I’ve been hard at work this week putting the new Pixelmator 1.0 application through its paces. Many people have emailed me wanting to know exactly what I thought about the application. Well, now I present to you my answer in the form of this online review.

In this article I’ll talk about my experience with Pixelmator and hopefully give you an in depth look at what this program can and can’t do. I do however invite you to try this program for yourself, as this review is merely my opinion and should not be considered law by any stretch of the imagination. That being said, I give you my honest review of Pixelmator 1.0.

The Interface

When you first open up Pixelmator you will undoubtedly be drawn in by its sexy translucent interface and free-floating palette design. This design makes the interface very functional and a true joy to work with. I do find it inconvenient that some of the very basic keyboard shortcuts that we find in Photoshop did not make it into Pixelmator, but in all honesty if you are a Photoshop user, you should feel right at home using this program.

The Toolbar

The toolbar is a very simple Photoshop-inspired two column design with a layout that copies that of the “mother ship” almost perfectly. Many of the same tools we find in Photoshop are found in this toolbar including the Move Tool, Lassos, Crop, Magic Wand, Clone Stamp, and more. The greatest thing about the toolbar is the single-key shortcut that mimics that of Photoshop. This means that you have instant access to your tools simply by pressing a key on your keyboard (i.e. “B” for Brush). Another aesthetically pleasing feature is the fact that when you have a tool selected it automatically magnifies itself to indicate that it is indeed active. Towards the bottom of the toolbar are some very familiar faces as we see buttons for both Quick Mask Mode and Full Screen controls.

Palettes

Pixelmator has an interesting free-floating translucent palette system which really compliments the rest of the aesthetics in the program. These palettes unfortunately are not able to be docked together or grouped in any way. This was a disappointment for me because I really enjoy setting up my own custom workspaces for all types of projects. Even though you cannot dock palettes or create workspaces, Pixelmator does have the ability to remember where your palettes were located from your previous launch, so every time you open the program you are working in the exact same workspace as you were before. This isn’t a perfect system but it works.

Image Adjustments

There are several familiar faces tucked away inside of the Pixelmator image menu. Photoshop users should feel at home in this menu with a collection of features that includes Levels, Auto Levels, Auto Contrast, Auto Color, Brightness and Contrast, Hue/Saturation, Desaturate, Replace Color, Channel Mixer, Exposure, Invert, Equalize, Threshold, and Posterize. All of these features work like you would expect them to except for the Channel Mixer. I was very disappointed to see that I could not create a custom black & white composition in this dialog box. However, the rest of the basic image controls should prove to be both easy and effective for most beginner and intermediate users. Some users (yours truly included) may find it inconvenient that there is no Curves adjustment feature. Hopefully we will see this in a future release of Pixelmator.

In addition to the image adjustment features we also find controls for rotating images, canvas size, image size, and to my surprise the ability to match and assign color profiles! This is something that should prove to be a real asset to users who find themselves needing to color manage their documents for print or other output.

Filters

If I had to nail down my favorite feature of Pixelmator it would have to be the filters. This is where we really start to see the Mac OS X core graphics come in to play. When you first open a filter you will be instantly entranced by the bells and whistles. The filters dialog boxes are very streamlined and translucent and are accompanied by simplistic sliders and a really cool feature called “The Rope” which allows you to change the center point of the filter that is being applied. Every filter dialog box also contains a very handy reset button which allows you to instantly take the filter back to its original settings.

There are a few familiar filters such as Gaussian Blur but most of these filters are exclusive to the Pixelmator program, including my favorite the Kaleidoscope filter! Perhaps the most useful filter is the Sharpen Luminance filter which allows you to sharpen only the luminance values independently from the color values. This is a great feature and actually does a good job of sharpening.

Pixelmator Layers

Layers have become an essential part of any image editor and Pixelmator is no different. In this program users have the ability to create layers and layer masks but sadly we do not have the functionality of adjustment layers or smart objects… Also different in Pixelmator is the way in which layer masks function. Photoshop users will find it confusing that painting on a layer mask with black actually reveals the underlying elements while painting with white hides them (that’s the exact opposite of Photoshop by the way).

The layers palette itself is very sleek and easy to use and offers one-click functionality for both creating and deleting layers as well as the ability to link layers, lock transparency and adjust opacity. Mac users may also find it interesting that you can create a new layer based on a photo you take directly from your iSight camera. This allows for on-the-fly image editing and layer creation… pretty neat, I think.

Typing in Pixelmator

Pixelmator does have a very basic text function but it’s really nothing to write home about. You can perform basic text operations but things like typing on a path, creating shape layers from type, or running filters on type are not available. However, you do have the ability to rasterize type which does allow for some distorting and other manipulation.

The Photo Browser

This is one of the features that I nearly overlooked when playing around with Pixelmator. The Photo Browser can be accessed from the view menu and allows you direct access to your iPhoto Library and other folders on your computer. This allows you to open images from your library by simply double-clicking them and without ever having to leave the program. Perhaps the best feature of this little palette is the ability to perform a finder search. This will be especially useful for those of us who tend to lose track of all the folders and images on our hard drive.

Final Thoughts

Overall I think Pixelmator is a pretty cool little app. Users should realize that this is in no way a substitute for Photoshop or even Lightroom but it’s definitely going to make some entry-level Mac users think twice before they purchase their first image editor. Though I was impressed with several aspects of Pixelmator that I was impressed with, there are still some areas that I think need major improvement. Here is a list of things I would like to see changed or updated in the future:

1. RAW Support
2. Curves Adjustment
3. Adjustment Layers
4. Better Brushes
5. Pen Tool / Type on Path Functionality
6. Smart Objects
7. Customizable Workspaces/Keyboard Shortcuts
8. Color Sampler Tool
9. Channel Mixer Grayscale Conversion
10. Dockable Palettes

Alright, my final verdict is this… If you are an entry-level Macintosh user who is looking for a decent and powerful image editor that won’t overwhelm you, I would suggest taking a look at Pixelmator. If you’ve been around the digital imaging world for a while and have been using programs like Photoshop Elements, Lightroom, or Photoshop itself, then Pixelmator is definitely NOT for you! I think if you’re used to these other apps you may find Pixelmator somewhat limited in terms of functionality and power.

Remember, this is ONLY my opinion. I invite all of you to try this product for yourself and make your own judgement based on your experience. If you’d like a little help getting started with Pixelmator I have created a page here on the blog with some videos that are sure to help you along the way. Check it out here!