Placeholders

What features would you like to see in Pixelmator Pro?
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2022-06-10 10:00:53

Apologies if this has already been raised - I did a search and couldn't find anything.

I'd love Pixelmator to have placeholder support in the same way Photoshop does. By this, I mean you can draw a shape and then drop images on to it and resize within those parameters (Canva calls these Frames). When exporting from Photoshop and importing to Pixelmator, those PS placeholders are converted to masks that don't have the same flexibility (can't be easily resized or moved).

My use case is a collage where I've placed lots of images in a grid format - I regularly need to change the individual images in the grid but to do so I'd have to use a mask or cut the image to the exact size I need. A placeholder object where a new image can be dropped on would help with this.

Perhaps even having an image fill option in layer/shape styles could achieve the same thing.

I made a screen recording to show how this is done in Canva.
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2022-06-28 07:57:19

Hey there! Apologies for the late reply and thanks for the suggestion. Placeholder objects are definitely something we'd like to explore in the future, perhaps with more template/mockup-related updates. In the meantime, you could try using the Image Fill effect (you'll find it under Format > Effects > Fill > Image Fill) or clipping masks. We've recently released a tutorial on creating collages that explains how you can use the clipping masks in more detail.
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2022-06-28 15:04:49

Ah yes, the image fill works pretty well but a bit more flexibility would be great, so I'd be interested to see what you do with placeholders in the future.

Thanks for your help!
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2022-06-29 13:16:57

Hey, no problem. Glad I could help!