Pixelmator 2.0.3 Is Out

Not long ago, we brought you the biggest maintenance update in Pixelmator history. Today, we’re excited to bring you Pixelmator 2.0.3, our second maintenance update this year. It’s all part of our work to make Pixelmator the image editor for the rest of us.

Here are just a few of the many improvements we built into this update:

• For starters, with Pixelmator 2.0.3, most users will see their memory footprint cut in half. That should sweeten performance noticeably and make using Pixelmator an even faster and smoother experience.
• The Export for Web feature is vastly improved, with fixes for both stability and compatibility issues.
• We also fixed a few nasty crashes, worked some magic in cases where PXM files were going corrupt, and topped off the update with dozens more enhancements.
• And, if you’ve wished for a return to the old Deselect shortcut—well, we listened. From now on, Command-D is for Deselect again.

Last but not least, users who don’t get along entirely with the Lion OS X Autosave feature can now turn it off in Pixelmator by typing this command in the Terminal:

defaults -currentHost write com.pixelmatorteam.pixelmator "disableAutosave" -bool YES

We’re very happy with Pixelmator 2.0.3. And, along with the recent maintenance updates, we are on track to release the next major update: Pixelmator 2.1.

Tuesday, 24 April 2012. Posted by Saulius.

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Pixelmator Tutorials Video Podcast

We’ve got some sweet goodies for you. Starting today, you can subscribe to and view the Pixelmator Tutorials video podcast from your iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad (the new one is yummy) and, of course, from iTunes on your Mac. The new Pixelmator podcast is the quickest, easiest way to make sure you’re getting the most out of your favorite image editor. Even better, each episode is brought to you in full HD to let you catch even the smallest details of the action.

Just as in our awesome Pixelmator Tutorials website, each episode of the Pixelmator Tutorials video podcast will walk you through a different feature of Pixelmator, showing you just how easy it is to create, enhance and have fun with your images. You’ll learn how to work with the most useful tools and apply the most popular effects—quickly, expertly and on the go. And with new tutorials planned for the immediate future, this is one podcast subscription you won’t want to miss.

The Pixelmator Tutorials video podcast is immediately available in iTunes or by clicking here.

Enjoy!

Wednesday, 21 March 2012. Posted by Saulius.

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Pixelmator 2.0.2 Is Out

With Apple’s exciting recent announcement of OS X Mountain Lion, we too would like to add something nice to the whole picture. This is not as big as Mountain Lion, but still awesome: We’re talking about Pixelmator 2.0.2, the biggest maintenance update in Pixelmator history.

Pixelmator 2.0.2 includes a massive number of improvements and bug fixes—in all, over 60 enhancements, mainly focusing on the Move Tool, drag and drop, layer management, and copying and pasting. And we’ve also built in a ton of overall stability improvements.

Pixelmator 2.0.2 is available immediately as a free update via the Mac App Store.

While you enjoy the new update, we’ll keep working on Pixelmator 2.1. Pixelmator 2.1 is a major update that will bring some very cool features and major improvements. I am not ready to announce the details yet, but stay tuned.

Tuesday, 21 February 2012. Posted by Saulius.

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Mac App of the Year

Just think about this: For an entire year, Pixelmator has retained its standing as one of the (1) most highly rated, and (2) top-charting apps on the Mac App Store, with (3) incredible, massive sales that we never dreamed of. Also, just a couple of months ago, it won a gorgeous (4) Apple Design Award, and just a month ago, our (5) most successful (in terms of everything—feedback, sales, downloads, updates, etc.) update—Pixelmator 2.0—was released.

I’d say that’s quite a year for a tiny Mac developer like the Pixelmator Team. Quite a year…

…but just when you start to think that the most incredible year in Pixelmator’s life (to this date) is coming to an end—boom—it happens: As if those five huge reasons above weren’t enough, Pixelmator is named (!) the Mac app of the year! Yup! THE MAC APP of THE YEAR.

Wow. Just a huge wow. That is a big honor for us.

And again, thank you so much, everyone, for helping us to get where we are today: closer and closer to creating the best image editing app in the world. We know we are not there yet, but we are also confident that we will get there.

I would also like to say a big thanks to all of those people at Apple that showed us how to get where we are today, and thanks for giving us all of the stuff that everyone uses, loves and knows about. In our case, too, we’re grateful to Apple for creating the Mac App Store which is hugely responsible for successes of all those developers like us. Thank you, Apple!

P.S.—My quote, together with quotes from Philip Schiller (everyone’s favorite Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing), Amar Hanspal (of Autodesk) and Karim Morsy (of algoriddim) made it into Apple’s official press release describing the incredible success of the Mac App Store. The press release was noticed by almost every popular magazine and blog out there. It is amazing to be at least a teeny, tiny part of something that big and that great.

Tuesday, 13 December 2011. Posted by Saulius.

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Pixelmator 2.0 Launches on Mac App Store

Image Editing App Adds New Drawing, Retouching and Smudge Tools, Content-Aware Fill, and Support for OS X Lion

The Pixelmator Team today released Pixelmator 2.0, the latest version of its groundbreaking image editing tool that provides everything needed to create, edit, and enhance still images. Pixelmator 2.0 features new drawing and retouching tools, Content-Aware Fill, a Healing Tool, a Smudge Tool, and more. Designed from the ground up for OS X Lion, Pixelmator 2.0 now supports Full Screen, Versions and Auto Save, and is available from the Mac App Store for introductory $29.99.

“With tons of exciting new features and support for OS X Lion, this new version of Pixelmator is the easiest, most enjoyable way to experience the best of image editing,” said Saulius Dailide of the Pixelmator Team. “Pixelmator 2.0 gives everyone the tools they need to unlock their creativity and boost their productivity.”

The new drawing tools in Pixelmator allow users to add, create, combine and edit vector shapes easily. In addition to Pen and Freeform Pen tools, Pixelmator also includes pre-drawn shape tools for quickly adding triangles, lines, circles or rectangles into compositions. Fill and stroke settings for created shapes, as well as shadows, can be easily adjusted in the new Shape Settings palette. Drawing tools in Pixelmator are useful for creating buttons, icons, web page elements, illustrations or any other items for use in image compositions.

A breakthrough new Content-Aware Fill technology in Pixelmator allows users to magically get rid of unwanted elements in images, as if they never existed. By choosing either the new Healing Tool or the selection tools, a user can select wrinkles, blemishes, image damage or any other details present in images, and with just one click let Pixelmator seamlessly fill the selected area with similar nearby image content.

The new retouching tools in Pixelmator 2.0 include a Sponge Tool for adding more color or taking color away from areas of an image by painting on them; Burn and Dodge tools for naturally darkening or lightening areas of an image; a Red Eye Tool for easily—either automatically or manually—fixing the red-eye effect in images; and a new Smudge Tool for smearing paint or rubbing out blemishes or any other details in images, as realistically as using one’s fingers.

Other new features of Pixelmator 2.0 include an easier-to-use interface, a new Eyedropper Tool, a new info bar, a convenient tool options bar, a fully customizable Tools palette, a new Type Tool, a Pixel Tool, and a number of other minor improvements.

Pixelmator 2.0 is available from the Mac App Store for an introductory price of $29.99. http://www.pixelmator.com/buy/

For existing Pixelmator users who purchased the app from the Mac App Store, the new version is available as a free upgrade.

Thursday, 27 October 2011. Posted by Saulius.

225 Comments

On the Pixelmator 2.0 Shipping Date

We expected to ship Pixelmator 2.0 Chameleon sometime this summer. But the summer is almost gone, and the app is not out yet. Why is it still late even though we worked very hard and had zero serious technical issues?

In fact, it’s simple—Pixelmator 2.0 is late because we put our hearts into it and want it to be perfect. But it looks like perfection requires some more time.

As of today, we think we have done a great job on nearly everything we touched in Pixelmator 2.0: the look and feel of the app; the fantastic new vector, type, retouching, and many other tools; the exclusive OS X Lion support; hundreds of lovely details; and much more. But hey, we still would like to squash bugs and improve some little things that we think should be improved before the release.

I assure you that the upgrade is worth every single moment of your wait, and I kindly ask you to excuse our tardiness and allow us a few more weeks to release a totally perfect Pixelmator 2.0. After all, we do this for you and care very much about what you think of our creation.

While I am getting back to work on shipping the app as soon as possible, I hope you enjoy a short movie we made about the new Eyedropper Tool in Pixelmator 2.0.

Monday, 5 September 2011. Posted by Saulius.

543 Comments

Flapcraft

Before the release of the amazing Pixelmator 2.0, we thought we should have some fun… And, boy, did we do the craziest thing this year…

…we created a game. Yep. A real game. A completely complete iOS game for our beloved iPhones, iPads and iPods (touch).

The game is called Flapcraft. And it is awesome. And here is what it looks like:

In Flapcraft, you play as a handsome Viking doing tricks in the air by flying on a wooden log. To perform those tricks more effectively, the Viking’s wooden log can be upgraded with techy stuff like wings, rockets, engines and more. The game looks gorgeous, features great sound, and is fully accelerometer-based. In short—well, you should try the game for yourself—it is a lot of fun.

Oh, and just to make things clear: We are not going into the game business anytime soon. If you try to get the business logic behind Flapcraft… don’t; there is none. Flapcraft was developed during beta testing of Pixelmator 2.0—well, of Pixelmator’s 2.0 painting engine, to be more precise. We found that testing Pixelmator 2.0 by creating game graphics was very effective. What’s more, we made ourselves comfortable with many of those great iOS technologies in the process. In fact, we handled everything ourselves in the building of Flapcraft—no third party was involved.

To create the game from scratch, we used Pixelmator 2.0, GarageBand, and, of course, Xcode. You’d be very surprised at how easy it is to create a game for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch if you know the tools. Actually, the special Flapcraft page on our website was created using Pixelmator 2.0. We even did a short making-of Flapcraft video.

Flapcraft is available right there on the App Store for only $1.99. It is a completely universal app that will fully work on all iOS devices once downloaded, whether iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. And, yep, it does support the amazing iPhone 4 Retina display.

For more information on and screenshots of Pixelmator’s Flapcraft, please visit the Flapcraft page on our website or view the game description in iTunes.

Now go ahead and have fun. After all, the game is twice as cool when you know that it was created with your favorite image editing app. I hope you like it.

As for me, I am getting back to work on the Pixelmator 2.0 release. Still some stuff left to do there.

Thursday, 25 August 2011. Posted by Saulius.

55 Comments

Ready for OS X Lion (Update)

I’m very happy to let you know that while working extremely intensively on Pixelmator 2.0—codenamed Chameleon—we still managed to improve the currently available version’s compatibility with OS X Lion. Pixelmator 1.6.6 adds fixes and improvements that will help the app run smoothly on OS X Lion.

Lion is a must-have upgrade of Mac OS X. Believe me, we spent a lot of time using it, and everyone at the Pixelmator Team absolutely loves the OS X Lion.

To easily update to Pixelmator 1.6.6, simply use your Mac App Store app. For non-Mac App Store users, it is highly recommended to transition to the Mac App Store at this time. However, if not ready to transition yet, users can run the Software Update feature in Pixelmator.

High-end support for OS X Lion is coming along for Pixelmator 2.0 Chameleon. With Lion-specific features, the new version is going to totally rock on OS X Lion. If you haven’t yet noticed, we have a sneak preview website for more info about what’s coming in Pixelmator 2.0.

And finally, we thought you might be happy to take a look at the new Smudge Tool in Pixelmator 2.0. Enjoy the video!

Update (A Bump)

We had a nasty bump in the road with the release of version 1.6.6. Because of a critical bug (a crash upon launch) found in version 1.6.6 fifteen minutes after its release, we had to temporarily remove the app from the Mac App Store and from our downloads.

With the bug fixed in Pixelmator 1.6.7, everything is up and running again. I apologize for any inconvenience you experienced. It was a good lesson for us.

(It’s a pity to waste a version (1.6.6)).

Wednesday, 20 July 2011. Posted by Saulius.

101 Comments

Pixelmator Apple Design Award

Last week’s WWDC was totally crazy for us. The craziest thing that happened was winning the Apple Design Award. It was so unexpected and so unbelievable that even if I had wanted to do a blog post on the evening of our win, I simply couldn’t have done it. There were too many things to think of, too many words to say and too many people to thank. I had to chill out.

That Apple Design Award is very special for us. We’ve dreamed of winning it since the very beginning.

Because the award is so special, we spent few minutes to create a special web page to celebrate it. We even made it possible to see the award trophy in a 360˚ view and took some close-up photos so you can check it out and rejoice along with us.

Visit the Pixelmator Apple Design Award Website.

Friday, 17 June 2011. Posted by Saulius.

28 Comments