for me though. I can't figure out if there's a way to batch process (without resorting to Automator), some of the lasso tools could do with a bit of improvement - still great app for £10.

Handy App to have. Look's like I will be upgrading my current version.

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Kebabselector said:

some of the lasso tools could do with a bit of improvement - still great app for £10.

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Agreed.

Been using Pixelmator for the past few years and it's awesome and of course very very cheap compared to Photoshop.

splitpea said:

Regular expressions are a really seriously crappy way to handle DOM parsing, and a great way to screw yourself over.

If you can have a number of attributes in a tag, in any order, and tags can be nested any level deep, how do you write a regular expression to add a "has_foo" class to any div containing a link (at any level of nesting) containing an image with the "bar" class applied and "foo" in its alt text?

If you're not convinced, show me your regex and I'll give you an example that fails. Then tell me how long it took you to build that regex for just that one case.

Click to expand...

I was just guessing really, I haven't looked into it at all. I just figure you'd do something like "<start tag>.*alt-text='foo'.*<end tag>", assuming each object is on it's own, single line, otherwise your .*s would have to have negative lookaheads on them. Didn't say it'd be simple or elegant

mazz0 said:

I was just guessing really, I haven't looked into it at all. I just figure you'd do something like "<start tag>.*alt-text='foo'.*<end tag>", assuming each object is on it's own, single line, otherwise your .*s would have to have negative lookaheads on them. Didn't say it'd be simple or elegant

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Yeah. Basically, it fails unless you can make a lot of assumptions about the code you're working with.

I actually have half a mind to build a DOM-based HTML search/replace tool and sell it. (Of course, if anyone beats me to it, I'll gladly pay for a license, as long as we're not talking about a $20/mo subscription! )

MacRumors said:

The last update to Pixelmator added CMYK support, color profile management.

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First off, I prefer Px over Ps any day, and I loathe Adobe's gouging (I'm in Europe, and anyone outside the US has been screwed by Adobe long enough to want then to burn in hell.)

That said, Px's CMYK support is pretty lame far as I recall. It does not allow you to set the colour space for an image, but uses some kind of soft-proofing for print output. For those of us that need to create a CMYK digital image (to send to publishing), it doesn't really cut it.

Mac-Mariachi said:

Reinforce the creative team and let them not worry about financial stuff, just on improving the software. Then Apple could still sell an even more pro-featured filled Pixelmator for the same $15 or even raise to say $30 and still they´ll sell a ton of copies keeping prosumers happy with a real competitive product against photoshop.

An image editor is really what Apple needs to fill in the prosumer and pro niche they should be looking at.

Click to expand...

Ah, yes, Apple that bastion of buying software house and not screwing up the product. Shake and Color, for example. OK, Px is more readily adapted to iToys, which seems to be Apple's hard-on for the moment.

Two samples i've done.

Here's hoping

for a warp brush. Or a plug-in that works for that.

The tutorial is very odd. The center of the icons for the tool tutorials is blacked out

Johnchapin said:

for a warp brush. Or a plug-in that works for that.

The tutorial is very odd. The center of the icons for the tool tutorials is blacked out

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Yes, there is some annoying glitch with some of the site tutorial videos, I've been seeing that too. I'm not sure if everyone has the same problem, could be browser or a plug-in problem, but some of the video pages are fine. Anyway, you can find all the Pixelmator tuts videos on their YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/pixelmatorvideos