December 15, 2022

Pixelmator Photo gets a major update – and goes on sale

Pixelmator Photo 2.2 introduces all-new Clarity and Texture adjustments that let you improve the sharpness and clarity of fine details in photos using a powerful, texture-aware algorithm, adds the incredible Selective Clarity adjustment for even more precise detail enhancement, brings major improvements to Highlights and Shadows, and more.

Clarity and Texture adjustments are shown in Pixelmator Photo on iPad Pro and iPhone.

Clarity and Texture

The powerful new Clarity and Texture adjustments let you magically enhance fine details and structure in your photos. These two adjustments make changes to small and large objects in a photo independently – this makes it a more intelligent and advanced way to increase sharpness and detail that provides incredibly striking results. In addition to enhancing textures, the Clarity adjustment subtly adjusts the brightness and colors of your photos, making them look sharper and clearer overall. Traditionally, this type of adjustment can produce over or undersaturated results, but that doesn’t happen in Pixelmator Photo – regardless of how much you increase or decrease Clarity, the colors in your photos will be preserved using advanced image processing techniques.

Before

After

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Selective Clarity

While the Clarity and Texture sliders affect the entire photo, the new Selective Clarity adjustment lets you adjust textures in the highlights, midtones, and shadows separately. You can even use the Selective Clarity adjustment by simply dragging areas of your photo (just like the on-image Curves adjustment), which is an incredibly natural and intuitive way to edit photos. One more thing: make sure to also try the Selective Clarity adjustment for smoothing out parts of photos, for example, the skin. Check out the example below – we only lowered the texture in highlights. Yes, it’s that simple!

Before

After

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Highlight and Shadow Recovery

We’ve been gradually introducing updates to the Highlights and Shadows adjustments in Pixelmator Photo, and today we’re proud to unveil the biggest one yet – in today’s update, these two adjustments have been completely rebuilt from the ground up. The newest version lets you recover incredible amounts of detail in the highlights and shadows of photos and enjoy true-to-life colors and textures. Because this is such a significant change, your previously edited photos will continue using the old implementation to make sure that they don’t look different when opened in the updated version of the app. However, if you want to use the new implementation with previously edited shots, open the photo and make changes to it using any one of the Clarity, Texture, or Selective Clarity adjustments or simply reset all its adjustments, then re-edit it.

The new features and improvements work great with all image formats, but you’ll get the most out of them if you shoot and edit RAW photos. This format contains much more detail than regular images, making it the perfect choice for recovering more highlight and shadow detail or enhancing the texture and structure of your photos.

Before

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Improved Performance

Pixelmator Photo now runs faster and smoother than ever before. Thanks to color adjustment performance improvements, Pixelmator Photo is now up to 2 times faster.

If you think we’ve been spoiling you, we’ve got some more great news – Pixelmator Photo is now on sale! You can get 50% off the first year of an annual Pixelmator Photo subscription. Make sure to redeem this limited-time offer by clicking the Redeem Offer button, as the offer is only available using this special link.

Redeem Offer

December 6, 2022

Pixelmator Pro 3.2 with video support is available today

Grab your popcorn, everybody — Pixelmator Pro 3.2, codenamed Lumière, is finally here! It brings support for video layers, introducing exciting new ways to create moving designs in Pixelmator Pro.

The update also adds support for new video and moving image formats, includes all-new video templates, improves Motion document support, and more.

Video Layers

Over the years, we brought many powerful, yet easy-to-use image editing tools to Pixelmator Pro and, from now on, you can use these same tools to edit videos, too. Video layers work just like regular image layers, making it incredibly quick and easy to mask or crop videos, add effects, change colors, and more.

Powered by Apple’s AVFoundation framework, Pixelmator Pro brings blazingly fast video playback performance. So whether you’re just sprucing up your iPhone videos or creating multi-layered video compositions together with images, shapes, and text — you can enjoy an exceptionally smooth, real-time editing experience. And the best part is, you don’t need a separate video editing app to create captivating, moving designs.

All-New Video Controls

Use handy, on-canvas controls, to quickly play and pause videos, change video duration, scrub through individual frames, choose a poster frame, or mute audio. Keep the video controls visible at all times, even when you’re editing other layers, or display them automatically when a video layer is selected. For more complex compositions that include multiple video layers, we’ve added advanced settings for playback delay and choosing how the first and final frames of a video should behave.

If you’d like to learn more about the new tools and some of the key video editing techniques in Pixelmator Pro, check out our latest YouTube video where we create a simple, moving composition using video and text layers.

Video Templates

To showcase a few of the cool ways video layers can be used in designs, we’ve created 12 gorgeous, cinema-inspired templates. Quickly replace placeholders in templates with your own videos or even Live Photos to get that blockbuster movie look in stunning 4K, or create eye-catching social media stories. Show every video in its best light by customizing templates using a number of artist-designed alternative elements and color palettes created exclusively for each template.

New File Formats

Pixelmator Pro now supports popular video formats including MP4 and QuickTime Movie, and you can even work with moving image formats such as animated GIFs and PNGs. Share your edited videos or video compositions in any supported video format with a customizable frame rate, quality, and size. When exporting designs as QuickTime movies, you can also choose from a range of compression formats, including HEVC with support for videos with transparency, Apple ProRes 4444 — a popular format in professional video post-production — and more.

Motion Support Improvements

Finally, as this update focuses primarily on video editing, it was a perfect opportunity for us to squeeze in a few Motion support improvements, too. Now, Pixelmator Pro designs exported to Motion will keep any custom fonts, and many of the nondestructive color adjustments and effects will be replaced with equivalent Motion filters. Thanks to these, and many other improvements, creating designs in Pixelmator Pro and animating them in Motion is now easier — and faster — than ever before.

And that’s the amazing Pixelmator Pro 3.2 Lumière! For a full list of all the smaller (yet still very cool) features included in this update, be sure to check out our What’s New page. Pixelmator Pro 3.2 is available from Mac App Store as a free update to existing users, starting today.

Open in App Store

November 21, 2022

Pixelmator Pro 50% off sale and sneak peek at video editing support

Yes, you heard right – video editing support is coming to Pixelmator Pro and we’re incredibly excited to share a sneak peek with you. The next major update to Pixelmator Pro will let you edit videos using your favorite image editing tools and create stunning moving designs using video layers. With this update, Pixelmator Pro will become more powerful than ever before, and we can’t wait for you to try it out. Check out how videos look in Pixelmator Pro below!

We have even more good news – Pixelmator Pro is on sale for 50% off. We’re super excited for everyone to try out the upcoming update, so make sure you have a copy of the app before the update is available. Spread the word!

Open in App Store

November 2, 2022

Pixelmator Pro 3.1 adds support for macOS 13, AVIF images, introduces smooth corner style, and more

Hey folks! Pixelmator Pro has just received an awesome new update and we’re buzzing to tell you all about it. Pixelmator Pro 3.1 is now fully compatible with the powerful new macOS Ventura, brings blazingly-fast document opening experience, adds initial support for AVIF images, introduces corner radius improvements, including an all-new, smooth corner style together with options for adjusting the radius of individual corners.

Support for macOS 13

Pixelmator Pro looks and works better than ever on macOS Ventura, and we’re sure you’re going to enjoy the incredible new features that come with the new version of macOS. Take your daily multitasking to a whole new level by seamlessly switching between Pixelmator Pro windows or other apps using Stage Manager, easily bring up Quick Look previews of Pixelmator Pro documents in Spotlight, and more. If you haven’t updated yet, now is a good time to do it!

Quick Document Opening

We’ve completely overhauled document opening in Pixelmator Pro 3.1 with state-of-the-art performance improvements that now let you preview and open Pixelmator Pro documents faster than ever before. Quick Look previews of Pixelmator Pro documents now open ultra-fast in Spotlight and Finder, and even the largest and most complex of designs, such as templates or mockups, are ready to edit in an instant.

AVIF Support

macOS Ventura adds support for AVIF files in Safari and from now on, you can open and edit AVIF images in Pixelmator Pro, too. AVIF (or AV1 Image File Format) is a next-generation image format, designed to produce lightweight, high-quality images for the web. AVIFs can be up to 30% lighter compared to other web-facing formats such as WebP, meaning they support higher levels of compression without a discernible drop in quality.

Corner Radius Improvements

We’ve improved rounded rectangle editing, making it possible to adjust the radius of individual shape corners and also added an all-new, smoother corner style, which lets you create squircles.

A squircle is a kind of rounded rectangle with especially smooth corners, and it’s used extensively in Apple’s design language, including app icons and hardware. So, if you create designs for iOS, macOS, or often use the rounded rectangle shape in your daily workflows, you’re going to love this update.

An annotated comparison of smooth and rounded corner styles is shown.

Pixelmator Pro 3.1 is available today as a free update to all existing users. New users can get Pixelmator Pro for $39.99 exclusively on Mac App Store.

Open in App Store

October 24, 2022

Major updates bring support for iPadOS 16.1 and the new iPad Pro

Pixelmator Photo 2.1 has just been released, adding full support for iPadOS 16.1 and the incredible new iPad Pro. Today’s update makes the most of the next-level Apple Pencil hover features, adds LUT support for a supercharged color grading experience, EDR Mode for improved RAW editing, and more. In addition, the Pixelmator 2.8 major update brings automatic, machine learning-powered subject selection to iPhone and iPad.

Color Adjustments in Pixelmator Photo 2.1

What’s new in Pixelmator Photo?

iPadOS 16.1

Pixelmator Photo 2.1 is now fully compatible with iPadOS 16.1. Thanks to iPadOS 16 and virtual memory swap on newer iPad models, apps can use free storage as extra memory for demanding workloads. So, from now on, even the most demanding photo editing workflows will run flawlessly on your iPad. Also, the update brings the ability to undo and redo individual adjustments right in the Pixelmator Photo toolbar.

The new iPad Pro

Pixelmator Photo 2.1 adds support for the incredible new iPad Pro and makes the most of the next-level Apple Pencil hover experience. From now on, you can hover Apple Pencil over the color adjustment presets and instantly see a live preview. When using the Crop tool, you can also hover Apple Pencil over the canvas to temporarily see the original image, or move it away to see the cropped result. In addition, you can now double-tap the tip of your Apple Pencil and the Comparison Slider or the Repair tool size slider will appear right on the canvas to make it even easier to compare edits and retouch photos.

LUT support

Thanks to support for LUTs, you can now instantly change the colors of photos with universal color presets used in many creative image and video editing apps. You can import and apply LUTs in Pixelmator Photo, or export color adjustments as LUTs to use in other apps. And, using machine learning, LUTs can also be converted into individual color adjustments.

Free photographer-designed LUTs

To try out LUTs, check out the blog post below. There, you’ll find photographer-designed color adjustment presets that we’ve also made available as LUTs. Feel free to try them out in Pixelmator Photo or Pixelmator Pro.

Learn more

EDR Mode

EDR stands for extended dynamic range and is a technology that lets us render high dynamic range (HDR) images in a more vivid and true-to-life way. iPad and iPhone devices with XDR displays deliver much higher levels of peak brightness than typical displays and EDR Mode makes the most of it. It works with the brightest parts of RAW photos: the highlights. Clipped highlights in RAW photos contain additional invisible detail and, using EDR Mode, those invisible details can be revealed by utilizing the higher peak brightness of XDR displays as parts of the display can become up to 8 times brighter.


Turn on EDR

The image above shows how EDR Mode works. Keep in mind that it only imitates the mode – to try out the real thing, open a RAW image and turn on EDR Mode in the updated version of Pixelmator Photo.

Open in App Store

What’s new in Pixelmator?

Pixelmator 2.8 is fully compatible with iPadOS 16.1 as well as with the incredible new iPad Pro. Pixelmator makes the most of the new Apple Pencil hover features, allowing you to easily preview the Clone tool source area and the selection area of the Quick Selection tool by simply hovering your Apple Pencil over the canvas. The update also introduces the machine learning-powered Select Subject feature to make automatic subject selections right on your iPad or iPhone.

Pixelmator Photo showing a woman selected automatically with Select Subject on iPhone and iPad.

As Pixelmator is becoming more powerful and full-featured, we’re also changing its price from $4.99 to $9.99. Of course, today’s update is absolutely free for existing users. Check the App Store to make sure that you’re all up to date and enjoy the newest features!

Open in App Store

September 22, 2022

Pixelmator Team unveils Pixelmator Pro 3.0 with more than 200 stunning design templates and mockups

Hey everyone! We’re incredibly happy to announce that today, we’re releasing Pixelmator Pro 3.0, codenamed Muse. It introduces an all-new way to create designs with over 200 easy-to-use templates, 16 fully customizable mockups, AI-powered template editing, document color palettes, and more.

This update is packed full of awesome new features and we cannot wait to tell you more about them, so let’s dive right in.

200+ Design Templates

With more than 200 stunning new templates, you can quickly create high-quality designs in a wide range of different formats, including social media posts, resumes, posters, cards, and others. It takes just a few clicks to personalize a template and turn it into something that’s uniquely yours.

Templates browser is shown with mockups and templates displayed around it.

But that’s not all. If you’ve got a small business or you’re creating a personal brand, you’re going to love the new brand templates. You can choose from 12 different brand collections with templates for web, print, and more. In each collection, you’ll find templates created using the same design language which makes it very easy to build a consistent and eye-catching visual identity.

Ready to try out the new templates? We’ve prepared an in-depth video tutorial about working with templates to help you get started.

Fully-Customizable Mockups

Mockups let you easily bring your designs to life by displaying them in beautifully-designed compositions. Find mockups for devices such as Mac, iPad, and iPhone, and printed media, including posters, book covers, and more. Freely customize mockups with a number of alternative lighting effects, or recolor different elements in compositions to find just the right look for your design.

A graph illustrating the relationship between app releases, sales income, and development costs.

The ultra high-quality mockups are perfect for both personal or professional use. In fact, the Pixelmator marketing team has already given the new mockups its seal of approval and we are now using them to showcase Pixelmator Pro on the App Store! If you’d like to learn more about how you can make your own designs pop using mockups, check out our latest Youtube tutorial.

Smart Replace

To make template editing quick and intuitive, we’ve introduced Smart Replace, an incredibly intelligent feature supercharged with the power of three machine learning features: Remove Background, Auto Fill, and ML Super Resolution. Now, when replacing placeholder content, Pixelmator Pro can automatically remove backgrounds, find the most optimal composition and placement, and upscale images if their quality is too low.

Element Alternatives

Easily customize templates and mockups with a number of built-in alternative elements — lighting, shapes, effects, and illustrations — created exclusively for each design. For example, when working with mockups, you can completely change their look and feel with lighting effects such as Direct Light, Diffused Light, Plant Shadows, and others. If you’d like to try out a few different looks, you can quickly switch between the alternative elements with easy-to-use on-canvas controls.

Document Colors

Templates and mockups come with a set of built-in color presets available from the new Document Colors menu. Using the presets, you can completely change the entire color scheme of an image with just a few clicks. The feature works by changing all nondestructively applied colors in a composition — whether it’s a gradient stop in gradient map effect, a color fill, or even a shadow. You can also customize individual colors in templates or your own designs to create new document color presets.

We had an absolute blast working on this update and hope you’re going to enjoy using the templates as much as we enjoyed creating them. And we’re not stopping there — we plan to continue adding new template and mockup designs to Pixelmator Pro in the future, so keep an eye out for those!

Pixelmator Pro 3.0 Muse is a free update to all existing users and is available on the Mac App Store now. New users can get a copy of Pixelmator Pro for $39.99 at the link below.

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August 18, 2022

Why Pixelmator Photo is switching to subscription pricing (and a sneak peek at Pixelmator Photo for Mac)

Hi everyone – we’ve got a pretty big announcement to make: Pixelmator Photo is moving to subscription pricing. In this blog post, we’ll explain why this is the best way forward for Pixelmator Photo and will make it into the best photo editor it can be. Also, Pixelmator Photo for Mac is coming and we’ve got an early sneak peek at what it’s going to look like!

TL;DR: Pixelmator Photo will now cost $4.99 per month, $29.99 per year, or $99.99 for a lifetime license but existing paid users get unlimited access for free. Also, Pixelmator Photo for Mac is coming! What’s more early subscribers will get access to it for the same monthly price, which will go up when the Mac version is out.

Pixelmator Photo 2.0.13

The big question – why?

So why are we switching to subscription pricing? Well, this is a decision we’ve been considering (and, to some extent, avoiding) for a good while now and there are a few main reasons why we’re making the move.

First of all, a bit of background about how a software company like ours works. We’re completely independent developers with no outside funding and it’s no surprise that we make money and pay ourselves salaries by selling copies of our apps. With a one-time purchase model, we rely on releasing major updates that create buzz in the media and with regular folks online to sell more copies of our apps than we usually do – i.e. we do our best to attract as many new users as possible. The rest of the time, the money we make isn’t actually enough to support development costs. The graphic below (shamelessly stolen from this blog post by Max Seelemann of Ulysses) illustrates this.

A graph illustrating the relationship between app releases, sales income, and development costs.

Issues with the paid upfront model

So what’s the problem – just keep releasing major updates, right? Well, you can certainly try but if an update doesn’t do as well as expected or is delayed, you’re in trouble. And eventually, your potential pool of users shrinks to make it necessary to release a paid upgrade that existing users need to pay for, too.

That’s what we’ve been doing until now and it hasn’t served us badly, but the landscape is changing and, when updates become more regular, there are some pretty big problems with the paid upfront model. Below, are some of the most significant issues.

1. Slower development

You need to purposely withhold the biggest new features from existing users and save them for major updates or new paid versions. This slows down development because large updates are harder to develop, test, and ship – releasing one major update with three big new features takes longer than releasing three updates with one major new feature each. It’s not too bad when everyone’s in the same boat, but as more apps move to subscription pricing, you find yourself at a disadvantage.

2. Paid upgrades can be too drastic

Paid upgrades need to be different enough to be super exciting and cool but not so different that they’re a whole new app that you need to learn to use (ugh, why is everything in all different places). However, if a paid upgrade isn’t flashy enough, there’s less of an incentive to upgrade, which kind of defeats the point. So it’s quite a fine balance.

3. No upgrade discounts on the App Store

If you create a major paid upgrade, people expect an upgrade discount – which is totally fair, by the way. However, we sell our apps exclusively through the App Store and offering upgrade discounts isn’t possible.

4. Users who buy early get more value than those who buy later

Let’s say somebody buys your app just after a major paid upgrade is released and gets a full cycle of updates on top of that. Great. What if they buy the app right at the end of the cycle? Not so great. So users who buy early get more value than those who buy later. We’ve seen questions about this quite frequently in the past – should I buy now or is a paid upgrade coming?

5. New users become more important than existing ones

With a paid upfront model, you’re chasing new users with major updates over making things better for existing ones until, eventually, you need to release a paid upgrade, then the cycle restarts. This means new users are more important than existing ones and flashy new features become more important than improvements to existing features.

6. No free trials on iOS and iPadOS

There’s no way to provide free trials on iOS. Occasionally, we get reviews and other feedback saying that Pixelmator Photo isn’t quite the kind of app that a person expected – maybe they thought it would be a layer-based editor, or a more basic photo editor, or the app is missing a certain feature, or is another kind of app entirely. For now, a free app with locked features is the only way to provide a free trial on iOS and iPadOS.

7. Lower prices of mobile apps

It takes a significant amount of development hours to create an app like Pixelmator Photo. It’s got some incredibly advanced editing features but, on iOS, the prices of other, less powerful apps are so low that pricing the app at, say, $29.99 puts people off, especially with no free trial. However, the current low price ($7.99) isn’t sustainable in the long run.

8. No unified purchases across macOS and iOS/iPadOS

This point is especially relevant with the sneak peek about Pixelmator Photo for Mac below. We’d love to charge one price for the app across all platforms – Mac, iOS, and iPadOS – and this is only possible with a subscription. Also a related issue is that if we charged an upfront fee and released updates and (eventually) major upgrades for each app, it’s much more difficult to sync everything across platforms, again slowing down development significantly. Side note – this is one of the reasons why development of Pixelmator for iOS slowed before and after the release of Pixelmator Pro.

As we’ve been around since 2007 now – that’s 15 years, for anyone counting (what, the 90s weren’t 10 years ago?!) – we’ve had first-hand experience with each of the above and it looks like the change to subscriptions is just the way to go at this point in time.

The big downside to subscriptions

Of course, there are downsides to subscriptions too – one big one, really. It’s more expensive. And the reason for that is one-time payment apps have a significant number of people who are occasional users – once a month or maybe even a few times a year. These people basically make an app cheaper for those who use it regularly. But with fewer paid users in a subscription model, the price becomes higher and you lose the users that use your app occasionally, instead focusing on the people who use your app the most.

It’s a little sad because there are certainly apps that we personally would use only occasionally which went down the subscription route that we don’t subscribe to. So we know the feeling well. But the hope is that there are enough users who use the app regularly and feel that the annual or monthly fee is worth it. It looks like this is the best way to ensure Pixelmator Photo can continue to be developed long into the future, keep growing, and become the best app it can be.

Sneak peek at Pixelmator Photo for Mac

Now, for some super exciting news – work on Pixelmator Photo for Mac is going well and we’d love to share an early look at it. It’s going to be incredibly cool and we can’t wait to ship it!

Pixelmator Photo is shown on a Mac on macOS Ventura.

It’s going to be a completely native app – designed from the ground up just for Mac. The plan is to ship it late this year or early next year. And those who subscribe to Pixelmator Photo now will get Pixelmator Photo for Mac for free, which is a pretty sweet deal.

FAQs

Do existing users need to subscribe to get unlimited access?

If you’ve already bought Pixelmator Photo, you get unlimited access without having to subscribe.

Will subscribers get access to Pixelmator Photo for Mac for the same price?

Yes, those who subscribe will get access to Pixelmator Photo for Mac for the same price when the app becomes available. The price of the subscription for new users will go up when the app is released.

Will existing paid users get a discount for Pixelmator Photo for Mac?

Yes, unlike with paid upfront apps, it looks like it’s possible to provide discounts on subscriptions, so we’ll do our best to give existing paid Pixelmator Photo users a discount on Pixelmator Photo for Mac.

So that’s it for our news today – we’ve got some incredibly exciting updates lined up for the next few months and into next year, so we’re looking forward to sharing news about that too. And as always, if you have any feedback or comments for us, feel free to leave them below or get in touch with us at support@pixelmator.com.

July 14, 2022

Pixelmator 2.7 for iOS brings refreshed design and initial support for Pixelmator Pro documents

Pixelmator 2.7 for iOS has just been released, bringing a refreshed, more modern design, initial support for Pixelmator Pro documents, and improved performance thanks to a new Metal-powered graphics pipeline.

Modern Pixelmator for iOS design shown on iPad and iPro.

Refreshed Design

A refreshed design matches the fresh and modern look of iOS 15 and makes Pixelmator for iOS easier to use than ever before. These changes touch pretty much every part of the app in some way. We’ve added handy new features, usability improvements, and updated the design of menus and buttons to feel right at home on the latest versions of iOS.

Initial Support for Pixelmator Pro Documents

Pixelmator for iOS can now open and export Pixelmator Pro documents! We’re calling this initial support because a number of different things aren’t fully supported, but it’s now much easier to use Pixelmator for iOS in workflows with Pixelmator Pro.

Performance Improvements

Thanks to now using the powerful Metal graphics technology for its graphics pipeline, Pixelmator for iOS is now even faster than before. You should notice performance improvements across the board, although they’re most significant in the painting engine.

What’s next for Pixelmator for iOS?

So what’s next for Pixelmator for iOS? More great updates is what! We plan to add big new features, continue working on improved support for Pixelmator Pro documents, and generally make it an even more amazing layer-based image editor on iPhone and iPad alike. Stay tuned for news.

To buy the app or make sure you’ve received the latest update, you can visit the App Store by tapping the button below.

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April 12, 2022

Pixelmator Pro 2.4 introduces color adjustments and effects layers

Pixelmator Pro 2.4 is now available, bringing color adjustments and effects layers, a completely redesigned Layers sidebar, over 200 beautiful new vector shapes, support for M1 Ultra, and more.

Pixelmator Pro showing effect and color adjustment layers.

Color Adjustments and Effects Layers

Color adjustments and effects layers let you nondestructively change the look of entire layered compositions more quickly and easily than ever before. These new layer types also make it possible to more easily make selective edits to photos, designs, and illustrations, completely transforming many common workflows.

If you’d like to learn more about these layer types, we’ve got you covered – check out our video on this topic below.

We’ve also got a new tutorial that takes full advantage of color adjustments layers to create a beautiful color splash effect.

Redesigned Layers Sidebar

The Layers sidebar has been redesigned with a fresh new look and a range of usability improvements – different layer types are now much more easily recognizable, layers feature informative subtitles, it’s now possible to customize layer thumbnail sizes, and more.

Over 200 New Vector Shapes

Pixelmator Pro 2.4 adds over 200 new artist-designed vector shapes in categories like science, activities, and symbols. Vector shapes are resolution-independent so can be used freely in any design or illustration. And they’ve been meticulously crafted to be pixel-perfect in pixel designs, so you won’t see any unwanted blurring at their edges when using them as icons or other elements in your designs.

M1 Ultra Support

Pixelmator Pro is a Universal app that runs natively on M1-powered Mac devices, taking full advantage of all the power of the new M1 Ultra chip and its unified memory architecture. Thanks to machine learning model optimizations, ML-powered tasks, like automatic background removal, super resolution, and photo enhancement are up to 1.7 times faster on M1 Ultra compared to M1 Max.

Other Improvements

Pixelmator Pro 2.4 also adds a new Scrubby Zoom mode, adding an all-new way to zoom images, brings the ability to unlink layer masks, includes new keyboard shortcuts for adding layers, and more.

The update is totally free for all existing Pixelmator Pro users and $39.99 for those of you who don’t yet have a copy. Head on down to the Mac App Store to make sure you’re all up to date and enjoy all the shiny new features!

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December 22, 2021

Pixelmator Pro gets Motion file format support

We’ve been spoiling you with updates recently – and we love doing it – so we’re very excited to say that, today, we’ve got a cherry on top of the 2021 cake for Pixelmator Pro. Today’s update brings the ability to export files to Apple’s motion graphics tool, the aptly-named Motion. Now, if you don’t use Motion, that might not sound like such a big deal to you, but hiding behind the headline is another equally big improvement for all Pixelmator Pro users: completely reengineered support for SVG files. Intrigued? Read on for all the details.

Motion file format support

First of all, Motion. This year, we’ve made a point of improving support for Apple pro apps, starting with Final Cut Pro and support for LUTs as well as the ability to export PSDs specifically optimized for FCP. We’re good, nay, great Apple citizens so this seemed like a pretty natural step as we keep building Pixelmator Pro to be the best app it can be.

Motion document support in Pixelmator Pro.

So, starting today, you can now export Motion files from Pixelmator Pro, making it easier than ever to create motion graphics. Not just that, because Pixelmator Pro has support for SVGs, you can even open SVGs and export those in Motion format. This is great if you, for example, want to create some animations or Final Cut Pro templates but don’t feel like creating all the illustrations yourself. If you’d like to learn more about using Pixelmator Pro and Motion, check out this in-depth video guide from Ripple Training.

All-new SVG engine

Another big project this year has been improvements to the file reading and writing foundations of Pixelmator Pro, starting with massively improved support for PSD files. Now, it’s time for SVGs. And the improvements here are maybe even bigger.

The SVG format is pretty fascinatingly huge and isn’t limited to just simple vector layers. It can contain images, text, path text, layers with different blending modes, letter spacing, filters and effects, masks, clipping paths, opacity. And how much of this is supported can be measured in numeric terms because there are certain compliance tests you can run and we have created our own test suite.

The file format specification really is huge and most raster and vector apps would pass a small number of these tests. The latest version of Pixelmator Pro now passes four times more of our test suite the the previous version did. We’ve also added support for some features that are only available in SVG 2, the newest specification of this format.

4ximproved support for SVGs

Below, you can see a visual example of how some SVG files used to be opened in Pixelmator Pro and what the situation’s like in today’s version. Big improvements!

Previous Version

Latest Version

We also don’t plan to stop there and will continue improving support for PSDs, SVGs, and will probably add some more useful formats next year and in the future. Pixelmator Pro itself will need more features to be able to keep up, so that’s also in the works.

The update is free for all existing users and available now. Also, Pixelmator Pro is still on sale for another week or so, so you have time to grab a copy at the current ridiculously low price. To do that, you can open up the App Store using the link below.

Download Now

Phew. It’s been a busy and very fun 2021 here at the Pixelmator Team. Thank you to all of you who use our apps to create cool stuff, give us compliments, feedback, and the occasional bits of criticism. We really do appreciate you all. And we’ve got even bigger plans for next year – stay tuned!