New 'Pixelmator Pro' Photo Editing App for Mac Now Available

[Freida]

Haha, I wish I could tell you everything we have up our sleeves, but... we like to keep an air of mystery around these things.

Ok, fair enough. However, you could help me out if you don't mind, please?

I tried the trial last night briefly and couldn't find some basic things. Do you have tutorial videos or something like that that would help us out?

I'm into portrait photography so something like skin retouching I couldn't find (maybe I didn't spend long enough time) so do you mind sharing some workflow videos for portrait photography or something like that? It would be helpful for those that are switching.

I do hope Pixelmator Pro is suited for Portrait photography as that is what I'm counting on otherwise I won't have the use to buy it. So where do we stand with that? You can at least reveal that, no?

 

[ChrisA]

...so I wanna know about Pixelmator as that does look like the kinda thing I like. Affinity didn't really impress me but I haven't tried it.....

I'm curious about why Affinity would not impress you but you think Pixelmator would. What do you see as the difference? When I look I see them as quite a lot alike.

I want to know for two reasons. (1) I'm an amateur photographer and just want to understand the difference and (2) I develop (non-photo related) software and would like to know what cause people to form opinions.

 

[Brammy]

I'm an amateur photographer and just want to understand the difference

One area I like in Pixelmator Pro is I can adjust the white point of a photo via the picker. Affinity Photo I have to use a slider. However Affinity Photo can use external filters like Topaz.

 

[ChrisA]

One area I like in Pixelmator Pro is I can adjust the white point of a photo via the picker. Affinity Photo I have to use a slider. However Affinity Photo can use external filters like Topaz.

I just looked. Affinity has a "picker" for white balance. Look under the second slider on the left side of the dialog box. There is a button labeled "picker". Click it and the cursor turns into a crosshair.

 

[notrack]

It doesn't seem to have a function like „adjustment layers“. How can I make something like a local curves adjustment?

Usually I add a curves layer that I can adjust and tweak the mask later. How is the procedure supposed to be here?

 

[Brammy]

I just looked. Affinity has a "picker" for white balance. Look under the second slider on the left side of the dialog box. There is a button labeled "picker". Click it and the cursor turns into a crosshair.

Aha. I was looking in the develop persona.

The iPad version is reversed. Go figure.

 

[tillsbury]

The interface looks much better, rather than the random boxes all over the place that was Pixelmator. I'm looking for something that can edit greyscale images as well as PaintShopPro 8. But it seems somewhat buggy. Loaded up a scanned image, tried to correct the perspective by moving the corners, then it hangs the whole machine requiring a hard reboot. Retina iMac 2014, High Sierra.

 

[kissmo]

Did you try Capture One Pro 10? Different price but you can import your Aperture catalog. It is more quick than LR. Price is same as 3 years monthly fee for LR.

I tried a bit but I couldn't get accustomed to the interface.

But I will give it another shot - right now actually.

 

[miscend]

I've given this a quick run-through and this release is definitely at the level of a "beta" for me. One of the areas where Affinity shines is that they have an open beta so tend to work through a lot of bugs prior to a release with feedback from folks who actually use it. The Pixelmator team (@GoAndrius and crew), for whatever reason, seem to prefer being "mysterious" to being "straight forward", which I've always found frustrating and not a characteristic that adds to the value of the product. A product like this would do well with an open beta.

That said, the "edit in" from Photos is nicely done and integrates very well back to the Photos library and the UI changes are definitely welcome. Will spend more time with this later this weekend.

Apple are mysterious. Pixelmator is a native Mac App.

 

[ChrisA]

Apple are mysterious. Pixelmator is a native Mac App.

This is a problem for for serious users. It is OK of you use the computer of entertainment but if you are doing paying work you don't like "surprises" you'd like to be able to predict what is coming and have some degree of stability.

For example look what Apple did to film editors. Out of nowhere came FCPX which was at first pretty much a dumbed down version of what was already in use. Same with Pages, the new one at first was way worse. Both have improved but we had to wait years for features to be restored.

Then there is the mater with hardware. If I go with Apple, I can't be sure if ever there will be a usable upgrade path. Apple tomorrow might decide that the entire "pro" market segment is not profitable and go with ARM based notebooks next year. We just don't know and can't know.

Computers are no longer Apple's main business so investing in Apple's ecosystem is a bit of a risk.

So what all of us Apple fans must do is keep an eye on the exit sign. That means we all have to have a bail-out plan just in case Apple fails to deliver or decides to get out of our market.

This entire exercise of what to do post-Aperture tells me to stick with Adobe. Adobe is not going to leave the photo editing bussines and it runs on non-Apple hardware so it protects me in the case Apple stops making computers (not so far fetched for a company that removed "computers" from their official company name.)

Affinity does look good but the only thing it has over Photoshop is price.

If price is important, look at Gimp. It's free and it's very capable and runs on Mac, Linux and Windows. https://www.gimp.org

 

[Erlang]

I tried the trial and then found I couldn't buy it. My hardware runs it but Apple will not sell it due to my Mac on the face of it being too old.

GPU is RX580 - 8GB, 40GB ram, 12 cores, but the chassis is 2009 Mac Pro.

 

[r.harris1]

Apple are mysterious. Pixelmator is a native Mac App.

Sure. But Pixelmator is an image editing tool and the company is not Apple. No need to be mysterious in my opinion. I got used to Affinity Photo's open beta program and I quite like it. When the product is released, we tend to know what works and what won't.

Apple does open betas on their OSs and while not quite the same, they are a bit more open in that regard than they used to be.

 

[ipedro]

I can't really give a specific timeframe, but one thing I can say is — the iPad version is up next!

I purchased Pixelmator Pro with the intent of gradually replacing Photoshop, getting in early so that I learn and build a workflow as you add more features. I love how it's designed for the Mac from the ground up, even adopting Mac design standards to a point where it looks like a first party Apple app. Well done, you're on the right track with this.

Feature requests:

1. iPad Pro + Pencil integration. Whether that means releasing Pixelmator Pro for iPad that can handoff back and forth between the Mac and iPad or releasing an accessory app that we can use to draw on the iPad Pro while working on the Mac app. Pencil support is super important.

2. More robust vector tools. The native non-destructive nature of Pixelmator Pro lends itself perfectly to working with vectors and pixels, all in one app. I don't see a need for separate apps like Adobe has with Photoshop and Illustrator.

Is there a Vectormator mode in Pixelmator Pro @GoAndrius? I can't seem to find it and assume it didn't survive the move to the pro app. Is it coming back? Adobe makes it hard to buy just Illustrator. I essentially get Photoshop for free when subscribing to Lightroom and Illustrator so I won't be able to go all in with Pixelmator until there's a decent replacement for vector drawings. I do a lot of line art for branding.

It's almost there. Keep it up Pixelmator!

 

[Brammy]

iPad Pro + Pencil integration. Whether that means releasing Pixelmator Pro for iPad that can handoff back and forth between the Mac and iPad or releasing an accessory app that we can use to draw on the iPad Pro while working on the Mac app.

it's a subscription app, but Astropad Studio lets you use an iPad as a Cintiq-style tablet with all macOS apps.

 

[GIZBUG]

Is there a big difference between pixelmator (which I own) and this new pixelmator Pro which is $59.99?

 

[ChrisA]

Is there a big difference between pixelmator (which I own) and this new pixelmator Pro which is $59.99?

Yes there is, the new software only runs on newer Mac hardware. If you don't have a modern GPU you can't use the new software. I think this is why they continue to offer the older version. They have also updated the user interface.

 

[Freida]

is there a way to see colour overlay when you are paiting sharpen or soften tool thing? I tried to find it yesterday and I couldn't so I really don't know how they can aim this at photographers if I don't have this basic feature.
Or am I just totally blind?

 

[Donka]

Still waiting on the iPad version to drop as that app is in need of an overhaul imho. They said it was coming soon and heard nothing since.

 

[Freida]

Still waiting on the iPad version to drop as that app is in need of an overhaul imho. They said it was coming soon and heard nothing since.

Yeah, me too. I'm waiting to see the ipad version and see if they add colour overlay and some other basic functions for portrait photographers. Until then I'm not buying.
Kinda hope that they will step it up as I like their approach. I just don't think its there yet so waiting for now