AppFlow

Pixelmator claims to be one of the easiest to use graphics application around for Mac.  Now, I’m no graphics expert.  I have relatively little experience with graphics, but I do mock-up websites in fireworks and do some basic photo editing in Photoshop.

What caught my attention about Pixelmator was it’s seemingly simple, elegant, user interface.  This is one thing I like in all applications and I am always looking out for Apps that look good as well as being functional.

So, how does the $59 (around £40) Pixelmator stack up against the competition?

Setting Up Shop

Create a new document is pretty easy.  Simply click “Create New Image” on the opening screen and then you get a new window appear.  This window provides you with plenty of options such as the the image resolution, and size as well as many different presets.

The presets feature a large selection of different options.  These include options such as iTunes artwork, iPhone wallpapers, various advert size and various paper sizes.

All of this is done in such as way that anybody could work it out and get the right size canvas size for their project.  Pixelmator makes step one easy for anyone completing any project.

Tools of the Trade

Any workman, in any industry has to have the right tools of the trade.  If you have the wrong tools, than you cannot complete the job at hand to the best of your ability.

Pixelmator includes a pretty basic tool set.  Although this is not complete list of it’s tools the basics include a Marquee tool, Cropping tools, Clone Stamp tool, and a Pencil/Brush tool for free-style drawing.  These tools allow the basic construction of high-quality graphics with relative ease, and are easy to pick-up when left with the Application for a few hours.

As I admitted at the start of this review, I am no graphics guru, I couldn’t tell you the first thing about best practices or how best to go about doing something – but safari as I can see all the basic tools are here.  Pixelmator includes everything you need to start right out of the box.

Organisation

If your writing a Novel, organisation is important.  If your building a website, organisation is important.  The same can be said when working with graphics.  Each element has to be organised on it’s own layer, layers need to be grouped together to make entire objects and objects need to be placed in folders they can easily be found.

This, to me, is the one area where Pixelmator falls behind.  The groups behave exactly as you would expect a folder to behave.  This isn’t a problem, you could even say that this makes the groups in photoshop look cumbersome, but there are no folders.  To me this is a big disadvantage when organising documents, but it something I could live with, although some may find this more irritating than others.

Conclusion

Pixelmator is a fantastic application.  It is light, fast and easy to use.  Although I could give this application praise all day long, it won’t make me throw away my Adobe suit.  I simply think that the Adobe suit is that much better, but if I didn’t own a copy of Adobe fireworks and photoshop than I wouldn’t bat an eyelid at buying this over the Adobe applications.

For it’s price Pixelmator really is the bee’s knee’s.  I just don’t think it’s worth throwing away smote advanced software for it when I already own the other software.