The date is set. On April 9th, the incredible, AI-powered Pixelmator Photo will be released on the App Store. And you can make sure Pixelmator Photo makes its way onto your iPad the second it becomes available by pre-ordering it today. If you want a little taste of what the app’s about, check out this short video we whipped up.
The initial price of Pixelmator Photo will be $4.99. That’s a one-time purchase. No subscriptions and no in-app purchases for additional tools. And, for pre-orders, we’re knocking 20% off the price so you can get it for $3.99. $3.99!
All the feedback we’ve had over the beta period has us incredibly excited for the release as well as the future of Pixelmator Photo — the future of photo editing on iPad. If you have an iPad and take photos, Pixelmator Photo is a must-have. Just 7 short days to go until you can all get your hands on it. We can’t wait.
Pre-Order
So I know we said the last Pixelmator Photo beta was the final one. But we really want to make sure the full release of Pixelmator Photo is as refined and solid as possible and we’ve added a few significant changes that need testing. So we’ve got one more beta for you, the super duper extra final (no, really this time) beta. And because it deserves to be said one more time — we really appreciate all the feedback you’ve given us over the testing period. Thanks a million!
This beta version is all about adding some final polish to the Pixelmator Photo experience and it has a huge number of improvements and fixes that make everything smoother, faster, and more refined. Beta 4 brings better performance, a range of improved animations, and a number of stability fixes to boot. In fact, it’s so extensive that we were only able to fit just about half of the release notes in the TestFlight description!
Of course, we’ve also opened up some more testing spots — 300, to be precise — for any of you looking to give Pixelmator Photo a spin before it becomes available. They’re usually taken pretty quickly but if you hurry, you can grab one by tapping the button below.
P.S. Launch plans (date & pricing) will be revealed next week. Stay tuned.
Join Beta
Over the past 4 weeks (or a month, if you prefer), we’ve been adding the finishing touches to the long-awaited Pixelmator Photo. And it turns out those finishing touches are pretty significant! Today, we’re making the final Pixelmator Photo beta available to our exclusive group of beta testers and opening up 400 additional beta testing spots.
Pixelmator Photo has come a loooong way since the very first beta and many thanks for that go to all our diligent beta testers. Thank you, really! We hope this will help make sure that the public release of Pixelmator Photo is as solid as possible.
In our last Pixelmator Photo blog post, we said there’s one more big thing we want to add before releasing the app into the wild. And that big thing is the brand new photo browser. We think it’s gorgeous and makes it much easier to browse and import images from your Photos library. But this update has a whole lot more, like localizations into 10 languages, an initial in-app Help guide, preset collection descriptions, and more. For a beta, this update is huge.
If you aren’t yet a part of our beta team, see if you can grab one of those 400 additional spots and, if you are, take the time to check out these changes and let us know what you think!
Join Beta
It’s been just under a month since the last Pixelmator Pro update and, in that time, we’ve baked you all another delicious update in the Pixelmator oven. The headline feature in this point update is support for Portrait Masks. Any photo taken using Portrait mode in iOS 12 will now be opened with a handy layer mask. Below, you’ll find a video tutorial showcasing just one very cool thing that absolutely anyone can do with a portrait mask — change the background of an image.
Along with Portrait Masks, we’ve made tabbed editing the default experience in Pixelmator Pro. Because of that, your window size and position will also be remembered for all new documents you open, which, you may or may not be surprised to learn, was a very common feature request. Three cheers for making people happy! Oh, and we’ve also added a few new keyboard shortcuts for selecting layers in the layer list, as well as locking, hiding, and duplicating layers in various ways. Check out our keyboard shortcuts page if you need a refresher.
Over this past month we’ve actually been working on a whole lot more than this — seriously, so much more — and I’d love to tell you all about it. But that would ruin the surprise, so I won’t. Though you can always sign up for our public beta to get an early look at some of those new features as soon as we’re ready to test them.
This is a free update for all existing users, so head on down to the Mac App Store, make sure you have the latest and greatest version of Pixelmator Pro, and tell us what you think!
Download Now
First of all, thank you so much to everyone who has taken the time to test Pixelmator Photo and share your feedback with us. We’ve had some great suggestions for improvements and some really inspiring words of encouragement as well as some incredibly detailed and thoughtful feedback in general. That’s amazing and we appreciate you!
Today, we released a second beta version with a few new things (such as an improved ML Crop feature and initial keyboard shortcut support) and a whole range of improvements and fixes for many issues that you helped us track down. To celebrate this, we’ve also opened up 200 additional beta testing spots.
Pixelmator Photo is inching closer to a full release but we do have one more fairly big thing we want to add before we release the app into the wild. We won’t say what it is just yet to keep at least a small element of surprise… In the meantime, see if you can grab a spot on the beta and let us know what you make of Pixelmator Photo!
Join Beta
Pixelmator Pro 1.3 Prism has just been released, bringing a range of handy new features that make creating advanced illustrations and designs easier than ever — layer color tags, filtering and search, clipping masks, quick opacity and blending controls, and more.
This is the third major update since Pixelmator Pro was released just over a year ago. In fact, Pixelmator Pro 1.1 Monsoon came out on May 31st, so this is actually the third major update in just 7 and a half months! And yes, it might sound a little cliche, but it’s pretty crazy to see how far Pixelmator Pro has come in such a short time.
In this update, we focused on improving the Layers sidebar to make it easier to work in documents with lots of different layers. We also added clipping masks — an often-requested, incredibly useful feature for designers of all kinds. Let’s break down the major additions one by one.
Layer tagging, filtering, and search
In Pixelmator Pro 1.3 Prism, you can now apply colored layer tags to layers, search the layer list, and filter it out according to layer type and layer tag. These new features make it much easier to get around the layer list in compositions with lots of objects and they look pretty darn great to boot. We’ve created a few quick tips to help you get started with using them, so be sure to check them out!
Clipping masks
Clipping masks let you create perfect masks from existing layers in your Pixelmator Pro documents with just a click. This is a really handy feature for anyone working on all kinds of designs and illustrations. It might seem a little surprising but this feature actually took by far the longest to develop and test. And there aren’t all that many image editing apps out there (other than Photoshop) that have proper clipping masks — the reason why is precisely because it’s nowhere near as simple as it looks. But we’re really happy with the job we’ve done and, in Pixelmator Pro, you can effortlessly create clipping masks from any layer in your image. That includes group layers and nested shapes! Plus, you can also use any of the nondestructive effects on both the mask layer and the fill layer, so everything is super flexible.
Quick opacity and blending controls
If you’ve spent even a little bit of time browsing Pixelmator Pro reviews on the App Store, you’ll probably have seen at least a couple 1-star reviews saying there’s no way to adjust layer opacity or blending mode in Pixelmator Pro. There is. It’s been there since day 1. But, clearly, finding those controls was tricky so we’ve added them to the Layers sidebar. And, naturally, the live blending mode preview works there as well!
More!
In terms of other changes in the update, one of the more significant ones is that adjustments, effects, and layer styles will no longer be flattened when you paint, erase, retouch, reshape, or change the pixel content of a layer in any way. It’s the kind of change new users might not even notice, but we know some of you guys really wanted this feature, as did we, so we’re really happy it’s here. We’ve also got a few interface improvements related to this change that are in the works. We’re also really looking forward to shipping those.
Naturally, this update is free for all of you who have already purchased Pixelmator Pro, so head on down to the Mac App Store, get updating, and let us know what you think!
We have some really big news for you today. Pixelmator Photo, the app unveiled during this year’s special iPad Pro event in Brooklyn, is now available for beta testing! It brings a range of powerful photo editing tools in one beautiful app — a set of nondestructive color adjustments, our magical Repair tool, a collection of beautiful presets for a range of different photography styles, a Crop tool enhanced by machine learning, and more. We can’t wait to hear what you think about it and we also can’t wait until all of you can get your hands on it (once it’s completely ready, of course).
Join Beta
P.S. For now, we’ve limited the beta to 250 testers, but we’ll see how testing goes and might expand this later. If you’d like to stay updated about Pixelmator Photo, you can sign up to be notified on the Pixelmator Photo page.
In our previous blog post, we said Christmas is coming early because we’re planning to ship another major update to Pixelmator Pro. Well, today, we just got an early Christmas gift of our very own as Pixelmator Pro was named the 2018 Mac App of the Year by the fabulous folks at Apple!
What’s more, we’re working on some great new features right now and we have plans for Pixelmator Pro updates for almost all of 2019 that we also can’t wait to get started on — so this App of the Year is only going to get better and better.
And what better way to celebrate than a quick sale — until this Friday, you can get Pixelmator Pro for 25% off!
Pixelmator Pro is Mac app of the year because it makes a huge range of pro-level image-editing tools accessible to all.
Among photographers, illustrators and graphic designers, Pixelmator has been a longtime favorite thanks to its powerful features and affordable price. Pixelmator Pro takes the suite to the next level. This upgraded app packs even more power without compromising ease of use and introduces impressive machine-learning intelligence.
Fine-tune your photos manually, or use the ML Enhance option, which makes automatic adjustments based on machine-learning powered algorithms.
The app is flexible enough to handle photo editing, painting and illustration. For illustrators, it offers a rich canvas with an array of customizable brushes and support for external drawing tablets. Graphic designers will appreciate the vector tools. And Pixelmator Pro’s advanced colour adjustment helps photographers make their images pop (without leaving artifacts).
Create vector graphics easily and efficiently.
Coolest of all, machine-learning features bring cutting-edge intelligence to your workflow. By leveraging the Core ML framework on macOS Mojave, Pixelmator Pro recognises specific elements in your projects with startling accuracy. This lets you easily remove objects from photos or select complicated forms with just a few clicks. Auto Color Adjustments improve your photos’ lightness, saturation and more with ML-powered algorithms that were trained using millions of images. The app can even automatically name all the layers in your project based on what appears in them.
Pixelmator Pro puts an incredibly broad range of tools at your fingertips. And its sleek Dark Mode is the perfect backdrop for your editing.
Over the past few months, we here at the Pixelmator Team have certainly kept ourselves busy. Around 6 weeks ago we released the second major Pixelmator Pro update this year — 1.2 Quicksilver — and we’ve also just shipped a bigger update to the original Pixelmator, bumping it up to version 3.8.
Pixelmator 3.8 Phoenix
First, let’s chat about the latest update to the original Pixelmator. As you all probably know, our main focus is now Pixelmator Pro (a.k.a. the new Pixelmator). However, we’re well aware that many people still love and use the original Pixelmator every day and it’s now approaching 8 years of free updates on the Mac App Store, which, in itself, is pretty damn amazing! In this update, we’ve added full macOS Mojave support, including some Mojave-only goodies such as dark appearances for various windows and dialogs, accent color support, colorful SVG fonts, and Continuity Camera support. Naturally, we’ve also included a range of stability fixes and improvements to keep Pixelmator running smoothly.
Pixelmator Pro 1.2.3 and the upcoming 1.2.4 update
In case we don’t say it enough, we’re all very excited about the updates we’ve been shipping to Pixelmator Pro as well as the updates we’ve got lined up for the future. The 1.2.3 update is mostly focused around painting improvements and you can now import ABR brushes into Pixelmator Pro. These features and improvements may not sound like a huge deal on their own, but changes like this make everything that little bit smoother and when you combine several such updates, it improves the overall experience a whole lot.
The next update to Pixelmator Pro will be version 1.2.4, which we’re planning to release next week. It’s going to bring a few more new features that you’ve been asking for and several really cool things that we dreamed up ourselves. One of those things is the video editing-style color wheels. You can see them live in this quick sneak peek on our Twitter profile. It may well be the most fun and intuitive way to change the mood and feel of a photo and it’s going to make the already-great photo editing tools even better. Another thing coming in 1.2.4 is resizing algorithms. We’ll be adding three for now, but we’ll see how things go and may add more in the future. Along with these two features, there’s also improved Grain quality, new Automator actions, and some interface tweaks, which would almost be enough to call this a major update, but…
Christmas is coming early this year
We’ve given ourselves a goal of shipping Pixelmator Pro 1.3 — the third major Pixelmator Pro update this year — before Christmas, so we can have a well-deserved rest over the holiday period. It’s going to be a little tricky but, for now, we’re on the right track and, if there are no major setbacks, you’ll have it before the holidays. Stay tuned for some sneak peeks in the coming weeks!
P.S. We’re also doing our very best to release Pixelmator Photo before the year is out, but as is almost always the case, new products take more time than you think, even when you think you’ve given yourself more than enough. BUT! A public TestFlight beta will be launched in December, also before Christmas. Keep your eyes peeled for sign-ups.
We get asked this quite a lot — “So, what’s the difference between Pixelmator and Pixelmator Pro? I already have Pixelmator, why should I switch?” We don’t think a comparison table is the best way to explain the difference, but since it’s a pretty common question, we thought we should take the time to answer it.
Vanlife. Illustration by Justine Shirin, created using Pixelmator Pro.
Same idea, new approach
Possibly the most important thing to start with is not a difference, but a similarity. The idea inspiring Pixelmator Pro is exactly the same as the idea behind the original Pixelmator. Making powerful but complex pro image editing tools easy to use and accessible to everyone. Even your grandparents. Pixelmator Pro is not a ‘professional’ version and Pixelmator is not an ‘entry-level’ version. Both apps are focused around time-tested image editing tools (and some innovative new ones).
So if both apps are inspired by the same kind of thinking (the Pixelmator philosophy), how come they’re different? With Pixelmator Pro, we wanted to be more true to ourselves and more trusting of our own intuition instead of relying on established approaches. Pixelmator Pro is the realization of that vision — a new approach to the same idea.
The future of Pixelmator
The original Pixelmator has been in development for almost 12 years. While it’s a fantastic image editing app, without a complete rewrite, we’d be much more constrained about the new features we could bring to it. In software development, you sometimes reach a point where you have to start from scratch to make sure you’re equipped to face the future. We now know a lot more than we did when we started and we put that knowledge to good use with Pixelmator Pro. It has a very solid foundation on which we can build without reaching roadblocks. So another difference between the two apps is that Pixelmator Pro is the new Pixelmator and most certainly the future.
Features, features, features
Alright, that touched upon some theoretical things and a little bit of history, but the most important things are features, right? So what’s actually new in Pixelmator Pro? Well, one thing that’s changed is everything (ha ha). Everything has been rewritten from scratch to be faster and work more reliably. You won’t notice that in the screenshots, but it’ll become immediately obvious once you start using the app.
As for actual features, all the things mentioned below are new to Pixelmator Pro.
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Pixelmator Pro has a completely new design — it has a single-window, fully Mac-native interface. Layers are now on the left, tools on the right, and the overall workflow is much more user-centered. We’ve also added a beautiful light appearance, which was an often-requested feature with the original Pixelmator. There are smaller (but equally awesome) things as well, like the ability to completely hide the interface, intelligent auto-centering (and the ability to scroll beyond the edges of the canvas), a redesigned photo browser, and more. We also have a whole bunch of plans for improving the interface and workflow of Pixelmator Pro and having a completely new design opens up some very exciting possibilities. Things are only going to get better.
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Resizing in Pixelmator Pro is nondestructive (so if you scale something down and decide to scale it back up later, you won’t lose quality). It’s one of those things you might not really notice at first, but once you get used to it, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it. We’ve added completely new alignment and distribution tools to make it easier to even out the spacing between objects. The Layers sidebar has two different views — Thumbnails and List — which you can choose between based on whether you like more text or image-based layer organization. And the Core ML-powered automatic layer naming feature automatically detects the contents of images you add and gives descriptive names to your layers. All great features new to Pixelmator Pro.
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In terms of painting tools, Pixelmator Pro has a completely new, Metal-powered painting engine that brings the same great painting experience we created in Pixelmator for iOS to the Mac, with customizable dual texture brushes, full support for graphics tablets (including the ability to adjust brush opacity using pen pressure), dynamic paint blending, watercolor brushes, and more.
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The color adjustments have been conceived and built from scratch — they’re nondestructive and intelligently preserve color detail. There’s full RAW support, RAW layers, a live histogram (three, in fact!), plus you can save combinations of adjustments as presets, share them, and use them for batch processing. Oh, you can also enhance your photos using the most intelligent auto-enhance tool out there (powered by machine learning, naturally). Is that it? No, there’s more, but I’m running out of space…
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The effects are nondestructive. There are new effects, like Box, Disc, and Spin blurs, a Bokeh filter, as well as new Image and Pattern fills. You can save combinations of effects as presets, share them, use any effect or combination of effects for batch processing, and easily copy effects from layer to layer. All things the original Pixelmator doesn’t have.
More, more, more
That covers much less than half of what’s new in Pixelmator Pro. Some other highlight features include a much more powerful Export for Web tool, which includes support for exporting images at multiple scale factors, advanced PNG compression, export presets, and a Quick Export feature. The vector tools have been redesigned so it’s much easier to combine multiple paths into shapes and work on them. Oh, there’s SVG support too! The Reshaping tools preserve image quality and sharpness much better and work faster. Live blending mode previews make it easier to pick and choose how to blend your layers.
And, of course, that’s still not everything. But that should give you a good idea about what to expect. If you use the original Pixelmator for editing your photos, there’s a whole range of awesome additions for you in Pixelmator Pro. If you use it for painting, ditto. If you use it for social media imagery for your business, YouTube thumbnails, UI designs, layouts, anything at all, really, you’re sure to find some great new features to love. And if you find something you’d like to us to improve, we’re always listening. Over the past 11 months, we’ve added so much to Pixelmator Pro already and we have no plans to slow down.
One more thing…
The price. After almost a year at $59.99, we can say that this wasn’t the right price. Obviously, we had somewhat different plans for pricing when we launched and we could leave things as they are, try to power through, but if things aren’t working, you need to change them. Today, as we’re (finally) ending our sale, Pixelmator Pro will now be sold for $39.99.
Deciding on a price for your app is a weird and wonderful thing. Despite what some people may think, it’s not motivated by greed (at least not for us). In fact, it’s mostly common knowledge that profits don’t change too much depending on your price (that’s all down to shipping good updates and continuously improving your app). A higher price results in lower sales and a lower price in higher sales, so everything evens out in the end. Essentially, the price often acts as a filter.
We make Pixelmator Pro for a particular kind of user, mostly people like ourselves. The price and the message can attract different kinds of users with different expectations — people who want every possible feature, people who want an entry-level app experience, people who want a completely pro experience, people who want the app to be similar to one app or another, and so on. If you attract users whose expectations you aren’t aiming to meet, you’re going to have a bad time.
We want people who see things the way that we do to become our users and to shape the future of Pixelmator Pro. And that’s where this new price comes in. So if you’re currently using the original Pixelmator, give Pixelmator Pro a try — we’ve got a completely free 30-day trial that you can use with no restrictions. And we hope you’ll join us in making Pixelmator Pro the kind of dream app we all want it to be.
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