Use the Pixelmator Pro Photos extension

The Pixelmator Pro Photos extension lets you edit your images and create graphic designs using all the tools available in Pixelmator Pro right in the Photos app. You can use it in combination with the editing tools built into Photos.

Open and edit an image

After you've downloaded Pixelmator Pro, the Pixelmator Pro extension will automatically show up in Photos and you can start editing right away.

1. Open the Photos app.

2. Find the image you want to edit and double-click to open it.

3. In the top-right corner of the screen, click Edit.

4. Then, in the toolbar at the top of the screen, click More and choose Pixelmator Pro.

💡 Tip: If Pixelmator Pro isn’t available in the list, click Manage, then click Photos Editing in the left sidebar, and turn on Pixelmator Pro.

1. Edit your photo. For any tools or features unavailable in the Tools sidebar on the left, use keyboard shortcuts. See the full list of Pixelmator Pro keyboard shortcuts.

2. Save your changes by clicking Save Changes in the top-right corner or click Cancel to discard them.

Save changes

If you are using the Pixelmator Pro extension for the first time and want to save changes, choose whether or not you’d like to preserve your nondestructive edits — such as layers, adjustments, and effects — in your Photos library.

• Preserve Edits. This will preserve any layers, adjustments, effects, and other nondestructive changes you make using the Pixelmator Pro extension and they will be restored the next time you open images edited using the extension.

• Save Flattened. Only the final, edited images will be saved to your library — layers, adjustments, effects, and other nondestructive changes will be discarded.

You can change the method of saving changes at any point in the Pixelmator Pro Editing settings.

📘 Note: To make saving edits in Photos possible, Pixelmator Pro creates a so-called sidecar file in the Pixelmator Pro Sidecar Files folder in iCloud or the Pictures folder on your Mac. If iCloud is turned off, the documents will be automatically saved to Pictures.

Import Pixelmator Pro documents to Photos

If you edit JPEG, PNG, TIFF, or HEIC images directly (without importing them to Pixelmator Pro) or save your projects in any of these formats, you can bring your project files over to your Photos library — all layers and nondestructive adjustments included.

To import an image with edits and layers:

1. Drag the image to the Photos icon in the Dock

2. In the dialog that appears, choose Open Sidecar.

You can also import existing Pixelmator Pro documents (PXD) to Photos following these steps:

1. Select any photo in your Photos library and choose Image > Duplicate 1 Photo.

2. In the top-right corner of the screen click Edit.

3. In the toolbar at the top of your screen, click More and choose Pixelmator Pro.

4. Press the Command ⌘ + O keyboard shortcut to bring up the Replace dialog.

5. Navigate to the Pixelmator Pro document you’d like to import and click Replace.