A list of Mac requests

What features would you like to see in Pixelmator Pro?
User avatar

2022-05-03 15:00:47

So these requests aren't anything new. In fact I bet a lot of these requests have been wanted by users for years now. Probably even before Pixelmator Pro came out. Only to find out the feature has never been added. These are basically common things found in other editors. And no, not just PS and LR. But also found in ON1 Photo RAW, Luminar AI, Luminar Neo, Luminar 4, etc.

- Being able to see the mask as your painting the mask
- Some AI tools that make editing a photo quicker (getting the results you want or getting you closer to the result you want in less time means more time for shooting)
- Plug-ins...being able to add plug-ins from other apps in Pixelmator. As well as being able to add Pixelmator as a plug-in on another app.
- AI that can recognize dust particles, power lines, faces, eyes, teeth/bodies. This would make it easier to remove the distracting items with one click. And allow editing faces like eyes, teeth whitening with a slider. And blemish remover and bodies quicker with out having to manually mask them.
- Ability to adjust brush size by scrolling with 2 fingers, rather than having to right click and choose the size with a slider
- Quick sky replacement tools
- Portrait AI Tools

There is no shame in grabbing ideas from the competition and then putting your own spin on it. ...improving it, perfecting it, and making it better than the competitions to where they, then copy your idea to make theirs as good as yours.

We all love how quick Pixelmator is. There truly is no slow down. It saves or exports lightning fast! The Smart Erase/Clone and Repair tools are some of the best on the market with how well and how quick they work. So if the software is as fast as it is because of things like this not added, then release these types of upgrades as their own stand alone apps that are accessible via plug-ins from within Pixelmator.
User avatar

2022-05-05 15:16:54

Hi there!
- Being able to see the mask as your painting the mask
There is actually one way to do that in Pixelmator Pro at the moment, and that's the Select and Mask tool. Aside from that, we are keeping this in mind for the future.
- Some AI tools that make editing a photo quicker (getting the results you want or getting you closer to the result you want in less time means more time for shooting)
That sounds like ML Enhance and ML Match Colors!
- Plug-ins...being able to add plug-ins from other apps in Pixelmator. As well as being able to add Pixelmator as a plug-in on another app.
We have no plans to add plugin support for Pixelmator Pro or to create Pixelmator Pro plugins for other apps (aside from our Photos extension) for the foreseeable future. Later on down the line, that may be something we can consider.
- AI that can recognize dust particles, power lines, faces, eyes, teeth/bodies. This would make it easier to remove the distracting items with one click. And allow editing faces like eyes, teeth whitening with a slider. And blemish remover and bodies quicker with out having to manually mask them.
Talking about dust articles and power lines, such elements can be detected and removed via the Repair tool. As for AI-based facial feature detection / enhancement, while interesting, that would be a pretty big project so it's not very likely to be put on the roadmap for now, but we'll keep this in mind as a possible direction we can take going forward.
- Ability to adjust brush size by scrolling with 2 fingers, rather than having to right click and choose the size with a slider
That's on our to-do list!
- Quick sky replacement tools
I'm not sure about this one as I'd say our selection tools are simple enough to use that masking out the sky in a photo is pretty straightforward already.
- Portrait AI Tools
Not sure what you mean my this one, could you elaborate?
User avatar

2022-05-05 17:30:21

So I had to create a second account since I created the initial account with a misspelled username and there is no way to change or correct that. (so, same person here) :blush:

- Thank you for showing me the select and mask way of doing it. While it helps and gets the job done, it's not very practical when you are trying to have a nice quick flow. Hopefully a simple mask and paint button can be applied right next to the undo, ML and on/off slider of the different sections of the Color Adjustments panel. Heck and maybe even add a mask button other panels that make sense.

- The ML Enhance and Match Colors buttons do in fact answer my question, but...I worded my question wrong. And now after a few days and being busy, I really can't remember exactly what it was. So, another time on that I guess.

- About plug-ins...you mention an extension for your Photos? What do you mean? Is there another app I'm unaware of?

- The Repair Tool...yes that tool is probably the best in the market. Extremely quick, great blending and pretty damned intelligent. But I was hinting at a one click option to remove dust or power lines. Yes I expect one would have to do some touch up, nothing is perfect. But to have most of the work done by AI and all you have to do as the user is go over some small repairs...that would be a big help.
And with how great the Repair Tool currently is, I can only imagine that an AI-based facial feature detection / enhancement in Pixelmator, would set the bar for the competition and change what people know about AI options.

- Ah the brush size scrolling gesture. You don't know how much I try to do that when adjusting the size of it. It will be so welcoming to have that feature available.

- Sky Replacements. While masking the sky is the norm, AI sky replacement is on a different level. With a click, it automatically selects the sky, no matter if it's a clear transition of a mountain to the sky or a difficult one of a tree with the sky showing between its limbs and leaves. One click options, are a true time saver when trying to edit images for clients. Since at that point you only have to do a little clean up on what it might of missed. I have a feeling Pixlemator, wouldn't miss much. OH I forgot to mention, that AI Sky Replacement also automatically adjusts the lighting of the scene to match that of the new sky. And if there is water as a reflection, it will reflect that new sky you placed in there. This way things look as real as possible and everything matches.

- So Portrait AI Tools...these types of tools can detect the entire face, mask it and it's specific features automatically with just turning it on. I think a mask is set up for each facial feature (eyes, face, lips, teeth) which is then assigned to a slider corresponding to each of them. Which you can adjust to your liking. It allows you to remove blemishes, clear up redness, etc. using sliders. But also within the same Portrait AI adjustment panel, it also automatically masks the eyes where you can whiten the eyes, enlarge them if needed, change the color of them, remove dark circles under them, add a catch light, etc. Further on within that same adjustment panel, it masks the mouth to allow you to adjust the color to the lips or if the person is smiling, it detects it and enables the slider for whitening the teeth. They are VERY practical settings and tools. And they are extremely useful when needing to get things done quickly.
User avatar

2022-05-06 18:31:33

Sky Replacement Tool

I second this request. Yes, I have Luminar Neo and it works fine. But I would like to use just one app and Pixelmator Pro is that app.
As Sensored Lens mentioned the tool should take care of water reflections and scene lighting. I believe Lightroom also has this tool.
User avatar

2022-05-09 15:26:23

To be honest, I'm a little lost as to why requests like this have to be made.

I mean, why can the team at Pixlemator not just look at what the competition is doing and implement those ideas in their own way into Pixelmator? Pixlemator shouldn't rely on their customers to tell them what latest or long awaited features they would like to have available to them.

As a company, they should be ahead of the curve or at least on par with it. Here's a hint, don't be like Apple and wait until things are the norm with technology and then implement it when it's considered old to the industry. But do be like Apple of yesteryear when they would be the leaders in innovation and others were years behind them trying to catch up.

Frankly if I developed software that was similar to other companies, I would watch what they're doing and then perfect it in my own way. It would then spark ideas in the minds of others in our company of how to add onto that capability or plant new ideas with creating something totally new that doesn't exist at all.

In short, here is a request to cover all future requests...
Keep an eye out on what Adobe, Skylum (creators of Luminar AI & Neo), ON! Photo RAW, Affinity, are doing. And develop those same popular features into Pixelmator in some way in your own way. Create plug-ins so that you can become a part of that big network of users. And do all of this in a timely manner. Not years and years down the road like Apple does.

Doing things like this can only bring more customers into your circle.
More customers = more money.
More money = more improvements.
More improvements = more customers.
More customers = more money...and you can see how that keeps going in a continuous circle.

It really isn't hard to understand. If it were, other companies wouldn't already be doing it.

And Heck...Skylum is doing innovating from Ukraine. https://skylum.com/blog/act-now-save-uk ... mocracy-24

I see no reason why it can't be done from Lithuania.
User avatar

2022-05-16 16:04:04

I'd say that in general, we tend to prioritize user experience over feature amount. Whenever we work on new features, we strive to ensure that they make sense within the context of the rest of the app and are not only quality, but also easy to use for pros and beginners alike. The downside of this mindset is that it takes us a while to implement said features, as we do have high standards for all of these aspects.

We do definitely keep an eye on what our competitors are doing and try to feel the pulse of the market. For instance, we saw that background removal was a must, so we added it. And since we do now have the ML technology used in Remove Background and Select Subject, we can consider using it for other functionality - even the sky replacement you mentioned earlier (which is not off the table). However, the only reason this possibility exists is because we took our time developing the Select Subject technology in the first place.

Innovation is great, but, going back to the idea of things making sense within the rest of the app, we don't want the features we add to feel like gimmicks or trend chasing. That's why we're more selective in what we choose to implement and when. As many developers, we have a dev plan, a schedule, and a vision, and while they do have a degree of flexibility, we can't really afford to stray too much. Hope you can understand. :pray:
User avatar

2022-05-16 17:24:47

@ SensoredLlens (and others).
First of all I am interested on dealing with photo's (and video). A lot of my pictures are taken in RAW format, so my observations are from that point of view.
One of the things I do like with Pixelmator pro is it's seamless integration with Apple Photos, with or without iCloud, and lot's of it's functionality that simply works and has a quite nice user interface.
None of the "big" alternatives do work properly with Apple Photos and/or the Apple platform.
Skylum to me is not really interacting properly with Apple Photo's and in my case (I have been using it since Macpun) It, in the end, is buggy, poorly supported and resource consuming. So great idea's, nice user interface, interesting functions, but in the end not reliable.
On1 I stopped using recently , main reasons: needs a lot of resources. No integration with Apple Photos unless you pay for all the plugins, so extremely expensive and even with the plugin's not interacting properly with Apple Photo's
Adobe, though great in functionallity no doubt, heavily resource consuming very expensive, no integration with Apple Photo's (and poor programming)
Affinity Photo, again great software, steep learning curve, poor to no interaction with Apple Photos; (especially with RAW).
So all the alternatives are ,to me, in some way cumbersome to use. I constantly have to re-think my workflow-logic, and keep investing in hardware to get adequate performance.
Perhaps that is my lag of knowledge or being spoiled in the past with Aperture,
Of course I have some requests (like some you mention) but I would definitely prefer a slick program, which just works seamlessly in the Apple environment, in stead of having all the "fancy" tools you see with others which, in my opinion, have little to do with photography, like automatic sky-replacement, and other "photo-manipulation"-tools
I definitely disagree with the concept of "more and more". I prefer reliable software with a simple to use set of functions I need. So In my opinion the Team is doing a really fantastic job and I can fully support the statement of "simonised": we don't want the features we add to feel like gimmicks or trend chasing"

My 2 cents.
User avatar

2022-05-17 15:39:56

by simonasd I'd say that in general, we tend to prioritize user experience over feature amount. Whenever we work on new features, we strive to ensure that they make sense within the context of the rest of the app and are not only quality, but also easy to use for pros and beginners alike. The downside of this mindset is that it takes us a while to implement said features, as we do have high standards for all of these aspects.

We do definitely keep an eye on what our competitors are doing and try to feel the pulse of the market. For instance, we saw that background removal was a must, so we added it. And since we do now have the ML technology used in Remove Background and Select Subject, we can consider using it for other functionality - even the sky replacement you mentioned earlier (which is not off the table). However, the only reason this possibility exists is because we took our time developing the Select Subject technology in the first place.

Innovation is great, but, going back to the idea of things making sense within the rest of the app, we don't want the features we add to feel like gimmicks or trend chasing. That's why we're more selective in what we choose to implement and when. As many developers, we have a dev plan, a schedule, and a vision, and while they do have a degree of flexibility, we can't really afford to stray too much. Hope you can understand. :pray:
I'm not exactly sure there are "gimmicks" or "trend chasing" when it comes to making editing images easier or quicker. I'm certain that same thought came across the minds of developers or customers when masking first came out. Or when presets were introduced. Turns out they became staples in editing images because they're not trends. They're tools. And if a tool makes the job easier and quicker, it's not a trend or a gimmick. It's an improvement. Advancement. Progression.

Heck Pixelmator developers may have thought 1-click background removal was gimmicky or a trend that they didn't want to chase back then. Which is possibly why it took so long to get placed into the app. But here it is. Turns out that it is a necessary tool. Just because something can be done the long way, doesn't mean that there isn't room for improvement. So hence the one click background removal.

I guess all I'm saying is, yes...Pixelmator does an intense amount of things very VERY well. But it doesn't mean that those things can't be adjusted/improved to make them also 1-click options to where the user can tweak to their liking. Or added features no one expected to make current features even more powerful.

I know that you guys would absolutely kill at doing something like this if it were put into motion. And then "leak" some of that information to customers as up and coming future features.
User avatar

2022-05-19 13:41:33

Perhaps the terms "Gimmick" or "Trend" were a bit too extreme, but what I was trying to get at was the notion that, just because a certain feature can be added, that doesn't necessarily mean it should be added, whether that's due to other improvements simply being a higher priority at the time, or due to the fact that it just wouldn't fit with the kind of app we're developing.

And just to clarify, we're not outright against adding more ML-based features, one-click tools, etc. The point is that we have a roadmap with features and functionality that we see as a priority, so we can't stray too far from it. But we can add more features to the roadmap if we determine them to be necessary and the timing to be right, and, eventually, implement them into the app. That's essentially a super-simplified view of our mindset and how we look at feature requests.
User avatar

2022-05-19 17:37:32

Believe me when I say I'm not trying to be difficult. My mind works in a different way than most I know. So I sometimes come off that way.

But if you already have a road map of features and functions, then why is there a request area? If most user requests get shot down because it doesn't fit with the plan, or some requests are already part of the map, then it is sort of a waste of time for users to get their hopes up that their voice will be heard.

Or maybe the request area is a place where users can at least have the idea that their requests matter so that they think their voice was heard. But in reality the ideas were all coming from inside of Pixelmator.

But with what you said in mind about having a road map...do you guys ever share that with users so that they know what to expect down the line?
User avatar

2022-05-20 17:02:47

Believe me when I say I'm not trying to be difficult. My mind works in a different way than most I know. So I sometimes come off that way.
Not at all - I'm terribly sorry if something I said gave you this impression! And same here, too.
But if you already have a road map of features and functions, then why is there a request area? If most user requests get shot down because it doesn't fit with the plan, or some requests are already part of the map, then it is sort of a waste of time for users to get their hopes up that their voice will be heard.

Or maybe the request area is a place where users can at least have the idea that their requests matter so that they think their voice was heard. But in reality the ideas were all coming from inside of Pixelmator.
The request area is here because we do take it seriously - feedback is valuable, and these requests are one of the main ways we determine which features should be added to the app. And of course, we do have our own vision and our own ideas, as well. We try to take both into account.

There are a lot of things we'd like to add to our apps, but there's not nearly enough time for us to be able to do it all at once - that's why the roadmap exists. Think of it like a queue for features and improvements. We're constantly working on something, so new feature ideas that would require large projects to get right tend to go to the back of the queue, and smaller feature ideas/improvements are generally kept in mind for whenever there's a good time to implement them, i.e. the feature request relates to the same area of the app that we're working on at the moment. It helps us stay focused, take it one step at a time, and generally be more efficient. But it also means that, generally, it will take some time for a feature request to turn into a live feature. It's not an overnight process.

I'm sorry if you feel that your feature requests were shot down, but I just want to assure you that I did make a note of them and that they will be considered at some point - it just may take some time. Plugin support is the one that's the least likely to happen, but even then, you never know - perhaps some time in the future we'll come around to the idea. And as for finding out that a feature you requested is already on our roadmap, does it really feel like a waste of time to get confirmation that the feature you want will eventually be added to the app?

On the other hand, while we do pay attention to everyone's feedback, we also reserve the right to say no to a feature request if we feel that it doesn't fit our vision. Everyone has different ideas of what the app should be, what features are required, what's convenient and what isn't, etc. If we implemented every single piece of feedback we've received over the years, our apps would probably be in a pretty rough state today, to say the least.
But with what you said in mind about having a road map...do you guys ever share that with users so that they know what to expect down the line?
We don't. Like I said before, our dev plan has a degree of flexibility and this means that we do sometimes change things around, or take longer on a certain project than expected, etc. And so, basically, just want to not have to worry about overpromising something to our users and then coming up short. That's why we're a bit secretive about whatever it is we're working on at the moment. However, in most cases, if you ask us about a feature that's not in the app, we'll tell you if it's on our roadmap. :wink:
User avatar

2022-05-21 08:13:02

by simonasd
We don't. Like I said before, our dev plan has a degree of flexibility and this means that we do sometimes change things around, or take longer on a certain project than expected, etc. And so, basically, just want to not have to worry about overpromising something to our users and then coming up short. That's why we're a bit secretive about whatever it is we're working on at the moment. However, in most cases, if you ask us about a feature that's not in the app, we'll tell you if it's on our roadmap. :wink:
Are there any plans to improve the export options? In particular, the PDF option to make them editable after export?

Thank you
User avatar

2022-05-23 15:08:31

Yup - as far as I know it's not something that'll happen particularly soon, but it is definitely in our plans!
User avatar

2022-05-27 20:01:26

Since you can't share what is on the road map, can you share how many projects are on that road map?
User avatar

2022-05-28 10:15:52

- Quick sky replacement tools
I'm not sure about this one as I'd say our selection tools are simple enough to use that masking out the sky in a photo is pretty straightforward already.
Yes, Pixelmator Pro has excellent selection tools.

But sky replacement is about more than great selections. It incorporates:
- water reflections
- sky focus/defocus (blurring)
- scene lighting
- sky orientation - being able to flip it horizontally
- horizon shift

I am sure you are aware of what the competition is doing. It would be brilliant if Pixelmator can do it even better!

Yes, all these tasks could be done manually. But the tools being offered in by Skylum, Adobe etc are automating these tasks for faster edits.
User avatar

2022-06-01 15:05:22

Since you can't share what is on the road map, can you share how many projects are on that road map?
Nope, sorry. :/
But sky replacement is about more than great selections. It incorporates:
- water reflections
- sky focus/defocus (blurring)
- scene lighting
- sky orientation - being able to flip it horizontally
- horizon shift

I am sure you are aware of what the competition is doing. It would be brilliant if Pixelmator can do it even better!

Yes, all these tasks could be done manually. But the tools being offered in by Skylum, Adobe etc are automating these tasks for faster edits.
Definitely fair! I did have a chat about this with some of our developers and the overall reaction was positive, though this would be a pretty big project as well so for now we're keeping it in mind for the future.

Take this with a grain of salt, but my personal guess is that if/when we do add automated sky replacement, it'll probably be for Pixelmator Photo (by which time a macOS version will likely also already be available). Could be wrong on this one though, it's a bit early to say for sure.
User avatar

2022-06-07 22:01:12

Thank you, Pixelmator team. I, too, would love to see sky replacement features in Pixelmator Pro.