10 ms·

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 d

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.
acomjean 2y ago
I used to use Pixelmator when I was on a mac. Its great for what it does, but its much much more limited than photoshop. Frankly most people don't need Photoshop. The UI is intuitive enough. I'm on linux now but missed that "preview" app for format/size conversions. (It has a fun mosaic tool that lets you take a bit of an image and tile it real time which is really fun). >Adobe must not be stoked about this news Probably any mac developer should be a little worried. Apple has a mixed history at best with these applications. They had a lightroom competitor (Apeture?) they just dropped out of the blue. (some photographers are still griping) The "final cut pro" upgrade made people start using adobe again. But apple seem to keep the music making stuff going. Frankly adobe Shold actually port their stuff to linux. The "free" competition is getting good (Krita, Blender, Gimp...). I have a couple pieces I used Gimp to layer together going into a gallery next week. Frankly its different, but pretty good once you get used to the UI.
- thenberlin 2y ago
  I don't know how long ago that was, but I've been a Pixelmator user for at least a few years, and it's leaps and bounds ahead of where it was when I started with it. Coupled with Photomater -- its cousin app -- they're certainly starting to give Photoshop a real run for its money in many ways. Of course, not all ways, at least not yet, but I have personally used it for everything from photo touchups to marketing collateral to art elements later incorporated in a range of things including print layouts and videos. Once in a while I bump my head on a missing or incomplete feature that I was surprised to find not yet implemented, but its getting rarer by the month.
no_wizard 2y ago
I suspect this move is due to behind the scenes Adobe / Apple relations souring over the years. Adobe used to be one of their biggest supporters and helped winning over users to the Mac platform. This has diverged significantly over the years, and I think Apple is looking at Adobe and their business model and realizing that it both lucrative for them to have software that fills into this market to round out their creative pro apps suite and that Adobe increasingly becoming aggressive with cost / licensing and tactics to extract revenue aren't good for their ecosystem. That's my working theory, at least.
- ChadNauseam 2y ago
  Creative software and macbooks are complement goods. i.e., demand for macbooks goes up when creative software gets cheaper, and vice versa. This is a case where mergers are expected to make prices go down. As opposed for substitute goods, like macbooks and dell laptops, where a merger would probably make prices go up. In both cases you have a prisoner's dilemma between vendors - with vendors producing substitute goods, the "defect" option is to lower your price. (This makes you more money, but costs the other vendor more money than you made.) For substitute goods, the "defect" option is to raise your price (this makes you more money, but costs the other vendor more money than you made.) So mergers of vendors of substitute goods are usually bad, and tend to be blocked, because once merged the companies can coordinate to raise prices. But of complement goods are usually good, and tend to not be blocked, because once merged the companies can coordinate to lower prices. All this to say that I think this move makes sense for apple regardless of whether their relationship with Adobe has soured.
  - smilespray 2y ago
    > demand for macbooks goes up when creative software gets cheaper Is this something you just made up, or does this really happen? Colour me sceptical.
    - plufz 2y ago
      I mean theoretically that makes sense? If you get more value for something it increases the chance of buying it? But I also have no idea if this statement is true.
reaperducer 2y ago
Pixelmator + parts of the Affinity suite got me out of their clutches I haven't used Pixelmator, but currently use Affinity as a replacement for Photoshop for my personal projects. Unfortunately, Affinity isn't yet good enough to replace Photoshop for work. Are you able to outline how Pixelmator stacks up against Affinity Photo?
- DidYaWipe 2y ago
  I gave up on Affinity Photo after discovering that it degrades images as you edit them. Specifically, it blurs entire layers when you merge them. And it does so over and over, making the base layer worse each time. Therefore you can't trust it with your images. Affinity has refused to fix this, making excuses instead. Example here: https://youtu.be/QA8eVWOLL5I https://youtu.be/QA8eVWOLL5I Affinity is also unwilling to fix glaring UI blunders or omissions. For example, in Designer, people have been asking for a "print/no-print" toggle on layers for years. Everybody else has this. But nope; they have staunchly refused to add it. So I bought Pixelmator. It's a little clumsy to use in some ways, but the authors have been good about responding to queries about it.
  - codazoda 2y ago
    Can you share references for their refusal to fix and their excuses?
    - DidYaWipe 2y ago
      Here are a few threads from the forums; there are probably more. The first seems the most extensive. To be fair, I'm not sure if there are employee responses in there or just eager apologists ignoring evidence and blaming other users for the defective behavior: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/53609-merging-layers-causing-blurring/ https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/53609-merg... https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/185759-stop-blurring-pixel-art-with-simple-moving-or-copying-affinity-photo-1/ https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/185759-sto... https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/166381-seeing-it-blur-the-merged-layer-when-merging-two-layers-together/ https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/166381-see...
admksx45v65uqpw 2y ago
[dead]
username135 2y ago
Dark Sky was fucking awesome

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.

acomjean 2y ago

I used to use Pixelmator when I was on a mac. Its great for what it does, but its much much more limited than photoshop. Frankly most people don't need Photoshop. The UI is intuitive enough. I'm on linux now but missed that "preview" app for format/size conversions. (It has a fun mosaic tool that lets you take a bit of an image and tile it real time which is really fun). >Adobe must not be stoked about this news Probably any mac developer should be a little worried. Apple has a mixed history at best with these applications. They had a lightroom competitor (Apeture?) they just dropped out of the blue. (some photographers are still griping) The "final cut pro" upgrade made people start using adobe again. But apple seem to keep the music making stuff going. Frankly adobe Shold actually port their stuff to linux. The "free" competition is getting good (Krita, Blender, Gimp...). I have a couple pieces I used Gimp to layer together going into a gallery next week. Frankly its different, but pretty good once you get used to the UI.

thenberlin 2y ago
I don't know how long ago that was, but I've been a Pixelmator user for at least a few years, and it's leaps and bounds ahead of where it was when I started with it. Coupled with Photomater -- its cousin app -- they're certainly starting to give Photoshop a real run for its money in many ways. Of course, not all ways, at least not yet, but I have personally used it for everything from photo touchups to marketing collateral to art elements later incorporated in a range of things including print layouts and videos. Once in a while I bump my head on a missing or incomplete feature that I was surprised to find not yet implemented, but its getting rarer by the month.

no_wizard 2y ago

I suspect this move is due to behind the scenes Adobe / Apple relations souring over the years. Adobe used to be one of their biggest supporters and helped winning over users to the Mac platform. This has diverged significantly over the years, and I think Apple is looking at Adobe and their business model and realizing that it both lucrative for them to have software that fills into this market to round out their creative pro apps suite and that Adobe increasingly becoming aggressive with cost / licensing and tactics to extract revenue aren't good for their ecosystem. That's my working theory, at least.

ChadNauseam 2y ago
Creative software and macbooks are complement goods. i.e., demand for macbooks goes up when creative software gets cheaper, and vice versa. This is a case where mergers are expected to make prices go down. As opposed for substitute goods, like macbooks and dell laptops, where a merger would probably make prices go up. In both cases you have a prisoner's dilemma between vendors - with vendors producing substitute goods, the "defect" option is to lower your price. (This makes you more money, but costs the other vendor more money than you made.) For substitute goods, the "defect" option is to raise your price (this makes you more money, but costs the other vendor more money than you made.) So mergers of vendors of substitute goods are usually bad, and tend to be blocked, because once merged the companies can coordinate to raise prices. But of complement goods are usually good, and tend to not be blocked, because once merged the companies can coordinate to lower prices. All this to say that I think this move makes sense for apple regardless of whether their relationship with Adobe has soured.
- smilespray 2y ago
  > demand for macbooks goes up when creative software gets cheaper Is this something you just made up, or does this really happen? Colour me sceptical.
  - plufz 2y ago
    I mean theoretically that makes sense? If you get more value for something it increases the chance of buying it? But I also have no idea if this statement is true.

reaperducer 2y ago

Pixelmator + parts of the Affinity suite got me out of their clutches I haven't used Pixelmator, but currently use Affinity as a replacement for Photoshop for my personal projects. Unfortunately, Affinity isn't yet good enough to replace Photoshop for work. Are you able to outline how Pixelmator stacks up against Affinity Photo?

DidYaWipe 2y ago
I gave up on Affinity Photo after discovering that it degrades images as you edit them. Specifically, it blurs entire layers when you merge them. And it does so over and over, making the base layer worse each time. Therefore you can't trust it with your images. Affinity has refused to fix this, making excuses instead. Example here: https://youtu.be/QA8eVWOLL5I https://youtu.be/QA8eVWOLL5I Affinity is also unwilling to fix glaring UI blunders or omissions. For example, in Designer, people have been asking for a "print/no-print" toggle on layers for years. Everybody else has this. But nope; they have staunchly refused to add it. So I bought Pixelmator. It's a little clumsy to use in some ways, but the authors have been good about responding to queries about it.
- codazoda 2y ago
  Can you share references for their refusal to fix and their excuses?
  - DidYaWipe 2y ago
    Here are a few threads from the forums; there are probably more. The first seems the most extensive. To be fair, I'm not sure if there are employee responses in there or just eager apologists ignoring evidence and blaming other users for the defective behavior: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/53609-merging-layers-causing-blurring/ https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/53609-merg... https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/185759-stop-blurring-pixel-art-with-simple-moving-or-copying-affinity-photo-1/ https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/185759-sto... https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/166381-seeing-it-blur-the-merged-layer-when-merging-two-layers-together/ https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/166381-see...

admksx45v65uqpw 2y ago

[dead]

username135 2y ago

Dark Sky was fucking awesome