GOLDYN CHYLD  Hey guys, is it at all possible to fix Barrel Distortion in Pixelmator? (For example, refer to this picture to see what I'm talking about: http://ebookfree.org/gimp/barrel-distortion.jpg)

Thanks!  
(Version 1.5)

JOEYA  I've been watching Pixelmator for a while and it's really starting to mature into a useful product. That said, if this app aims to appeal to web designers it's in desperate need of layer groups, layer effects and vector shapes (perhaps even a pen tool). It also sorely needs some sort of sane palette management. Although it's a good looking app, it seriously has one of the most cluttered interfaces I've ever seen.  
(Version 1.5)

JOHN MALIS  My main image editor. Much more appealing then the very expensive Photoshop.

Work like Photoshop but looks much more OSX-like.

Top product !! Highly recommended.  
(Version 1.5)

MACINEN  Would be nice to try Pixelmator, because so many people recommend it. But: There is no RAW format and I shoot exclusively in raw, so I don't even bother trying. Any chance of getting the raw support to Pixelmator?  
(Version 1.5)

JAZZIEMAC  I love Pixelmator. For years I have wanted to do more with my photo's, a week after owning this app I was creating great results. I really like the tutorial vids.

At the price, it's just fab.  
(Version 1.5)

BUMBLEB  I have been an avid criticizer of Pixelmator because it has been unstable on my MBP. Latest version on Snow Leopard seems better. No graphics card related bugs it seems. Maybe due to Snow Leopard, maybe due to Pixelmator 1.5 code. Still a lot spinning beachball on large images (more than 3000x4000 pixels) but I guess that's due to its nature as a GFX card driven app. In the future, on better GFX cards that the one I have today (GeForce 8600M GT 128MB) it will probably rock'n'roll;-)  
(Version 1.5)

TICE  Requires 10.5 or greater is wrong. With my older PPC and 10.5.6 Web Export crashes regularly. I heard 10.5.7 is necessary. Looking foreward to test ist under 10.6 Snow Leopard.  
(Version 1.5)

DR. GIRLFRIEND  Since I wrote my review on April 21, 2009, a fantastic new app called Brush Pilot has been released, which helps mitigate the brush management issues in Pixelmator. Not a perfect solution because I still feel Pixelmator's brush management is subpar, and you shouldn't have to run another app alongside it, but it's better than nothing.

Brush Pilot can be found here:

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/31704/brush-pilot  
(Version 1.4.1)

PETER_EARTHMAN  For me the best OS X image editor. It is clearly a copy of Photoshop seeing all menus are exactly the same.

Great use if HUD windows makes this a joy to use.

For this price it is a absolute winner !

Thanks to all the programmers to make such a nice tool.  
(Version 1.4.1)

MACSTUF2  This is an amazing application. Beautiful interface and very easy to use. Even though its not as powerful as photoshop it still gets the job, done doing 70% of what u would do in photo shop. the simplicity pixelmator has and at the same time the things it can do amaze me. And all these amazing features you get for only 60$ is a steal you should definitely try it out.Also if you need any help i do tutorials on my youtube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/macstuf2.  
(Version 1.4.1)

DR. GIRLFRIEND  I keep trying to love this app. The interface is absolutely gorgeous, but as a hardcore Photoshop user, I'm sad to say Pixelmator just doesn't cut it for me. Ex: I added a bunch of custom brushes that I wanted to experiment with and Pixelmator just blobbed the brushes in one giant panel, right next to the Default brushes the app came with, until the brush palette extended off of the viewable area of my 30" monitor!

There is no intelligent Folder Structure nor an easy way to group your brushes once you add them to Pixelmator. Scrolling from the top to bottom of your New and Expanded Brush Palette is a nightmare. And what's worse, Pixelmator doesn't allow you to delete more than one brush at a time from within the app, so every time you open it up, "HI!!!" the giant brush palette is there to greet you.

I read the manual and this obvious flaw is never addressed. I contacted the dev and unbelievably, he advised me to delete this giant brush palette by navigating to User/Library/Application Support/Pixelmator. Give me a break. I'm not doing that every time I need to delete my brushes. Back to Photoshop for me. It may be a bloated, over-priced pig of an app, but at least I can get my work done in a timely fashion.

Pixelmator may be fine for users with simple needs, but power users who know their way around Photoshop might be better served waiting until this app matures.   
(Version 1.4.1)

TICE  I was really looking for the scroll on the brushes palette. : (

Still miles long covering everything else on the right side when selecting the brushes tool.  
(Version 1.4.1)

CLOUDNINER  I have been using Pixelmator for quite a while now and find it getting better and better. I gave up on Photoshop and Adobe and their overpriced bloated products.   
(Version 1.4.1)

TRANCE  *Third-party core image units support improved*

That's great! ...now if we could just find some Third-party core image units! lol

Nice app, getting much better all the time, although that lack of being able to set a color management preference on startup is still annoying.

The color saturation adjustment needs some work also, adding saturation tends to create heavy color noise.  
(Version 1.4.1)

MINOUMI  I finally trashed bloated and heavy Photoshop Elements 6. Pixelmator may be a bit pricey but it's worth it and I hope these young developers keep up the good work. I am in for the long haul. I have been a serious amateur photographer for the past 50 decades and Pixelmator is the tool for me. Fast, well-designed, snappy, beautiful, efficient and truly Mac software. Simply awsome.  
(Version 1.4)

MAC66GRAPHICS  I never even compared Pixelmator to Photoshop. Pixelmator does a great job with EFFECTS. I'm a Kaleidoscope aficionado and this application does it well, PLUS the other tiled effects, keep me in kaleidosope heaven. I only wish that when I crete a kaleidoscopic effect from the image and use the corner of the image as a the point of origin, that it would CENTER the image in the final, like Imagintor does. Having a large monitor makes the palettes easy to organize, and I like the black instead of white color of the palettes. I look forwar to each upgrade. Keep up the excellent work.

  
(Version 1.4)

DONMONTALVO  Beautiful application, still in relative infancy, but can easily handle maybe 60% of what most people use Photoshop for. Missing some tools (dodge/burn, etc.) but that's coming no doubt.

This is a cocoa application that takes full advantage of OS X's Quartz graphics system...that alone is well worth the price of admission! :)

Don  
(Version 1.3.3)

ST00P!D M0NK3Y  Why... the hell... are you all comparing a 60 dollar app to a 700 dollar industry standard app? They're not even in the same league. It is what it is... and what it does works just fine.  
(Version 1.3.3)

JMKMMRR  Works perfectly for me on Intel iMac with 10.5.6. Would like to se a "save for web" option.  
(Version 1.3.2)

IINDIGO  While I agree with the previous reviewer that Adobe Photoshop needs some competition, this is not it.

Ignoring missing features between the two, Pixelmator's UI is a mess thanks to its widespread use of HUD windows. Yeah, it looks nice and pretty when it's sitting on nothing but a blank desktop, but once you start multitasking and have other windows sitting behind it, its usability plummets astoundingly fast.

Also, while this may have changed, when I tried it several months ago it felt rather sluggish in comparison to Photoshop.

In conclusion, I find that Pixelmator is limited to novice/amateur use in dressing up their photos and such. It's not a tool for professionals or even intermediate hobbyists - for those purposes, even the open-source GIMP would fare better.  
(Version 1.3.2)

HIHAGEN  This is very important: Adobe needs competition! Photoshop is a great product, but it has a monopoly in the marketplace. What we for sure need is software companies like Pixelmator making competing software like they have done here. There is a long way to go, but I hope you people are making it, big time!! Keep up the good work and Apple will come and buy your company .. like they have done so many times before. (i.e "DVD Studio" was "Astarte DVDirector") ...   
(Version 1.3.1)

CPMAX  Initial Impression

I'm not an advanced creative-type user by any stretch so I can't comment on the more complex operations but this is what Adobe Photoshop Elements should have been like!

Pixelmator has a brilliant and integrated interface. The tools and the filters interact with the layers quickly and you get instant results. I love how you can place some tools on the canvas and drag out the radius to see how much impact the tool will have. The filters are impressive and the "dangling string" is a beautiful way to allow the filter to interact with the layer.

It's rarely that an application gets me fired up to want to use it. Adobe, I'll be giving my money to Pixelator!  
(Version 1.3.1)

TICE  Now with the updated 1.3.1 version also PPC users will have no problems (resize and crashing in filters) anymore. Works wonderful now.

Only thing still missing since 1.2: Drag'n'drop between the pictures doesn't work (have to drag the layers from the layer-palette).  
(Version 1.3.1)

TICE  If you have Pixelmator 1.3 Tempo DON'T UPDATE TO 1.3.1 (or save the old version)!!!

There's a bug when resizing a layer. It turns semi-transparent. Wait for 1.3.2!  
(Version 1.3.1)

HERVE08  I was hoping to replace Photoshop with Pixelmator as I don't have the need for the level of sophistication that Photoshop provides.

At first Pixelmator looked good but it appeared to be prompt to crashing easily which is unacceptable for a commercial product.

I did purchase a license but it has been a big disappointment.  
(Version 1.3.1)

BUMBLEB  Ok ok, my comment a few weeks back might have left some people thinking I was just a troll or whatever. My comment received -5 smileys as of writing. So I gave Pixelmator another chance. I wanted to make a grunge background for my website. Should be easy.

So kids, DO try this at home:

1. Take 10 images of crackled walls, with on camera flash.

2. Open these in Pixelmator and combine them as layers in one image.

3. Set the blend modes to Soft Light and Multiply, to achieve a cool result where the flashlight fades off towards the edges, like vignette.

4. Realise that Pixelmator is bad quality even in its blend modes. The result will look ekstremely posterized (tech speak for harsh abrubt gradients)... First I figured it could be my display or calibration, but no:

5. Save the Pixelmator file as a PSD.

6. Open the file in Photoshop, and see that the image is NOT posterized!!!

7. If you export the image from both PS and PM, then you can see for yourself.

Bottomline: Pixelmator is a joke. Don't just that any feature (like blend modes) are of the same quality as in other applications. Beauty is only skinn deep it seems. Like a cheap copy.

Additionally, since the interface is still way too dark, it can be assumed that the developers don't even run Pixelmator on calibrated displays, because I do, and at standard gamma of 2.2 (yes also on Mac on this side of the millenium) I can barely even see the scrollbars of documents in Pixelmator.  
(Version 1.3)

ISTRA  well,

looks wonderful and every version makes great steps but...

since the latest download today it crashes with every document and sometimes just after opening... With a bit of luck I just manage to save the docs I'm working on...

What's wrong? Is it me only?

(macbook, 2GHz, OS 10.4.11)  
(Version 1.3)

FOOFOORABBIT  Pixelmator has come a long way since 1.0. People that expect a perfect Photoshop clone will undoubtedly be disappointed but if one looks at Pixelmator's progress in a year's time, you can be sure that the Pixelmator team will have a product that meets or beats Photoshop's feature set in every way in a few years.

Photoshop has 20 years of development by a team that is probably 20 times larger that Pixelmator's team. Yet, in its first year of existance, Pixelmator does everything Photoshop 3 was capable of doing at the time, except it does it better and it also does things that Photoshop CS4 can't even do today.  
(Version 1.3)

TICE  This Update (1.3) shows again that the developers work really hard on that application. It's the small things that make this app so beautiful. Since Adobe pushes the online-activation on (CS4 and) Elements this app is my alternative.

Right now I'm waiting for the next little bugfixes (align text in tool-options and the ability to drag'n'drop again from the picture instead of layer palette). All I miss then will be the web-export.

Great app, listening developers, fair price.  
(Version 1.3)

TRENTI  After rotating a text (e.g. 90 CW) the app crashes. Kind of disappointing that it can't handle text transformations on the go properly.

Rest is great.   
(Version 1.3)

FSCKTHEMEMBERSHIP!  Been using it since the beta and it's first rate for a 'non-PhotoShop as a living' kinda person...that said PhotShop Elements was okay but I refuse to buy any Adobe product that now forces you to activate via their servers...period! This is still the United States and it was built on freedom (barring nobama gets into office) so I want the privacy!

Frequent updates, friendly support and nice interface.  
(Version 1.2.3)

IGREG  Almost as expensive as Photoshop Elements. I tried it, and I do not see it as any easier to use than PE.  
(Version 1.2.3)

SNAPPIR  I'm using PM as a demo still. It does a perfect job for me - resizing, enhancing, unsharp, contrast...things like that. I did the same things to the same image with PE - no difference.

It's brilliant actually!

It loads in a second compared to PE in 2-3 minutes.

Sure, sometimes it's a little hangs when doing certain things, but it's really unimportant.

My iMac is only 1gb RAM, so I know why it hangs. This is the reason PE loads so slowly.

But even with double RAM, PE will still load slowly and PM loads in less than a second.

After all, using PM is a real pleasure and a feast to the eyes.

I need to save $60 and then I buy it.   
(Version 1.2.3)

BUMBLEB  I've been a registered user since the 1.0 beta. I regularly check in on it to see if it works now.

But no. I have only one statement on this app: It sucks, sucks, sucks!

Yesterday I fed it a few large JPEG's, which made my Pixelmator drag my whole system down, so I had to do a hard reset of my C2D MacBook Pro!!!

Brushes are still slow. And today it made my whole computer slow and would not quit. All because I worked with a 5 megapixel image, in three layers, which is something even Photoshop version 4 would have handled nicely, back in 1998 or so.

I simply can't believe anyone are using this app with success, for anything else than small web-size images.  
(Version 1.2.3)

FORAGING FERRET  Pixelmator is an excellent and very well featured image editor. It has a very sleek and clean interface and runs blazingly fast on Intel Macs. For the price, nothing else even comes close.

I do however sympathise with CYANN's comment about French localisation, which I have translated (below) for the benefit of users and Pixelmator's developers alike. I myself live in a French speaking country and believe it is important to make software accessible to everyone, no matter what language they speak.

I wanted to give this app 5 stars but this localisation issue brings it down to 4.

Rough translation of CYANN's comment in English:

French localisation was promised when Pixelmator was released and should have been finished a year ago. Unfortunately Pixelmator's developers chose to ignore that promise.

This makes it very difficult, even for those who have a reasonable understanding of English, to fully exploit it's potential, thus rendering it useless to many.

How much longer are these developers going to treat French speakers with such contempt?  
(Version 1.2.3)

HANDYCAM  Excellent app keeps getting better. i love the pointless comparisons to Photoshop -- this will never be Photoshop. But for the price, it gets a lot of things done you really need to do regularly. And it does it with style. It is also updated regularly, and bugs and gripes are actually fixed.

For a low-cost image editor, it's excellent. Much better than all the competition.  
(Version 1.2.3)

CYANN  I'll speak french on purpose.

Shame on Pixelmator and the developpers.

Depuis le début Pixelmator nous a promis une localisation en français.

Elle aurait dû être réalisée depuis plus d'un an, mais malheureusement ils n'ont pas respecté leur engagement, préférant engranger nos adhésions.

Cette application, même quand on comprend assez bien l'anglais, n'est pas suffisamment exploitable et donc n'a aucun intérêt.

Combien de temps encore cette équipe de développeurs va continuer à nous mépriser ???  
(Version 1.2.3)

ANONYMOUS  There is only one tool not present for me to consider switching, The Pen. Insert the tool and I'll think about saying goodbye to Photoshop.  
(Version 1.2.3)

PHOTEK  Adobe should be concerned about Pixelmator...

its faster, cheaper and better...

If you could make an 'InDesign' type app to go with Pixelmator.. I would happily switch the 4 design teams I run away from PS/ID and their extortionate license fees.  
(Version 1.2.3)

TICE  - Finally the "Select all"-layer problem solved (who wanted to select "all layers"?)!

- The lighter tools are much better to identify!

- German Pinsel and Verlauf palette name corrected (yeah!)

Good small update. Now on to "Save for web..." preview! ; )  
(Version 1.2.2)

NOTAFOOL  I downloaded and installed this application but have so far been completely unable to get it to launch. Every time I try to launch it, It quits immediately. My computer is an iMac 7,1 with a 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor, and Mac OS X 10.5.4 Leopard. I have verified all Permissions, as well as verified my Hard Drive, and all is fine. Has anyone else encountered this problem ? Has anyone got any suggestions ? I have sent 2 e-mails to the Developer but have received no reply. I am very keen to try out this application, as others have been giving it good reports.  
(Version 1.2.2)

MICHAEL CEO  This application looks stunning and covers my basic image editing needs. It doesn't get 5 stars because it doesn't offer a built-in drop shadow or reflection filter, something "the rest of us" like myself need frequently.  
(Version 1.2.1)

MIKE RATT  For me is almost perfect. Bye, Adobe!  
(Version 1.2.1)

XPANDER  I found this on their support forum.

defaults write -app PixelMator disableBlur YES  
(Version 1.2)

WASTED MY TIME  Pixemator is very slow on my Powerbook G 1Ghz,

so what machine is needed to work with simple 2D pictures today?

I have never seen the beachball that often in any app I've ever used an my Mac.

Pretty app, yes pretty, but completely useless for me.  
(Version 1.2)

BIGDAVE56  1.2 a disaster for me. Completely broken on my ibook G4. I have the white palettes too along with blank white boxes and cannot open an image. Unfortunately I did not save my earlier dmg so I cannot revert. I am SOL for the time being as far as Pixelmator goes; at least GIMP finally works as of recently and Graphic Converter is reliable if homely.

I am sure that Pixelmator, which is aggressively maintained and upgraded, will be patched in short order. I classify this release as a "growing pains" release of a very promising app.  
(Version 1.2)

XPANDER  At launch all my palettes are white. Previous version did not do this. Trashed prefs and still persists.

http://tinyurl.com/4ap33r   
(Version 1.2)

MINORBUG  "Polygonal Lasso Tool"

Holy crap! That's so cool!

I love Pixelmator!  
(Version 1.2)

DAREIOS  You are absolutely right. But if the Pixelmator hase a aspiration to be a PSD killer, it must allowed CMYK management too.  
(Version 1.2)

TICE  Still no web-export preview. To sad. I was hoping to see an alternative to adobe one day. Well that's why I now have to buy Photoshop Elements.  
(Version 1.2)

SIMONM  Simply one of the best Mac apps around! It's lightning fast, stable, intuitive, has a gorgeous interface and has plenty of features including well implemented layers and masks and core image filters that update in real time so you don't have to apply to see the result. It has a great user support forum as well. It's apps like these that are the reason I own a Mac. 6 stars!  
(Version 1.2)

DAREIOS  Curves tool has been added and it's work fine. Dear Pixelmator Team, now, we are waiting for CMYK. Anyway app is strongly recommended  
(Version 1.2)

BABYFETT  LOVE this program. It's an Elements killer as well as Photoshop killer (for me.) I'm no pro, so my needs are limited, but it does everything I need and then some. Great value and the creators are constantly improving the program. Highly recommend a test spin.   
(Version 1.2)

DAMPEOPLES  I've been using Elements 3 for quite a while. I'm no artist or pro photographer, heck, I rely on auto settings or trickery to get the job done mostly! Once I got a new machine with Leopard on it, I went looking for the new version of Elements, and read reviews that it didn't work, so I went looking for alternatives, and found this.

As I said before, I'm not very good in the art department, but I do enjoy using Pixelmator for what little I do know how to do. All the tools seem to be in the same place, which is great. I've not had any image speed problems after the latest update, I don't know if the Core Image problem is fixed, but that's not a problem of this software at all.

All in all, I really like the interface, it's laid out where I am used to finding things, and seems to do just about everything I would want an image editor to do for now. As far as the comparisons to Photoshop, that's pretty absurd if you ask me, nobody is going to sell you a replacement for a $600 app with a $60 one. I think I fall into the 'rest of us' category the tagline mentions, and i'm pretty happy with the app.   
(Version 1.1.4)

IMHO  Downloaded the new Pixelmator version to replace the elder version. The first time I used the fresh-installed 1.1.4 I could open a PSD-file. But after that PM doesn't open other photos. I hear a sound, but PM doesn't give a message what the sound means. Already threw away the old version. Shouldn't have done that :-(  
(Version 1.1.4)

BABYFETT  GREAT PRODUCT! It's a PhotoShop Elements killer and for my needs it's also a CS3 PhotoShop killer. I bought this as part of the MacUpdate promo a few months ago and there's already been two or three updates and each one amazes me. If you're looking for a cheap (money-wise) alternative to PhotoShop with lots of extras that'll save files with layers in PSD or any other format, this is the product for you. At the very least take it for a test spin.  
(Version 1.1.4)

ESPIRIDION  I've spent the last few days doing a clean install of OS X 10.5.2 as well as of many applications including Pixelmator.

So far, Pixelmator is the only application that has given me problems.

With a 24KB image it performs as expected. With a 1.4 MB image it's painfully slow and unresponsive. At one point I got a message saying that I was running out of free space on my hard drive, which is brand new and the partition in question has over 100 GB free.

Apparently there's a "memory leak in core image" but so far I have not seen any solution. As it is, Pixelmator is unusable for me if I want to work with files over 1 MB. Absurd.  
(Version 1.1.3)

IGAUCHO  This is great software that constantly keeps getting better. Unfortunately, in this version when I try to open the Photo Browser on my iMac G5 under 10.5.2, it completely freezes the system. This does not happen on my MacBook Pro.  
(Version 1.1.3)

M57  For what it's worth -- I'm running Pixelmator on an old PowerBook G4 1.0 Ghz, and it's very useable for basic editing. Pretty good for old equipment I'd say. Nice app.  
(Version 1.1.3)

JDUB800  Imagine a lite version of Photoshop. Sure, you need to check it out to make sure it's not missing the crucial features you need, but otherwise, it loads fast and does some good things very quickly. Worth the time. Loads in a tenth of the time of PS.

Getting better all the time... :D  
(Version 1.1.3)

SPLUNK23  Hey - not sure what the other guys are talking about. I run on a last-get MacBook (1.2Ghz) and it runs fine. Large images, small images, no probs. Also, the color picker is the standard Apple color picker, which indeed lets you specify exact RGB values, check the other tabs. No, there is no CMYK support in this app, but oh well, it's a great value.  
(Version 1.1.3)

MIKE RATT  It seems a great update! Good work.

:)  
(Version 1.1.3)

SEMIOTICMONKEY  on my last gen macbook 4GB RAM is slow slow slow.

sure, it is GPU oriented. Sure it could be fast with a decent GPU.

in the same time it goes full screen with a stupid 900x600px image i start photoshop, work on the same image and close eveything.

a little bit of compatibility with the actual apple lineup could be a welcome new feature for the next version, don't you think?

so in sys requirements it needs to specify:

iMac last gen, MacBook Pro, Mac Pro or better (or specify the minimum GPU required, 'certified cards', for 'normal' operations, as Autodesk Maya).

if it needs a 'Pro' Machine to run decently, it is a 'Pro' application after all. or not?

low rating because i can't try the application (everything is slow o fails to render on screen) in the appropriate mode (ad intended by devs).

so much hype for a gimp subset on a cocoa gui.  
(Version 1.1.2)

GN0S1S  Version 1.1.2 has a *lot* of updates, way more than a point release normally does, which is great, but there is one big thing missing from the App (IMHO).

I cannot choose a Color in a very specific way. There is no way for me to enter in an exact RGB, or CMYK value. I have to rely on my mouse and dexterity to pick from a color swatch palette. It is kind of "inexact" and unprofessional.

However, the rest of the app is great and getting better each and every release. Keep up the good work.  
(Version 1.1.2)

GUNTIS  It was meant to be an answer to CLOUDNINER (January 19, 2008):

"I just spent 1/2 hr erasing red eye and when I switched back to fit to screen the program crashed and changes were lost.

This has happened now three times. I give up.

Going to wait to Photoshop Elements 4.0

Wish I had never heard of this thing! (Version 1.1.1)"

I don't know why it was posted as level 1 entry...  
(Version 1.1.2)

GUNTIS  Try Iris from Nolobe:

http://nolobe.com/iris/

New kid on the block  
(Version 1.1.2)

CLOUDNINER  January 19, 2008

I just ran Pixelmator for the first time in a few weeks and obtained an update.

I just spent 1/2 hr erasing red eye and when I switched back to fit to screen the program crashed and changes were lost.

This has happened now three times. I give up.

Going to wait to Photoshop Elements 4.0

Wish I had never heard of this thing!  
(Version 1.1.1)

MUDFLAPPER  Gorgeous interface. Just stunning.

I wish I could break out of the PhotoShop box I'm in, but until Pixelmator supports CMYK and live color profile image previews (along with support for rich black) I can't make the switch.

However, if you can't afford PhotoShop (who can, really?) and only need to work with RGB images for the web, this will do the job.

I'll be watching Pixelmator's development very closely.

Keep up the great work.  
(Version 1.1.1)

GN0S1S  This app is *good*.

And, it will get better as it appears that the developers are dedicated to making it so.

A lot of reviewers compare it to Photoshop, and so does the developer if I am not mistaken, but let's look at the app for what it is first: a $50 piece of software based on Apple graphics APIs.

Look, that's a great start. This App is going places, and at $50, that sure does beat $600 for Adobe Photoshop CS3.

There are some issues with this app at the time being, but it is *useful*. Besides, it is only at version 1.1 Go ahead and load up Photoshop version 1.0 and take a stroll back in time. This app is great and cheap, and has a lot to offer at this time.  
(Version 1.1.1)

MAC ADAM  Nice App !!

But So Slow for move a layer, and the full screen graphic glish… wait for a nice smooth update !

And I would like Group Windows…  
(Version 1.1.1)

HOLLI  Great App - Nice interface!

Would be great to have the Standard-Photoshop-Shortcuts - such as Move&Copy Selection by pressing ARROW-CMD-SHIFT.   
(Version 1.1.1)

ARGLBORPS  Wow with version 1.1 we have 100 effects, but the type tool is still braindead and I can't apply the effects to type layers, only bitmap layers. Lame.

I can't even apply those effects non-destructively. Several free tools can.

This applications also fails pretty hard in very basic usability and lack of proper keyboard shortcuts. I still hope with version 1.5 or 2.0 I might buy it but for now it's totally overhyped and there are better image editors for the same or less money out there.  
(Version 1.1)

TEKL  There are no speed improvements so it is unusable for bigger images. Simple actions like painting or just undo take a lot time on big images. I've tested it on 24" iMac, 3 GB Ram, 2,16 GHz and NVidia 7300 GT.  
(Version 1.1)

PROMETHEAS  The whole "translucency everywhere" thing has to go... I understand if you love it, but -- honestly -- you need to at least make that a checkbox toggle preference.... I believe you'll hear most people find it distracting.

You might be able to get by with leaving shorter-lived panels (levels, etc) implemented in that fashion, but the toolbar palette is just annoying... as well as color swatches, brushes, and other more long-lived windoids; make 'em all solid like the color palette, please.

The toolbar palette icons, on the other hand, are well-handled. I appreciate the use of scaling animations to indicate the active icon. That is a much more successful application of Core* eye candy.

As far as being a "UI for CoreImage" is concerned, I think that's actually a compliment... You sorta want to be able to say something suitably similar for every application on your computer.

It's a sign that the developer of an application is really making it a Mac application.

You basically *want* applications that aspire to be serious media editors to be written atop the APIs Cupertino engineers maintain and optimize... Coz they've been maintaining a great track record of progression and optimizations with *every* *single* *release* since OS X started shipping.

Ultimately, however, Pixelmator is an app worth watching, but isn't ready for daily use just yet.  
(Version 1.0.2)

DONPERREAULT  Underpowered and Overhyped.  
(Version 1.0.2)

HANDYCAM  I agree fully with the previous poster's review.

For an app supposedly designed to allow you to simply mess with your digital photos, its color correction tools are weak.

Yes, there's "auto color" which (as in PS) might work but there's no simple "color balance" dialog to remove a bit of cyan or magenta. The ways color IS handled is difficult and doesn't yield sufficient results.

Since this app is essentially just a UI for Core Image, and CI doesn't have this ability, it's expected.

Buy when you look at the PC world and you can buy PaintShopPro for only a bit more that this app, and it offers dozens of useful tools to fix up bad photos. And PS Elements did as well.

Save your money and wait to the new PS Elements next year.  
(Version 1.0.2)

PIXELJUNKEY  TIME TO CLEAR THE AIR

1) This product is NOT (nor will it ever be) a "Photoshop Killer". If you're talking about Photoshop Elements, then say that, and quit trying to sound so dramatic. This product has a lot of bugs and design flaws, and frankly is not anywhere near as good as even Elements right. It's not even in the same league as Photoshop CS3, let alone warrant a comparison. Would be like comparing SoundStudio to Logic Studio. Pointless!

2) Just because something looks pretty, and is offered on Mac only does NOT make it "Mac Like". The UI design on this software is POOR. Floating windows and panels have a purpose in some situations that make them better than modal dialogs or toolbars. That doesn't mean it's a good idea to turn the entire application into a floating window! The lack of UI knowledge in some of these reviews is just comical. Pretty should be the icing on the cake, not the cake itself.

3) This product is really no more powerful than most of the $50 genero-brand editors (like Arcsoft or whatever) that you buy at CompUSA. It's just hyped way more and looks nicer so people get excited about it. That said, I hope the product is improved from a UI standpoint (note to developer: UI form should follow function - just like the design of a house), and that it becomes more stable and flexible in terms of what you can edit with it.

Bottom line: this product is useful for editing JPEGs out of camera and tinkering around. It's not a serious image editor and certainly nothing a professional would ever consider for serious work. Maybe by version 3 or 4 that will change, but no time soon IMO, and certainly not even version 2, unless they take two years to develop it. ;-)  
(Version 1.0.2)

JOHN NOWAK  The interface is nice, but fussy. It's not exactly mac-like in some ways. It carries over a lot of annoyances from similar products. I feel like the thing most "new" about it is the fact that I can see through the window.

I've run into some annoying UI issues (on 1.01), namely general layer awkwardness. More work needs to be put into figuring out better ways to approach things, not simply doing the same as other packages with a bit more flair. The several crashes I had didn't help.  
(Version 1.0.1)

BUMBLEB  Having been a beta tester and been playing around with the demo, I have to say that frankly, the developers have to work way more with this app to make it practically usable.

Little things like:

1.

When makin a gradient, I normally press the Shift-key in order to make the gradient 100 percent vertical or horizontal. No such luck in Pixelmator.

2.

No 16-bit editing. That means your gradients, or blue skies in photos will suffer from visible banding. Damn, this is not 1998! Working with levels or curves makes this fact all too obvious.

3.

No pen/path tool. Walking ants, ie. magic wand and lasso are the tools that amateurs use to select stuff. Really, last time I used the lasso was several years ago. Layer masks are nice for softer selections, but a pen/path tool is needed for the sharp edges. But I guess that will come with the introduction of vector graphics.

4.

The translucent "gorgeous" toolbox makes it very hard to see which tool is selected. Especially the crop and arrow tools. It makes me think Pixelmators beauty is only skin deep. Sadly.

... And many many many more things, too numerous to mention here.

Why am I writing this then? Because I care. I want it to work. For now my bets are on Iris from the makers of Interarchy. Judging their skills from Interarchy, it will be a splendid, well-thought out app. Though I wish Pixelmator would be a viable alternative.  
(Version 1.0.1)

FROMAGE-HEAD  no it's not fast

It's ok for 72 dpi and photography size at 300dpi. But if you go higher and use a lot of layers it's not Photoshop. And it's especially horrible with paint bucket and selection tool.

I'm using a mac pro with 3gb of RAM  
(Version 1.0.1)

PLASTERPYRUS  I was a beta tester and I thought the application is a nice little alternative to some of the other pixel pushers around, though the whole beta thing was like belonging to some exclusive club the way that it was implemented, also wrote them a couple of times without any response. Anyway for my trouble I was told I could purchase application for ten dollars off and it would last till the 25th, when I went to purchase on the 25th they said it was to late. Wrote them saying I thought it was unfair to say the offer was good till the 25th and yet I was unable to purchase and their response was nothing, hope this is not a preview of their cutomer relations practice, oh well we will see.  
(Version 1.0)

JETFIREDX  Lovely interface. Lots of nice colorful icons and tons of little animation touches. There hasn't been a tool that is in The Gimp that I use that I haven't easily found in Pixelmator. Very nice! Works fast and smooth on my MacBook 2.0 CoreDuo. Definitely thinking about purchasing it soon. Some other comments / requests: Doesn't seem to fully support opening .xcf files from The Gimp. (GimpShop) I only get one layer from files I know are at least 6. Help? Hints? I would like to see an option to open my old PaintShop Pro files. (Gimp is able to do this pretty well. I could just finally convert them once and for all.) The gradient fill tool doesn't show you the angle of the line anywhere. This makes it difficult to judge where you want it to be since the line being drawn is antialiased heavily. Could a tool status bar be added to the window? (Or a tool tip for the angle like the gradient editor has.) I don't use Photoshop plugins since I never dealt much with Photoshop but if they were available I might start using them. (Even plugins from the Gimp would be nice too!) I know it has been said, I just thought I would add my vote.  
(Version 1.0)

FSCKTHEMEMBERSHIP!  Finally, death comes to Adobe PhotoShop Elements!

For a 'non-photographer' (i.e. I earn a living in a different field) this seems like the perfect solution while on the road with my MacBook Pro (i.e. allow the GPU to run the application freeing up the CPU for other tasks).

I appreciate the 'Mac only' approach and will only support these types of companies/individuals (e.g. PhotoShop came with the scanner)…especially younger folks hunger to make a mark in this world!

The user interface is fresh with Mac-like icons which if your looking at the screen for most of the day then who wants to look at crap just for an intellectual excerise (i.e. think line commands in DOS or Unix…geez).  
(Version 1.0)

BUMBLEB  Been a betatester, but will wait a while to see what happens with this app. I've heard it's made by the people behind Jumsoft, and they have a pretty damn bad name in my book. That said, people can improve, so let them have the benefit of that.

Anyway, Photoshop killer or not - as a photographer I'd really like to be able to abandon Photoshop. All I need is dodge, burn, spot/healing brush (in addition to clone stamp) and of course 16-bit editing.

The beauty of Pixelmator is only skin deep since all its cool stuff is only 8-bit processing. Highly critical feature.

But what totally breaks the deal for me is the lack of tablet support. Retouching = tablet.  
(Version 1.0)

ANTICHRISIS  I second that: Wonderful app with enormous usability - and would be even better if I could have access to photoshop plug-ins (like flaming pear or alien skin) via Pixelmator...

Nevertheless an outstanding application for the Macintosh!  
(Version 1.0)

SUPER_A  Holy cow. Sweet app! It's very fast. Would be cool if you could use photoshop plug-ins with it.

Mac Mini Intel Core Duo 1.66Ghz

512MB RAM

Mac OS 10.4.9  
(Version 1.0)

S P L A T !  really nice app...!!

many clpas to developers...

THANX  
(Version 1.0)

CREATIVE GUY  This is a fantastic app for version 1.0. VERY fast on a MacPro with 3GB RAM.

I don't see this at all as a Photoshop competitor. It fills a giant void for the tons of folks who don't need the power and features of Photoshop - and it does it quite well.

Many features such as CMYK support, RAW support, drop shadows and more have already been promised for future versions by the developer. Remember, it's only 1.0  
(Version 1.0)

ARGLBORPS  Very promising 1.0 version. However the one showstopper ist that this application is slow like molasses. I'm on a 1.66 GHz Core Duo Mini with 1 GB of RAM, and I don't think it is such a low-spec machine, but esecially the type tool any many other funtions are unusably slow.

There's no effect for creating drop-shadows. C'mon. I can add them to type using the font palette, but what about shapes etc.

Another thing I dearly miss are layer effects like in Photoshop. Looking at the UI Pixelmator is clearly a Photoshop clone, you don't get any closer than this. Which is fine, but then I'd also expect some of the essential tools. Also I'd need something like shape/vector elements for creating original designs.

Hopefully with version 1.1...

I won't buy this yet, because right now it's unfortunately unusable for me, but if it gets the above mentioned features, I'll get myself a copy.  
(Version 1.0)