[Beta Update] Pixelmator Pro 1.5.2

Talk about Pixelmator Pro, share tips & tricks, tutorials, and other resources.
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2019-11-14 15:40:11

Howdy! We've just released an upcoming Pixelmator Pro version to our trusty team of testers and if any of you want to know more about it or give us feedback, here's what's lined up for the 1.5.2 update:
• There’s a new color adjustment: it’s called Vignette and it works like the one in Pixelmator Photo, helping you add artistic vignettes to your photos.
• If a photo has been cropped nondestructively, the new Vignette will be applied to the cropped image.
• Performance in compositions with a large number of layers has been improved again, this time layer moving and editing is up to 10x faster in some cases.
• After reordering, merging, or converting layers and undoing/redoing changes, the selected/unselected state of layers will now be correctly restored. Even though this is more of a bug fix, it’s a very nice one, so we’ll call it an improvement!
• The last used soft proofing profile will be remembered across different documents, so you can now preview a new document with the last used profile by simply pressing the Command-Y keyboard shortcut.
• The Clone tool has been improved with:
– Smaller brush spacing for a much smoother cloning experience.
– A default Softness setting of 50%.
• When cropping, you can now move the crop area using the arrow keys.
• The quality and performance of the Freeform Pen tool have been much improved – fewer vector points will be added to the lines you draw to reflect how vector paths are usually drawn manually.
• When drawing a path with the regular Pen tool, you can now split the direction line of your current anchor point as you add it by pressing and holding the Option key.
• In the middle of drawing a path with the Pen tool, you can now also edit any visible direction lines by Command-dragging to move them, or Option-dragging to split the two sides of a direction line and move each individually. Once you’ve split a direction line, you can rejoin it by Option-dragging it, or move each side separately using the Command key.
• The Replace Color adjustment is now better at replacing black, white, and shades of grey.
• When adjusting gradient fills added with the Style tool, you can now move the position of the gradient by dragging the gradient direction line on the canvas.
• Undoing changes made with the Repair tool will now be faster.
• When using the Free Transform tool and moving an object using the arrow keys, it’s position values in the Tool Options pane would not update. Fixed.
• Using the color picker to change the color of partially selected text in a text layer would not work. Fixed.
• When using the Styles, Effects, or Color Adjustments tools and picking colors with the color picker in the Colors window, undo steps would not be registered. Fixed.
• Type tool presets were not being displayed correctly on macOS 10.13. Fixed.
• When adding effects from the Generator group, layer thumbnails would not be displayed correctly. Fixed.
• The Smart Erase tool was not erasing in all areas of an image. Fixed.
• The appearance of the buttons the Trim Canvas dialog would be incorrect while the dialog was sliding in to appear. Fixed.
• The Sharpen tool was not working correctly at all Zoom levels. Fixed.
• Clicking to add a line shape would place its endpoints between pixels by default. Fixed.
So that's that — there's a lot of great little things that should make Pixelmator Pro even better and easier to use with a significant portion of the improvements coming from those of you who switched after the recent sale. Big thanks to you and everyone else who continues to give us feedback about Pixelmator Pro! Hope you like the changes. :wink:

P.S. If you'd like to sign up for the beta program, click here to apply.
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2019-11-14 22:50:25

Performance improvements are always welcome 🙏🏽.
I hope until the next big update which could be 2.0. Pixelmator pro is getting more performance improvements (although I am already really happy with it) only the ML execution could be faster and slicker, bug fixes, small features add to it and usability improvements like a check box for the clone tool to fixated it and that we can use the colour replace tool multiple times... I have the feeling that would Pixelmator pro mature further in a healthy way
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2019-11-17 20:00:44

I just came against a bug in 1.5.2 beta that upon checking seems to be in 1.5.1, too. I don't know how long it's been there. Selected text will bold and italicise but not unbold or romanticise... er... romanise... er... unitalicise. To reproduce:
1. Create a new document.
2. Add text by clicking on the canvas with the text tool.
3. Set the font to Helvetica and the weight to Regular.
4. Double click on the text to edit it.
5. Leaving the while thing highlighted or highlighting part of the text, click on the B and the I to boldface and italicise the text.
6. Click on the B and the I again to unboldface and romanise. Notice that the text stays bold and italic. Note that underline toggles just fine.
Workaround: use the drop-down box to switch the font back to Regular.
(Pixelmator Pro 1.5.2 beta on macOS 10.15.1)
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2019-11-18 07:02:27

by st3f I just came against a bug in 1.5.2 beta that upon checking seems to be in 1.5.1, too. I don't know how long it's been there. Selected text will bold and italicise but not unbold or romanticise... er... romanise... er... unitalicise. To reproduce:
1. Create a new document.
2. Add text by clicking on the canvas with the text tool.
3. Set the font to Helvetica and the weight to Regular.
4. Double click on the text to edit it.
5. Leaving the while thing highlighted or highlighting part of the text, click on the B and the I to boldface and italicise the text.
6. Click on the B and the I again to unboldface and romanise. Notice that the text stays bold and italic. Note that underline toggles just fine.
Workaround: use the drop-down box to switch the font back to Regular.
(Pixelmator Pro 1.5.2 beta on macOS 10.15.1)
I have the feeling that they complete rewrite the text tool for type on text which should be in pix pro 2.0. If that’s not happening world be worth fixing.
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2019-11-18 09:46:42

by st3f I just came against a bug in 1.5.2 beta that upon checking seems to be in 1.5.1, too. I don't know how long it's been there. Selected text will bold and italicise but not unbold or romanticise... er... romanise... er... unitalicise.
That's a known issue, we're working on a fix for one of the next few updates — just didn't manage it in time for 1.5.2. :wink:
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2019-11-19 17:13:44

Thank you team for the continued development builds of Pixelmator Pro! Is canvas free rotation support (R in photoshop) still a potential feature in future builds? It's one of the few features left that keeps me going back to Photoshop.
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2019-11-19 17:31:56

After many years of Pixelmator, I made the switch. It's hideously (never used that word before) and unusably slow. Yes, I'm on a mid-2014 Mac Pro Retina (16GB), but it meets the requirements and it's the same one I use almost daily for FCPx with lots of plugins and moving graphics while having Pixelmator (not pro) running, email, browser with multiple windows and have NO problems. FCPx and Motion at the same time...no problems.. Logic Pro X - flawless. Yet, Pixelmator Pro for the simplest tasks without any other graphics app open causes the fans to go into overdrive and the app to lock up.

How can Pixelmator Pro running (without FCPx) be so unbelievable slow that using the rectangle selection tool on a single 3MB image cause frame drops? I completed the crop, switched to blur...and while blurring, I get a spinning ball. Eventually the ball MIGHT stop spinning so I don't have to force quit. This is my constant experience with Pixelmator Pro. (BTW, I do know about the Popclip issue. I've tried adding Pixelmator Pro to the exclusions list. For the above example, I quit Popclip pro before launching.) This is for both the non-bet and the current beta.

I can't even say how disappointing Pixelmator Pro is. The speed is unusable. I find the interface unintuitive (adding effects is just bizarre). Pixelmator is a fun app to use...light, quick and gets the job done every time (except for text on a curve). PMP is the complete opposite experience. WHAT HAPPENED? More importantly, how much longer will Pixelmator be supported? I'm concerned about needing to find a different solution. :worried:
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2019-11-20 09:44:03

by Christopher Dobey Thank you team for the continued development builds of Pixelmator Pro! Is canvas free rotation support (R in photoshop) still a potential feature in future builds? It's one of the few features left that keeps me going back to Photoshop.
This is on our feature request list and we're not at all against the idea of adding but, if I'm being honest, it's not lined up for the upcoming few rounds of updates, so I wouldn't expect it very soon. But reminders like this are always welcome and usually do make it more likely that certain features will be added.
by adamjd How can Pixelmator Pro running (without FCPx) be so unbelievable slow that using the rectangle selection tool on a single 3MB image cause frame drops? I completed the crop, switched to blur...and while blurring, I get a spinning ball. Eventually the ball MIGHT stop spinning so I don't have to force quit. This is my constant experience with Pixelmator Pro. (BTW, I do know about the Popclip issue. I've tried adding Pixelmator Pro to the exclusions list. For the above example, I quit Popclip pro before launching.) This is for both the non-bet and the current beta.
Pixelmator Pro shouldn't be slower than the original Pixelmator on any hardware and should instead be faster in pretty much every way. So with such extreme slowness, I'm inclined to think that this is still related to the intermittent PopClip issues. Are you using the Mac App Store version of PopClip, or the downloadable one? Because an update was released to PopClip addressing this, but it hasn't yet made it to the Mac App Store — although you can still download it here: https://pilotmoon.com/popclip/
by adamjd I can't even say how disappointing Pixelmator Pro is. The speed is unusable. I find the interface unintuitive (adding effects is just bizarre). Pixelmator is a fun app to use...light, quick and gets the job done every time (except for text on a curve). PMP is the complete opposite experience. WHAT HAPPENED? More importantly, how much longer will Pixelmator be supported? I'm concerned about needing to find a different solution. :worried:
As mentioned above, the slowness you're seeing is most likely an isolated issue, especially as every recent report we've had about performance has been directly related to PopClip. We have plans to bring the effects browser to Pixelmator Pro in some way, so that will be improved too. It seems like there may be a lot more that you find frustrating but without knowing what it is, I can't really comment on it, though I'd love to hear any more feedback. Generally speaking, most users much prefer the new interface to that of the original Pixelmator but with such a full-featured app, there's a wide variety of workflows and there are obviously areas we can improve (and we plan to do so). I can't make any concrete promises about how much longer Pixelmator will be supported but I would guess you'll be able to use it without issues for at least another couple of years.
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2019-11-22 08:34:42

by adamjd 2019-11-19 17:31:56 After many years of Pixelmator, I made the switch. It's hideously (never used that word before) and unusably slow. Yes, I'm on a mid-2014 Mac Pro Retina (16GB), but it meets the requirements and it's the same one I use almost daily for FCPx with lots of plugins and moving graphics while having Pixelmator (not pro) running, email, browser with multiple windows and have NO problems. FCPx and Motion at the same time...no problems.. Logic Pro X - flawless. Yet, Pixelmator Pro for the simplest tasks without any other graphics app open causes the fans to go into overdrive and the app to lock up.

How can Pixelmator Pro running (without FCPx) be so unbelievable slow that using the rectangle selection tool on a single 3MB image cause frame drops? I completed the crop, switched to blur...and while blurring, I get a spinning ball. Eventually the ball MIGHT stop spinning so I don't have to force quit. This is my constant experience with Pixelmator Pro. (BTW, I do know about the Popclip issue. I've tried adding Pixelmator Pro to the exclusions list. For the above example, I quit Popclip pro before launching.) This is for both the non-bet and the current beta.

I can't even say how disappointing Pixelmator Pro is. The speed is unusable. I find the interface unintuitive (adding effects is just bizarre). Pixelmator is a fun app to use...light, quick and gets the job done every time (except for text on a curve). PMP is the complete opposite experience. WHAT HAPPENED? More importantly, how much longer will Pixelmator be supported? I'm concerned about needing to find a different solution. :worried:
Hi,

I disagree with you. I experienced Pixelmator pro as being the fastest pic app out there. It’s not perfect and there are things which can be improved and it should be the goal of Pixelmator to set a new benchmark all the time in terms of performance but that said I think 40 bucks, euros, pounds are a super value specially if you consider future development, other Mac apps and especially online services!
Other apps could cause issues as Andrius pointed out.
That there are still features missing and current features needs improvements f.e. The denoise tool and the speed of ML to be applied is clear.
That said Adobe had 15 years of app development and are a much bigger company. Feature packed and slow.
Luminar 4 costs 100 and what I have seen is buggy and slower then before. Affinity is really good (But looks like an Adobe copy) but the single window interface of pix pro Is unique, simpler, more user friendly and more slick and beautiful. That said for multiple screens that could be made more flexible.. improvements can be made here.
All in all I love the consistent development, the thoughts around it and the communication with users from Pixelmators side! Keep up your great work!!!
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2019-12-11 19:53:51

As of the last beta (now the newest update -1.5.3), I'm seeing much better performance! I wouldn't say it's AS FAST as the old Pixelmator, but the improved and new features are totally making Pro both worth using and fun to use. I'm not getting the spinning ball...not getting the crashes. (I probably just jinxed it.) At this point, I'm 99% on Pro.

In my opinion, the GUI is less intuitive than the Classic Pixelmator, so that's taking a while to get used to. I'm not quite sure why, after selecting the color tool, I have to go into into Format and turn on Hue/Saturation for it to appear?

Is there an option to get the TOOL NAMES to show up faster (or just always be on)? The slow delay while hovering over a tool is slowing me down a bit. I would LOVE to see the shortcut keys next to the tools like in the original. (see pic below) That, of all features, does seem like an easy one.

THANK YOU for whatever y'all did recently!

Image
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2019-12-11 20:19:06

Hi Adam.
I can't help you on the speed of tool name pop-ups but I went through the same learning curve with the Adjust Colors tool. I may even have asked the same question in the forum.
Go to Add and tick all the elements that you commonly use. Then go to Add again and select Save as Default. Your commonly used elements will now be the default set when you create a new image. You can always add and remove or change your default set at any time.
Hope this helps.
- Stef.
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2019-12-11 21:04:44

by st3f 2019-12-12 03:29:33 Hi Adam.
I can't help you on the speed of tool name pop-ups but I went through the same learning curve with the Adjust Colors tool. I may even have asked the same question in the forum.
Go to Add and tick all the elements that you commonly use. Then go to Add again and select Save as Default. Your commonly used elements will now be the default set when you create a new image. You can always add and remove or change your default set at any time.
Hope this helps.
- Stef.
YES! That helps! Thanks, Stef! It would be nice if these tools were detachable, but I can see how that could turn into a mess. In Classic Pixelmator, only one of these effects could be done at at time.

There doesn't appear to be any specific order of operations in Adjust Colors. Instead of the image isn't being passed from one "sub-tool" element to the next, I think it's a cumulative effect. Interesting.
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2019-12-13 11:12:28

by adamjd There doesn't appear to be any specific order of operations in Adjust Colors. Instead of the image isn't being passed from one "sub-tool" element to the next, I think it's a cumulative effect. Interesting.
The color adjustments are applied in the order that they are listed, with a few exceptions such as the Luminance channel of the Levels and Curves adjustments.
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2019-12-13 16:43:49

Typed too soon! CRASH today. Spinning ball. Based on today and what I noticed from previous crashes, this happens when I accidentally still have a selection box around the entire current layer and I'm using a tool. This time, it's desaturate. Have to quit to get out of it.
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2019-12-15 07:50:27

by adamjd 2019-12-13 16:43:49 Typed too soon! CRASH today. Spinning ball. Based on today and what I noticed from previous crashes, this happens when I accidentally still have a selection box around the entire current layer and I'm using a tool. This time, it's desaturate. Have to quit to get out of it.
I had crashes, too. After deactivating popclip it worked fine
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2019-12-15 16:44:18

by ResLes 2019-12-15 07:50:27 I had crashes, too. After deactivating popclip it worked fine
Thanx, ResLes

I have Popclip off and have had Pixelmator Pro on the exclusions list from the first day I tried it. Hasn't that bug been worked out yet anyway?
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2019-12-15 17:01:10

by adamjd 2019-12-15 16:45:05
Thanx, ResLes

I have Popclip off and have had Pixelmator Pro on the exclusions list from the first day I tried it. Hasn't that bug been worked out yet anyway?
I think they had to approve it via the Mac App Store but I haven’t had a update visible yet
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2019-12-16 14:10:07

I see the PopClip update fixing the hanging issues was just released to the Mac App Store today. But if you come across any performance/hanging/crashing issues that you can reproduce in any way — we'd love it if you could send us an email at support@pixelmator.com with more details.