It's clear that Pixelmator Pro was made to be the intuitive, beautiful, and easy to use photo editor. Unfortunately, some features are not that way.Making powerful but complex pro image editing tools easy to use and accessible to everyone. Even your grandparents.
One of my biggest pet peeves as a user of Affinity Software, as I'm sure many of us own Affinity Software, is how Pixelmator handles groups and masks. Quite simply, it's terrible and unintuitive. Reminds me of Photoshop.
https://youtu.be/aWwgeModipI
I watched this official guide video and it highlighted the limitations and stupidity of the current layer and mask system.
Let me ask a few questions to give an example of what I am talking about.
- Why do you have to disable auto selection to move a mask? Why does it have to be reenabled? How is that intuitive to a user? Even if the user selects the mask layer in the layers, it will not work for them by default behavior. Frustrating.
- Why do images not have a trimmed selection area after they've been masked? Why is the image that is no longer visible subject to smart snapping?
- Why do the masks not automatically get grouped so its easy to drag what appears to be a shape with an image fill to a user? Instead it's kept separate by default.
Pixelmator Pro (and Photoshop) Layer and Mask System: https://file.zenith.lol/tcj3lt
Unintuitive, sloppy, and old fashioned.
Now, let me show you a few solution courtesy of some fellow Mac apps, that I would love if you implemented!
Affinity Photo Layer and Mask System: https://file.zenith.lol/1LrXyi
Fast, easy, intuitive. Click once to move the entire mask group. Click twice to move the item inside the group. Easy.
Logoist Layer and Mask System: https://file.zenith.lol/zANf8c
One of my favorites...this highlights fantastic nondestructive masking in an easy to understand way.
So I hope this feedback can be taken seriously. If Pixelmator wants to claim to be the most intuitive photo editor it should at the very minimum handle masks in the same great way as Affinity software. And maybe additionally, like the nice little tool Logoist. The current system just seems wasteful and needlessly complicated for an otherwise very intuitive app.