Released today is a welcome update for Pixelmator Pro users. The ability to use custom aspect ratios and add custom presets to the Crop tool has been added to the Mac image editing application, among a long list of other fixes.
Quickly being marked off my long list of issues I faced while reviewing Pixelmator Pro 1.0.5, you can now safely put away your calculators now that the Crop tool is much improved. Previously, the crop tool left you up to your own demise with no input options to customize or nail down your crop in any way.
As I also stated in my review, the Pixelmator team is not taking any time off in their continuous app updates. Less than a month since their last App Store update, version 1.0.6 is here. Check out all the changes and bug fixes below.
- Use the Crop tool to crop with your own custom ratios.
- Create and save custom crop presets.
- The Type tool will now be highlighted when a text layer is selected.
- If no text is selected, clicking a text preset will now add a new text layer with the preset style applied.
- When using the Type tool’s Color Picker, pressing the Escape key will now close the Color Picker, as it should.
- Drag shapes from the Layers view to the Shapes palette to save them to your collection.
- The selection tools will now be highlighted if there is an active selection.
- A number of performance improvements make the selection tools faster and more reliable.
- You can now copy, cut, paste, and duplicate the components inside shapes.
- The Color Selection tool now works on layers with color adjustments.
- You can now hold down the Space bar to move selections while using the Rectangular and Elliptical selection tools.
- When exporting to JPEG, the more common .jpg extension will be used instead of .jpeg.
- The BMP and GIF formats have been added to the list of file formats you can export to.
- Pressing Command-I now toggles the Invert adjustment, instead of simply applying it.
- Dotted strokes now appear as they do in the original Pixelmator, improving compatibility with PXM files.
- When changing image and canvas size, guides would be repositioned incorrectly. Fixed.
- Certain fonts with high baselines would be clipped to the boundaries of text boxes. Fixed.
- Fixed an issue that would sometimes make it impossible to change the font of certain text layers.
- Applying a gradient to the layer mask of a text layer would only work at the second attempt. Fixed.
- Copying a text layer and pasting it inside another text layer would include unnecessary text. Fixed.
- Dragging and dropping RAW images into Pixelmator Pro now works faster.
- RAW layers imported via drag and drop would sometimes have incorrect layer handles. Fixed
- Fixed an issue that would cause imported layers with transparent areas to be displayed incorrectly.
- When using the Paint tool in images with advanced color profiles, the colors in the Colors window would not match up with colors in the image. Fixed.
- Painting on an empty layer and moving a section of it would change the color of the painted areas. Fixed.
- The position of gradient fills would shift after converting text into a shape. Fixed.
- Trimming the canvas according to the color of the top left and bottom right pixels now works correctly.
- Undo steps would sometimes disappear when creating selections. Fixed.
- The Color Fill pop-up menu now correctly shows the selected blending mode.
- Occasionally, it would not be possible to save images if the Image fill effect was applied. Fixed.
- The fills of resized shapes will now be preserved more accurately.
- When using the Fill layer style on very small layers, the fill would sometimes disappear. Fixed.
- Several improvements fix flickering and positioning issues when editing shapes.
- The canvas would sometimes jump after resetting changes made with the Crop tool. Fixed.
- When exporting JPEG images without a specified color profile, one would be attached anyway. Fixed.
- If the preference for importing JPEG, PNG, and TIFF images was disabled, images opened via File > New from Photos would cause Pixelmator Pro to stop responding when saving. Fixed.
- Combining effects like Affine and Op Tile would sometimes produce infinite images and cause Pixelmator Pro to stop responding. Fixed.
- A number of fixes improve the stability of various tools that use gradients.
- Pixelmator Pro would sometimes stop responding after moving the app from a Retina to a non-Retina display. Fixed.
I look forward to seeing where Pixelmator Pro is in a year. Will it overcome Affinity Photo as the Photoshop alternative of choice? At this pace I think it’s very much possible.
Pixelmator Pro is priced at $59.99 and is available now in the Mac App Store.
