Pixelmator Review

With much fanfare regarding its arrival to the App Store, it'd be understandable to be a little cautious about Pixelmator. While those of us with older iPads will be disappointed to not be able to enjoy the rather powerful repair features, others will be delighted by just how much this app can do.

Taking more than one leaf out of the iWorks suite's way of doing things, Pixelmator is immediately easy to grasp. It offers up a series of templates to get you started, including various collages, framed effects, and even the option to create greetings cards. Most of these have to be downloaded as and when you want to use them, but that's not too big a hardship assuming there's an internet connection readily available.

Once you've picked your template, Pixelmator is simple to figure out. Clearly laid out tooltips help here, but also just the fact that the app easily explains everything. You can easily add text or shapes to a photograph, but the power comes through its many tools. It's possible to adjust the colors add various filtering effects, as well as adjust opacity and blending. The most powerful bunch of settings come under retouching though, and are restricted to those with slightly more powerful iPads.

You can opt to repair segments of a photo by brushing a finger over the affected area. You can also lighten or darken the image, create smudged looks or sharpen things up, and as adjust saturation and red-eye. It's very simple to do, but produces some great results. Repairing an image takes some time, with a progress bar indicating what's going on, but it's worth the wait.

Combined with the functionality that iCloud Drive support offers, Pixelmator is an immensely attractive package for those looking to edit their photos on their iPad. You might need one of the newer iPads to truly reap the rewards, but it's a handy reminder of just why you bought such a device.