Review: Pixelmator Photo for iOS. A Lightroom alternative?

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

These presets are especially playful and artistic and can work great with a variety of different photography styles. Save any combination of color adjustments as a custom preset to quickly apply them to any of your photos and even share presets with others.

Pixelmator Photo was designed exclusively for iPad, taking full advantage of its large display and bit architecture. So the only thing that can slow you down is your imagination. Pixelmator Photo 1. Overview What’s New. On-Image Curves Use simple gestures to precisely adjust the tone curve directly in your images.

Shadows and Highlights Enjoy significantly improved shadow and highlight recovery. Customize Adjustments Customize the visibility of individual color adjustments. Desktop-class, nondestructive photo editing tools. Although it works on a majority of photos, for some of my photos I prefer starting from scratch on my own. This is a life-saver when it comes to taking colour grading inspirations from other awesome photos.

Pixelmator Pro can automatically apply colour adjustments based on a reference photo that I choose. For example, see this:. However, not every photographer shares their presets. This feature allows me to harness colour grading from every photo present on the internet. Adobe Lightroom is an insanely popular photo editing software. With popularity, comes a boatload of tutorials and courses. Therefore, right now:. One of the impressive aspects of using Lightroom was that I could watch tons of how-to videos on YouTube and get better at my photography game.

Although there are a couple of official tutorials from the Pixelmator team, the number is meagre. Photo editing and photography, in general, is based on core concepts which can be applied to any tool regardless of how they are structured. I was able to apply most of my photo editing knowledge from Lightroom to Pixelmator Pro almost immediately. Though I have my set of iPhone photo editing apps that I’ve been using for years, I have a few photo editing apps on my radar, and Pixelmator Photo is one of them.

In September , the Pixelmator Team released a new version that includes a neat new feature. It’s time to look at Pixelmator Photo again, to update this review and to compare Pixelmator Photo vs. Lightroom Mobile. First, let’s have a look at how the original Pixelmator App for iPhone and iPad and Pixelmator Photo relate to each other.

In my opinion, it’s basically the same relationship as with Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Lightroom. Pixelmator Photo is not an app that replaces Pixelmator; rather, it supplements it. So, in other words: Pixelmator App is for retouching, and Pixelmator Photo is for “digitally developing” a photo. In this review, I’ll compare and focus on the significant differences between Pixelmator Photo and Lightroom to help you decide which one may be right for you.

It even supports the Apple Pencil. You simply open a photo from the photo library, apply adjustments and save it back to the Photos App, where you can choose if you want to modify the original photo or save it as a copy.

Note that if you chose to modify the original, Pixelmator Photo does not overwrite the original. It uses a feature introduced in iOS a while ago to save the modified copy as a version.

As this file contains all the improvements you applied, photo editing in Pixelmator Photo is non-destructive.

You can always open an edit and selectively remove or further adjust all the settings. When it comes to importing photos, Pixelmator Photo imports and exports different photo formats. Since its debut, Adobe has updated Lightroom CC at a lightning pace, introducing features like synced presets and synced profiles to speed up the mobile editing process. There are still a few features missing from the traditional Mac version of Lightroom Classic CC, but the list is short.

Standard editing tools like exposure, contrast, white balance adjustments, curves, HSL, detail, and more are all available in Lightroom for the iPad. Those who are looking for more powerful edits like split toning and color mixing will also be happy, as not only are these tools present on the iPad, they always work identically to Lightroom on other platforms. These geometry features, alongside lens correction profiles, are two of the first edits I do on every photo in Lightroom. What sets Lightroom apart from the rest of the competition are the healing and selective brush editing tools, made even better thanks to high-end Apple Pencil support.

Lightroom for iPad has a general healing brush, allowing you to correct maladies in your photograph by softening or by cloning the pixels around an area of a photo.

This is even more powerful with the selective brush editing tools in Lightroom for iPad. Want to dodge a specific person or subject in your photo, but want to leave the rest of the photograph as is? Once you have the area you want to edit selected, you can play with a variety of light, color, effects, details, and optics tools to set that area of the photograph just right.

The same can be done with graduated filters where your edits are made strongest in one area and gradually subside across your selected area and radial filters where your edits are strongest at the center of your selected area and subside away from middle point. Only one photo was flagged, two were edited, and all the photos contained a slide. There are, however, some missing features, at least when comparing Lightroom on the iPad to Lightroom on the Mac.

However, since we first published this review, Lightroom CC has introduced a variety of previously missing features. You can now batch edit multiple photos across Lightroom CC. To do so, simply copy the settings of one photograph, navigate back to your main library view, select the photos you want to apply the edit to, and hit Paste on the bottom navigational row.

One of my original complaints with Lightroom CC for the iPad was a lack of defringing tools. Of course, after a little patience, Adobe debuted these selective defringing tools in Lightroom CC for the iPad, eliminating the need to do some fancy color work to get everything to work.

Finally, Lightroom CC for iPad has also adopted better exporting features since we first published this review. You can now choose Export As at the bottom of the sharing menu to choose a variety of export settings. You can also choose where to save your photos either to your Camera Roll or to the Files app.

One specific area where Lightroom excels beyond the competition is in its navigational elements. Symbols are used to denote different modules on the right side of the iPad UI, but the remainder of the editing tools and sliders are all showcased in written English.

This is a stark difference to other photo editing apps on the iPad, where your guess is as good as mine as to what all the different navigational and tool symbols mean. There are a few head-scratchers in terms of user experience in Lightroom on the iPad, however. A swipe up in the rating module denoted by a star in the bottom right corner of the display will mark the photo as picked, while a downward swipe will mark the photo as rejected.

Other operational methods of the app could use a touch of polish as well. These operational methods are identical between Lightroom on the Mac and on the iPhone, but for brand new users with no experience using any version of Lightroom, this is bound to be a little challenging.

Although we prefer the way Lightroom denotes its navigational elements with words rather than symbols, the app has a few areas that could be a little more user friendly or perhaps new-user friendly. There are hundreds — thousands — of tutorials and guides on YouTube for how to get more out of Lightroom.

And since Lightroom has near feature-parity across multiple platforms, guides that pertain to Lightroom CC on the Mac are mostly going to pertain to Lightroom on the iPad as well. This ecosystem is most noticeable in terms of the sheer wealth of third-party presets available for Lightroom. Masters of their craft — like Rebecca Patience, who creates the Rebecca Lily Pro Set packages , or like Peter McKinnon , who has some killer preset packages with some bold looks — have preset packs available for purchase that can be imported and synced to Lightroom on the iPad to speed up the editing process.

You can find preset packs all over the web, from individuals who struck it big in Hollywood to boots-on-the-ground wedding photographers who have a special look. While tutorials and guides are available to be consumed on the iPad, synced presets have one major shortcoming: third-party preset packs must be imported in Lightroom CC on the Mac and synced over to Lightroom on the iPad via your Adobe Creative Cloud account. Once you have your presets imported in Lightroom on the Mac, they automatically show up in Lightroom on the iPad.

While Lightroom on the iPad has the best Apple Pencil support of any contender in this review, there are a few glaring iOS feature omissions that will have some users pointing to Darkroom as the front-runner. Other contenders have adopted Siri Shortcuts support beyond merely importing into Lightroom , or direct iCloud Photo Library and Files integration to allow you to maintain one photograph library rather than two. No other contender utilizes the Apple Pencil to the same extent as Lightroom for iPad.

The overall lack of immediate iOS feature support begs one important discussion: Adobe Lightroom is the best photo editing app for non-iPhone photos. As mentioned at the top, this review assumes a photographer has gone through the journey of researching different cameras and tools and inevitably ending up with a specific dedicated camera.

 
 

Why I Ditched Adobe Lightroom for Pixelmator Pro — Hulry.‎Pixelmator Photo on the App Store

 
But that will change. Note that if you chose to modify the original, Pixelmator Photo does not overwrite the original.

 

Pixelmator photo vs lightroom ipad free download.A powerful photo editor created exclusively for iPad.

 
Nov 26,  · Pixelmator Photo, one of the best Lightroom alternative apps for iPad, has gone free for 24 hours. The app supports nondestructive RAW photo editing, various color Author: Imran Hussain. May 12,  · How We Chose. The iPad and the Mac are far from identical in terms of photo editing apps, but they both suffer from the same lingo issue. The term photo editor describes two very different types of apps. Some photo editors, like Lightroom, have digital asset management (DAM) features, walking photographers from import to editing and through to exporting, and include library . Jul 18,  · Photo editing and photography, in general, is based on core concepts which can be applied to any tool regardless of how they are structured. I was able to apply most of my photo editing knowledge from Lightroom to Pixelmator Pro almost immediately. For some features like the local adjustments, I got used to the new way in a couple of replace.mes: 2.