Hands On With Pixelmator

After blogging about Pixelmator last June, it’s finally available to the general public. A couple of months late but who’s counting? When I found out that Pixelmator was available already, I went to the web site and downloaded a copy of Pixelmator to try out.

First off, the interface, awesome. It’s simply beautiful. This is how most consumer mac applications should look like. It makes it more fun to use. I love the fact that when you pick a tool in the tools palette, the chosen tool icon pops out.

Let me say that in the hour or so that I’ve been playing with it, I can safely say that it’s not a Photoshop killer. It is however a great tool for the casual image editor. It packs enough features to make it really usable. So you probably won’t be seeing this replacing Photoshop at design/advertising/creative/ agencies. However I think you’ll be seeing this inside the Mac of everyday consumers.

It has tools for selection, coloring, sharpening, zooming, cropping, etc. Basic image editing tools. It does however lack a pen tool or a tool to create paths.

I love the fact that it leverages things found in other Mac apps such as a photo viewer that gives you access to your iPhoto library. That certainly makes it easier to look for and open image files saved in your photo library.

Another feature I love is the fact that you can capture straight from your iSight camera and it places the captured image in a layer, ready to be edited.

Pixelmator has filters similar to Photoshop such as Gaussian Blur, Stylize filters (Pixellate, Pointillize, etc), as well as some others such as Generator (Star Shine, Stripes) that aren’t found in Photoshop.

Even if I haven’t explored this application fully, I know that this won’t replace Photoshop anytime soon but I do know it will make image editing more affordable for regular joes. It’s a perfect compliment to your digital cameras. At $59, it’s a steal.

In the next few days I’ll be playing more with Pixelmator and hopefully share more tidbits with you. If you’ve tried or using Pixelmator please send me a comment/thoughts on it.