64 ms·

Apple acquires Pixelmator

1184 points by dm 2y ago

minimaxir 2y ago
I'm half unsurprised as Pixelmator was one of the apps that was extremely-tightly-integrated with Apple's APIs and ecosystem and was an excellent app as a result, and half worried that Apple will make unpopular changes to it as it's a less user-friendly app by necessity. (see also recently: Apple's Dark Sky acquisition and the worse integration of it into the Weather app)
- JimDabell 2y ago
  The other half of this equation is Sketch. Pixelmator is great for photos, Sketch is great for vectors and UI design. Both committed to being first-class macOS applications. But Sketch has steadily been losing ground to Figma. I wonder if an acquisition is on the cards there as well?
  - drcongo 2y ago
    I'd actually like to see that happen I think. For my use cases Sketch is infinitely better than Figma. Figma is an abomination of an app.
    - jwells89 2y ago
      Figma to me feels geared toward collaborative prototyping specifically. It’s kinda clunky and awkward for creation of graphical assets, which is where I find Sketch a lot nicer.
      - pixxel 2y ago
        [flagged]
        slater 2y ago
        Seriously?
        pixxel 2y ago
        [flagged]
  - wmeredith 2y ago
    I adore Sketch, but the industry standard has been Figma. It's a web app and it beats the pants of Sketch for collaboration.
- mrweasel 2y ago
  > Pixelmator was one of the apps that was extremely-tightly-integrated with Apple's APIs and ecosystem While I can understand that companies want to build cross platform applications, something like Pixelmator shows us what can be done if you take advantage for the platform you're targeting. We're not seeing that often enough anymore. The few other times I've seen code that truly uses the operating system and APIs it's mostly been server software. It's not unique to macOS either, Windows provide a ton of APIs as well.
dagmx 2y ago
This is both simultaneously surprising (given how long they’ve been in the perfect space to acquire) and unsurprising (given that they’re a perfect fit) Really looking forward to what comes out of this.
spike021 2y ago
Would be cool to see this slotted in as a more advanced photo editing product akin to Aperture back in the day. Apple still makes iMovie separately from Final Cut for video, so there's definitely a path there I think to doing something similar for photography.
- whartung 2y ago
  At the same time, they don't really have anything like this in their portfolio in terms of Keynote/Pages/Numbers. They have some photo touch up ability in the Photo App, and maybe in preview. But nothing as first class as what Pixelmator is. There's a possibility for a new Paint app.
  - al_borland 2y ago
    I wonder if this is also their play to offer some options for generative AI, without necessarily going against their current statements related to Photos where they don’t want to fundamentally change what a photograph is.
extr 2y ago
Makes sense. I'm a pretty casual user of Pixelmator Pro but it really does feel like a first party Apple app.
- alsetmusic 2y ago
  It does, and this makes me nervous that they’ll screw it up. I’m a user of Apple Logic Pro and they’ve done a decent job of keeping it going for what, fifteen plus years? But I can’t offhand think of any other popular acquisition that they’ve improved upon and the kept improving off the top of my head (I’m sure there’s more that I’m not thinking of, maybe CUPS) without just sorta forgetting. At least there’s still Acorn.
  - ascagnel_ 2y ago
    The "Shortcuts" app was an acquisition and is fairly powerful as a graphical system automation app. I created a shortcut that looks up the overnight weather at my home, and determines if it needs to turn on the AC to run for ~30 minutes before I go to bed so the room is comfortably cool.
bangaroo 2y ago
apple's pro apps have been in a weird space for a while. aperture dying was a bummer, and final cut and logic feel simultaneously actively developed and abandoned to me, there's just not much buzz around them. it would be very neat if apple started to build the necessary portfolio of software to provide a viable, ideally not-subscription-based competitor to adobe's suite of products. they certainly have had the chops to be competitive in the creative space for a long time, so it feels like something they'd be well-positioned to seriously take on if they invested heavily in it. i haven't been as in touch with the video editing space as i was 2 decades ago when i worked in TV, but it feels like FCP is not the juggernaut it once was from the outside. my read may be wrong. similarly, logic doesn't feel as prominent in the music world anymore - i really rarely see musicians using it these days, though again that may just be my bias in the kinds of folks i pay attention to. would be cool to see the apple pro suite really regain its mojo and shake things up.
- vr46 2y ago
  Aperture could have been amazing, but it was slow, buggy and suffered from a catastrophic data loss that several of my Photojournalism classmates fell victim to - just as Lightroom appeared. FCP was outstanding in its time, but was neglected. I went all in on Logic, however, and that has proved a great buy, no subscription model, fantastic extras and works super well. If they can rebuild a enthusiast-targeted set of apps again, but stick with it, the future looks bright. I cannot imagine Apple ever competing with Capture One or most of the other circle of RAW image processors, which have some rather niche features, but they might be able to take on Lightroom.
  - deleted 2y ago
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  - jwells89 2y ago
    The no-subscription aspect is a huge differentiator IMO, and depending on situation is even worth trading off features. Losing access to your work because you stopped your Adobe subscription sucks, as does the eventual premium over single-purchase.
  - 2y ago
runjake 2y ago
This is in no way a criticism of the news, but if Pixelmator isn't for you, consider trying Acorn, developed by the reputable indie developer Gus Mueller: https://flyingmeat.com/acorn/ https://flyingmeat.com/acorn/ It aligns better with my concept of an image editor, based on my experience with Photoshop 4.x-6.x and The Gimp.
- mattgreenrocks 2y ago
  Thanks! Pixelmator just didn't click for me. Hotkeys were different and it felt like it operated slightly differently from old school Photoshop.
- deleted 2y ago
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- tgv 2y ago
  I got both when they were very cheap, and I stuck with Pixelmator. It felt best for me. But ... I'm a casual user. No clever or subtle edits.
- rgovostes 2y ago
  Gus has personally responded to every bit of feedback I’ve submitted, with quick turnaround for bug fixes and thoughtful engagement with suggestions. Acorn strikes the right balance for me of simplicity vs richness of features.
- heliographe 2y ago
  +1 for Acorn, and also check out Retrobatch by the same developer - it's a super powerful image processing environment - the way I'd describe it is like having a visual command line dedicated to image processing (but better because it's visual and you don't have to read man pages). Great work all around by Gus Mueller.
toinbis 2y ago
Well done team Lithuania! Remember hearing Pixelmator founders giving a speech ~12 years ago. They were very vocal and repeated this many times: "Our marketing strategy is to just focus on the product". Not sure I agree with that statement, but they sure seem to followed it thoroughly. Congrats on the acquisition!
- mattgreenrocks 2y ago
  Nice change of pace from the current zeitgeist of, "you should really be Extremely Online to have a chance!" that is oft-repeated by...Extremely Online people.
- kermatt 2y ago
  > "Our marketing strategy is to just focus on the product". I wish more companies had this perspective, in contrast to the "Barely MVP and mostly marketing spend" to get the most signups / MAU in hopes of an acquisition.
  - jbverschoor 2y ago
    People tend to forget that product is one of the Ps Marketing is not the same as promotion
- wslh 2y ago
  Time and patience pays when you have a great product.
- deleted 2y ago
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- mihaaly 2y ago
  I use it for ages, and did not get to know it through promotion or advertisement or campaign but reputation. And I stayed, updated not because some chatter buzz or famousness or other face matter but because it was good for me. Their strategy worked then and there.
SSLy 2y ago
Whoa, nice. I’ve purchased Photomator while it was just a couple of euros.
segasaturn 2y ago
I love Pixelmator Pro, especially because of no subscription fee. If you own Pro for more than 4 months you're spending less money than you would on Photoshop!
- minimaxir 2y ago
  They had switched their Photomator spinoff to subscription pricing in 2022: https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/wrieaa/pixelmator_photo_switches_to_subscription_pricing/ https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/wrieaa/pixelmator_ph... It's within the realm of possibility that a relaunched version of Pixelmator Pro could have subscription pricing as Apple has been playing with that with Logic Pro on iPad: https://support.apple.com/guide/logicpro-ipad/start-a-logic-pro-subscription-lpipe5cb5c67/ipados https://support.apple.com/guide/logicpro-ipad/start-a-logic-...
- kstrauser 2y ago
  It's the sweet spot for me. I don't edit images for a living, but I push pixels around enough for hobbies (e.g. making video game maps) that I want something user friendly and pleasant. Pixelmator Pro has way more features than I'll ever need or use, and all the ones I do need are ergonomic to me, a person who doesn't have decades of Photoshop muscle memory.
  - ModernMech 2y ago
    This is the market GIMP needed to fill but doesn't. It's definitely capable but it's never been "friendly and pleasant" to my eye.
    - segasaturn 2y ago
      Paint.NET fills that market also, but it's Windows-only shareware.
    - vunderba 2y ago
      Krita feels like GIMP done right to me,
pier25 2y ago
Very interesting move. Adobe must be trembling. Lots of people have already left Premiere and AE for Resolve. If Apple offers Photoshop and Illustrator alternatives it will remove the need to pay for the Adobe subscription for a lot of Mac users (that will probably be the case for me).
- talldayo 2y ago
  > Adobe must be trembling. Adobe is probably popping open a champagne for every cross-platform Creative Cloud competitor that gets mothballed with Apple's capital. If Microsoft acquired Affinity next, the Adobe offices would look like a disco ball for a week.
  - cyberpunk 2y ago
    I’ve never seen a graphics person using a windows machine in all my years in tech… Maybe I’m in some sort of bubble.
    - talldayo 2y ago
      I guess it depends where you work. In CAD and 3D animation work, Windows machines outnumber the Macs I see 10:1. In smaller shops this ratio probably flips around but Adobe (and others) have a large and captive contingent of Windows users to profit off.
      - pier25 2y ago
        Adobe doesn't offer CAD and 3D animation products.
        talldayo 2y ago
        [(and others)]
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
hggigg 2y ago
Great news. Hopefully this will drive enough improvements to finally get me off adobe. Photomator is nearly good enough to replace Lightroom and Pixelmator is much nicer than photoshop for casual users.
poochkoishi728 2y ago
Astonishingly to me at the time, the app never had a History function (as in Photoshop, list of history you could click through). I had been waiting 3+ years for it to materialize, in order to purchase it. Have since moved on to vector editors and don't see a need to go back. *Actually now that I think about it, I don't seem to miss the lack of History in vector editors (and just use undo).
- ModernMech 2y ago
  Will fit right in with iMovie, which doesn't allow you to select the resolution of the exported video. It's like the island of misfit apps.
  - JimDabell 2y ago
    iMovie lets you select the resolution. File > Share > File, and the dialog that pops up has a picker for resolution right underneath the picker for format.
    - ModernMech 2y ago
      It defaults to the maximum resolution of the first clip that you import. So if you import a 720p movie first and want to export to 4k later on, you can't. You can export smaller but not larger. To export at 4K, you have to get rid of everything, import a 4k clip, and put everything back. And even then, resolutions are preset, you can't do a custom resolution.
      - JimDabell 2y ago
        I think “iMovie can’t upscale” is a lot more accurate then. “iMovie doesn't allow you to select the resolution” is very misleading, because it does allow you to do that.
        ModernMech 2y ago
        No, it's not just about upscaling, please re-read what I wrote. iMovie can upscale. You just have to trick it into doing so, because you can't set the resolution. Also, you are limited to the 720, 1080, 4k etc. If you want to export a square movie you can't. Best option is to export from iMovie and crop it in iPhoto.
kccqzy 2y ago
I bought and used Pixelmator a long time ago, but stopped right after Affinity Photo (and Designer) came out. I didn't follow its development very closely since then. Has anyone used both Pixelmator and Affinity Photo recently? I'd appreciate some comparison here.
- mattkevan 2y ago
  I’ve used both extensively since release. Anything but Adobe. While I like the idea of the affinity products, I don’t like using them much. Probably just me but I find them quite clunky and have to look up how to do simple things in the guides. Never quite clicked at an intuitive level. Whereas Pixelmator seems to fit directly into my muscle memory and I’ve never had to think about how to achieve something with it. Maybe because it’s so Mac-like. Plus the team have consistently released big new features for it over the years, making it outstanding value for money.
karolist 2y ago
Huge congratulations team, you were always one of the few Lithuanian companies I'm proud to talk about. Didžiausi sveikinimai!
joshstrange 2y ago
Pixelmator is my favorite photo editing tool. It’s like Photoshop without the baggage/subscription and is perfect for the types of edits I need to do. I’m cautiously optimistic about this acquisition, I almost hope Apple just makes it free as part of the iLife suite (or whatever it’s called now).
barkingcat 2y ago
Wow love pixelmator! Great for team but Uncertain for product.
robenkleene 2y ago
Pure speculation: This is about visionOS. Photo editing is the least friction "pro" task to bring to a spatial computing platform. The other options I considered: ⁃ Renewed interesting in pro use cases in general. I don't see enough incentive for this. Apple's historical interest in this was winning over creatives, but particularly creatives interested in photography are already won. ⁃ Apple wanted the tech for something on iOS. I don't think there's enough "special sauce" tech Pixelmator has to justify this. Pixelmator's tech is only valuable as a full package.
- robenkleene 2y ago
  I think Pixelmator probably already runs on visionOS (I don't have one personally) but I doubt they spend enough engineering resources to make it amazing because the ROI isn't worth it for a third party company. But of course Apple can make Pixelmator amazing on visionOS without even noticing the cost.
- surfingdino 2y ago
  Hasn't Apple just discontinued Vision Pro?
  - echoangle 2y ago
    Did they? Do you have a link? All I can find is some rumors about reducing production.
    - latexr 2y ago
      They didn’t. The thing you found about reducing production is likely what GP is thinking of. The headlines had several people thinking the same as them on first read. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41925329 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41925329
  - latexr 2y ago
    They have not. They stopped production on the current version of the hardware, which is not the same thing as discontinuing the product. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41925006 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41925006
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lynndotpy 2y ago
Is there any way this can go bad? When Apple acquired DarkSky, they absolutely destroyed a service that I loved and relied on. Four years on, Apple Weather is less reliable than DarkSky, and not even close to feature complete. But DarkSky was a cross-platform service, whereas Pixelmator is software that's already Apple-only. I'm wondering how much I should be worried, and if I should already be abandoning ship.
- leshenka 2y ago
  Can't you just zip the current PixelmatorPro.app and use it in case you won't like where things are going?
- mikey_p 2y ago
  I dunno, I thought "sherlocking" wouldn't be a thing if they acquired instead of duplicating their solution in-house, but it's the same effect, just more equitable to the original creators.
- bromuro 2y ago
  DarkSky wasn’t available in app stores other then US so I don’t even know what are you talking about :(
  - deleted 2y ago
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  - prophesi 2y ago
    It started off only using the USA's National Weather Service as a source[0] but gradually added international support[1]. But even then, outside of the US/UK, you would have been better off finding an app that you know uses your region's weather stations. [0] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/oliviadam/dark-sky-hyperlocal-weather-prediction-and-visuali#h:Where-the-radar-data-comes-from https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/oliviadam/dark-sky-hype... [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20190110174010/https://darksky.net/dev/docs/sources https://web.archive.org/web/20190110174010/https://darksky.n...
asimpletune 2y ago
Combining Pixelmator and Procreate via airdrop is such a nice workflow. I'm happy for the team and I'm holding out hope this will be good for Mac users in the long run. A Blackmagic acquisition would also be interesting. It's too bad there isn't a vector drawing app that's at the same level of Mac integration as Pixelmator. I've used Inkscape and it was amazing but unfortunately very slow.
- JimDabell 2y ago
  Sketch might be what you’re looking for: https://www.sketch.com https://www.sketch.com
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justmarc 2y ago
Well deserved. Congratulations to the Pixelmator team!
strongpigeon 2y ago
Really glad for them. Pixelmator Pro is my go-to image editing software. Reminds me of Fireworks (which I really liked, but then Adobe happened) with slightly worse vector functionalities. Curious if anybody has a good “combined” editor to suggest.
askafriend 2y ago
Best photo editing tool out there for most people. Incredible interface design and integration with the OS. And such a natural fit of acquirer. This makes total sense and I'm excited to see what comes out of this!
mikey_p 2y ago
I'm still on Pixelmator classic 3.9 (it's what I have a license for) and it's great. Does everything I need easily as a casual user, and it hasn't changed in years! I've never even thought about upgrading.
- nesk_ 2y ago
  The upgrade is worth it for vector image editing.
lowkey_ 2y ago
I'd never heard of Pixelmator before (congrats to them on the exit), and: WOW their website already looks like an Apple website. The colors, the font, the logo with the same colors as Apple Photos, all the images that show a Mac window, the shade of red in the top right, the "machine learning" section that almost looks like Notes, and I scrolled down and it's all about how great Mac is. It seemed inevitable that Apple would either acquire or copy them, with how much this already looks like an Apple product, and is exclusively made for Mac apparently.
- turnsout 2y ago
  It's not that unique—a lot of Apple-ecosystem developers take heavy inspiration from Apple's design language.
  - balls187 2y ago
    Back before I switched to mac’s, the visual quality of applications for OSX vs Windows was night and day. Coda (by panic) was one that I remember vividly.
    - jwells89 2y ago
      Coda’s successor Nova[0] continues the tradition. [0]: https://nova.app/ https://nova.app/
  - fennecfoxy 2y ago
    It makes sense to me now, waving the same colour flag makes you allies, so to speak. Or money.
- mike_hearn 2y ago
  It's a really nice app, I use it all the time. Definitely feels like the sort of app Apple would have made themselves.
- AndrewStephens 2y ago
  I am a Pixelmator Pro user and this move does not surprise me. The app has a very "first party, use MacOSX the way it is supposed to be used" feel to it and their website has always looked a lot like Apple's. I can't imagine them ever wanting to port the code to another OS. I purchased Pixelmator Pro years ago. I think I bought it for half price in a sale but even at the current listed price of $50 it is a steal. I am in not way a pro image editor but it has done everything I needed it to.
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xyst 2y ago
Great news for Pixelmator group/founders (probably a decent exit package). Not sure how I feel about the end user experience owned by Apple though. Apple has acquired many apps and often either killed them, silently (dark sky?), or UX gone down the toilet. Probably be one of the use cases cited when big tech is broken up
- dylan604 2y ago
  Killed but what did they do with the tech? Did it find its way into something else? The Apple Weather app has seen lots of positive development that I've assumed was integration of Dark Sky into their app rather than keeping it a separate app.
exabrial 2y ago
can we re-release the modal version? LOVE full modal apps!
sroussey 2y ago
Hopefully they will use the Pixelmator remove object model in photos since it is so much better than the Apple one in 18.1.
echoangle 2y ago
Can someone give some insight why acquisitions like this happen? Is it to take over the user base or is it actually about the product itself? I am asking because I always hear of multi-million dollar acquisitions and wonder if apple (in this case) couldn't just create the same software themselves cheaper.
- aiaf 2y ago
  Apple can bring in new users beyond Pixelmator's wildest dreams. This is definitely a product/talent acquisition. And Pixelmator has almost 2 decades worth of development already baked in, not sure how anyone can do it cheaper.
  - prmoustache 2y ago
    2 decades worth of development usually also mean 2 decades worth of tech debt. Most time consuming part of development of old software is trying to go around limitations inherited from past decisions.
- deleted 2y ago
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chias 2y ago
Call me jaded but > Stay tuned for exciting updates to come. the vast majority of the time the exciting updates end up being: 1. The product you know and love will continue with no difference! We just have free funding! Isn't that great! 2. We have stopped sales of the product, but don't worry, if you already own it you can continue to use it. 3. On X date it will stop working. Please migrate over to [other thing] which only has a smallsubset of the features you came to us for. Thank you for coming on this wonderful adventure with us, we are so grateful that you trusted us, though obviously this was misplaced. Byeeeeee. which, in fairness, is quite "exciting" if you rely on the software / service. Just not pleasantly exciting.
- jdgoesmarching 2y ago
  There’s a great Tumblr that tracks this exact phenomenon https://www.tumblr.com/ourincrediblejourney https://www.tumblr.com/ourincrediblejourney
  - hotgeart 2y ago
    How can I read this without making an account?
    - leshenka 2y ago
      disable javascript
- Vegenoid 2y ago
  I think this has happened enough times for it to no longer be a “jaded” view, it is the empirically supported view.
- grahamj 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - saaaaaam 2y ago
    and/or other people reflective of a non-heteronormative worldview.
facialwipe 2y ago
RIP Pixelmator.
softfalcon 2y ago
I know this isn't likely... but a part of me is going, "and so the downfall of Adobe supremacy begins..." evil cackling It would be hilarious watching them scramble to actually compete with an equal footing player for once. (Yes, I know I'm probably delusional, but it would be funny to watch)
- thewebguyd 2y ago
  One can only hope. Although it's not totally unlikely either. There's a decent sized market of prosumer/enthusiast photographers where CaptureOne is a bit overkill, but DarkTable isn't intuitive enough compared to Lightroom. They don't want the subscription, but have no other real choice ever since Aperture was killed. If Apple continues development of Photomator and continues to improve on it I can see it starting to eat away at Lightroom's marketshare for the enthusiast/semi-pro market. Cross-platform is a non issue as that market is majority macOS already. I'm hopeful, as someone that has a photography business on the side, that this works out. I miss Aperture, and CaptureOne isn't as good as batch editing for events as Lightroom Classic (although it's improved quite a bit lately). If Apple can get it on par or better than LR classic, and keep the one-time purchase model, I'm all in. Screw adobe.
handsclean 2y ago
Man, I don’t think this will be good for users. The biggest shortcoming of Pixelmator is its lack of Windows support. This rules out use in most of the professional world, not because one must run Windows, but because one must collaborate with others. Pixelmator has long been Apple-centric, but while previously I’d hoped that, in the right situation, they might expand their strategy, now I can’t imagine I will ever be able to use Pixelmator for work. Its second biggest shortcoming is the plugin ecosystem’s apathy towards it. Apple doesn’t have it in their DNA to fix this. Apple’s developer relations strategy is to own a lucrative enough audience that developers will endure anything for access to them. Apple doesn’t own the audience for professional image editor plugins, and I can’t imagine them suddenly learning a whole new mode of interacting with developers. Additionally, when a company acquires a much smaller one, they really don’t care at all about the smaller one’s business, they care about how their existing business is affected. For example, when Apple acquired Dark Sky, they transplanted the features that fit into their existing strategy, but they weren’t interested in crowd sourced data or Android weather apps, so they just deleted it, and now the world’s weather forecasts are worse. Maybe, hopefully, Apple believes their walled garden’s value will be increased by the addition of a Pixelmator-like product. But I fear it’s more likely they just want to stick layers in Photos, delete the rest, lose every Pixelmator customer, and cry a fraction of a tear equal to Pixelmator’s profits divided by their own. Affinity sold out, too. I don’t know where to go at this point.
- ozten 2y ago
  Why do you say Affinity sold out?
  - handsclean 2y ago
    They sold to Canva, which is strictly subscription based. As far as I know there haven’t been negative changes yet, but we’re still in the period before we’d see them.
    - 1123581321 2y ago
      Did you see the statement from Canva and Serif after those kinds of rumors started circling? They made a strong statement that they aren't making Affinity apps subscription or dissolving the teams on those apps. It's not the usual silence on post-acquisition plans.
stego-tech 2y ago
I don’t think this will be good for users, but I do think this is the right call at the right time for the company. They get (presumably) top dollar for their outfit prior to the next big market crash, and just as investor funding is drying up outside the AI realms. Hopefully everyone involved gets enough dosh to live comfortably, and can focus on their next big passion or project once the NDAs and Non-Competes run their course. For us users…oof, the market just got that much smaller. I already avoid Adobe, and I’m considering bailing on Capture One (if I could just get those Fuji LUTs elsewhere) for my photography hobby; Photomator seemed a natural alternative to explore, but now that’s no longer the case. Man, what I would give for Aperture to make a comeback. Just something simple, fast, and lacking in feature creep. No pesky AI masking or image replacement, just good old hardware-accelerated gallery management and image editing sans subscription.
- chaoskanzlerin 2y ago
  For what it's worth: a friend of mine has extracted the Fuji LUTs from the "official raw converter" and has been using them in darktable happily ever after ;)
  - stego-tech 2y ago
    I’ll have to try the same, then! Love my Fuji cameras, just don’t want to lose the official LUTs.
- Ikatza 2y ago
  Check Affinity, they have a top product for developing and editing.
  - dorian-graph 2y ago
    It's owned by Canva now though, so I don't have any more faith in it.
    - artdigital 2y ago
ozten 2y ago
Bummer. I switched to Affinity (Photo, Designer) this year and am very happy. You can buy a lifetime license across all platforms (iPad, Mac, Windows) for a fixed price. It is great to have high quality software that is not a subscription.
- prmoustache 2y ago
  I am not a fan of subscriptions but old versions of Photoshop were also lifetime licenses and a 10y old professional software still works exactly the same now as 10 years ago. Yet I don't see much professional gfx artists and workers claiming they are still using the old licensed software instead of whining about the sub. Is this trolling or are people just slave of the lure of the newest and latest? I like new useful functionnalities as anyone but if the licensing model change and I don't like it, I am also content with not having them. The key us to not taste/knowing about them. Ignorance is bliss sometimes.
  - ozten 2y ago
    > 10y old professional software still works exactly the same now as 10 years ago Great point for Windows. iOS, Mac, and Linux evolve too much to reliably run 10 year old binaries.
    - prmoustache 2y ago
      you can usually get away with it by chrooting an old release of a distro that has contemporary libs. And this is rarely needed as you usually have the sourcees available under a free license which allows you to recompike and/or port it. We are talking photoshop anyway so it isn't relevant in that case.
thenberlin 2y ago
Putting concerns about future states aside, congrats to the Pixelmator team. I've been using the app for years and it's a really great piece of software, well designed and well built. It's always been incredible value for the price, especially given that it basically replaces Photoshop for a wide swath of the market without compromising on UX (which is a problem for other competitors) at a price point that's like 1-2 months of an Adobe subscription (I don't even know exactly what that costs any more because Pixelmator + parts of the Affinity suite got me out of their clutches). Adobe must not be stoked about this news. And I'll just keep my fingers crossed this all heads in a direction that's more Logic than Dark Sky.
- nsbk 2y ago
  I can’t even remember how long have I been a Pixelmator and then Pixelmator pro user. I tried it once and I knew I would never go back to Photoshop again. An incredible bang for the price as well! Congrats to the Pixelmator team, and hoping for a bright future for their product. Fingers crossed though!
  - nsbk 2y ago
    It’s up there along with Procreate, another amazing product by an independent studio
    - musicale 2y ago
      Procreate really is a killer app for the iPad.
  - JKCalhoun 2y ago
    Yep. Me as well. I have the whole Affinity suite as well — including Affinity Photo — but Pixelmator Pro is my go-to.
  - musicale 2y ago
    I also hope Pixelmator/Pro doesn't die and continues as a product like GarageBand/Logic Pro.
sleepybrett 2y ago
I hope this means that we get a photoshop competitor in the pro-apps line.
chrisbrandow 2y ago
Even if there’s a risk of a “Dark sky” outcome, I’m still happy, because I figured that Pixelmator was at long term risk of getting squeezed in the photo-editing market. It’s just tough for indie devs playing with the big boys.
binarynate 2y ago
As a long time Pixelmator user, this really worries me. I loved DarkSky and then Apple acquired and killed it without a good replacement (I switched to Wunderground because Apple Weather is inaccurate, especially for precipitation predictions).
sirwhinesalot 2y ago
One of the best purchases I've made. Ridiculously cheap for the features it provides. Hope apple doesn't ruin it.
vunderba 2y ago
With apple giving away garageband for so long, I was always surprised that they didn't have a decent graphics editor option, so this makes a lot of sense to me. Hopefully it means that the pixelmator team will get a larger budget as well. It's by far my favorite graphics editor compared to affinity, Photoshop, Krita, etc. Only thing that I really wish it had was a solid puppet warp system for deformation like what you see in photopea or Photoshop.
rglover 2y ago
The best company that could have acquired them. A rebirth of Apple professional tools is desperately needed. Hopefully this is the start of more attention in that direction.
wlesieutre 2y ago
The greatest news for customers is that Adobe aren't the ones buying it RIP Macromedia Fireworks
- adastra22 2y ago
  Idk, Apple is just as likely to kill it.
  - thenberlin 2y ago
    Though way less likely to turn it into a cursed subscription zombie.
    - ghaff 2y ago
      Leaving aside pricing specifics, the main issue with subscriptions is for products that you just fire up once in a great while. So long as the pricing is reasonable, I have no particular issue with subscriptions for products I use on a routine basis--especially if they're products that more or less require ongoing updates to remain useful.
      - samatman 2y ago
        For me personally, Pixelmator is absolutely a product I just fire up once in a great while. I bought it anyway because when I need it, I need it. But there's no way I would let a program like that deflate my bank account like a pricked balloon.
        ghaff 2y ago
        I don't think you're disagreeing with me. I do subscribe to Photoshop mostly because Lightroom makes sense as a subscription. Otherwise I'd probably make do with GIMP or maybe something like Pixelmator. (I used Photoshop Elements for a long time.)
        2y ago
kylehotchkiss 2y ago
Maybe this acquisition keep Adobe up late at night for the coming years. I can never forgive them for making creative cloud such a stupid expensive subscription.
thadk 2y ago
Apple got scared: if Canva moves Affinity Suite to the web then that makes Apple computers less valuable unless you pay up for Adobe Creative Suite. Affinity Photo is a bit too powerful for the client-side web right now but within the next couple years it's plausible. Photoshop already works in the full-stack browser well. Just a bit of Canva engineering away.
- mort96 2y ago
  Hm? The Affinity Suite already works on Windows, which is realistically Apple's competitor in this space. The only platform moving to the web would enable is Linux and the BSDs, and while that would be great, I don't understand how you think it'd scare Apple?
dzhiurgis 2y ago
Sveikinimai!
kazcaptain 2y ago
Big up to the team. Great work over the years.
phtrivier 2y ago
>it’s crazy what a small group of dedicated people have been able to achieve over the years from all the way in Vilnius, Lithuania Silly segway, but at least the codebase, IP (and maybe the dev team ?) might get somewhere safe to stay. Call me a Cassandra, but the situation in the Baltics is not guaranteed to be safe in the next few years, especially given the probable results from a certain election in a few days. Of course, "will that photo app keep getting upgrades ?" would be very, very low on the list of problems. But I'm honestly wondering if that kind of consideration played a part in the sell. Also, as usual for any acquisition: congrats to whoever gets to receive the money, sorry for whoever gets to use the product.
- zerobrainwash 2y ago
  Yeah, it’s a silly segway. The team could have moved somewhere “safe” at any time before the acquisition lol. I’m from the Baltics as well, we are not moving anywhere from our land, photo editing features can wait.
  - phtrivier 2y ago
    Given the results of the election, I pray you be right and my fears be wrong. Stay safe.
iamsanteri 2y ago
For how much?
sidcool 2y ago
What can Pixelmator be possibly doing that Apple cannot?
thallavajhula 2y ago
This would be a great acquisition for Apple if they were to use the patents (if any) owned by Pixelmator and the team behind it to work on Apple's Photos app for the next year, now that Apple Intelligence is out in Beta.
b3ing 2y ago
Adobe is going online as in Photoshop will be browser based in the future as they already have a beta version. The days you have an Adobe desktop app that sends data to the cloud will be over in probably 10yrs. Sure they will probably make an "local desktop app" the same way Figma does, but it won't be a true desktop app anymore.
steve_adams_86 2y ago
Interesting, and congrats to the Pixelmator team. Why announce the acquisition before regulatory approval? I think I’d prefer to wait, but maybe it’s because this could be publicized through other channels anyway?
gregorymichael 2y ago
pixelmator's great. congrats!
ilumanty 2y ago
Not surprising at all. Their website already looked like Apple. Jokes aside, this has been long overdue. Hope the products will survive somehow.
tunnuz 2y ago
Excellent program, the only real competitor to Photoshop. I kinda liked that they were independent.
instagraham 2y ago
Just curious but what makes a non-Photoshop photo-editor tool "good"? Aside from AI fill, it seems like the fundamentals of this space haven't changed much since CS6 for 90% of design usecases. If you have a workflow that includes InDesign, there's a lot of benefit to using Photoshop which a competing tool would have to be truly pathbreaking to defeat. For someone who's learning, it's hard to beat the YouTube resources there are on Photoshop. It seems that to truly beat Adobe, you'd need a suite at least as good as its own, one that is worth industry making the shift from decades-old workflows
petarb 2y ago
Love the product, as a casual user of light photo editing it’s allowed me to get rid of Adobe. I hope they integrate this as a free first class citizen into iOS and MacOS
josefrichter 2y ago
Anything that helps avoid Adobe is more than welcome.
palla89 2y ago
I always loved pixelmator and they deserve it. 100% of it! Never greedy, ui and ux top notch and I never missed Photoshop once. I’m of course a little scared of its future but I hope Apple will just integrate it inside the new OS updates. Thank you Pixelmator team!!
chipweinberger 2y ago
wow, something I know a lot about. I used to work on the Photos Edit team at Apple. I’m both surprised and not surprised. The built in edit tools evolved steadily every year, and the infrastructure was quite solid, having been rewritten from the ground up years prior. But as we’ve seen ML and competitors like google adding so many more features, I kept having the same thought “wow the Edit team must be super busy right now”. I’m curious what features in Pixelmator they most wanted. But since it already integrates into Photos as a plugin, it will be extremely natural to integrate into the codebase. Cool move. Must be a fun time to be working on Edit!
withoutshape 2y ago
ultimate goal when submitting to app store, congrats
hyperbovine 2y ago
> We want to give a big thanks to our amazing users for your support over the past 17 years. Wow I feel old :)
lofaszvanitt 2y ago
There is a lot to do to make it more user friendly. That's where the first changes will be made if I have to guess.
creativenolo 2y ago
Are they acquiring the company to get the app, or are they acquiring the company to hire the people?
tomaskafka 2y ago
As a Pixelmator lover, I pray that Apple does not - kill it as they killed Aperture - slow down the development to a glacial pace ‘enjoyed’ by their other prosumer software
petetnt 2y ago
Hopefully Apple doesn't ruin this, but I assume that it will be infested with Apple AI features sooner than later. Oh well, at least Pixelmator Pro is not a subscription service, so it will last me for a while even if that becomes the case.
- jitl 2y ago
  Pixelmator already has plenty of "machine learning" features that work well.
otterpro 2y ago
I bought Pixelmator nearly a decade ago for my Mac, when I needed a decent image/photo editor. I hope they make Pixelmator free, as mac definitely needs a good default image editor that is more advanced than Preview.
- xutopia 2y ago
  I bought the first version but skipped out on the last one. I think they'll go the way of Final Cut Pro with this.
ndgold 2y ago
I have owned pixelmator apps for years and love this decision
putna 2y ago
Sveikinimai broliams ir visam kolektyvui!
blackhaj7 2y ago
Fantastic piece of software. Congrats to the Pixelmator team
saltcod 2y ago
Photomator has everything I need in a Lightroom replacement. I hope Apple takes and uses it all.
gcanyon 2y ago
I am extremely fond of Pixelmator -- I bought the original maybe twelve years ago, and Pixelmator Pro as soon as it came out. I had access to Photoshop for years before that, but the UI always pushed me away, with too big a hurdle just to get started. Pixelmator got me over that hump, and I never looked back. It's a great product that I use pretty much daily. I hope Apple runs with it and does great things.
ksec 2y ago
Did Pixelmator changed the title of the post or was it editorialised?
jfb 2y ago
BRING BACK APERTURE YOU COWARDS
artdigital 2y ago
I am fearing that Photomator+Pixelmator get absorbed into the Photos app, but I'm clinging onto the small slimmer of hope that, instead, they'll become entries into the Apple "Pro-Apps" family (next to FCPX, Logic, etc). Photomator finally added support for managing libraries outside of iCloud and this is exactly what I want. Sure, Photos can handle RAW files, but I don't want giant RAW images getting mixed with casual shots from my iPhone. Pixelmator is one of the few remaining pro-image editing apps that can be quickly opened for simple, but also serious image work. Affinity got acquired by Canva, now Pixelmator is with Apple. What does that leave us with?
windex 2y ago
So, another subscription service?
jomohke 2y ago
My initial assumption is that this is more about Photomator than Pixelmator (ie. their Lightroom alternative rather than their Photoshop alternative). Photomator has shown that you can add a lot of professional-level editing control to an Apple-Photos-like interface without making it difficult to use. Their ML team also seems quite good — for instance, their spot/object removal tool was often more reliable for me than the one in Lightroom, despite being from a far smaller team than Adobe. (I also feel that Photoshop has reduced in cultural significance in recent years, and that Lightroom is the more significant tool going forward, but that could reflect my own bubble)
hcarvalhoalves 2y ago
Great timing. I _almost_ bought a perpetual license last week. Now I know I'll wait.
krick 2y ago
Why is this big news? What exactly is Pixelmator? What I've been able to gather is that it's basically Photoshop, but I didn't get if it's just "yet another Photoshop" or if it has some very unique niche where it's popular or something. And why would Apple even want it? It's not like they buy every successful image editing (or otherwise) software out there, they have their self-contained ecosystem and I'd assume any new purchase would strive to enhance that.
dainiusse 2y ago
Valio lietuviams!
ZinCombi46 2y ago
Congrats team Pixelmator.
InsideOutSanta 2y ago
This seems like it would be a good match, except that Apple has a history of "odd" decisions when it comes to in-house software, from HyperCard to Claris Works to Final Cut Pro to Aperture. If I relied on Pixelmator, I would be at least a little bit worried.
Jemm 2y ago
My guess is Vision Pro port coming.
aosaigh 2y ago
I am dying to ditch Adobe and Lightroom (both Classic or CC) but none of the alternatives (Photomator included) seem to have the same quality of library management features as Lightroom (metadata editing, rating, keywords, face recognition etc.). Have any enthusiast photographers actually found a decent replacement?
- sebau 2y ago
  Try nitro. Only macOS at the moment, but such an impressive alternative
Razengan 2y ago
Well, hopefully now Macs can finally ship with a paint app.
xivusr 2y ago
Love that app, and when they first came out their UI/UX was better than Apple. I remember seeing their dark panels styling and thinking it was sleek and ahead of its time, Apple adopted that same look and feel not long after with their pro apps. Congrats to the Pixelmator team!
plussed_reader 2y ago
I can't wait for the pixelmator tools to be subsumed into Preview.
redandblack 2y ago
at this point it is what ai can do for you - no serious m&a without it
fennecfoxy 2y ago
Unsurprising. Just looking at their website it's full of the same marketing hubris that Apple is famous for, even down to using the exact UX/styling that Apple trends towards on their own site. There's plenty of free alternatives like rawtherapee, I guess Apple's marketing style really does work. Hmmm, taking note.

1184 points by dm 2y ago

I'm half unsurprised as Pixelmator was one of the apps that was extremely-tightly-integrated with Apple's APIs and ecosystem and was an excellent app as a result, and half worried that Apple will make unpopular changes to it as it's a less user-friendly app by necessity. (see also recently: Apple's Dark Sky acquisition and the worse integration of it into the Weather app)

JimDabell 2y ago
The other half of this equation is Sketch. Pixelmator is great for photos, Sketch is great for vectors and UI design. Both committed to being first-class macOS applications. But Sketch has steadily been losing ground to Figma. I wonder if an acquisition is on the cards there as well?
- drcongo 2y ago
  I'd actually like to see that happen I think. For my use cases Sketch is infinitely better than Figma. Figma is an abomination of an app.
  - jwells89 2y ago
    Figma to me feels geared toward collaborative prototyping specifically. It’s kinda clunky and awkward for creation of graphical assets, which is where I find Sketch a lot nicer.
    - pixxel 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - slater 2y ago
        Seriously?
        pixxel 2y ago
        [flagged]
- wmeredith 2y ago
  I adore Sketch, but the industry standard has been Figma. It's a web app and it beats the pants of Sketch for collaboration.
mrweasel 2y ago
> Pixelmator was one of the apps that was extremely-tightly-integrated with Apple's APIs and ecosystem While I can understand that companies want to build cross platform applications, something like Pixelmator shows us what can be done if you take advantage for the platform you're targeting. We're not seeing that often enough anymore. The few other times I've seen code that truly uses the operating system and APIs it's mostly been server software. It's not unique to macOS either, Windows provide a ton of APIs as well.

dagmx 2y ago

This is both simultaneously surprising (given how long they’ve been in the perfect space to acquire) and unsurprising (given that they’re a perfect fit) Really looking forward to what comes out of this.

spike021 2y ago

Would be cool to see this slotted in as a more advanced photo editing product akin to Aperture back in the day. Apple still makes iMovie separately from Final Cut for video, so there's definitely a path there I think to doing something similar for photography.

whartung 2y ago
At the same time, they don't really have anything like this in their portfolio in terms of Keynote/Pages/Numbers. They have some photo touch up ability in the Photo App, and maybe in preview. But nothing as first class as what Pixelmator is. There's a possibility for a new Paint app.
- al_borland 2y ago
  I wonder if this is also their play to offer some options for generative AI, without necessarily going against their current statements related to Photos where they don’t want to fundamentally change what a photograph is.

extr 2y ago

Makes sense. I'm a pretty casual user of Pixelmator Pro but it really does feel like a first party Apple app.

alsetmusic 2y ago
It does, and this makes me nervous that they’ll screw it up. I’m a user of Apple Logic Pro and they’ve done a decent job of keeping it going for what, fifteen plus years? But I can’t offhand think of any other popular acquisition that they’ve improved upon and the kept improving off the top of my head (I’m sure there’s more that I’m not thinking of, maybe CUPS) without just sorta forgetting. At least there’s still Acorn.
- ascagnel_ 2y ago
  The "Shortcuts" app was an acquisition and is fairly powerful as a graphical system automation app. I created a shortcut that looks up the overnight weather at my home, and determines if it needs to turn on the AC to run for ~30 minutes before I go to bed so the room is comfortably cool.

bangaroo 2y ago

apple's pro apps have been in a weird space for a while. aperture dying was a bummer, and final cut and logic feel simultaneously actively developed and abandoned to me, there's just not much buzz around them. it would be very neat if apple started to build the necessary portfolio of software to provide a viable, ideally not-subscription-based competitor to adobe's suite of products. they certainly have had the chops to be competitive in the creative space for a long time, so it feels like something they'd be well-positioned to seriously take on if they invested heavily in it. i haven't been as in touch with the video editing space as i was 2 decades ago when i worked in TV, but it feels like FCP is not the juggernaut it once was from the outside. my read may be wrong. similarly, logic doesn't feel as prominent in the music world anymore - i really rarely see musicians using it these days, though again that may just be my bias in the kinds of folks i pay attention to. would be cool to see the apple pro suite really regain its mojo and shake things up.

vr46 2y ago
Aperture could have been amazing, but it was slow, buggy and suffered from a catastrophic data loss that several of my Photojournalism classmates fell victim to - just as Lightroom appeared. FCP was outstanding in its time, but was neglected. I went all in on Logic, however, and that has proved a great buy, no subscription model, fantastic extras and works super well. If they can rebuild a enthusiast-targeted set of apps again, but stick with it, the future looks bright. I cannot imagine Apple ever competing with Capture One or most of the other circle of RAW image processors, which have some rather niche features, but they might be able to take on Lightroom.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- jwells89 2y ago
  The no-subscription aspect is a huge differentiator IMO, and depending on situation is even worth trading off features. Losing access to your work because you stopped your Adobe subscription sucks, as does the eventual premium over single-purchase.
- 2y ago

runjake 2y ago

This is in no way a criticism of the news, but if Pixelmator isn't for you, consider trying Acorn, developed by the reputable indie developer Gus Mueller: https://flyingmeat.com/acorn/ https://flyingmeat.com/acorn/ It aligns better with my concept of an image editor, based on my experience with Photoshop 4.x-6.x and The Gimp.

mattgreenrocks 2y ago
Thanks! Pixelmator just didn't click for me. Hotkeys were different and it felt like it operated slightly differently from old school Photoshop.
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tgv 2y ago
I got both when they were very cheap, and I stuck with Pixelmator. It felt best for me. But ... I'm a casual user. No clever or subtle edits.
rgovostes 2y ago
Gus has personally responded to every bit of feedback I’ve submitted, with quick turnaround for bug fixes and thoughtful engagement with suggestions. Acorn strikes the right balance for me of simplicity vs richness of features.
heliographe 2y ago
+1 for Acorn, and also check out Retrobatch by the same developer - it's a super powerful image processing environment - the way I'd describe it is like having a visual command line dedicated to image processing (but better because it's visual and you don't have to read man pages). Great work all around by Gus Mueller.

toinbis 2y ago

Well done team Lithuania! Remember hearing Pixelmator founders giving a speech ~12 years ago. They were very vocal and repeated this many times: "Our marketing strategy is to just focus on the product". Not sure I agree with that statement, but they sure seem to followed it thoroughly. Congrats on the acquisition!

mattgreenrocks 2y ago
Nice change of pace from the current zeitgeist of, "you should really be Extremely Online to have a chance!" that is oft-repeated by...Extremely Online people.
kermatt 2y ago
> "Our marketing strategy is to just focus on the product". I wish more companies had this perspective, in contrast to the "Barely MVP and mostly marketing spend" to get the most signups / MAU in hopes of an acquisition.
- jbverschoor 2y ago
  People tend to forget that product is one of the Ps Marketing is not the same as promotion
wslh 2y ago
Time and patience pays when you have a great product.
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mihaaly 2y ago
I use it for ages, and did not get to know it through promotion or advertisement or campaign but reputation. And I stayed, updated not because some chatter buzz or famousness or other face matter but because it was good for me. Their strategy worked then and there.

SSLy 2y ago

Whoa, nice. I’ve purchased Photomator while it was just a couple of euros.

segasaturn 2y ago

I love Pixelmator Pro, especially because of no subscription fee. If you own Pro for more than 4 months you're spending less money than you would on Photoshop!

minimaxir 2y ago
They had switched their Photomator spinoff to subscription pricing in 2022: https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/wrieaa/pixelmator_photo_switches_to_subscription_pricing/ https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/wrieaa/pixelmator_ph... It's within the realm of possibility that a relaunched version of Pixelmator Pro could have subscription pricing as Apple has been playing with that with Logic Pro on iPad: https://support.apple.com/guide/logicpro-ipad/start-a-logic-pro-subscription-lpipe5cb5c67/ipados https://support.apple.com/guide/logicpro-ipad/start-a-logic-...
kstrauser 2y ago
It's the sweet spot for me. I don't edit images for a living, but I push pixels around enough for hobbies (e.g. making video game maps) that I want something user friendly and pleasant. Pixelmator Pro has way more features than I'll ever need or use, and all the ones I do need are ergonomic to me, a person who doesn't have decades of Photoshop muscle memory.
- ModernMech 2y ago
  This is the market GIMP needed to fill but doesn't. It's definitely capable but it's never been "friendly and pleasant" to my eye.
  - segasaturn 2y ago
    Paint.NET fills that market also, but it's Windows-only shareware.
  - vunderba 2y ago
    Krita feels like GIMP done right to me,

pier25 2y ago

Very interesting move. Adobe must be trembling. Lots of people have already left Premiere and AE for Resolve. If Apple offers Photoshop and Illustrator alternatives it will remove the need to pay for the Adobe subscription for a lot of Mac users (that will probably be the case for me).

talldayo 2y ago
> Adobe must be trembling. Adobe is probably popping open a champagne for every cross-platform Creative Cloud competitor that gets mothballed with Apple's capital. If Microsoft acquired Affinity next, the Adobe offices would look like a disco ball for a week.
- cyberpunk 2y ago
  I’ve never seen a graphics person using a windows machine in all my years in tech… Maybe I’m in some sort of bubble.
  - talldayo 2y ago
    I guess it depends where you work. In CAD and 3D animation work, Windows machines outnumber the Macs I see 10:1. In smaller shops this ratio probably flips around but Adobe (and others) have a large and captive contingent of Windows users to profit off.
    - pier25 2y ago
      Adobe doesn't offer CAD and 3D animation products.
      - talldayo 2y ago
        [(and others)]
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]

hggigg 2y ago

Great news. Hopefully this will drive enough improvements to finally get me off adobe. Photomator is nearly good enough to replace Lightroom and Pixelmator is much nicer than photoshop for casual users.

poochkoishi728 2y ago

Astonishingly to me at the time, the app never had a History function (as in Photoshop, list of history you could click through). I had been waiting 3+ years for it to materialize, in order to purchase it. Have since moved on to vector editors and don't see a need to go back. *Actually now that I think about it, I don't seem to miss the lack of History in vector editors (and just use undo).

ModernMech 2y ago
Will fit right in with iMovie, which doesn't allow you to select the resolution of the exported video. It's like the island of misfit apps.
- JimDabell 2y ago
  iMovie lets you select the resolution. File > Share > File, and the dialog that pops up has a picker for resolution right underneath the picker for format.
  - ModernMech 2y ago
    It defaults to the maximum resolution of the first clip that you import. So if you import a 720p movie first and want to export to 4k later on, you can't. You can export smaller but not larger. To export at 4K, you have to get rid of everything, import a 4k clip, and put everything back. And even then, resolutions are preset, you can't do a custom resolution.
    - JimDabell 2y ago
      I think “iMovie can’t upscale” is a lot more accurate then. “iMovie doesn't allow you to select the resolution” is very misleading, because it does allow you to do that.
      - ModernMech 2y ago
        No, it's not just about upscaling, please re-read what I wrote. iMovie can upscale. You just have to trick it into doing so, because you can't set the resolution. Also, you are limited to the 720, 1080, 4k etc. If you want to export a square movie you can't. Best option is to export from iMovie and crop it in iPhoto.

kccqzy 2y ago

I bought and used Pixelmator a long time ago, but stopped right after Affinity Photo (and Designer) came out. I didn't follow its development very closely since then. Has anyone used both Pixelmator and Affinity Photo recently? I'd appreciate some comparison here.

mattkevan 2y ago
I’ve used both extensively since release. Anything but Adobe. While I like the idea of the affinity products, I don’t like using them much. Probably just me but I find them quite clunky and have to look up how to do simple things in the guides. Never quite clicked at an intuitive level. Whereas Pixelmator seems to fit directly into my muscle memory and I’ve never had to think about how to achieve something with it. Maybe because it’s so Mac-like. Plus the team have consistently released big new features for it over the years, making it outstanding value for money.

karolist 2y ago

Huge congratulations team, you were always one of the few Lithuanian companies I'm proud to talk about. Didžiausi sveikinimai!

joshstrange 2y ago

Pixelmator is my favorite photo editing tool. It’s like Photoshop without the baggage/subscription and is perfect for the types of edits I need to do. I’m cautiously optimistic about this acquisition, I almost hope Apple just makes it free as part of the iLife suite (or whatever it’s called now).

barkingcat 2y ago

Wow love pixelmator! Great for team but Uncertain for product.

robenkleene 2y ago

Pure speculation: This is about visionOS. Photo editing is the least friction "pro" task to bring to a spatial computing platform. The other options I considered: ⁃ Renewed interesting in pro use cases in general. I don't see enough incentive for this. Apple's historical interest in this was winning over creatives, but particularly creatives interested in photography are already won. ⁃ Apple wanted the tech for something on iOS. I don't think there's enough "special sauce" tech Pixelmator has to justify this. Pixelmator's tech is only valuable as a full package.

robenkleene 2y ago
I think Pixelmator probably already runs on visionOS (I don't have one personally) but I doubt they spend enough engineering resources to make it amazing because the ROI isn't worth it for a third party company. But of course Apple can make Pixelmator amazing on visionOS without even noticing the cost.
surfingdino 2y ago
Hasn't Apple just discontinued Vision Pro?
- echoangle 2y ago
  Did they? Do you have a link? All I can find is some rumors about reducing production.
  - latexr 2y ago
    They didn’t. The thing you found about reducing production is likely what GP is thinking of. The headlines had several people thinking the same as them on first read. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41925329 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41925329
- latexr 2y ago
  They have not. They stopped production on the current version of the hardware, which is not the same thing as discontinuing the product. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41925006 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41925006

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

lynndotpy 2y ago

Is there any way this can go bad? When Apple acquired DarkSky, they absolutely destroyed a service that I loved and relied on. Four years on, Apple Weather is less reliable than DarkSky, and not even close to feature complete. But DarkSky was a cross-platform service, whereas Pixelmator is software that's already Apple-only. I'm wondering how much I should be worried, and if I should already be abandoning ship.

leshenka 2y ago
Can't you just zip the current PixelmatorPro.app and use it in case you won't like where things are going?
mikey_p 2y ago
I dunno, I thought "sherlocking" wouldn't be a thing if they acquired instead of duplicating their solution in-house, but it's the same effect, just more equitable to the original creators.
bromuro 2y ago
DarkSky wasn’t available in app stores other then US so I don’t even know what are you talking about :(
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- prophesi 2y ago
  It started off only using the USA's National Weather Service as a source[0] but gradually added international support[1]. But even then, outside of the US/UK, you would have been better off finding an app that you know uses your region's weather stations. [0] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/oliviadam/dark-sky-hyperlocal-weather-prediction-and-visuali#h:Where-the-radar-data-comes-from https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/oliviadam/dark-sky-hype... [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20190110174010/https://darksky.net/dev/docs/sources https://web.archive.org/web/20190110174010/https://darksky.n...

asimpletune 2y ago

Combining Pixelmator and Procreate via airdrop is such a nice workflow. I'm happy for the team and I'm holding out hope this will be good for Mac users in the long run. A Blackmagic acquisition would also be interesting. It's too bad there isn't a vector drawing app that's at the same level of Mac integration as Pixelmator. I've used Inkscape and it was amazing but unfortunately very slow.

JimDabell 2y ago
Sketch might be what you’re looking for: https://www.sketch.com https://www.sketch.com

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

justmarc 2y ago

Well deserved. Congratulations to the Pixelmator team!

strongpigeon 2y ago

Really glad for them. Pixelmator Pro is my go-to image editing software. Reminds me of Fireworks (which I really liked, but then Adobe happened) with slightly worse vector functionalities. Curious if anybody has a good “combined” editor to suggest.

askafriend 2y ago

Best photo editing tool out there for most people. Incredible interface design and integration with the OS. And such a natural fit of acquirer. This makes total sense and I'm excited to see what comes out of this!

mikey_p 2y ago

I'm still on Pixelmator classic 3.9 (it's what I have a license for) and it's great. Does everything I need easily as a casual user, and it hasn't changed in years! I've never even thought about upgrading.

nesk_ 2y ago
The upgrade is worth it for vector image editing.

lowkey_ 2y ago

I'd never heard of Pixelmator before (congrats to them on the exit), and: WOW their website already looks like an Apple website. The colors, the font, the logo with the same colors as Apple Photos, all the images that show a Mac window, the shade of red in the top right, the "machine learning" section that almost looks like Notes, and I scrolled down and it's all about how great Mac is. It seemed inevitable that Apple would either acquire or copy them, with how much this already looks like an Apple product, and is exclusively made for Mac apparently.

turnsout 2y ago
It's not that unique—a lot of Apple-ecosystem developers take heavy inspiration from Apple's design language.
- balls187 2y ago
  Back before I switched to mac’s, the visual quality of applications for OSX vs Windows was night and day. Coda (by panic) was one that I remember vividly.
  - jwells89 2y ago
    Coda’s successor Nova[0] continues the tradition. [0]: https://nova.app/ https://nova.app/
- fennecfoxy 2y ago
  It makes sense to me now, waving the same colour flag makes you allies, so to speak. Or money.
mike_hearn 2y ago
It's a really nice app, I use it all the time. Definitely feels like the sort of app Apple would have made themselves.
AndrewStephens 2y ago
I am a Pixelmator Pro user and this move does not surprise me. The app has a very "first party, use MacOSX the way it is supposed to be used" feel to it and their website has always looked a lot like Apple's. I can't imagine them ever wanting to port the code to another OS. I purchased Pixelmator Pro years ago. I think I bought it for half price in a sale but even at the current listed price of $50 it is a steal. I am in not way a pro image editor but it has done everything I needed it to.

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xyst 2y ago

Great news for Pixelmator group/founders (probably a decent exit package). Not sure how I feel about the end user experience owned by Apple though. Apple has acquired many apps and often either killed them, silently (dark sky?), or UX gone down the toilet. Probably be one of the use cases cited when big tech is broken up

dylan604 2y ago
Killed but what did they do with the tech? Did it find its way into something else? The Apple Weather app has seen lots of positive development that I've assumed was integration of Dark Sky into their app rather than keeping it a separate app.

exabrial 2y ago

can we re-release the modal version? LOVE full modal apps!

sroussey 2y ago

Hopefully they will use the Pixelmator remove object model in photos since it is so much better than the Apple one in 18.1.

echoangle 2y ago

Can someone give some insight why acquisitions like this happen? Is it to take over the user base or is it actually about the product itself? I am asking because I always hear of multi-million dollar acquisitions and wonder if apple (in this case) couldn't just create the same software themselves cheaper.

aiaf 2y ago
Apple can bring in new users beyond Pixelmator's wildest dreams. This is definitely a product/talent acquisition. And Pixelmator has almost 2 decades worth of development already baked in, not sure how anyone can do it cheaper.
- prmoustache 2y ago
  2 decades worth of development usually also mean 2 decades worth of tech debt. Most time consuming part of development of old software is trying to go around limitations inherited from past decisions.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

chias 2y ago

Call me jaded but > Stay tuned for exciting updates to come. the vast majority of the time the exciting updates end up being: 1. The product you know and love will continue with no difference! We just have free funding! Isn't that great! 2. We have stopped sales of the product, but don't worry, if you already own it you can continue to use it. 3. On X date it will stop working. Please migrate over to [other thing] which only has a smallsubset of the features you came to us for. Thank you for coming on this wonderful adventure with us, we are so grateful that you trusted us, though obviously this was misplaced. Byeeeeee. which, in fairness, is quite "exciting" if you rely on the software / service. Just not pleasantly exciting.

jdgoesmarching 2y ago
There’s a great Tumblr that tracks this exact phenomenon https://www.tumblr.com/ourincrediblejourney https://www.tumblr.com/ourincrediblejourney
- hotgeart 2y ago
  How can I read this without making an account?
  - leshenka 2y ago
    disable javascript
Vegenoid 2y ago
I think this has happened enough times for it to no longer be a “jaded” view, it is the empirically supported view.
grahamj 2y ago
[flagged]
- saaaaaam 2y ago
  and/or other people reflective of a non-heteronormative worldview.

facialwipe 2y ago

RIP Pixelmator.

softfalcon 2y ago

I know this isn't likely... but a part of me is going, "and so the downfall of Adobe supremacy begins..." evil cackling It would be hilarious watching them scramble to actually compete with an equal footing player for once. (Yes, I know I'm probably delusional, but it would be funny to watch)

thewebguyd 2y ago
One can only hope. Although it's not totally unlikely either. There's a decent sized market of prosumer/enthusiast photographers where CaptureOne is a bit overkill, but DarkTable isn't intuitive enough compared to Lightroom. They don't want the subscription, but have no other real choice ever since Aperture was killed. If Apple continues development of Photomator and continues to improve on it I can see it starting to eat away at Lightroom's marketshare for the enthusiast/semi-pro market. Cross-platform is a non issue as that market is majority macOS already. I'm hopeful, as someone that has a photography business on the side, that this works out. I miss Aperture, and CaptureOne isn't as good as batch editing for events as Lightroom Classic (although it's improved quite a bit lately). If Apple can get it on par or better than LR classic, and keep the one-time purchase model, I'm all in. Screw adobe.

handsclean 2y ago

Man, I don’t think this will be good for users. The biggest shortcoming of Pixelmator is its lack of Windows support. This rules out use in most of the professional world, not because one must run Windows, but because one must collaborate with others. Pixelmator has long been Apple-centric, but while previously I’d hoped that, in the right situation, they might expand their strategy, now I can’t imagine I will ever be able to use Pixelmator for work. Its second biggest shortcoming is the plugin ecosystem’s apathy towards it. Apple doesn’t have it in their DNA to fix this. Apple’s developer relations strategy is to own a lucrative enough audience that developers will endure anything for access to them. Apple doesn’t own the audience for professional image editor plugins, and I can’t imagine them suddenly learning a whole new mode of interacting with developers. Additionally, when a company acquires a much smaller one, they really don’t care at all about the smaller one’s business, they care about how their existing business is affected. For example, when Apple acquired Dark Sky, they transplanted the features that fit into their existing strategy, but they weren’t interested in crowd sourced data or Android weather apps, so they just deleted it, and now the world’s weather forecasts are worse. Maybe, hopefully, Apple believes their walled garden’s value will be increased by the addition of a Pixelmator-like product. But I fear it’s more likely they just want to stick layers in Photos, delete the rest, lose every Pixelmator customer, and cry a fraction of a tear equal to Pixelmator’s profits divided by their own. Affinity sold out, too. I don’t know where to go at this point.

ozten 2y ago
Why do you say Affinity sold out?
- handsclean 2y ago
  They sold to Canva, which is strictly subscription based. As far as I know there haven’t been negative changes yet, but we’re still in the period before we’d see them.
  - 1123581321 2y ago
    Did you see the statement from Canva and Serif after those kinds of rumors started circling? They made a strong statement that they aren't making Affinity apps subscription or dissolving the teams on those apps. It's not the usual silence on post-acquisition plans.

stego-tech 2y ago

I don’t think this will be good for users, but I do think this is the right call at the right time for the company. They get (presumably) top dollar for their outfit prior to the next big market crash, and just as investor funding is drying up outside the AI realms. Hopefully everyone involved gets enough dosh to live comfortably, and can focus on their next big passion or project once the NDAs and Non-Competes run their course. For us users…oof, the market just got that much smaller. I already avoid Adobe, and I’m considering bailing on Capture One (if I could just get those Fuji LUTs elsewhere) for my photography hobby; Photomator seemed a natural alternative to explore, but now that’s no longer the case. Man, what I would give for Aperture to make a comeback. Just something simple, fast, and lacking in feature creep. No pesky AI masking or image replacement, just good old hardware-accelerated gallery management and image editing sans subscription.

chaoskanzlerin 2y ago
For what it's worth: a friend of mine has extracted the Fuji LUTs from the "official raw converter" and has been using them in darktable happily ever after ;)
- stego-tech 2y ago
  I’ll have to try the same, then! Love my Fuji cameras, just don’t want to lose the official LUTs.
Ikatza 2y ago
Check Affinity, they have a top product for developing and editing.
- dorian-graph 2y ago
  It's owned by Canva now though, so I don't have any more faith in it.
  - artdigital 2y ago

ozten 2y ago

Bummer. I switched to Affinity (Photo, Designer) this year and am very happy. You can buy a lifetime license across all platforms (iPad, Mac, Windows) for a fixed price. It is great to have high quality software that is not a subscription.

prmoustache 2y ago
I am not a fan of subscriptions but old versions of Photoshop were also lifetime licenses and a 10y old professional software still works exactly the same now as 10 years ago. Yet I don't see much professional gfx artists and workers claiming they are still using the old licensed software instead of whining about the sub. Is this trolling or are people just slave of the lure of the newest and latest? I like new useful functionnalities as anyone but if the licensing model change and I don't like it, I am also content with not having them. The key us to not taste/knowing about them. Ignorance is bliss sometimes.
- ozten 2y ago
  > 10y old professional software still works exactly the same now as 10 years ago Great point for Windows. iOS, Mac, and Linux evolve too much to reliably run 10 year old binaries.
  - prmoustache 2y ago
    you can usually get away with it by chrooting an old release of a distro that has contemporary libs. And this is rarely needed as you usually have the sourcees available under a free license which allows you to recompike and/or port it. We are talking photoshop anyway so it isn't relevant in that case.

thenberlin 2y ago

Putting concerns about future states aside, congrats to the Pixelmator team. I've been using the app for years and it's a really great piece of software, well designed and well built. It's always been incredible value for the price, especially given that it basically replaces Photoshop for a wide swath of the market without compromising on UX (which is a problem for other competitors) at a price point that's like 1-2 months of an Adobe subscription (I don't even know exactly what that costs any more because Pixelmator + parts of the Affinity suite got me out of their clutches). Adobe must not be stoked about this news. And I'll just keep my fingers crossed this all heads in a direction that's more Logic than Dark Sky.

nsbk 2y ago
I can’t even remember how long have I been a Pixelmator and then Pixelmator pro user. I tried it once and I knew I would never go back to Photoshop again. An incredible bang for the price as well! Congrats to the Pixelmator team, and hoping for a bright future for their product. Fingers crossed though!
- nsbk 2y ago
  It’s up there along with Procreate, another amazing product by an independent studio
  - musicale 2y ago
    Procreate really is a killer app for the iPad.
- JKCalhoun 2y ago
  Yep. Me as well. I have the whole Affinity suite as well — including Affinity Photo — but Pixelmator Pro is my go-to.
- musicale 2y ago
  I also hope Pixelmator/Pro doesn't die and continues as a product like GarageBand/Logic Pro.

sleepybrett 2y ago

I hope this means that we get a photoshop competitor in the pro-apps line.

chrisbrandow 2y ago

Even if there’s a risk of a “Dark sky” outcome, I’m still happy, because I figured that Pixelmator was at long term risk of getting squeezed in the photo-editing market. It’s just tough for indie devs playing with the big boys.

binarynate 2y ago

As a long time Pixelmator user, this really worries me. I loved DarkSky and then Apple acquired and killed it without a good replacement (I switched to Wunderground because Apple Weather is inaccurate, especially for precipitation predictions).

sirwhinesalot 2y ago

One of the best purchases I've made. Ridiculously cheap for the features it provides. Hope apple doesn't ruin it.

vunderba 2y ago

With apple giving away garageband for so long, I was always surprised that they didn't have a decent graphics editor option, so this makes a lot of sense to me. Hopefully it means that the pixelmator team will get a larger budget as well. It's by far my favorite graphics editor compared to affinity, Photoshop, Krita, etc. Only thing that I really wish it had was a solid puppet warp system for deformation like what you see in photopea or Photoshop.

rglover 2y ago

The best company that could have acquired them. A rebirth of Apple professional tools is desperately needed. Hopefully this is the start of more attention in that direction.

wlesieutre 2y ago

The greatest news for customers is that Adobe aren't the ones buying it RIP Macromedia Fireworks

adastra22 2y ago
Idk, Apple is just as likely to kill it.
- thenberlin 2y ago
  Though way less likely to turn it into a cursed subscription zombie.
  - ghaff 2y ago
    Leaving aside pricing specifics, the main issue with subscriptions is for products that you just fire up once in a great while. So long as the pricing is reasonable, I have no particular issue with subscriptions for products I use on a routine basis--especially if they're products that more or less require ongoing updates to remain useful.
    - samatman 2y ago
      For me personally, Pixelmator is absolutely a product I just fire up once in a great while. I bought it anyway because when I need it, I need it. But there's no way I would let a program like that deflate my bank account like a pricked balloon.
      - ghaff 2y ago
        I don't think you're disagreeing with me. I do subscribe to Photoshop mostly because Lightroom makes sense as a subscription. Otherwise I'd probably make do with GIMP or maybe something like Pixelmator. (I used Photoshop Elements for a long time.)
        2y ago

kylehotchkiss 2y ago

Maybe this acquisition keep Adobe up late at night for the coming years. I can never forgive them for making creative cloud such a stupid expensive subscription.

thadk 2y ago

Apple got scared: if Canva moves Affinity Suite to the web then that makes Apple computers less valuable unless you pay up for Adobe Creative Suite. Affinity Photo is a bit too powerful for the client-side web right now but within the next couple years it's plausible. Photoshop already works in the full-stack browser well. Just a bit of Canva engineering away.

mort96 2y ago
Hm? The Affinity Suite already works on Windows, which is realistically Apple's competitor in this space. The only platform moving to the web would enable is Linux and the BSDs, and while that would be great, I don't understand how you think it'd scare Apple?

dzhiurgis 2y ago

Sveikinimai!

kazcaptain 2y ago

Big up to the team. Great work over the years.

phtrivier 2y ago

>it’s crazy what a small group of dedicated people have been able to achieve over the years from all the way in Vilnius, Lithuania Silly segway, but at least the codebase, IP (and maybe the dev team ?) might get somewhere safe to stay. Call me a Cassandra, but the situation in the Baltics is not guaranteed to be safe in the next few years, especially given the probable results from a certain election in a few days. Of course, "will that photo app keep getting upgrades ?" would be very, very low on the list of problems. But I'm honestly wondering if that kind of consideration played a part in the sell. Also, as usual for any acquisition: congrats to whoever gets to receive the money, sorry for whoever gets to use the product.

zerobrainwash 2y ago
Yeah, it’s a silly segway. The team could have moved somewhere “safe” at any time before the acquisition lol. I’m from the Baltics as well, we are not moving anywhere from our land, photo editing features can wait.
- phtrivier 2y ago
  Given the results of the election, I pray you be right and my fears be wrong. Stay safe.

iamsanteri 2y ago

For how much?

sidcool 2y ago

What can Pixelmator be possibly doing that Apple cannot?

thallavajhula 2y ago

This would be a great acquisition for Apple if they were to use the patents (if any) owned by Pixelmator and the team behind it to work on Apple's Photos app for the next year, now that Apple Intelligence is out in Beta.

b3ing 2y ago

Adobe is going online as in Photoshop will be browser based in the future as they already have a beta version. The days you have an Adobe desktop app that sends data to the cloud will be over in probably 10yrs. Sure they will probably make an "local desktop app" the same way Figma does, but it won't be a true desktop app anymore.

steve_adams_86 2y ago

Interesting, and congrats to the Pixelmator team. Why announce the acquisition before regulatory approval? I think I’d prefer to wait, but maybe it’s because this could be publicized through other channels anyway?

gregorymichael 2y ago

pixelmator's great. congrats!

ilumanty 2y ago

Not surprising at all. Their website already looked like Apple. Jokes aside, this has been long overdue. Hope the products will survive somehow.

tunnuz 2y ago

Excellent program, the only real competitor to Photoshop. I kinda liked that they were independent.

instagraham 2y ago

Just curious but what makes a non-Photoshop photo-editor tool "good"? Aside from AI fill, it seems like the fundamentals of this space haven't changed much since CS6 for 90% of design usecases. If you have a workflow that includes InDesign, there's a lot of benefit to using Photoshop which a competing tool would have to be truly pathbreaking to defeat. For someone who's learning, it's hard to beat the YouTube resources there are on Photoshop. It seems that to truly beat Adobe, you'd need a suite at least as good as its own, one that is worth industry making the shift from decades-old workflows

petarb 2y ago

Love the product, as a casual user of light photo editing it’s allowed me to get rid of Adobe. I hope they integrate this as a free first class citizen into iOS and MacOS

josefrichter 2y ago

Anything that helps avoid Adobe is more than welcome.

palla89 2y ago

I always loved pixelmator and they deserve it. 100% of it! Never greedy, ui and ux top notch and I never missed Photoshop once. I’m of course a little scared of its future but I hope Apple will just integrate it inside the new OS updates. Thank you Pixelmator team!!

chipweinberger 2y ago

wow, something I know a lot about. I used to work on the Photos Edit team at Apple. I’m both surprised and not surprised. The built in edit tools evolved steadily every year, and the infrastructure was quite solid, having been rewritten from the ground up years prior. But as we’ve seen ML and competitors like google adding so many more features, I kept having the same thought “wow the Edit team must be super busy right now”. I’m curious what features in Pixelmator they most wanted. But since it already integrates into Photos as a plugin, it will be extremely natural to integrate into the codebase. Cool move. Must be a fun time to be working on Edit!

withoutshape 2y ago

ultimate goal when submitting to app store, congrats

hyperbovine 2y ago

> We want to give a big thanks to our amazing users for your support over the past 17 years. Wow I feel old :)

lofaszvanitt 2y ago

There is a lot to do to make it more user friendly. That's where the first changes will be made if I have to guess.

creativenolo 2y ago

Are they acquiring the company to get the app, or are they acquiring the company to hire the people?

tomaskafka 2y ago

As a Pixelmator lover, I pray that Apple does not - kill it as they killed Aperture - slow down the development to a glacial pace ‘enjoyed’ by their other prosumer software

petetnt 2y ago

Hopefully Apple doesn't ruin this, but I assume that it will be infested with Apple AI features sooner than later. Oh well, at least Pixelmator Pro is not a subscription service, so it will last me for a while even if that becomes the case.

jitl 2y ago
Pixelmator already has plenty of "machine learning" features that work well.

otterpro 2y ago

I bought Pixelmator nearly a decade ago for my Mac, when I needed a decent image/photo editor. I hope they make Pixelmator free, as mac definitely needs a good default image editor that is more advanced than Preview.

xutopia 2y ago
I bought the first version but skipped out on the last one. I think they'll go the way of Final Cut Pro with this.

ndgold 2y ago

I have owned pixelmator apps for years and love this decision

putna 2y ago

Sveikinimai broliams ir visam kolektyvui!

blackhaj7 2y ago

Fantastic piece of software. Congrats to the Pixelmator team

saltcod 2y ago

Photomator has everything I need in a Lightroom replacement. I hope Apple takes and uses it all.

gcanyon 2y ago

I am extremely fond of Pixelmator -- I bought the original maybe twelve years ago, and Pixelmator Pro as soon as it came out. I had access to Photoshop for years before that, but the UI always pushed me away, with too big a hurdle just to get started. Pixelmator got me over that hump, and I never looked back. It's a great product that I use pretty much daily. I hope Apple runs with it and does great things.

ksec 2y ago

Did Pixelmator changed the title of the post or was it editorialised?

jfb 2y ago

BRING BACK APERTURE YOU COWARDS

artdigital 2y ago

I am fearing that Photomator+Pixelmator get absorbed into the Photos app, but I'm clinging onto the small slimmer of hope that, instead, they'll become entries into the Apple "Pro-Apps" family (next to FCPX, Logic, etc). Photomator finally added support for managing libraries outside of iCloud and this is exactly what I want. Sure, Photos can handle RAW files, but I don't want giant RAW images getting mixed with casual shots from my iPhone. Pixelmator is one of the few remaining pro-image editing apps that can be quickly opened for simple, but also serious image work. Affinity got acquired by Canva, now Pixelmator is with Apple. What does that leave us with?

windex 2y ago

So, another subscription service?

jomohke 2y ago

My initial assumption is that this is more about Photomator than Pixelmator (ie. their Lightroom alternative rather than their Photoshop alternative). Photomator has shown that you can add a lot of professional-level editing control to an Apple-Photos-like interface without making it difficult to use. Their ML team also seems quite good — for instance, their spot/object removal tool was often more reliable for me than the one in Lightroom, despite being from a far smaller team than Adobe. (I also feel that Photoshop has reduced in cultural significance in recent years, and that Lightroom is the more significant tool going forward, but that could reflect my own bubble)

hcarvalhoalves 2y ago

Great timing. I _almost_ bought a perpetual license last week. Now I know I'll wait.

krick 2y ago

Why is this big news? What exactly is Pixelmator? What I've been able to gather is that it's basically Photoshop, but I didn't get if it's just "yet another Photoshop" or if it has some very unique niche where it's popular or something. And why would Apple even want it? It's not like they buy every successful image editing (or otherwise) software out there, they have their self-contained ecosystem and I'd assume any new purchase would strive to enhance that.

dainiusse 2y ago

Valio lietuviams!

ZinCombi46 2y ago

Congrats team Pixelmator.

InsideOutSanta 2y ago

This seems like it would be a good match, except that Apple has a history of "odd" decisions when it comes to in-house software, from HyperCard to Claris Works to Final Cut Pro to Aperture. If I relied on Pixelmator, I would be at least a little bit worried.

Jemm 2y ago

My guess is Vision Pro port coming.

aosaigh 2y ago

I am dying to ditch Adobe and Lightroom (both Classic or CC) but none of the alternatives (Photomator included) seem to have the same quality of library management features as Lightroom (metadata editing, rating, keywords, face recognition etc.). Have any enthusiast photographers actually found a decent replacement?

sebau 2y ago
Try nitro. Only macOS at the moment, but such an impressive alternative

Razengan 2y ago

Well, hopefully now Macs can finally ship with a paint app.

xivusr 2y ago

Love that app, and when they first came out their UI/UX was better than Apple. I remember seeing their dark panels styling and thinking it was sleek and ahead of its time, Apple adopted that same look and feel not long after with their pro apps. Congrats to the Pixelmator team!

plussed_reader 2y ago

I can't wait for the pixelmator tools to be subsumed into Preview.

redandblack 2y ago

at this point it is what ai can do for you - no serious m&a without it

fennecfoxy 2y ago

Unsurprising. Just looking at their website it's full of the same marketing hubris that Apple is famous for, even down to using the exact UX/styling that Apple trends towards on their own site. There's plenty of free alternatives like rawtherapee, I guess Apple's marketing style really does work. Hmmm, taking note.