pixelmator final release

[samh004]

I tried both the beta and final release and was impressed on my MacBook, but I'm not too good at graphics stuff, so didn't do much, my sister however did, and she was impressed with it... but last weekend she was using it and saving a file when it crashed.

She had to do a hard-shutdown (holding the power key) and afterwards her HDD wasn't recognised. Now I'm not laying the blame directly on Pixelmator, she was using it very well and she seemed happy with it's performance, and it could of just been a bad drive, however the computer was only bought in July, so who knows.

It's under warranty and being replaced this week, hopefully she'll get it back before the weekend.

 

[devman]

The crash probably exposed this issue. http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macbookmacbookprosoftwareupdate10.html

I've had that happen too. Fortunately I had DiskWarrior and DriveGenius to repair the drive.

 

[Mac In School]

I tried Pixelmator out for about 60 seconds before I realized it wouldn't meet my needs. Gorgeous interface and lightning fast, but it just doesn't have the features I need, which I consider to be quite basic. Examples...

You can't choose a background color when starting a new image. You have to set this up in your preferences for each image, apparently. Either that, or fill it in with the fill tool each time.

How in the world does one rotate the canvas less than 90%? Leveling a crooked photo should be child's play for a any image editor. iPhoto handles this the best.

It does not appear to support PS filters.

When I open an image, it opens behind my tool pallet.

After cropping, I can't figure out how to automatically re-size the window to fit the image. I clicked the + button in the top-left, but it left my tiny 400-300 image with horizontal scrollbars.

Not a fan of the app color or the transparency. Photoshop has a neutral gray so it doesn't influence the colors you see in the image. A desktop background or Web page showing through the opaque background could also influence color perspective. However, I realize a lot of people do like these aspects, so I'd like to see them configurable via the preferences.

The biggest downside of all for me: Horrible "export" options. Sure there are a bazillion file formats, but no JPG preview, and no GIF format at all?

I really wanted to like it, but no go for me.

 

[Mac In School]

...and no GIF format at all?

I need to correct myself. Dunno why I didn't see it last night, but there is, indeed, an export to GIF format.

However, it seems to have limited options. Either that, or I can't find them. I could not figure out how to specify how many colors to include (in the export only) or set a matte color for images with transparency.