I made some tests with Pixelmator Pro, comparing it to other software like Affinity Photo, and I really hoped I would come to the conclusion that Pixelmator could give me everything I need. It is by far the easiest to use, the integration with Apple Photos for file management is phenomenal and all the tools I'd need for RAW developing and image editing are included.
I actually have bought it already because I could not imagine it would have such a major drawback.
However, once I made some simple image comparisons, I was shocked how bad the images from Pixelmator Pro looked compared to those converted with other RAW engines.
I took these images on a Sony a7rIII in compressed RAW and opened the RAW file in both Pixelmator Pro and Affinity Photo 2. I pushed the Shadows by 100%, no other adjustments were made.
I exported both as jpg in sRGB Color space - and as you can see, the image made with Pixelmator looks absolutely horrible compared to the one made with Affinity Photo.
There is almost no detail left because there is apparently some softening/blurring applied, it's all soft and muddy. Then there is some coarse chroma noise visible in the shadows (for example in the tree at the left), that is not there in the one processed with Affinity.
It is also cropped/distorted, and a bit darker compared to the original image - all of this happened automatically without me selecting any of this!
Affinity Photo 2:
Pixelmator Pro:
(Note: I set the export quality to "High" (Affinity Photo) and to 99% (Pixelmator Pro) because the Settings "Best" (Affinity) / 100% (Pixelmator) would create file sizes too big to upload. The differences between the images are very visible regardless of this setting.)
And here is a 100% Crop of the center of these Images:
Affinity Photo 2:
Pixelmator:
And what's more, all this is happening even though Pixelmator creates larger file sizes.
How can this be? Ultimately, Pixelmator's great UI, easy-to-use tools and Mac integration are all worthless if the resulting image just doesn't look good.
I REALLY hoped I could use just Pixelmator as the one editing software I'll ever need, but I won't sacrifice Image quality just for some purely convenience-improving selling points.
A "Pro" image editing software that doesn't let you decide what image-destructing automatic adjustments the RAW conversion applies to your files?
That doesn't even tell you about what it has done to your image, but rather applies these automatic adjustments secretly, in the hopes the user won't find out?
That is so hard to believe, and not what a software solution, that has ambitions to be suitable for professional work, should be designed like. I'm sorry to say that I'm actually very disappointed.
So - is there anything that can be done about this? Or is that just what this software is: a tool that is nice to use, but unsuitable if you want to get to work with the detail and image quality the camera has actually recorded?