Pixelmator's continued commitment to making their products and brand as "Apple-y" as possible is pretty impressive. Even their marketing pages and blog are nearly identical to Apple's — they certainly <i>feel</i> identical even if they aren't a pixel-for-pixel copy.<p>It must be great for sales, because it feels like you're buying the "missing" Pro application in the Final Cut/Logic/? triumvirate (I guess Photomator is sort of a spiritual successor to Aperture's editing features). But I do wish their UI had more labeling, especially in the right-hand menu, which is just a giant column of icons.<p>I wonder if part of the rationale is to set themselves up for a tuck-in acquisition by Apple.
This is one I'd consider paying the $99 lifetime price for:<p>- Pixelmator cost me peanuts and I'm still using it ~15 years after buying it. I even purchased PM Pro because I felt guilty I'd gotten so much benefit of the original for so little.<p>- I gave up Lightroom because... adobe.<p>- Capture One:<p><pre><code> = is barely anything but rental software at this point. "Lifetime" price is ridiculous.
= I'm tired of having to relearn a seemingly completely rebuilt UI every time I upgrade.
= Catalog system makes it practically impossible organize your photos outside of the app. (all my raws up till I switched to C1 are in year/month/day folders, afterwards it's single folder blobs dated roughly at the time I ran out of diskspace and had to purge it to offline storage). The whole paradigm of how it manages photos sucks imo.
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As long as it can read my Sony A1 raws and has reasonable shadow recovery I'm in.
I didn't immediately understand the positioning of Photomator versus Pixelmator Pro, but they have a somewhat helpful page here: <a href="https://www.pixelmator.com/compare/" rel="nofollow">https://www.pixelmator.com/compare/</a><p>It looks like Pixelmator Pro is roughly analogous to Photoshop, while Photomator is roughly analogous to Lightroom.
I have no use for this as I've never needed a Lightroom-like product but the Pixelmator Pro app always is a joy to use. I just need to do minor edits (add text, resize, layering stuff) and it scratches the itch that something like Photoshop used to for me. It's lightning quick, no BS update manager running in the background, and a 1-time $50 purchase. I've gotten a ton of value out of it and it's a very Apple-y app. I can't say enough nice things about it.<p>If you were driven away from Photoshop due to subscription pricing for something you use 1-2 times a week at most then take a look at Pixelmator Pro.
This marketing-driven distinction is disappointing to me. I switched to Pixelmator Pro not because it has layers but because it was an affordable image editor. I highly doubt anyone would use Pixelmator Pro if it didn't have single image editing, which is now apparently the defining distinction between Pixelmator Pro and Photomator.<p>Pixelmator Pro was introducing great AI-driven single image editing tools for years (e.g. background removal and upscaling), so re-positioning it in relation to Photomator is bs.
"Exclusive Lifetime Offer £69.99"<p>Lifetime could be 6 months, could be 6 years. The latter is probably impossible and a rebrand could nullify it.<p>Be honest about what 'lifetime' actually means, write it into a binding contract (yeah, 'binding' is difficult) and I might consider it.
Hmm.. I just gave this a quick spin and I’m not sure how they can talk about editing workflows without a culling process. I get that it leans on the Photos app for organization but the photos app is also lacking in this department. I’m looking for basics like star ratings, pick/mark, and filtering on all of the above. Looks like I’m stuck paying Adobe for a little while longer :(
Even after browsing the comparison page, the differences between Pixelmator Pro and Photomator are not entirely clear. Possibly this is because of where they are in their life cycle.<p>For casual image editing, including photos, I turn to Pixelmator Pro most of the time. I'm not sure at this time how I would use Photomator. If it eventually integrates metadata management and cataloguing, then I would happily jettison Lightroom Classic.
Looks good, unfortunately can't test because only supports the latest Mac OS (13), which Apple doesn't provide for my MacBook that still works perfectly fine. I wish developers had a bit more tolerance with backwards compatibility as I don't feel like throwing away electronics and adding to the garbage problem because of software compatibility.
How does Pixelmator compare to Affinity photo? I've been looking for an apple aperture replacement; I know adobe lightroom is the best option available, but I already have too many subscriptions.
How is photomator different from pixelmator (which I own and paid for)?<p>Insaw this page but am confused. <a href="https://www.pixelmator.com/compare/" rel="nofollow">https://www.pixelmator.com/compare/</a><p>The copy on their website does not address my confusion.<p>Is photomator a completely new tool? Or an evolution?<p>I see it does not have layers? What does this mean for my process? Do I now need both?!
> Photomator for Mac is built from the ground up for Mac and it makes the most of native macOS technologies, such as Apple Silicon, Swift UI, Core ML, Core Image, and Metal.<p>Psst, Pixelmator team: if you’re here, it’s “Apple silicon” and “SwiftUI”. I figured you’d be the ones to care about that stuff.
I always get redirected to the Apple Appstore when trying to buy Pixelmator or Photomator from their website. Business wise, why is that when Apple is taking a 20% toll? Couldn’t it just be a license purchase in pixelmator website? For subscription / in-app purchase model, I get it, but for life-time licences I don’t, and I’d really would like them to take that 20% extra…
It's a shame that not a single external editor for Apple Photos can edit (and re-import) without loosing the HDR/EDR layer.<p>Affinity can edit in EDR, but there's no export format supported natively by Apple.<p>After getting an XDR capable screen, I've lost the desire to edit my photos.