There a lot of interesting image editors, specially made for Mac OS X, which are quite popular within the Mac App Store. One of those is called Pixelmator, which is holding a top position for a while now, and there are numerous reasons. This application has been under development since 2007, and the biggest success of 2011, when Apple named it Mac App Store – App of the Year (2011).
One of the biggest advantages of Pixelmator is that it combines beauty and streamlined interface with the simplicity of use. Even new users, who haven’t gotten the chance to work with image editors before, will start working and editing their images almost immediately. You can achieve really astonishing result in just a few mouse clicks. This application is not as powerful as some professional-grade image editors like Adobe’s Photoshop, but it brings tons of interesting features for a very competitive price, and is user friendly.
Pixelmator is Mac-only application and it implements itself nicely within the Mac OS X desktop interface. Once you open it, you can choose if you’d like to open an existing image, or use a blank canvas with a number of preloaded sizes. Once you choose the one you like, you’ll be taken to a main Pixelmator window. This application actually doesn’t come in all-in-one window, since you’ll get the image you’re working on freely floating, just like any other opened toolbars (or differently said – small floating windows with tools). This way you can simultaneously work on several different images, which means that Pixelmator can be used graphic designers and serious photographers, not only home users.
While working in Pixelmator, you’ll get all of the essential tools which you hope to find in an image editor. You can use several different selection tools, work with brushes, manipulate layers, add and edit shapes, text elements, color adjustments and much more. Since this is a Mac-only application, developers worked hard to implement some of the Mac OS Lion and Mountain Lion features like support for a full screen, auto-save and versions features as well as the Info Bar feature. Another important thing is Pixelmator is being frequently updated, so you’ll get updated as well as new features, without paying additional price.
The newest feature is call “2.1 Cherry” and it brings support for retina displays as well as support for iCloud, which means that you can work on several computers without need for USB drive to transfer your files. New version also brings new preloaded effects like vintage and miniaturize, as well as some very nice alignment guides which are very easy to use and quite helpful, that you couldn’t find as such in other serious applications like Photoshop.
During the test period, Pixelmator was very stable and it showed good performance. Some of the user comments reflected a situation with certain crashes, which may seem to be fixed with the new “2.1 Cherry” version.
