

Pixelmator 2 Sneak Preview - wicknicks
http://www.pixelmator.com/sneak-preview/

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ryantownsend
It's disappointing to see they still have no support for layer styles, which
is critical to the workflow of most designers, despite the fact that the most
popular threads on their forums are full of people requesting just that.

Myself and plenty of other people would love to get away from Photoshop, but
without this feature, it's simply not an option.

~~~
leon_
well, pixelmator itself is not much more than a glorified frontend to the core
image API. though the API supports filters and layers it doesn't support layer
styles. that's why this feature won't be implemented for a long time.

~~~
tvon
FWIW, Acorn 3.0 has layer styles listed as a feature:
<http://flyingmeat.com/acorn/>

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lovskogen
But, the ones bitching and moaning about Photoshop is the web designers, not
the photographers. Too bad Pixelmator tries to do both, like Photoshop, and
focus more on Photography than pixel design.

I've tried to switch from Photoshop to Pixelmator, Acorn, Draw It, Gimp and
Incscape - but no dice. Photoshop still has the best features for pixel
design.

~~~
jokull
Have you tried Fireworks? The vector/pixel and features geared towards UI
design are great for web and digital. I would have thought the best chance at
cracking the Adobe market share would be to create a tool to replace
Fireworks. Fireworks' slow but steady adaptation by the design community, its
serious bugs and slow evolution make it a great target for competition. Just
not seeing anyone attempting to disrupt and replace it!

~~~
lovskogen
Please don't say 'disrupt'. I've tried Fireworks aswell. But the reasons alot
of us web designers use Photoshop is to create photorealistic elements in our
design, even in interface design. I not, I could have just used CSS3, to
suggest a possible extreme alternative.

~~~
quinndupont
But I can't help myself: [http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/04/alot-
is-better...](http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/04/alot-is-better-
than-you-at-everything.html)

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cpenner461
Does anyone have enough experience to comment on how Pixelmator compares to
Acorn? I use Acorn for the occasional times when I need an image editor and
have no issues with it, just curious how the two compare. A quick google
search only turned up comparisons from several years ago, and I know Acorn has
had a lot of changes/improvements since then, and I'm sure the same is true
for Pixelmator.

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dazzawazza
Last time I used Pixelmator when I selected a rectangle I couldn't see the
coordinate/dimensions (w/o using the rulers). Is this still true?It's such a
simple addition but at the time they refused to add it.

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mikemaccana
I think the Pixelmator guys have already won: they've made a native-feeling
app that doesn't feel like an OS booting to launch. It's the TextMate to
Adobe's Eclipse.

~~~
brianwhitman
Yeah, and I love that half the posts are praising its lightweight nature while
the other half are complaining about "obvious" features that it doesn't have
:)

~~~
atourino
Why is that surprising? People complaining about the lack of features
obviously need something more capable. For the rest of us, the lightweight,
cheap option is good enough. :)

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rozim
It looks like it has become a hybrid pixel / vector graphics editor...note the
screenshot at the bottom right and the control points highlighted on the
butterfly.

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bugsy
This is HN we talk about business issues sometimes here. Permit me to make
some comments.

I've had Pixelmator since it came out. I use it, Acorn, and Photoshop
Elements. I would really like to get off the Adobe bandwagon since Elements
has insidiously overbearing DRM where you get two installs and you lose an
install permanently every time your hard drive goes down, so that you weren't
able to delicense first. So I had Elements installed on my laptop and my
desktop and when the laptop's drive kicked the bucket, then I was down to one
activation and could no longer use it on the laptop without buying it again.
This is annoying and it is not how my hammer works. My hammer works whether or
not my hard drive has gone down. It's also not how a lot of other software
works. But it is how some works.

So Pixelmator has the Apple Store thing. One install only, so none of this
nonsense of installing on laptop and desktop even though both are used by the
same single person who never uses both at once. However, if the harddrive goes
down, there is some way to get the license back, delicensing is not necessary
first.

But in any case I don't want to buy Apple Store stuff because I don't want my
machine ID tied to my credit card number with Apple. Apple is doing too much
privacy invading and I want nothing to do with it. If others want that fine.

So Pixelmator 2 will be Apple store only, and no upgrade price for loyal
Pixelmator 1 users.

So that's it. Not upgrading and not recommending it to anyone.

That leaves Acorn and Gimp.

Photoshop is hands down a better program than anything else, but the last few
years it seems most of their time has been spent on DRM. Photoshop is
constantly trying to connect to the internet, which it has absolutely no
legitimate reason that benefits the customer to be doing. Programs that
connect to the internet that have no reason to are intrinsically suspicious.

I can see more of the value proposition for open source because of all this
DRM stuff.

I pay for all my software. I am the good customer. But over the top DRM is
driving me to alternatives, forcing me to have to use open source solutions
instead even if I'd rather have something that's a little more polished like a
commercial product.

Oh well. I am fine using the alternatives. It's interesting to me though that
companies would do this. Such as take an app, pull it from distribution unless
you lock your hardware to a credit card at an Apple store. Why would I want to
do that just to use a image editing app?

Sure for many people this is no big deal. They don't care about privacy or
fair use of things they have bought. But some of us do.

~~~
m_eiman
"So Pixelmator has the Apple Store thing. One install only, so"

App Store terms say: "You can install apps on every Mac authorised for your
personal use and even download them again." [1]

Also, you can create an App Store account using only gift cards that you can
pay in cash. Apple will still know your IP address, of course.

[1] <http://www.apple.com/se/macosx/whats-new/app-store.html>

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steve19
I would have thought that adobe would have either invented or bought patents
relating to context aware fill in order to prevent other graphics software
from implementing it. I am very pleased to see it in Pixelmator.

~~~
dodecaphonic
A paper detailing the technique was presented in SIGGRAPH a good year, year
and a half, before Adobe added it to CS5.

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mambodog
I've bought Pixelmator, but every time I try to use it I find that it's just
significantly different enough from Photoshop that I lose all my speed and
efficiency, and just feel like I'm wasting time. I would really have preferred
if it was just a straight subset of Photoshop's features, with the same key
commands and paradigms, but more lightweight.

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w1ntermute
What exactly is Photoshop lacking that Pixelmator provides? (honest question)

~~~
ique
As jasongullickson said, a reasonable price.

But I think the question is really strange. It's like asking "What is the
Porsche sedan lacking that the Volvo sedan provides?"

They're for different people. Photoshop in my mind is for professionals who
use a lot of different tools to master their craft. While Pixelmator seems
much more focused on photo-editing and some quick work.

Pixelmator makes design and (more advanced than iPhoto-) photo-editing more
easily available to non-professionals.

If you really use everything Photoshop has to offer, I don't think the price
is unreasonable. But few people do.

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sigzero
Since Photoshop Elements is in the same price range which is better?

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dlsspy
Pixelmator is a great and underpriced product. I had no qualms about buying it
again when it hit the app store.

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superpanic
Seems like theres still no support for channels. Strange - seems like the most
basic feature.

~~~
gallamine
I don't even know what channels are. I've been using image editors for basic
stuff for years, so I don't think that's what you'd call a "basic feature."

~~~
leon_
well "channels" are: if you've got an RGB picture, you got 3 channels: R
channel, G channel, B channel

it doesn't get more basic than that imho :)

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hackermom
I'm looking forward to this release. While Pixelmator is still lacking in a
few crucial areas, as well as having a few odd quirks, I've been thoroughly
pleased with it since day one, and, as an avid photographer and web developer,
I manage to do everything I need with it. It has in its ~80mb glory, together
with Apple's Aperture, entirely replaced my need for the ~12gb horrendous
bloat Photoshop offers.

