November 29, 2007
Pixelmator 1.1 Kitten Development Update
We just finished putting the final touches on Pixelmator 1.1 Kitten. It has some pretty neat features and a bunch of bug fixes. Well, this is the bright side. The dark side of the current situation is that, unfortunately, because of Core Image memory leak, we can’t release it yet.
Some Pixelmator users have encountered a not so tiny memory leak that dramatically slows down the application, but this is not the worst thing. The really bad thing is what we found after we spent a lot of time trying to find and fix it. At first we thought this was a Pixelmator problem, but sadly this problem is not in Pixelmator; it is hiding deep in Core Image itself and probably affects not only Pixelmator, but also other apps that take advantage of Core Image. Currently there is no workaround available for this leak, and I believe this thing has to be fixed before I can give Kitten to you.
Anyway, the good news is that we are working closely with Apple (yup, mothership takes good care of its developers) to fix this bug in Core Image as soon as possible. I just hope Apple won’t take forever to take care of it—keep your fingers crossed.
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William Allbrook
Hi, Yes better to get it right before you receive a storm of protest. I have been working with Pixelmator now for about 10 days since Leopard broke Photoshop 7. It’s pretty good in most respects and is intuitive if you are familiar with Photoshop. Printing support seems a little thin and I have come across a few bugs but for the price it smokes and I am hoping Kitten will deliver on the promise and enable me to forget about Photoshop forever!! Keep up the good work.
Roland
Yah, I was running PS 7 then I loaded Leopard. That is when I said bye PS and hello Pixelmator. I’m patient, but there are few more features that I’ll need. I am confident you guys will come through for us though. =)
Roland again...
Maybe, while you guys are waiting for Apple you can continue development on 1.1 and maybe another feature will sneak it’s way into the release. ;D
Saulius (Pixelmator Team)
Roland,
it’s not that we are waiting for it – we are taking our time to fix some other minor issues. 🙂
Roland again...
Saulius,
I knew you guys would be, but it’s great to know for sure too. I purchased your product for work and I’ll possibly be getting it for home too.
I really like the “relight” filter in “LightZone” perhaps you guys can implement a similar feature like that sometime in the future (your own of course). It really revitalizes photos with one click.
I also know that the memory leak is priority number one right now. It’s just too bad it made it into Apple’s production version of it’s Core Image. Til’ then TTYL.
Rui
Well… If Kiten has scanner (twain) support, you’ll have a new client. 🙂
Btw… Curves would be nice too! 😉
mikes_corner
Hi guys
Great to hear :D. Take your time so we can get a great release with bug fixes and new features 😀
Keep up the good work
Mike
Oliver Nielsen
16 editing. Then scanner support and al the other feaures would be WORTH having;-) What is the purpose of scanning my lovely film into an 8-bit app?
Pixelmator users: If you open a RAW image og high -resolution 16-bit TIF that is essentially >8-bit, and save it in Pixelmator, you have downgraded your precious image to 8-bit.
Sad.
Galdo
Hi – nice hearing about that. Waiting for 1.1 for a while…
Whats about developing your software in a multilanguage version? Is this feature planed for the future?
David Currin
Your program is crap. I just downloaded it to work on some TIFF files and it can’t handle it. Keeps crashing every five minutes. Or I try to use a tool and I see the little wheel spin round and round for ages before anything happens. They’re only 100k or so – not even big.
What a total waste of $$. Hope you enjoy spending the money.
d.
Roland
David,
That was pretty rude. They are working hard to solve all the problems. The issue you encountered is likely do to the memory leak in Apple’s Core Image.
If you don’t have anything good or helpful (ex. report it as a bug) to say, don’t say anything at all.
mikes_corner
@David
What a complete tool you r. Your comment is total crap…..read forums b4 you make a complete moron of yourself.
Michel R. Wittmer
Hi,
I usually have a god nose for good software, I almost got crazy when encountered some crashs and slow behaviour, but fortunatly I just stumbled over this page and have read it so I hope you guys can get Apple to fix their Bugs in core image and I am looking forward to the next Version.
David Currin
Ok, so I understand that it’s a work in progress. It may not be perfect. I’m happy to put up with a few bugs but if you’re going to charge for software it should be stable enough to at least be useable.
Michel R. Wittmer
You are right David (not for the windows world ms does this all the time ;)) but in the Macworld there are several work in progress progs which cost money and as long the guys behind doing a good job I dont see much problems to support the development a little. Maybe you should test the demos a little better before you buy as I myself should have done.
If you want your Money back I dont think this is the right place to achieve this goal..Maybe you should write the pixelmator team and dont forget c’est le ton qui fait la musique
Quine
I believe all the core image filters are nondestructive, so any chance we will see nondestructive filters coming soon? I already have photoshop and I loved the pixelmator beta but the lack of features compared to photoshop is just too much atm . I love Macromedia Fireworks (if you guys made a program like that I’d buy it the moment it was even announced) and I was hoping to replace PS and FW with PixelMator, but I need nondestructive filters to do that.
Richard
Just read the Twitter comments – good news about the workaround. Does this mean kitty is back on track?!
Saulius Dailide (Pixelmator Team)
Richard,
yes, it is 🙂 We are testing it now and hope to release it later today or early tomorrow.
Richard
Well that’s just swanky! Good job!
Pierre Bernard
I would love to hear more about the workaround. I didn’t expect to see Kitten released before 10.5.2
Did you get a fix from Apple? ATS? Will it make it into 10.5.2?
Pierre
Saulius Dailide (Pixelmator Team)
Pierre,
Apple DTS worked very hard to find a workaround – and they did. I believe the fix will be a part of 10.5.2.