Photomator update brings 5x faster file browsing and 2x smaller sidecar files
Starting today, you’ll notice a significant increase in speed when browsing photos in the Files browser on your Mac – photo thumbnails will now load up to 5x faster! Other great news is that we’ve optimized edit saving on all devices, with large edits now requiring half the storage space, and simple color adjustments being saved directly to the original photos in the Photos library.
Faster File Browser on Mac
Following the initial launch of the powerful Files browser at the beginning of this year, we’ve been continuously working on improving its performance to bring you an even faster photo browsing and editing experience. Today’s update brings an up to 5x faster thumbnail loading after importing new folders and even faster thumbnail loading for previously previewed folders. These improvements ensure that you can browse and edit photos faster than ever, while seamlessly transitioning between different folders.
Smaller Sidecar Files
We’re excited to bring another major improvement that will significantly free up your storage space – sidecar files are now 2x smaller when editing in both the Photos and Files browsers. You’ll notice a big difference in the file size of your edits, especially if you’re working on tasks such as upscaling, denoising, debanding, or retouching. Given that these tasks are typically very storage-demanding, we’re thrilled to share that we’ve cut the size of such sidecar files in half. Additionally, when making simple color adjustments in the Photos browser, the edits will now be saved directly to the photo. This improvement significantly reduces the storage space required for storing color edits, which is particularly beneficial when working with larger files, such as RAW or HDR images.
We hope this update will take your photo editing workflows to new levels of speed. If you’re already a user, enjoy the enhanced features, and if you haven’t tried Photomator yet, take advantage of our one-week free trial to see for yourself how editing photos with Photomator is a breeze.
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Pixelmator Pro and Photomator are on sale
Today, we’re starting a limited-time sale letting everyone get Pixelmator Pro for just $24.99 and the first year of Photomator on all devices – Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Vision Pro – for just $14.99. You’d be crazy not to take advantage of it!
Pixelmator Pro and Photomator are both award-winning applications designed to enhance your creative workflows on Apple devices. Pixelmator Pro is ideal for creating designs, digital paintings, or illustrations on your Mac, and Photomator offers a streamlined photo editing experience on Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Vision Pro. Both apps are fully optimized for macOS, and Photomator additionally supports iOS, ensuring fast performance and seamless integration with the latest Apple technologies. To decide which app is the best for your needs, you can compare them here. If you’re juggling graphic design and photo editing, odds are you’ll want both – why settle for one when both can get the job done better?
Why Photomator’s lifetime license is not on sale
In 2021, we expanded the payment options for Photomator by introducing yearly and monthly subscriptions, in addition to the existing one-time purchase option. In this blog post, we explored our decision to shift towards subscription pricing. Originally, Photomator was available solely as a one-time purchase, which meant we relied heavily on major updates to create buzz and drive sales. Since all new updates were free for existing users, this business model made it difficult to generate a consistent income, which is essential for supporting an ongoing development. As Photomator evolves into a more and more advanced photography tool with a complex feature set, we recognized the necessity for a more sustainable revenue stream to maintain and enhance the software continuously.
While the lifetime purchase option is still available, providing unlimited access across Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Vision Pro with free updates, we are planning to increase the one-time purchase price as we introduce major new features. Looking ahead, we’re considering phasing out the lifetime purchase option altogether, potentially transitioning exclusively to monthly and yearly subscriptions.
This transition to a subscription-only model reflects our ongoing commitment to making Photomator better and better. We’re dedicated to ensuring that Photomator remains a cutting-edge, professional-grade tool that’s both easy to use for beginners and powerful enough for professional photographers. And now, if you want to try Photomator, you can take advantage of the limited time offer and get one year of Photomator for 50% off – we’re sure you’re going to love it.
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Pixelmator Pro brings text editing in PDFs and adds a collection of bento grid templates
Pixelmator Pro 3.5.8 has just been released, now letting you edit text in PDFs just like regular text layers, including in Apple PDFs exported from Safari, Keynote, or Pages. The update also adds the ability to create freely customizable outlines around text layers and adds a new collection of bento grid templates, ideal for showcasing product updates or new app features.
Text Editing in PDFs
In one of the recent Pixelmator Pro updates, we’ve added support for vector PDFs, letting you import image, shape, and text elements as separate layers. Now, we’re expanding this support even further by making it possible to edit the imported text elements as regular text layers. This means you can now easily replace, format, and style any existing text in PDFs using all your favorite Pixelmator Pro tools.
Typically, text in PDF documents is not directly editable. Instead, it’s stored as vector shapes to keep documents looking consistent across various platforms and apps. To make text editable again, Pixelmator Pro extracts the different types of data embedded in the original PDF which then lets it recover the original text content, fonts, and formatting. Even if some of these elements are missing, for instance, if the original font is not installed on your Mac, you can still import the text, select a different font, and continue with your edits.
Extended Support for Apple PDFs
The new text editing capabilities in PDF files now allow for even more seamless integration between macOS iWork apps and Pixelmator Pro. Whether you are creating a presentation in Keynote, writing a document in Pages, or working in Safari, you can export your work to PDF and continue editing it in Pixelmator Pro. All of the text in your project will remain fully editable and keep its original fonts, including the SF Pro font that is used throughout the Apple ecosystem.
Take a look at how much smoother importing PDFs created using Keynote works now compared to the previous Pixelmator Pro version.
Customizable Text Strokes
The Style tool in Pixelmator Pro has also been improved, bringing an easy way to create custom outlines around text layers. You now have the option to add strokes inside, center, or outside of the text, choose from various stroke ends and corners, and even add dashed strokes to your text. With these new features, you can experiment with different style combinations to create beautiful typography designs in your projects. The nondestructive styling options also make it easy to stack multiple different strokes of different styles together and rearrange them at any point, while keeping your text fully editable.
Bento Grid Templates
In the fresh new Bento Grid templates collection, you’ll find 12 eye-catching templates for web, social media, and more — all featuring the wildly popular Japanese lunch box-inspired design. The templates are perfect for highlighting exciting new product features, announcing app updates, or showcasing other creations in a neat and organized way. Each template also includes a variety of alternative color palettes to perfectly match your product or a specific theme.
And that wraps up all the new features. If you’d like to try them out yourself, head over to the Mac App Store to download the latest update. As always, it’s free to all existing Pixelmator Pro users.
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