December 21, 2022

Pixelmator Pro gets a magical, AI‑powered Deband feature

This year has been packed full of fantastic Pixelmator Pro updates and we’re wrapping it up with a bang. Today, we’re releasing Pixelmator Pro 3.2.3 with a groundbreaking new feature called Deband, which lets you remove posterization and compression artifacts from images with just a click. And, to top it all off, we’re getting festive with a collection of gorgeous, holiday-themed templates for social media, print, and more.

Deband

Color banding (or posterization) is a common type of image artifact especially noticeable in low-quality photos featuring gradients or large areas of solid color. Instead of smoothly blending together, colors jump abruptly from one shade to the next, forming distinct bands of color. While posterization isn’t particularly difficult to get rid of — you can blur it out or add noise to hide it — it is very much a labor-intensive task. Or, it was. With the magic of machine learning, we’ve been able to turn color debanding into an effortless, one-click process. And the results are simply incredible!

Before

After

We’ve trained the Deband algorithm to intelligently analyze colors, gradients, and textures in images, determine where the affected areas are, and seamlessly smooth them out without touching finer details in other parts of the image. Notice how all the tiny stars in the desert photo above remain crisp after color banding is removed. What’s more, Deband also tackles different compression artifacts (in heavily compressed JPEGs, for instance) so you can enjoy all-around better-looking images.

Holiday Templates

It’s the giving season and as a small gift from the Pixelmator Team, we’ve created a collection of new, holiday-themed templates you can easily customize and share with your friends and family. In this update, you’ll find 18 stunning, artist-designed templates for creating social media posts, stories, posters, and greeting cards which are fully optimized for sharing online and printing.

Today’s update is free to all existing users and is available from Mac App Store.

And that’s all for the updates this year — it’s truly been a great one for Pixelmator Pro. Let’s make 2023 even better!

Open in App Store