May 12, 2008

Pixelmator Team Releases Pixelmator 1.2 Draftsman

Version 1.2 Draftsman Delivers Rulers, Guides, Grid, Snap, Curves, Color Balance, Auto Enhance, and Polygonal Lasso Tools and Much More.

The Pixelmator Team today released Pixelmator 1.2 Draftsman, a second significant update to the revolutionary GPU-powered image editing tool, furnishing users with everything they need to create, edit, and enhance still images. Available today as a free software update, Pixelmator 1.2 Draftsman features rulers, guides, grid, snap, color balance, auto enhance, curves, and polygonal lasso tools and much more.

“Pixelmator opened the door for all users to explore their imaginative side through image creation, editing, and enhancement,” said Saulius Dailide of the Pixelmator Team. “Now with powerful, but easy-to-use rulers, guides, curves, auto enhance, color balance, and polygonal lasso tools, Pixelmator provides users with an even wider range of creative opportunities.”

Pixelmator 1.2 introduces a powerful rulers tool, which is helpful for the exact positioning of images or elements. Additionally, users can adjust the rulers origin to measure from a specific point on an image and change the units of measurement to pixels, inches, centimeters, millimeters, points, picas, or percent. Guides appear as nonprinting lines that float over the image, which users can add, move, remove, and lock. They can also utilize the grid to lay out elements symmetrically and the snap feature to position selection edges precisely.

Powerful, yet user-friendly new adjustment options in Pixelmator 1.2 include a sophisticated curves tool for adjusting the entire tonal range or making precise adjustments to individual color channels in an image and a new color balance tool essential for controlling the overall color mixture in an image for color correction work. Pixelmator 1.2 also furnishes users with a new auto enhance tool, which can dramatically improve less-than-perfect images with one click, and a new polygonal lasso tool, useful for drawing straight-edged segments of a selection border.

In addition to a free transform tool, Pixelmator 1.2 Draftsman features new and updated help documentation, enhanced Automator actions and transform tools, minor user interface and compatibility improvements, as well as bug fixes.

Pixelmator 1.2 is a free update to current Pixelmator customers.

Comments

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  • Alex

    Hey, that’s nice. That is what, I’m sure, many users were waiting for. Keep it up!
    Cheers
    P.S. I like how the new dividers look on Layers list 🙂

    16 years ago
  • Will

    A fantastic update to an already fantastic application. Please keep up the great work!

    16 years ago
  • niewiesznic

    H! !
    I’ve just bought the PIXelmator 1.2. The changes are cool, but i am dissapointed about to things – WHERE ARE SNAP TO GRID/ SNAP TO GUIDES functions ?
    grid/guide without SNAP TO function is unusable for me.
    Why PIXELMATOR CANT HANDLE BIG FILES ? I’ve put 3000pix x 2000 pix with masks and 6 layers – PIXELMATOR IS UNUSABLE with such files. 🙁

    Anyway GREAT IMPROVMENTS.
    I am waiting for CMYK/SNAP TO/ HANDLING OF LARGE FILES with layers.

    16 years ago
  • leibus

    very cool update…great work

    Please fix the handling for larger files in one of the next updates.
    There are a lot of Kernel Panics when i work with full resolution pix from the EOS400D.

    thank you

    16 years ago
  • Chris

    Fired up Pixelmator this morning to start my workday and lo an update was available. Of course, after poking around a bit to see what was new I found it was yet another of the many large and impressive steps forward in making this a great image editor. It is certainly the most fun one to use.

    Good work guys!

    16 years ago
  • niewiesznic

    @Saulius Dailide:

    O! Thanks, it was so simple i didnt thought about it 🙂 thanks.
    What about handling big files ?
    When can we expect it ?
    Please fix it.

    16 years ago
  • niewiesznic

    hmmm. but selection tools do not snap to guides 🙁

    16 years ago
  • Andrius

    You made my day :D! I needed to edit some graphics, fired up Pixelmator, and voilá ! New software update, when I saw what it included, I didn’t thinked it twice :D.

    It has everything I needed to work with Pixelmator on a normal day :D. Thanks guys.

    16 years ago
  • John

    Mmm, cannot get this version to work on my iBook G4 with Leopard. I only get white boxes on startup instead of the windows and palettes. Seems to be some sort of window redraw problem on my system. Previous version works correctly.

    16 years ago
  • Stuart

    With every update Pixelmator replaces more of my Photoshop projects. Thanks for the great software and the affordable price. Peace.

    16 years ago
  • Ryan Townsend

    Still no sign of layer styles? – well there wasn’t when I downloaded the demo a while back, and I haven’t seen any evidence in updates, so correct me if I am wrong. The ability to add effects to layers and adjust at a later time – that’s the fundamental thing I need to turn away from Photoshop – I hope that day will come.

    16 years ago
  • Scott

    Does anyone know if “Save for Web” and/or image optimization for the Web available now in Pixelmator?

    16 years ago
  • Andy H

    Absolute class, the one thing I would love on the next update is support for video frame sizes and pixel aspect ratios.

    16 years ago
  • Maghoo

    @Ryan Townsend

    Don’t hold your breath for layer styles… 🙂

    I don’t know anything about programming but my guess is that layer styles is far more advanced than a .1 update. Maybe we can see it in version 3 or 4. If I’m wrong maybe someone of the developers can correct me?

    I’ll stick to Photoshop for all serious work at my daytime job and play around a little with Pixelmator at night because I think it’s an interesting project. I really want to like Pixelmator but honestly it’s not a replacement for Photoshop in any way. Maybe it can be in a few years but it’s a long way to get there and the Pixelmator team doesn’t marketing it as could replace Photoshop.

    I also see some people wishing for CMYK support so they can use it in print production instead of Photoshop? If you’re in print production you are probably using InDesign or XPress so why on earth do you want to replace Photoshop with Pixelmator for that? Beats me…

    16 years ago
  • Brian

    Add me to the list of iBook G4 users who get “white rectangles” when I launch ver. 1.2 instead of the app…very annoying? Is the a link to re-download the 1.1.4?

    16 years ago
  • Daniel

    Wow. What a release! The snap is what I needed; I just need the guides to snap to the currently selected layer when you adjust them. and … Zing!

    16 years ago
  • Jonathan

    Photoshop still drinks Pixelmator’s milkshake.

    16 years ago
  • Chris

    Doesn’t work on my iBook G4 too. Just a bunch of white boxes.

    16 years ago
  • Moritz

    the performance on my macbook (2Ghz 2gb ram) this isn’t good sometime the program just stops. i can work on 6mp photos directly but instead have to resize them before working with them. has anyone els encountered such problems?

    16 years ago
  • dimitre

    congrats about the update. can’t wait to install it.
    my previous installation failed upgrading from inside pixelmator. no big deal, downloading installer right now

    16 years ago
  • Chris

    Thanks for the update.

    When will pixelmator allow for smooth tablet strokes, and anti-aliased brush strokes for small brushes?

    16 years ago
  • Saulius Dailide (Pixelmator Team)

    Chris,

    I can’t tell any exact dates about that, but there will be a MUCH better painting engine in Pixelmator in 1.X era.

    16 years ago
  • helenka

    iBook G4 problem should be solved, but I already have MacBook Pro. 😛

    I’m still missing function autocrop (from Gimp, I think it’s trim in Photoshop). I think it will be great and big update for me. Thanks!

    16 years ago
  • rado

    i also can’t wait to get rid of adobe bloatware,
    keep up the good work, you’re getting there 🙂

    16 years ago
  • jaro

    This app could become the replacement for photoshop for me as a draftsman, but you guys should really work on smoother brush strokes (when do a fast one I always get a buckled line, not a curve as expected). I work with Wacom Cintiq and I also need it fully supported, means pressure-sensitivity, tilt. Can you do that?
    Great work anyway!

    16 years ago
  • Tom

    Just a quick note to say that I’m really impressed with the rulers – the subtle light highlighting your position is really useful, as it’s just hell trying to see where you are in Photoshop.

    Fantastic update, keep it coming guys!

    16 years ago
  • Dermah

    I’ve been clinging to GIMP until Pixelmator gets more features. I think it’s time for me to let go now 😀

    16 years ago
  • Dermah

    FEATURE REQUEST: You know how in Photoshop or GIMP you can right click on an area of the picture while using the curves function and a line will show up showing you where on the histogram that colour is? I’m lost without that feature.

    16 years ago
  • Matt

    FEATURE: API, so we can write some plugins! I know getting a stable API in such a fast-moving app is difficult, but please let us help you guys out!

    16 years ago
  • Paola

    What about canon 40D RAW files? Can it support them?
    Thanks,
    Paola

    16 years ago
  • Ethan

    “FEATURE REQUEST: You know how in Photoshop or GIMP you can right click on an area of the picture while using the curves function and a line will show up showing you where on the histogram that colour is? I’m lost without that feature.”

    ++

    16 years ago
  • Sqe

    Keep them coming.
    Can’t wait for support for the bigger files + a few extra’s then I can completely replace Photoshop.

    16 years ago
  • jdobbs

    Save as needs lots of work. It is rudimentary. 1.3 should focus on a good Save as feature similar to graphics converter, with previews, different JPEG options etc.

    16 years ago
  • Callum

    Been using pixelmator more and more for tiding up images for the web and find it great not having to wait for photoshop to load. I like the update just one small annoying thing was the removal of “auto levels” “auto color” ect I find the auto enhance ok but It does screw some images up and I like having the individual options. anyways apart from that keep up the good work it’s becoming more and more useful.

    16 years ago
  • Craig

    I have the same iBook issue. Possibly this is something with the Radeon 9200-9500 GPU and core image? If there is any news on a fix, I would appreciate it.

    16 years ago
  • Mark Lyndersay

    I’d like to make a suggestion for the development roadmap.
    You have automator support and an excellent interface. Perhaps a module that offered Fireworks/Imageready control for managing web graphics would be a useful addition to the product that could drive even more sales.

    I know that more control over GIF and JPEG output (including an option to make images webready and size accurately against compression) would invite me to launch Pixelmator over PS for most of my website updates.

    That would position Pixelmator in a very interesting space for professionals who already have some heavyweight applications open for web management and might prefer a raster graphics tool with layers that could prepare tightly rendered web content on par with PS, Fw and Ir.

    16 years ago
  • Brad Choate

    I can’t get the guide snap feature to work (I think others are seeing the same problem). I right-clicked on the ruler bar and confirmed that snapping to guides is enabled. When using the rectangular selection tool (or pencil, or brush tool), snapping does not occur.

    And this feature (broken as it is) is really hidden… this feature needs more visibility. Remember HIG? A feature should not be exclusively accessible by a right-mouse click. If it is, you’re doing it wrong!

    16 years ago
  • creaimmo

    A quand une traduction en français de pixel mator?

    16 years ago