Instant Filters: This Zoom effect takes time to render in Photoshop, but happens instantly in Pixelmator, thanks to Core Image.

Apple loads iPhoto ’08 as standard issue onto every Mac sold, and while the app makes sharing and organizing photos a super-cinch, iPhoto doesn’t offer much of the power of Apple’s real-time Core Image technology. So is there room for a Core Image–savvy contender in the sub-$100 category of image editors? Pixelmator seems to think so. The Pixelmator app offers a $59 alternative to Photoshop. While we love the real-time filter effects, there’s a quite a bit that does not thrill us with this initial offering.

Pixelmator’s clean, uncluttered interface looks like a tweaked version of Photoshop Elements, with the familiar tool palette on the left side and the layers palette on the right. Anyone who’s used basic image-editing software will feel at home within moments, and the level of integration with your existing images is notable: Pixelmator has an image browser that hooks directly into your iPhoto libraries, Pictures folder, or Photo Booth images, which is convenient. But we couldn’t select any other folder on our various drives, a frustrating limitation. On the other hand, Pixelmator can open just about every bitmap image format currently in use.

All the expected editing tools are here: clone brush, magic wand, paintbrushes, gradient tool, softening and sharpening tools, and more. They all work relatively well, but lack some of the control offered by comparable tools found in Elements. The overall layers implementation is decent, with the full array of Photoshop blending modes, but forget about Photoshop’s Layer Styles or nondestructive adjustment layers for color-correction work. This also means that you can’t apply a single color-correction pass to all the layers of a multilayered document—you’ll need to do each layer individually, which could mean serious work in a densely layered composition.

Filters are where Pixelmator shines, with comprehensive support for Core Image routines, delivering a cornucopia of visual effects that aren’t available in Photoshop, such as a hexagonal mosaic and an array of kaleidoscopic distortions. And many of these filters function in real time, something you’ll quickly learn to love.

Pixelmator has some noticeable problems, however, that make it tough to recommend as a primary image editor. It lacks grids and rulers, which makes precision a pipe dream. When you’re using a filter, and the filter dialog is open, you can’t zoom in and out of an image—you have to cancel out of the filter, zoom to the view you want, and then reinvoke the filter. In some ways, the app’s performance is quite good. Tweaking the controls of the Unsharp Mask filter, for example, resulted in instant onscreen image updates. But it completes other tasks at a glacial pace—in our testing, for example, applying a 40-pixel feather to a rectangular selection caused the beach ball to spin for almost 15 seconds, a digital eternity. And using the soften tool, often required us to hold down the mouse button for a few seconds to start blurring the image, even on our 2.16GHz MacBook Pro, which is just not acceptable.

The bottom line. Pixelmator is a decent first attempt at creating an affordable image editor, but Photoshop Elements 6 (4 out of 5 stars, Jun/08, p58) offers a more robust toolset and enhanced capabilities for only $30 more. If your budget is tight enough that $30 is a deal breaker, download Pixelmator’s 30-day trial version to see if the Core Image filters offer enough value to compel you to add it to your toolbox.

COMPANY: Pixelmator Team Ltd.

CONTACT: http://www.pixelmator.com/

PRICE: $59

REQUIREMENTS: Mac OS 10.4 or later

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