PIXELMATOR PRO FOR WINDOWS 10 PRO
PIXELMATOR PRO FOR WINDOWS 10 PROFESSIONAL

Speaking of layers, perhaps the most disappointing aspect of Pixelmator Pro’s implementation is its inability to create a layer adjustment that affects all the layers below it.

PIXELMATOR PRO FOR WINDOWS 10 PRO

Presumably Pixelmator Pro will improve over time, but the closest match to the photo of dice was “game controller,” which is still pretty funny. You can also Control-click the layer to bring up other possible names. Your mileage may vary, but it’s a starting point. It managed to detect a cat, tree, food, and car-but hilariously labeled a pair of dice as “food” and a traffic cone as a bottle. Does it work? About as reliably as any AI works these days, which is to say it does a pretty decent job. This auto-naming of layers is a nifty time saver if you’re bringing in a bunch of photos as layers all at once and want to avoid that “Layer 1” through “Layer 9999” problem. However, Pixelmator Pro does have a few layer tricks of its own, like naming layers with machine learning. For the rest of us, those options are likely overkill. If you’re doing Bert Monroy-level work, Photoshop options like giving layers colors or putting them in folders is an absolute must. Photoshop is an F-15 compared to Pixelmator Pro’s commuter jet here. (I should note that version 1.3 of Pixelmator Pro just added clipping masks to the contextual menu above-a welcome addition.) Compare what I get when I right-click a layer in Pixelmator Pro against the same in Photoshop: Overall, Pixelmator Pro has many fewer layer options. Pixelmator Pro offers the option of no visible layers (the default), a thumbnail view, and a list view. This interface has been around since the early days of Photoshop. Photoshop presents layers with thumbnails in various sizes and adds masks or clipping layers visually. I won’t go into why eye strain can be a problem with a “dark” interface as you can read more about that here. Luckily, Pixelmator 1.2 added a “light appearance,” but it’s available only in Mojave. In Photoshop, you can change the default dark grey to black, white, or the more eyeball-friendly medium grey. (The most notable exception is Apple’s system-wide color picker, which looks ancient these days and stubbornly appeared in the lower left of my gigantic screen every time I opened it.)Ī number of pro photographers initially groused about Pixelmator Pro’s lack of interface customization. There are a few palettes that float above the interface, but this is a relatively minor gripe. This attention to detail is a testament to Pixelmator Pro’s Apple-esque design, and that carries through into the engineering, which we’ll get to in a moment. This polish continues throughout, as fades and physics create a more tactile experience than things simply appearing. If you move your mouse to the right, the tool palette appears with a lovely fade. No layers, no apparent tools, just a big rectangle of workspace. In fact, Pixelmator Pro begins perhaps too minimally, offering little more than a big, dark grey blank slate for your work. You find that trade-off throughout the software, and as you might expect it’s often a balance between capability and simplicity.

This is an overarching theme: Photoshop has so many features that they overwhelm the interface, while Pixelmator Pro sacrifices obscure features for ease of use. Let’s begin with Photoshop’s interface for starting a new document.Īs you can see, Pixelmator Pro is more streamlined. However, if you simply need to work with photos and manipulate them for the Web-which is likely a lot of Photoshop users out there-then Pixelmator Pro offers some advantages for a lot less money. Adobe offers a decent deal for subscribers: between online storage, fonts, and other workflow niceties, you won’t easily replicate that with a single application. If you do heavy print work, you rely on other Creative Cloud apps, or if you’re plugged into a workflow reliant upon some of the connected features available in Creative Cloud, I can save you some time: forget it. But can the $59.99 Pixelmator Pro replace Photoshop, which will set you back at least $9.99 per month and as much as $52.99 per month?

PIXELMATOR PRO FOR WINDOWS 10 PROFESSIONAL

In 2018, the Pixelmator Team released Pixelmator Pro, aimed squarely at professional Photoshop users. Photoshop is the undisputed king of photo editors, but for years the developers of Pixelmator have been challenging that throne, especially for amateurs and part-time professionals. #1657: A deep dive into the innovative Arc Web browser.#1658: Rapid Security Responses, NYPD and industry standard AirTag news, Apple's Q2 2023 financials.#1659: Exposure notifications shut down, cookbook subscription service, alarm notification type proposal, Explain XKCD.#1660: OS updates for sports and security, Drobo in bankruptcy, why TidBITS doesn't cover rumors.#1661: Mimestream app for Gmail, auto-post WordPress headlines to Twitter and Mastodon, My Photo Stream shutting down.

Pixelmator pro for windows 10