Hands- on: Pixelmator 2. Lion compatibility. Pixelmator 2. 0 is fully Lion- compliant, including a fullscreen mode. The Pixelmator team revved its Mac OS X image editor Pixelmator to version 2. Thursday. The popular alternative to Adobe's oft- overwhelming Photoshop adds a number of new drawing and retouching tools along with Lion integration, including support for Full Screen, Versions, and Auto Save. Ars decided to take the new version for a quick hands- on look and see how the changes add to an already capable imaging tool. We reviewed Pixelmator 1. The interface is slick, if not always the easiest to read due to small font sizes. The updated version adds support for Lion's fullscreen mode, but we think it needs some way to manage multiple images within the fullscreen mode. ![]() This seems to be due both to the way Lion's fullscreen mode is implemented as well as old assumptions about how users want to work with multiple files. Even in fullscreen mode, though, you will have to contend with moving around Pixelmator's various HUD- style tool palettes. I personally am not a fan of manually managing all those palettes (a source of constant frustration in i. Work apps, for instance), and it would be nice if Pixelmator allowed for some kind of automatic palette arrangement or management. A new context- sensitive tool options bar helps mitigate the problem somewhat, and an optional and customizable info bar keeps relevant image data viewable at all times. Also new in version 2. Unfortunately, the only way to access tools you've removed from the palette is to add them back. All the shape tools are collected under one icon, but it's not obvious that you can do the same for other related tools, such as brushes or selection tools. 6 Photoshop Alternatives for the Casual Designer. Pixelmator is your tool of choice. Need to quickly adjust the white balance of an image? I use Pixelmator as an adjunct to Lightroom. Not as good as the tool in PSE. How To Use Pixelmator : Using the Color Correction Tools in Pixelmator. Pixelmator is a powerful, full. The power of Pixelmator is now available on the small screen. The crop tool provides original and square crops. This technique for converting photos to black and white in Pixelmator offers a little more flexibility than using the Desaturate tool. According to developer Saulius Dailide, dragging a tool on top of another and holding will cause them to group. This allows you to hide lesser- used tools, but easily access them when needed. You can tweak your tool palette in Pixelmator 2. That said, Pixelmator did fill in a large number of blanks we noted in functionality from the previous version. A whole slew of vector tools have been added, including free- form and bezier path pens as well as a range of shape tools. Paths and shapes are easily editable with point- and- click ease. Fills, strokes, and drop shadows can all be adjusted as needed, and shapes can be used as clipping paths. It doesn't seem as though shapes can be used as masks, however. There are a variety of new vector shape tools available in Pixelmator 2. Pixelmator 2. 0 also has a number of new retouching tools. Sponge, burn, and dodge tools work just as expected, allowing localized control over brightness and saturation. The smudge tool lets you smear around pixels as if the image were made of finger paints. A new pixel brush allows editing images one pixel at a time, particularly important for icon, user interface, and other pixel- precise work. And a new red- eye reduction tool makes it possible to fix the pesky red- eye effect in family snaps. A particularly handy new feature pulled straight from Adobe's playbook is a new content- aware . You can use this to effectively . Or, at least, that's the theory. As amazing the results can be sometimes, it makes it that much more frustrating when it doesn't work. ![]() Before and after about 5 minutes with the healing brush. Not bad at all. Brushing over some wrinkles in skin, for instance, works quite well. It may take a few tries to get the brush strokes the right length and angle, but the resulting touchup can look very natural. It also works really well on stray hairs, dust spots, or other minor imperfections. Trying to remove a plant from the background of one test image, however, wasn't nearly as successful. Unfortunately, the effectiveness of the tool depends largely on image content itself; you won't really know until you try it. When it does work, though, it can make quick work of otherwise complicated work involving cloning, tone matching, and noise or texture matching. One other thing worth mentioning is that the tool can work with arbitrary selections, but the method to do so was not intuitive (at least to me, as I don't use Pixelmator on a day- to- day basis). Clicking on the healing tool—its icon is a band- aid—switches to a brush that allows you to simply brush away imperfections. There you can select . There is a lot more control over line spacing and kerning, as well as text alignment within a text box. More advanced controls are, again, hidden by the gear button on the tool options bar, but you can tweak baseline height (for superscript and subscript, for instance), as well as access Open. Type alternates such as ligatures. The tools are still not as comprehensive as those in Photoshop, but the additional controls are welcome. Even with the additions, though, using any kind of filter or effect on the type still requires converting to pixels. This is likely a tradeoff as a result of Pixelmator's reliance on Core Image and Open. GL for effects. Still, it would be nice to add a drop shadow or do other common effects while still being able to edit text later. Perhaps this is something that can be considered for 3. Pixelmator 2. 0 adds updated type controls, but type still needs to be rendered to pixels to apply any filters or effects. Pixelmator still retains its close integration with Mac OS X, and it launches and runs relatively fast even on less powerful hardware, such as the 2. Mac. Book Air which we used to test it. It also does a lot to mimic the basic functionality and paradigms of Photoshop, so users considering moving over won't have to relearn everything. As a daily Photoshop user, however, I personally find that Pixelmator's small differences make it a pain to use. Photoshop's integrated cropping and resize tools, for instance, get heavy use in my work for Ars. And I find that being able to adjust levels for individual red, green, and blue channels is just easier and faster for quick color corrections than digging in to curves or the extensive but hard- to- use color balance tool. Pixelmator 2. 0 is just $2. Mac App Store. At that price, it makes Pixelmator, even with its flaws and nitpicks, a great value. Users of previous versions purchased from the Mac App Store will be happy to know that the upgrade to 2. Mac App Store going forward. A 3. 0- day limited demo of the full version is still available directly from Pixelmator's website if you're not ready to commit $3. If you've wished for something more powerful than i. Photo but are reluctant to pony up for Photoshop or even it's entry- level Elements cousin, it's worth giving Pixelmator a serious look. UPDATE: The original version of this article indicated that tools could not be grouped when customizing the palette. However, the method for doing so was just not obvious. Developer Saulius Dailide contacted us to fill us in on how this was implemented, and we updated the text accordingly. Pixelmator Photo Editing App Now Available For i. Phone. Until recently, the very popular Pixelmator photo editing and digital art app was only available for use on i. Pads. But now, the power of this unique image. In this article we’ll take a look at how. However, it’s these latter features that are the true strength of this app. If you’re looking for a simple, yet powerful photo editor, Pixelmator has you covered on the basics. But there are other more robust apps that you may want to consider such as Snapseed or even Filterstorm Neue (my personal favorite). These latter apps will also allow you to create amazing photos, but are also designed around a more . In fact, you can export your image files from Pixelmator as Photoshop- compatible PSD files. This is serious image editing software for serious artists. While Pixelmator may not be quite as robust as the full desktop version of Photoshop, it offers so much functionality for a fraction of the cost of Photoshop. And considering that you can purchase the app once and use it on both your i. Phone and i. Pad for no extra charge, it really is a steal. Full i. Cloud Photos Integration. Before we get into further details, it should be noted that Pixelmator offers full integration with i. Cloud Photos. This means you can start working on a photo on one device and continue on another without skipping a beat. Talk about convenience! More Than Your Average Photo Editor. Again, while I think there are better apps for straight up photo editing, I certainly don. In fact, it offers some nice features that are typically only available on desktop editing software. All of the basic photo editing tools are accessed by clicking on the paintbrush icon in the top toolbar and then selecting Adjust Colors. Within this section you’ll find basic tools including a collection of standard presets, and adjustments for. Paint and Erase allows you to . Retouch also utilizes a . Distort allows you to use a brush tool to apply a number of image skewing effects such as Warp, Bump, Pinch and Twirl. Finally, the Add Effect option contains a number of different effects including Blur, Vignette, Light Leaks, Black and White, Bokeh and more. Each of these options can be further adjusted by either another sub- menu of options, a focal point adjustment tool (such as for Sharpen, Blur and Vignette), or a radial . For example, the Bump effect that can be applied using the Distort brush tool can also be applied with a more traditional adjustment tool under the Add Effect section. This sort of flexibility is great as it allows artists to make adjustments based on the editing style that they’re most comfortable with. The i. Pad version of Pixelmator offers full support of Wacom Intuos Creative Stylus, Intuos Creative Stylus 2, Adonit Jot Script, Jot Touch 4, and Jot Touch Pixelpoint styluses for even more precise control over your edits. Edit Using Layers. If you’ve ever. The interface is clean and very intuitive to use, making for an enjoyable editing experience. As mentioned above, if you’re mainly looking for a powerful photo editor, Pixelmator is probably overkill. However, if you like to create amazing photos and then take them to new heights through various digital manipulation tools, Pixelmator may be the app to beat. And with full PSD file support (which preserves any individual layers), you can take your edits beyond your i. OS device if you so desire. The possibilities are staggering. In this article, we. You really have to dive in and try it out for yourself to truly experience all that it has to offer. A full list of the app’s features can be found on the Pixelmator website: www.
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