


Pixelmator Shapes Mac Is Pixelmator
In fact, it performs the half dozen or so tasks that I use Photoshop for, better than Photoshop did.My image editing workflow revolves around editing pictures for the web (as you see in these pages), some color correction (mostly levels, curves, and exposure), adding the occasional annotation or watermark, and manipulation of image size, canvas size, and save for the web. I've been testing Pixelmator 2.2 Blueberry, which is due to be released on Thursday, May 9 (as a free upgrade, natch), and it's an amazingly tight piece of code that's extremely fast, functional, and beautiful at the same time. And second, it's time to find a replacement for Photoshop that better suits my needs (and budget).Hands down, the best replacement for Photoshop on the Mac is Pixelmator, which is available for $14.99 from the Mac App Store. First, it might be time to upgrade from CS5 to CS6, just in case I really need Photoshop's extra muscle. CC Complete pricing is as follows:$49.99/month for new Creative Cloud members (annual commitment)$29.99/month for existing CS3 (or later) licensees (annual commitment)$19.99/month for Student & Teachers (annual commitment)$39.99/month Creative Cloud for teams using CS3 (or later) licensesAfter the initial shock that Adobe had one-upped Microsoft in the software subscription race had wore off, two things immediately came to mind.
All photo management is otherwise handled by Aperture (another decision that I may reconsider.)Pixelmator handles all of these tasks with ease, and makes me wonder if I ever needed Photoshop in the first place.Pixelmator 2.2 Blueberry comes with more than 100 new features and improvements, including:Smart Shapes Tools, which let you quickly adjust a shape's outline with easy-to-use controls to get just the look you're afterShapes palette packed with dozens of readily available shapes that are as easy to add as dragging and droppingShape Style palette, so you can effortlessly create more polished and advanced shapesConvert Text into Shape, which allows you to convert type layers to shape layers, and then easily apply gradients, shadows, strokes, or even reshape individual lettersSmart Move Tool, which knows when you are working with image or shape layers, and gives you just the options you need at that timePaint Selection Tool, which is the simplest and the fastest way to make even the most challenging selections in your images with just a few brush strokesLight Leak Effect, which makes it easy and fun to create stunning, retro-artistically illuminated images from any of your photos.If you don't want to pay a king's ransom for periodic bursts of image editing, purchase Pixelmator and buy a MacBook Pro with the savings.
