Here I’ve blended four versions of the same image, using different effects and blend modes. Pixelmator’s full height layers palette, left, hints at its compositing capabilities.

For example, the illustrations in these articles on composition were created in just a few minutes using Pixelmator’s vector tools and image layers. It’s like an inexpensive odd-job tool that can do more than you think and turns out to be more useful than you expected. What Pixelmator does is combine these disciplines in a speedy, lightweight package. For professional illustration and digital art, you might want to look at Illustrator or Affinity Designer (or Corel Painter, if you’re a Windows user) instead. If you want a powerful photo editor, you’re probably better off with Photoshop or Affinity Photo. It’s fast and streamlined and does what it does without the ‘bloat’ that can make other programs hard work. It’s not very expensive and not terribly deep in its features, but it would be a mistake to cast it as an ‘amateur’ program simply because of that.

It’s really useful when you need to turn photos into diagrams, infographics or even posters. Pixelmator would be ideal for photographers looking for a fast, lightweight adjustment tool that can also handle layers, masking and minor retouching without all the fuss of Photoshop.īut its strongest appeal is perhaps for broader ‘digital artists’ who use photography alongside design, illustration and even hand-drawn digital painting. This fusion of line art and photograph was easy to create in Pixelmator, blending a duplicate of the image layer with the original and using one of Pixelmator’s Artistic presets. It’s also available for a one-off license fee, not a subscription. Like Photoshop, it’s aimed at multiple disciplines, not just photography, but, unlike Photoshop, it’s very, very quick, both in startup time and editing tasks. In a way, it’s a little like Photoshop, but radically different at the same time.

See also: Best image editing software – what to look for, how to choose.

Photo editing is probably its most prominent role, but it weaves in text, graphics and paint tools to take photos in a different direction to most photo editors. It’s really rather hard to categorise because it straddles several genres. Pixelmator Pro is a Mac only application that is part photo editor, part vector illustration program and part digital painting tool.

Pixelmator software for mac