John C reports:

Apple has purchased Pixelmator. The plan to purchase Pixelmator was announced in 2022. This is big news since it pretty much announces that the Photo editor will come out with layers and masks, or that the default photo editor for the Mac will be Pixelmator Pro - in place of the Photo editor. Knowing Apple as I do, it won’t look anything like Pixelmator Pro while retaining all the features.

If you don’t know, Pixelmator Pro is an advanced photo and video editor with layers and masks and lots of brushes and tools, just like Photoshop. You can get Pixelmator Pro for $49.99 in the App Store. And it just might be included in a future release of macOS.

But if you just want to create your own drawings, take a look at Procreate for only $12. It has pretty much all the features of Photoshop, including working with PSD files.

Pixelmator Pro only works on the Mac, and it was built exclusively for the M chips. There is a version of Pixelmator for the iPad, but it really isn’t good enough to do anything other than basic photo editing, which you can do in Photos editor. It can do layers, but I gave up trying to figure it out. Procreate only works on the iPad.

The real competition for Pixelmator Pro is Affinity Photos 2 ($69.99 for Mac, $18.49 for iPad). It is also designed exclusively for the M chips on the Mac. The iPad version is almost identical to the Mac version. Affinity Photos 2 is a direct competitor to Photoshop. The issue with Affinity Photos 2 is that navigation and control can be confusing and difficult to learn, about the same as learning to use Photoshop.

Now, of all the photo editors at my disposal, I still primarily use Photo editor. But if I want really excellent results, then Affinity Photos 2 is where I would go.