7 ms·

Pixelmator 2 Sneak Preview

• steve19 15y ago
  I would have thought that adobe would have either invented or bought patents relating to context aware fill in order to prevent other graphics software from implementing it. I am very pleased to see it in Pixelmator.
  • mikemaccana 15y ago
    There's prior art: specifically, GIMP did it first.
    • dagw 15y ago
      Technically someone wrote a plugin for GIMP. I don't think GIMP ever shipped with it. But otherwise yea, the plugin was first released in 2007 I think, years before Adobe first announced the feature.
      • hackermom 15y ago
        Yep. The Resynthesizer plugin: http://www.logarithmic.net/pfh/resynthesizer http://www.logarithmic.net/pfh/resynthesizer
  • dodecaphonic 15y ago
    A paper detailing the technique was presented in SIGGRAPH a good year, year and a half, before Adobe added it to CS5.
    • deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
  • grinich 15y ago
    The main algorithm (PatterMatch) was developed by Connelly Barnes, a Princeton grad student, who as interned at Adobe multiple times. Read his original PhD thesis on "PatchMatch: A Randomized Correspondence Algorithm for Structural Image Editing" http://gfx.cs.princeton.edu/pubs/Barnes_2009_PAR/index.php http://gfx.cs.princeton.edu/pubs/Barnes_2009_PAR/index.php As well as the follow up paper with collaboration from Adobe: "Video Tapestries with Continuous Temporal Zoom" (published at SIGGRAPH) http://gfx.cs.princeton.edu/pubs/Barnes_2010_VTW/index.php http://gfx.cs.princeton.edu/pubs/Barnes_2010_VTW/index.php
• mikemaccana 15y ago
  I think the Pixelmator guys have already won: they've made a native-feeling app that doesn't feel like an OS booting to launch. It's the TextMate to Adobe's Eclipse.
  • brianwhitman 15y ago
    Yeah, and I love that half the posts are praising its lightweight nature while the other half are complaining about "obvious" features that it doesn't have :)
    • atourino 15y ago
      Why is that surprising? People complaining about the lack of features obviously need something more capable. For the rest of us, the lightweight, cheap option is good enough. :)
• dazzawazza 15y ago
  Last time I used Pixelmator when I selected a rectangle I couldn't see the coordinate/dimensions (w/o using the rulers). Is this still true?It's such a simple addition but at the time they refused to add it.
• cpenner461 15y ago
  Does anyone have enough experience to comment on how Pixelmator compares to Acorn? I use Acorn for the occasional times when I need an image editor and have no issues with it, just curious how the two compare. A quick google search only turned up comparisons from several years ago, and I know Acorn has had a lot of changes/improvements since then, and I'm sure the same is true for Pixelmator.
• ryantownsend 15y ago
  It's disappointing to see they still have no support for layer styles, which is critical to the workflow of most designers, despite the fact that the most popular threads on their forums are full of people requesting just that. Myself and plenty of other people would love to get away from Photoshop, but without this feature, it's simply not an option.
  • leon_ 15y ago
    well, pixelmator itself is not much more than a glorified frontend to the core image API. though the API supports filters and layers it doesn't support layer styles. that's why this feature won't be implemented for a long time.
    • quinndupont 15y ago
      Sad but true
    • tvon 15y ago
      FWIW, Acorn 3.0 has layer styles listed as a feature: http://flyingmeat.com/acorn/ http://flyingmeat.com/acorn/
• hackermom 15y ago
  I'm looking forward to this release. While Pixelmator is still lacking in a few crucial areas, as well as having a few odd quirks, I've been thoroughly pleased with it since day one, and, as an avid photographer and web developer, I manage to do everything I need with it. It has in its ~80mb glory, together with Apple's Aperture, entirely replaced my need for the ~12gb horrendous bloat Photoshop offers.
• w1ntermute 15y ago
  What exactly is Photoshop lacking that Pixelmator provides? (honest question)
  • jasongullickson 15y ago
    A reasonable price.
  • hackermom 15y ago
    It's very small, it's very fast, and it's very cheap. Feature-wise it doesn't offer anything that Photoshop doesn't already have.
  • ique 15y ago
    As jasongullickson said, a reasonable price. But I think the question is really strange. It's like asking "What is the Porsche sedan lacking that the Volvo sedan provides?" They're for different people. Photoshop in my mind is for professionals who use a lot of different tools to master their craft. While Pixelmator seems much more focused on photo-editing and some quick work. Pixelmator makes design and (more advanced than iPhoto-) photo-editing more easily available to non-professionals. If you really use everything Photoshop has to offer, I don't think the price is unreasonable. But few people do.
  • deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  • zoul 15y ago
    No activation/licensing bullshit, feels at home on my Mac, does not try to take over the machine.
• lovskogen 15y ago
  But, the ones bitching and moaning about Photoshop is the web designers, not the photographers. Too bad Pixelmator tries to do both, like Photoshop, and focus more on Photography than pixel design. I've tried to switch from Photoshop to Pixelmator, Acorn, Draw It, Gimp and Incscape - but no dice. Photoshop still has the best features for pixel design.
  • ugh 15y ago
    Aren’t photographers also moaning? The problem with catering to photographer is probably rather that they already have an awesome, lightweight and modern Photoshop replacement – even one made by Adobe – called Lightroom (and also Aperture by Apple).
    • gnok 15y ago
      This is a myth. Lightroom and Aperture do not replace Photoshop. They are tools for a different job -- photography workflow management. Photoshop is a significantly different beast and the capital of expertise, tools and extensions gathered over the years makes it pretty hard to replace. I have tried using Pixelmator in lieu of Photoshop, but the lack of support for layers (among many many other features) makes it an unlikely replacement; but I doubt Pixelmator was trying that.
      • hopeless 15y ago
        As a photographer, and talking to lots if photographers, the number 1 tool is Lightroom (or sometimes Aperture / Capture One). We all own Photoshop but only a very small percentage of images will pass through PS (usually for complicated cloning or exposure merging).
      • ugh 15y ago
        Are you sure you are not talking about a very small minority there? There aren't that many really professional photographers out there (i.e. people who do it for a living) but there are masses of hobbyists. There are plenty of people for whom Photoshop Elements or iPhoto are too simple and for whom Photoshop is overkill. Those people might be tempted to get Pixelmator but both Aperture and Lightroom seem like a much much sweeter deal for them to me. Lightroom does some excellent workflow management but it also does some (quite complex, actually) photo editing.
• superpanic 15y ago
  Seems like theres still no support for channels. Strange - seems like the most basic feature.
  • gallamine 15y ago
    I don't even know what channels are. I've been using image editors for basic stuff for years, so I don't think that's what you'd call a "basic feature."
    • leon_ 15y ago
      well "channels" are: if you've got an RGB picture, you got 3 channels: R channel, G channel, B channel it doesn't get more basic than that imho :)
• rozim 15y ago
  It looks like it has become a hybrid pixel / vector graphics editor...note the screenshot at the bottom right and the control points highlighted on the butterfly.
• sigzero 15y ago
  Since Photoshop Elements is in the same price range which is better?
• dlsspy 15y ago
  Pixelmator is a great and underpriced product. I had no qualms about buying it again when it hit the app store.
• bugsy 15y ago
  This is HN we talk about business issues sometimes here. Permit me to make some comments. I've had Pixelmator since it came out. I use it, Acorn, and Photoshop Elements. I would really like to get off the Adobe bandwagon since Elements has insidiously overbearing DRM where you get two installs and you lose an install permanently every time your hard drive goes down, so that you weren't able to delicense first. So I had Elements installed on my laptop and my desktop and when the laptop's drive kicked the bucket, then I was down to one activation and could no longer use it on the laptop without buying it again. This is annoying and it is not how my hammer works. My hammer works whether or not my hard drive has gone down. It's also not how a lot of other software works. But it is how some works. So Pixelmator has the Apple Store thing. One install only, so none of this nonsense of installing on laptop and desktop even though both are used by the same single person who never uses both at once. However, if the harddrive goes down, there is some way to get the license back, delicensing is not necessary first. But in any case I don't want to buy Apple Store stuff because I don't want my machine ID tied to my credit card number with Apple. Apple is doing too much privacy invading and I want nothing to do with it. If others want that fine. So Pixelmator 2 will be Apple store only, and no upgrade price for loyal Pixelmator 1 users. So that's it. Not upgrading and not recommending it to anyone. That leaves Acorn and Gimp. Photoshop is hands down a better program than anything else, but the last few years it seems most of their time has been spent on DRM. Photoshop is constantly trying to connect to the internet, which it has absolutely no legitimate reason that benefits the customer to be doing. Programs that connect to the internet that have no reason to are intrinsically suspicious. I can see more of the value proposition for open source because of all this DRM stuff. I pay for all my software. I am the good customer. But over the top DRM is driving me to alternatives, forcing me to have to use open source solutions instead even if I'd rather have something that's a little more polished like a commercial product. Oh well. I am fine using the alternatives. It's interesting to me though that companies would do this. Such as take an app, pull it from distribution unless you lock your hardware to a credit card at an Apple store. Why would I want to do that just to use a image editing app? Sure for many people this is no big deal. They don't care about privacy or fair use of things they have bought. But some of us do.
  • m_eiman 15y ago
    "So Pixelmator has the Apple Store thing. One install only, so" App Store terms say: "You can install apps on every Mac authorised for your personal use and even download them again." [1] Also, you can create an App Store account using only gift cards that you can pay in cash. Apple will still know your IP address, of course. [1] http://www.apple.com/se/macosx/whats-new/app-store.html http://www.apple.com/se/macosx/whats-new/app-store.html
• mambodog 15y ago
  I've bought Pixelmator, but every time I try to use it I find that it's just significantly different enough from Photoshop that I lose all my speed and efficiency, and just feel like I'm wasting time. I would really have preferred if it was just a straight subset of Photoshop's features, with the same key commands and paradigms, but more lightweight.