Technical Specifications

Tools

  • Use more than 40 tools for selecting, cropping, drawing, painting, retouching, typing, measuring and navigating
  • Basic tools:
    • Move, Zoom, Hand, Eyedropper, Type, Crop, Slice
  • Selection tools:
    • Elliptical Marquee, Rectangular Marquee, Column Marquee, Row Marquee, Lasso, Polygonal Lasso, Magic Wand, Paint Selection
  • Painting tools:
    • Brush, Pencil, Pixel, Eraser, Paint Bucket, Gradient—Specify blending mode, opacity, and type of brush.
  • Retouching tools:
    • Smudge, Clone Stamp, Healing, Sponge, Blur, Sharpen, Burn, Dodge, Magic Eraser, Red-Eye—Specify strength, and type of brush for most of the retouching tools; specify blending mode, brush, and opacity for the Clone Stamp tool only
  • Drawing tools:
    • Pen, Freeform Pen, Rectangular Shape, Rounded Rectangle Shape, Ellipse Shape, Triangle Shape, Polygon Shape, Star Shape, Line Shape, Custom Shape
  • Customizable Tools palette

Layers

  • Layers-based image editing
  • Create new, duplicate, delete, rename, load as selection or hide layers
  • Create editable text and shape layers
  • Use New Layer from FaceTime feature to add pictures as layers from FaceTime camera

  • Change blending mode for layer:
    • Normal, Dissolve, Darken, Multiply, Color Burn, Linear Burn, Darker Color, Lighten, Screen, Color Dodge, Linear Dodge, Lighter Color, Overlay, Soft Light, Hard Light, Vivid Light, Linear Light, Pin Light, Hard Mix, Difference, Exclusion, Subtract, Divide, Hue, Saturation, Color and Luminosity
  • Adjust layer opacity
  • Preserve layer transparency
  • Create clipping masks
  • Add, remove, edit, show or hide layer masks
  • Link, unlink or select linked layers
  • Convert Text/Shape layers to pixels
  • Convert Text layers to Shape layers
  • Merge layers
  • Merge all layers
  • Group layers
  • Arrange layers
  • Drag-and-drop layers onto OS X desktop to export as PNG
  • Drag-and-drop pictures into the layers palette or a Pixelmator image to place them as layers

Image Processing

  • Layers-based image editing
  • Image processing is powered by Core Image technology
  • 64-bit architecture
  • Import images directly from cameras, scanners, multifunction devices, and devices such as iPhone, iPod touch and iPad
  • Use more than 40 tools for selecting, cropping, slicing, painting, retouching, drawing, typing, measuring and navigating
  • Use more than 15 color correction tools
  • Use more than 160 effects
  • Change image size and resolution
  • Specify canvas size
  • Trim images
  • Rotate canvas
  • Export images for the Web
  • Transform images, layers or selections using the transform tools:
    • Free Transform, Scale, Rotate, Skew, Distort, Perspective, Flip (vertical or horizontal)
  • Fill images, layers or selections
  • Stroke images, layers or selections
  • Graphics tablet support

Color Correction Tools

  • Use more than 13 color correction tools:
    • Levels, Auto Enhance, Curves, Color Balance, Brightness, Hue, Desaturate, Colorize, Replace Color, Channels, Exposure, Invert, Light & Dark

Colors

  • ColorSync support
  • Select colors using Apple Color Picker
  • Web Color plug-in for Apple Colors Palette for quickly copying hexadecimal colors to HTML or CSS applications
  • Eyedropper allows picking colors from images

File Formats

  • Compatible with all popular file formats:
    • PSD, JPEG, TIFF, PNG, WebP, PDF, GIF, BMP, TGA, JPG-2000
    • Supports Photoshop images with layers.
  • Optimize and save images for the web in JPEG, PNG, GIF, or WebP

Automator Actions

  • Change Type of Image action allows conversion to JPEG, PSD, PNG, TIFF, and Pixelmator native file format—PXM
  • Crop Images action allows the expansion or reduction of the canvas size to the desired dimensions
  • Fit Images
  • Trim Images
  • Watermark Images

OS X Integration

Photo Browser offers quick access to iPhoto Library, Aperture Library, events, albums, Smart Albums, Photo Booth, Pictures folder or any custom folder

  • Versions
  • Autosave
  • Fullscreen
  • Use your FaceTime camera to add pictures to your compositions
  • Comes with Automator actions
  • Spotlight support
  • Drag-and-drop support
  • In-App Help
  • Apple Fonts and Apple Color Picker palettes
  • Share images via Mail, Message, AirDrop, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Aperture and iPhoto
  • Built-in Quick Look plug-in

Effects

  • Use more than 160 Core Image-powered effects
  • Blur:
    • Gaussian, Motion, Zoom, Median, Soften, Miniaturize
  • Distortion:
    • Bump, Linear Bump, Pinch, Hole, Ripple, Page Curl, Capsule, Glass Ring, Circle Splash, Displacement, Glass, Bar Swipe, Twirl, Vortex, Circular Wrap
  • Sharpen:
    • Sharpen, Edges, Unsharp
  • Tile:
    • Kaleidoscope, Triangle, Brickwork, Hexagon, Pinwheel, Bug Eye, Shutters, Windmill, Snowflake, Funhouse, Tessera, Perspective, Affine Clamp, Affine, Mirror
  • Stylize:
    • Crystallize, Honeycomb, Pixelate, Pointillize, Noise, Rain, Snow, Vintage, Light Leak, Twilight, Fog, Gloom, Spotlight, Coating, Edge Work, Sketch, Edges, Comics, Threshold
  • Halftone:
    • Circular, Hatched, Line, Dot, CMYK
  • Generator:
    • Chess, Bars, Stroke, Halo, Sunbeams, Star Shine, Fill, Clouds, Random
  • Color:
    • Color Map, Color Monochrome, Color Posterize, False Color, Mask to Alpha, Sepia Tone, Gamma Adjust
  • Other:
    • Black and White, Sepia Tone, Gamma, Unsharp, Squeeze, Pinch, Pointillize, Pixelize, Light Tunnel, Insect, Glow, Exposure, Luminance, Fish Eye, Flip-Flop, Stretch, Solarize, Mosaic Flip, Monotone, Old Photo, Color Hatch, Comic Book, X- Ray, Pop-Art, Infrared, Line Dye, Tracer, Scanner, Fall, Wall, Defocus, Image Hose, Travelator, Grid, Floor, Gradient, ASCII, Blue Print, Forms, Photocopy, Cube, Dissolve, Mask, Mod, Push, Swing
  • Use the rope to control center of the effect
  • Use custom Core Image units

Painting Engine

  • Advanced brush settings
    • Size, hardness, spacing, scatter, flow, follow angle, stroke jitter, size jitter, angle jitter, opacity jitter, hue jitter, saturation jitter, lightness jitter, graphics tablet sensitivity and control by mouse speed settings
  • Adobe Photoshop brushes support

User Interface

  • Interface designed for working with images
  • Toolbar customization
  • Transparent HUD (heads-up display) palettes:
    • Tools, Layers, Brushes, Gradients, Shapes, Shape Style, Effects Browser and Photo Browser palettes
  • Info labels
  • Full-screen mode
  • Vectormator mode
  • Quick Mask mode
  • Use rulers, guides, alignment guides and grid
  • Adding layer from FaceTime dialog shows preview
  • Action tooltips

Technologies

  • Pixelmator is built using Cocoa
  • Image processing is powered by Core Image and OpenGL
  • Includes Automator actions
  • ColorSync color management
  • Quick Look support
  • Core Animation
  • Spotlight support
  • QuickTime

Metadata

  • View or extract metadata from images
  • Add, remove or edit keywords
  • Use Spotlight to find images according to metadata info
  • More than 50 metadata tags available

Languages

  • English, German, French, Japanese, Spanish, Italian