Pixelmator

If you need full-featured image editing for the Mac, and Photoshop just doesn’t pay out, download Pixelmator. It’s a photo editor and digital painting app that allows you to enjoy all the primary functions of the graphical mastodons for a relatively small price.

Functionality 3.5/5

Built exclusively for Mac, Pixelmator uses its technologies (Metal, Cocoa, Core Image, FaceTime camera among others) to the fullest. It has all the basic features you may need for manipulating your photos and images, including different types of brushes, filters, layering — everything works smoothly. You can always create a blank file and use the program for the digital painting instead of photo editing; there’s plenty of tools for it too. Another strong point here is wonderful customization possibilities: everything can be rearranged just the way you like without causing efficacy troubles. However, if you’re a professional designer and want to make this your full-time-job app, problems start to occur. This is not a sophisticated kind of app, it doesn’t support vector graphics, and there’s no history browser.

Design 5/5

Pixelmator clean design goes perfectly with the Mac interface. All the options are explicitly represented in the menu icons, and the interface stays the same no matter if you choose to use it for editing or painting. The interface doesn’t make up a single-window: every part of it is movable and resizable. That could be frustrating at first, but as soon as you get to know what’s what, that will quickly become one of your favorite characteristics of the app.

Usability 4/5 — at least 160 words

If you’re familiar with Photoshop, you will quickly catch up with Pixelmator, and probably will get irritated over its insufficiency very soon. The main tools pack from your favorite graphical editor is right here. Simple interface makes the editing process light, and intuitive — double-clicking and dragging are used for pretty much everything here. Every change you bring appears virtually right away, thanks to Corelmage and OpenGL technologies. The main functions include cutting, retouching, color correction, layering and other fundamental options for working with pictures.

And even if Pixelmator is the first photo editor you use, you’ve made the right choice. It’s hard to imagine a learning curve for this one, thanks to it’s the simple and well-designed interface. Besides, Pixelmator has a website and a YouTube channel dedicated to tutorials for newbies, which cover every basic painting and editing topic imagined. If it’s your first time at graphics editor work, Pixelmator is the best choice: it has every essential feature of more expensive apps, but it’s friendly and beautiful design cannot frighten an unprepared user.

Cross-platform use 3 /5

Pixelmator works best on MacBook Pro with a Retina display. There’s an iOS version of the program that works well on iPads and iPhones, but its functions are gravely reduced comparing to the Mac version, it’s almost like two different programs. There is no Windows version and developers don’t even seem to plan it — everything about Pixelmator is Mac-oriented. The app works with JPEG, PNG, PSD, HEIF, TIFF, PDF, and other popular formats, so it won’t be difficult to exchange the images you’ve edited with any other device.

In-app purchases

Pixelmator is not a free program, though it’s not expensive compared to many other graphical editors. You can buy it on the Apple Store for a price of $29.99. There’s also a free 30-days trial version, which was used for writing this Pixelmator review. It has the full set of Pixelmator functions and lets you decide if you need the app. It requires neither your email address nor your credit card data. There aren’t any additional in-app purchases, and you get the full pack at once.

The Bottom Line

Pixelmator is a well-priced Photoshop clone for non-professional use, and, probably the best app for learning the basics of graphical design on Mac. Pixelmator download will cost you $29.99.