October 21, 2020
Pixelmator Pro 2.0
For the past 12 months, we’ve been working on a very special update to Pixelmator Pro. We’ll be able to tell you all about it very soon.
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September 29, 2020
Pixelmator 2.6 for iOS out now
Pixelmator for iOS just got a major update! Version 2.6 brings full compatibility with iOS and iPadOS 14, adds support for using Pixelmator with a Magic Keyboard, trackpad, or mouse, and includes over 70 keyboard shortcuts.
The update is now available and is free to all existing Pixelmator for iOS users — visit the App Store to make sure you’re all up to date!
September 21, 2020
Pixelmator Photo featured in September Apple Event
Pixelmator Photo and our magical ML Super Resolution recently had the honor of being featured in the “Time Flies” Apple Event. It was incredibly rewarding seeing our hard work being recognized and is great motivation to keep making our apps better and better! Just in case you missed it, you can catch our 15 (OK, 30) seconds of glory below.
If you’d like to rewatch the entire event, you can catch it here. And if you’d like to check out ML Super Resolution and Pixelmator Photo 1.4, you can download it below.
September 17, 2020
Pixelmator Pro gets AppleScript support
Hey everyone! Big news from the Pixelmator Team, today we’re releasing a major update to Pixelmator Pro. Version 1.8, codenamed Lynx, is now here, bringing incredibly full-featured support for AppleScript.
AppleScript is the Apple-created scripting language that lets you directly control apps using instructions written in intuitive, English-like terms. And almost every part of Pixelmator Pro is now scriptable, so for pretty much anything you can do with the app, you can now script those same tasks. Say you have tens or even hundreds of images. You might need to export and optimize them, or change the color of certain objects in them, or maybe even add annotations, taking the text from a Numbers spreadsheet and automatically placing it in Pixelmator Pro. Thanks to AppleScript support, you can now do all that, plus a whole lot more.
In our quest to make AppleScript support as great and full-featured as possible, we collaborated with Sal Soghoian, the legendary user automation guru, who served at Apple for 20 years as the Product Manager of Automation Technologies, including AppleScript, Services, the Terminal, Apple Configurator and Automator, among others. We’re super glad to have had the opportunity to work with Sal. He was a big help with our scripting dictionary and we think the extra attention to detail really paid off!
“AppleScript support in Pixelmator Pro is a game-changer, making this amazing app an essential component of everyone’s workflows.”
Sal Soghoian
Sal told us: “AppleScript support in Pixelmator Pro is a game-changer, making this amazing app an essential component of everyone’s workflows. Whether you run scripts or write them, the depth and scope of the AppleScript automation in Pixelmator Pro makes magic happen. Kudos to the Pixelmator Team for their commitment and service to the Mac community.” We’ve also created a tutorial with a quick overview of AppleScript itself, some example scripts, and links to useful resources. Happy scripting!
The update is free for existing Pixelmator Pro users. And, for new users, our sale is still running, so you can get the app for 30% off its usual price.
Now, we’ll be getting back to working on Pixelmator Pro 2.0. Nothing to share yet, but development is going well and it’s looking like 2.0 will be an amazing release. Stay tuned!
September 15, 2020
Pixelmator Photo major update brings ML Super Resolution to iPad
“Zoom… Enhance!” is now on iPad. Yes, Pixelmator Photo 1.4 is out today, introducing the incredible ML Super Resolution feature, so your iPad can now enlarge photos while preserving sharpness and enhancing details using state-of-the-art machine learning techniques.
ML Super Resolution uses a Core ML-powered algorithm that intelligently analyzes images and their contents and finds individual objects, their edges, patterns, gradients, colors, and other features. It then separates them and upscales each type of feature separately, before combining them back into an image. Magic.
It’s a pretty incredible feature and it requires some serious processing power — up to 62 thousand times more than traditional approaches. With the Apple Neural Engine, the dedicated neural processor on iPad, it’s crazy how quickly everything works! The magic happens in the blink of an eye, all on your device. You can learn a little more about the ML Super Resolution feature itself in this very detailed blog post.
Today’s update also adds a very awesome comparison slider, letting you quickly compare your edited image with the original in a split-screen view. And it works all around the app, so when using the Repair tool, you can turn on and move the comparison slider to see just the changes made with that tool. When the Color Adjustments tool selected, you’ll see just the color changes, and so on. Super useful.
Finally, we’ve added support for the double-tap gesture of Apple Pencil. You can customize what the gesture does in Pixelmator Photo settings, choosing to make it undo and redo, select the Repair tool, or show the comparison slider. P.S. We have a few more Apple Pencil improvements lined up for the future.
As Pixelmator Photo is becoming ever more powerful and full-featured, we’re also raising its price a little to $7.99. Of course, today’s update is absolutely free for existing users and is available to download from the App Store right now. Enjoy!
July 16, 2020
Pixelmator Pro 1.7 major update adds text on a path (and more!)
We’ve been very busy over the last few months and we’re finally ready to share with you another great major update to Pixelmator Pro. Pixelmator Pro 1.7 Sequoia brings text on a path, canvas rotation, a new welcome screen, and version 3 of ML Super Resolution. Let’s dive right into each of those features!
Type text on a path, in a circle, or any other shape
This long-awaited and much-requested feature is now available in Pixelmator Pro! And we spent a long time refining every detail to make it the simplest and most intuitive tool of its kind.
In Pixelmator Pro 1.7 Sequoia, you’ll find three new tools grouped together with the regular type tool. There’s the Circular Type, Path Type, and the Freeform Type tools. You can use those to quickly and easily create text layers on paths. And you can also create your own shapes or paths and then click them with any of the type tools to add text on a path. Here are a few neat facts about our new type tools:
- We use the native macOS text system, so things like SVG fonts and emoji are fully supported!
- The – keyboard shortcut will now cycle through the currently selected type tool
- We’ve also added support for the standard Shift and Option modifier keys when resizing text boxes on paths
Freely rotate the image canvas to any angle
Canvas rotation might be one of the most important features for digital painters and illustrators and it’s something we’ve wanted to add for a long time. We also spent a long time making sure it’s easy to find, and almost as importantly, easy to reset!
To rotate the canvas, you can use the standard rotate Multi-Touch gesture. Or, if you’re using a graphics tablet or mouse, you can also press and hold the – keyboard shortcut and drag your canvas to rotate it. You’ll notice that, when the canvas is rotated, some very handy canvas rotation controls automatically appear, disappearing once the canvas rotation is set back to 0°.
A friendly new welcome screen
The first thing you see when you open an app makes a big impression. And we wanted to make it easier for new users to open and create images. That’s what this new welcome screen is all about! You’ll find quick ways to create an empty new document, open images from your Photos library, and browse images saved on your Mac.
If you’d rather see the native Open dialog, that hasn’t gone anywhere — simply turn off the “Show this window when Pixelmator Pro launches” option in the welcome screen.
Improvements to ML Super Resolution and RAW support
ML Super Resolution has been improved once more, this time, we’ve worked on the quality, added a progress bar, and added support for upscaling RAW photos while preserving all their RAW data!
The update is available today from the Mac App Store and is free to all existing Pixelmator Pro users. Visit the App Store to make sure you’re all up to date and let us know what you make of the additions and improvements!
June 19, 2020
Major Pixelmator Photo update now available
Pixelmator Photo 1.3 is out today bringing a whole bunch of great new features and improvements. We’ve added all-new shortcut menus all around the app, the ability to choose an accent color for buttons and other elements, preset management, and improved batch editing. Read on for the details!
Shortcut Menus
New shortcut menus make all kinds of actions much faster and easier.
Accent Color
Customize the color of buttons in Pixelmator Photo.
Preset Management
Create and customize color adjustment preset collections.
Improved Batch Editing
Quick actions, improved workflow editing, and more.
Shortcut menus to speed up your workflows
Shortcut menus (also known as context menus) are the menus that appear when you touch and hold an app on the home screen, for example. And in iOS 13, it’s now possible to put these menus in new places, like our Photos library browser. With that, we were able to add all kinds of handy functions that make the browser even more powerful. For example, when you touch and hold a photo, you can quickly share, favorite, duplicate, revert, or delete it. What’s more, you can even copy and paste adjustments or apply your favorite batch workflows to it, too! And that’s not the only place you’ll find these great new menus — they’re also available in the Files browser and in various places when editing photos.
Add a touch of color
Giving your apps a personal touch is always fun and we really like the accent color feature on macOS. As Pixelmator Pro shows! So while this feature isn’t available on iOS, we thought we could at least add it ourselves to Pixelmator Photo. In Pixelmator Photo 1.3, you can now change the color of buttons and other elements in the app by choosing an accent color.
All-new preset management
Pixelmator Photo has a great set of color adjustment presets for a range of different photography styles, which are organized into thematic collections. And it also lets you create custom presets, which is pretty awesome. But wouldn’t it be great to be able to create your own collections or delete some you don’t need? With today’s update, you can do just that! The collections you create are fully customizable, so you can even write your own descriptions and color-code custom collections!
You can also rearrange the order of preset collections and the order of the presets inside them. You’ll notice that all these great new actions are in those shiny new shortcut menus.
Even better batch editing
It’s probably fair to say that Pixelmator Photo might have the best and most full-featured batch photo editing experience on iPad. But there’s always room for improvement and we think we’ve made that experience even better! We’ve added quick actions for batch editing — these are your favorite batch workflows — and these appear when you select multiple photos and tap Edit. This will save you at least a few taps when batch editing. We’ve also made improvements to how batch workflows are edited and you’ll find handy shortcut menus here, too.
The update is now available and is free for all existing Pixelmator Photo users. Visit the App Store to make sure you’re all up to date and enjoy the awesome new features!
June 18, 2020
Automation with AppleScript and Pixelmator Pro 1.8 public beta
What what what, Pixelmator Pro 1.8?! Oh yes, we’re feeling extra generous after the recent sneak peek at Pixelmator Pro 1.7 and we have some more great news about another great feature coming to Pixelmator Pro. That great feature is incredibly extensive support for AppleScript, the powerful and easy to use English-like scripting language for macOS.
Using AppleScript, you can control most of the tools and features in Pixelmator Pro and speed up repetitive tasks or even write scripts to create special effects. And because AppleScript is based on English, you don’t even need much programming experience to get started with it!
Here’s a quick example of something you can do with AppleScript.
Or, remember the tutorial for the Groovy text effect we released not too long ago? You can use AppleScript to automate that too! If you’d like to test this out, you can download both that sample script and the “Hello, world!” script below.
And to help us polish off AppleScript support, we’re going to need your help. So, starting today, we’re releasing the 1.8 update as a public beta. You can sign up for the beta by emailing us at beta@pixelmator.com. And we’ll be waiting for your feedback at the same address!
June 16, 2020
Sneak peek at Pixelmator Pro 1.7
Believe it or not, we’re finally doing it. We’re adding one of our most requested features of all time in the next major Pixelmator Pro update. And today we’re bringing you an ultra-exclusive sneak peek at what that feature will look like
Yes, Pixelmator Pro 1.7 will add text on a path! This, of course, also means curved text, circular text, and text on any kind of path you can draw or imagine. We’re using native Mac text rendering, so emoji and SVG fonts are also fully supported. And we wouldn’t be the Pixelmator Team if we didn’t approach this with the goal of making it simpler, easier, and more intuitive than in any other app. Needless to say, you’ll be the final judges but we’re pretty darn happy with how things look to have turned out!
Oh, and that’s just one of three major new features coming in 1.7 
We’ll keep the others under wraps for now, but the update should be out in just a few weeks time! To be the first to know about it and the other awesome things we’re working on right now, you can sign up for our very cool (and very occasional) newsletter.
June 4, 2020
Pixelmator Pro adds WebP support
Pixelmator Pro 1.6.4 is out today, adding support for the WebP image format. And since this format is pretty interesting and unique, we wanted to share the news about today’s update here on our blog!
WebP support in Pixelmator Pro
First, a little about WebP support in Pixelmator Pro itself. It’s pretty extensive and we’ve added a few different things:
- Support for both opening and exporting WebP images
- Lossless compression and lossy compression with adjustable quality
- Transparency (for both lossless and lossy compressed images)
- A Quick Look plug-in so you can preview WebP images in the Finder
Awesome! If you’re not too familiar with it, you might be wondering — what is WebP and why is it such an interesting format? Well, it’s one of the candidates to be the next-gen format for displaying images on the web thanks to some improvements over the two main existing formats, JPEG and PNG.
Lossless and lossy compression
One reason for WebP’s promise is that it offers both lossless and lossy compression. What’s that? Well, compression refers to reducing the size of an image. Lossless compression is when you reduce the size of an image with no data (i.e. quality) loss, hence the term lossless. Lossy compression reduces the size of an image with some potentially “unnecessary” data being discarded or lost, hence the term lossy.
Compression methods
Lossless compression
Lossy compression
Used by the PNG format
Used by the JPEG format
All image data preserved
Some image data lost
Larger file sizes
Smaller file sizes
Even though it offers lossy compression and, theoretically, loses some data, JPEG is a great format for the web as it reduces the size of images dramatically and there’s no perceptible drop in quality when saving with a high enough quality setting.
However, as JPEG offers only lossy compression, if you’re looking to ensure you get no data loss at all, you have to use a different format: PNG. The trade-off with this is that you get a much bigger file size, at least several times larger than the equivalent JPEGs.
WebP combines both compression methods in one format and Pixelmator Pro supports them both. At 100% quality, you get lossless compression, like with PNG, and at 99% quality or lower, you get lossy compression, like with JPEG.
WebP compression
100% quality
99% quality or lower
Lossless compression
Lossy compression
Transparency support
Another great thing about WebP is that it supports transparency. Right now, if you’d like to save with transparency, you have to use PNG as JPEG doesn’t support it. So once again, WebP combines the benefits of both primary web image formats into one. What’s more, unique to WebP, it supports both transparency and lossy compression at the same time, something that neither JPEG nor PNG can do.
File size improvements
Finally, both lossless and lossy compressed WebP images are around 25% smaller than comparable PNGs and JPEGs of the same quality.* Pretty great for speeding up loading times!
Although not all major web browsers support WebP just yet (Safari support is missing), most of them do and thanks to WebP support in Pixelmator Pro, you’re free to experiment and see for yourself whether you’d like to switch to WebP for certain images.
Today’s update is now available on the Mac App Store and is free for all existing Pixelmator Pro users.
We’ll be back soon with some more news about a very exciting major update, which will add a certain highly-requested feature to Pixelmator Pro. Stay tuned!
* Actually, there’s a little disagreement whether, in terms of the quality of compressed images, the format might be slightly better in certain cases and slightly worse in others.