Pixelmator Photo now available for pre-order, coming April 9th

Discuss the latest Pixelmator news.
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2019-04-03 01:09:00

What does this do that the Apple Photos app doesn’t?
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2019-04-03 04:13:40

This is as close to an Aperture successor — or what Apple would have made had they ported Aperture to iPad using modern UI standards — as one can get.

What’s missing is file management. I know that that’s not what you’re going for (you leave file management up to Apple) but do you have any insight into whether the Photos app is trending in supporting professional file management such as multiple libraries and speed flagging?

Does Pixelmator Photo work as an extension from within the Photos app or do you browse photos from within Pixelmator Photo (or both)?
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2019-04-03 05:37:28

Taking up the comment by iPedro: as soon as I saw the video I was reminded of Aperture and ordered right away. I have the 11” iPad Pro coming this week. Now a curveball, the tools are on the right, but with Aperture they could be located left OR right: any chance of that on Pixelmator Photo?
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2019-04-03 07:51:32

I do not use Apple Photos or Icloud - will I be able to use this bringing in the photos either

1. Directly into the app from Itunes
2. Via Google Photos or Dropbox


Thanks
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2019-04-03 08:32:28

Whoa! I'd like to have a desktop version!
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2019-04-03 09:51:38

Interesting in the list of compatible iPads, the iPad 5th generation is named, but not the 6th generation (non-pro) model. Or did I just miss it?
Of more concern is whether Pixelmator Photo is going to be able to edit IPTC data, i.e. adding a cutline/caption, and rename images? I’d also like to know about compatibility with Shortcuts.
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2019-04-03 11:54:20

I'm looking forward to it :blush: I have just received the newest iPad mini from Apple and now I'm a little bit disappointed, that I cannot install Pixelmator Photo :flushed: But I'm glad I have still the iPad Pro :blush:
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2019-04-03 12:52:11

by Ralph42x 2019-04-03 08:54:52 I'm looking forward to it :blush: I have just received the newest iPad mini from Apple and now I'm a little bit disappointed, that I cannot install Pixelmator Photo :flushed: But I'm glad I have still the iPad Pro :blush:
Are you unable to pre-order it from the App Store? Or are you unable to install the TestFlight beta, if you were signed up for that?
by Steve K 2019-04-03 09:51:38 Interesting in the list of compatible iPads, the iPad 5th generation is named, but not the 6th generation (non-pro) model. Or did I just miss it?
Of more concern is whether Pixelmator Photo is going to be able to edit IPTC data, i.e. adding a cutline/caption, and rename images? I’d also like to know about compatibility with Shortcuts.
Both the 5th and 6th generation iPads are listed on the App Store compatibility page and on our website, are you seeing this conflicting info somewhere else? As for IPTC editing and Shortcuts support, those two features won't be available in 1.0, but I've added them to our feature request list and we'll consider them!
by lllusion 2019-04-03 08:32:28 Whoa! I'd like to have a desktop version!
That's actually not out of the question... :smirk:
by Allen Krasna 2019-04-03 07:51:32 I do not use Apple Photos or Icloud - will I be able to use this bringing in the photos either

1. Directly into the app from Itunes
2. Via Google Photos or Dropbox

Thanks
As long as the photos are accessible via the Files app, either on the iPad or in a third-party storage location, you'll be able to edit them with Pixelmator Photo. I'm not 100% sure, but I think Google Photos isn't available as a location in iOS, but I could be wrong here. Are you able to browse your Google Photos library in the Files app?
by Graham K Rogers 2019-04-03 05:37:28 Taking up the comment by iPedro: as soon as I saw the video I was reminded of Aperture and ordered right away. I have the 11” iPad Pro coming this week. Now a curveball, the tools are on the right, but with Aperture they could be located left OR right: any chance of that on Pixelmator Photo?
Yep, if you take a look at the video, the first shot is of the tools being move across the screen from the right to the left. :smiley:
by iPedro 2019-04-03 04:13:40 This is as close to an Aperture successor — or what Apple would have made had they ported Aperture to iPad using modern UI standards — as one can get.

What’s missing is file management. I know that that’s not what you’re going for (you leave file management up to Apple) but do you have any insight into whether the Photos app is trending in supporting professional file management such as multiple libraries and speed flagging?

Does Pixelmator Photo work as an extension from within the Photos app or do you browse photos from within Pixelmator Photo (or both)?
Yeah, file management is probably more difficult and complicated to do than creating the color adjustments that we have, even with our own color models and all the really cool engineering stuff we've done to make sure they work better than those in other apps. So we've got nothing but love for Photos and its library! No idea what Apple might have in store for it, though...

We're planning to create a Pixelmator Photo extension for Photos, but on iOS, there are some memory constraints that would prevent us from bringing all the tools into the extension. The Repair tool, in particular, needs a lot of memory. Even ML Enhance is difficult to do, to be honest. So we don't want a watered down experience or tools that are mostly available in Photos, but we do have some ideas for what we could do.
by ToastyFlake 2019-04-03 01:09:00 What does this do that the Apple Photos app doesn’t?
Lots! Much more advanced color adjustments, crazy magical Repair tool, adjustment presets, export to different formats, perspective correction, machine learning-powered automatic image enhancement, and just an overall mind-blowingly awesome user experience!
by Jeph 2019-04-03 00:00:17 What color spaces are supported?
Whatever color space a photo is in, we respect that as much as possible, so all common color spaces are supported if they are supported by iOS.
by Mike Paterson 2019-04-02 22:22:52 I have a 3rd Gen iPad Pro 12.9” but will also be ordering the new iPad Mini 5.
Question being ~ Does Pixelmator Photo support the Mini 5 and if not then why, it is bang up to date?
It does, for some reason, it's not appearing in the compatibility list on the App Store, but we don't see any reason why it shouldn't. As far as we know, our beta testers in TestFlight were able to install and use it, but we're trying to get to the bottom of this at the moment.
by poffuomo 2019-04-02 21:21:45 Didn’t expect such a small price, gonna preorder it now after having enjoyed the beta :)

It would be cool to have a Photos extension though, for instance for ML Enhance alone.
We're considering this! :wink:
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2019-04-03 15:36:17

Will it support editing photos from the iOS Photos library and saving directly back to the library, without importing/exporting?

I sure hope so otherwise the workflow is too tedious. RAW Power has this workflow with all RAW edits saved to the Photos library and synced across all devices with iCloud. It’s an amazing workflow. I’m really hoping PixelMator Photos supports that. Otherwise this will be like Lightroom CC, too tedious to use in most cases as it requires double importing, having a separate library, and exporting only JPEG/TIFF/etc and only persisting the RAW files in a siloed storage environment.
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2019-04-03 18:33:31

How does it work with JPEG files directly from Camera? Is the majority of the functionality lost on those files? Does it require RAW to really shine? Thanks!
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2019-04-03 18:45:21

It Pixelmator Photo be available as a Photos Extension?
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2019-04-03 19:18:30

It my earlier post, to be very clear, I'm asking if it allows browsing, opening, editing, and saving RAW photos in the Photo library, but directly from PixelMator Photos – not as an extension. Not going via Files app. Not importing images that copy from Photo library.

I would expect a Save Dialog like this when saving back to the Photo's library:
Image
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2019-04-03 19:49:41

I am a happy beta tester and I’m looking forward to the final release. Nevertheless (and I’m sure the team is already working on it) I am missing essential tools such as a clarity slider , noise reduction tool and selection mask tool to only affect certain parts in the image for let’s say color adjustments. I already pre ordered the app and will continue supporting the hard working team behind pixelmator because they have great ideas and are good in the execution part as well but in order for me to not continue switching between apps I’d appreciate you also consider implementing the above mentioned features. Keep up the good work and thanks for designing the app
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2019-04-04 02:26:25

I really appreciate PM’s wide array of tools and the ability to use non-destructive layers, but one thing which has been missing from the desktop version is the ability to align layers for Focus Stacking and HDR work. Any chance we’ll see a layer alignment feature anytime soon?
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2019-04-04 10:17:16

by Andrius 2019-04-02 16:42:09
Perspective correction is available, absolutely!
Is that available on the beta?
Never mind. Found it! AWESOME!
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2019-04-04 12:35:03

by Ben Christensen Will it support editing photos from the iOS Photos library and saving directly back to the library, without importing/exporting?

I sure hope so otherwise the workflow is too tedious. RAW Power has this workflow with all RAW edits saved to the Photos library and synced across all devices with iCloud. It’s an amazing workflow. I’m really hoping PixelMator Photos supports that. Otherwise this will be like Lightroom CC, too tedious to use in most cases as it requires double importing, having a separate library, and exporting only JPEG/TIFF/etc and only persisting the RAW files in a siloed storage environment.
The library isn't necessarily separate — any 'imported' photos are saved as Pixelmator Photo files which retain all the edits to the photo because everything is nondestructive that way. But you can save the changes to the photo back to the Photos library over the original image (the changes are revertable in Photos, just like edits made with other apps). And you can delete the Pixelmator Photo file if you now you won't be going back to fine-tune any of the edits.
by Drew Lavyne How does it work with JPEG files directly from Camera? Is the majority of the functionality lost on those files? Does it require RAW to really shine? Thanks!
We have a very cool color model that works better with JPEGs than other apps do — at least that's what we've aimed to do. The reason for that is it tries to intelligently recreate or simulate the extended range data in low dynamic range images. So it edits JPEGs in a way similar to RAW. Obviously, RAW photos give you a little more color accuracy and an extended range, but with JPEGs, you'll still get great results. Better than those in other apps, we feel.
by imagladry It Pixelmator Photo be available as a Photos Extension?
Not initially, but we plan to bring as much of the app into a Photos extension as we can. There are certain memory limitations though, so the Repair tool, for example, has no chance of making it into an extension at this time. ML Enhance is also tricky as it has quite a large Core ML model. But the other tools should be possible.
by Ben Christensen It my earlier post, to be very clear, I'm asking if it allows browsing, opening, editing, and saving RAW photos in the Photo library, but directly from PixelMator Photos – not as an extension. Not going via Files app. Not importing images that copy from Photo library.

I would expect a Save Dialog like this when saving back to the Photo's library:
Image
Well, we use the Files interface, but the Photos are edited/imported directly from Photos. Yes, you would see that Save dialog for any images imported from Photos when you tap Share > Modify Original in Photos. We also create a separate Pixelmator Photo file to save all the changes made nondestructively but you're free to delete that if you only want to keep the edited resulting image in Photos.
by Stev Nicholas I am a happy beta tester and I’m looking forward to the final release. Nevertheless (and I’m sure the team is already working on it) I am missing essential tools such as a clarity slider , noise reduction tool and selection mask tool to only affect certain parts in the image for let’s say color adjustments. I already pre ordered the app and will continue supporting the hard working team behind pixelmator because they have great ideas and are good in the execution part as well but in order for me to not continue switching between apps I’d appreciate you also consider implementing the above mentioned features. Keep up the good work and thanks for designing the app
All very good points — Clarity and Denoise have been in development for quite a while now, actually, and they're getting fairly close to being ready to test. A release will still take some time, though.
by TomRhodes2010 2019-04-04 02:26:25 I really appreciate PM’s wide array of tools and the ability to use non-destructive layers, but one thing which has been missing from the desktop version is the ability to align layers for Focus Stacking and HDR work. Any chance we’ll see a layer alignment feature anytime soon?
Honestly, not much chance of that happening soon. There's a whole bunch of things already in the works — the above-mentioned Denoise and Clarity stuff, pretty serious quality improvements to the individual adjustments, performance improvements, some other stuff that I can't reveal just now, possibly even an iPhone version, LUT support, export improvements, the list goes on :grinning: So focus stacking and HDR merging is just not something we could physically do in the near future when there are other things that we feel are a little more important in the short-term.
by befehr 2019-04-04 10:17:16 Is that available on the beta?
Never mind. Found it! AWESOME!
Alriiiiight! :smiley:
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2019-04-04 14:17:14

> We also create a separate Pixelmator Photo file to save all the changes made nondestructively but you're free to delete that if you only want to keep the edited resulting image in Photos.

That’s unfortunate. It is like many other photo editing apps then and rather tedious when working with dozens or hundreds of files imported from a camera. The way RAW Power works is already non-destructive. All edits to RAW files show up and can be modified any time all without need to import or export files.
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2019-04-04 15:26:55

Is a Clarity adjustment on the Roadmap? Thanks.
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2019-04-08 17:22:35

by Ben Christensen 2019-04-04 14:17:14 That’s unfortunate. It is like many other photo editing apps then and rather tedious when working with dozens or hundreds of files imported from a camera. The way RAW Power works is already non-destructive. All edits to RAW files show up and can be modified any time all without need to import or export files.
Noted! That's definitely something for us to explore and we know we could improve the file management side of things, so it's also something we plan to do.
by pjglad 2019-04-04 15:26:55 Is a Clarity adjustment on the Roadmap? Thanks.
Very much so. It's actually been in development together with a machine learning-powered Denoise feature for a while now, so unless something goes catastrophically wrong, you can expect both those features in upcoming updates to both Pixelmator Pro and Pixelmator Photo.
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2019-04-09 12:20:49

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2019-07-13 20:50:26

iPad Air 2, and iPhone XR: when I edit a photo then save it, then later open the photo I want to revert to original. In Pixelmator I cannot find any way to do that on the iPhone nor iPad. Using Apple Photos we have the ability to revert to original thus the expectation is the same with Pixelmator.
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2019-07-15 14:55:02

by RicD 2019-07-13 20:50:26 iPad Air 2, and iPhone XR: when I edit a photo then save it, then later open the photo I want to revert to original. In Pixelmator I cannot find any way to do that on the iPhone nor iPad. Using Apple Photos we have the ability to revert to original thus the expectation is the same with Pixelmator.
I assume we're talking about the original Pixelmator here — if so, it is a layer-based image editor and while some features are nondestructive, others are, so certain changes are more or less permanent once you close the image. However, there are a few different ways to create a nondestructive workflow yourself. For one, if you import an image from the Photos app and choose Save to Photos, you'll be able to revert to the original in Photos. For another way, you can open the image, then duplicate the base in the Layers bar and work on the duplicated copy. That way, you'll always have the original image together in the same Pixelmator file.
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2019-07-15 15:00:02

Hello Andries,
Thank you for your prompt reply. Yes, though I have used both techniques you mentioned, sometimes I forget to so (ole-timers) then slap my forehead. For future releases maybe it is something for consideration perhaps.

Cordially,
RicD
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2019-07-15 15:08:24

Yes, agreed, a file-level Revert to Original button is definitely worth considering!