Everyone talks about CaptureOne and Lightroom as replacement for Aperture but Pixelmator is usually left out. It claims that it can now access Photos directly with its latest update. Is it a viable alternative to the others?
Pixelmator is great as an external editor for image adjustments, and graphics compositions. But it is not a substitute for managing a photo library.
It has brushed adjustment and many nice effects.
I just tested it with the Photos.app, and it is easy to open a photo from the Photos library using Pixelmator's Photo Browser, edit it, and save it back to Photos.
Pixelmator is great as an external editor for image adjustments, and graphics compositions. But it is not a substitute for managing a photo library.
It has brushed adjustment and many nice effects.
I just tested it with the Photos.app, and it is easy to open a photo from the Photos library using Pixelmator's Photo Browser, edit it, and save it back to Photos.
Thanks Leonie,
could you use Photos to manage your library and do some basic editing and do more advanced editing with PixelMator, or would the work flow be too cumbersome.
It will depend on what you require from a digital assets management system.
Photos allows you to manage your photos and edited version in a lossless way. You have can create albums and smart albums, add keywords, titles, captions. The star ratings are not supported, there is only the "Favourite" heart, no color labels, no flags. No batch changing of metadata.
Not all EXIF tags are displayed.
Photos supports many of the adjustments that Aperture had, but you cannot brush them in locally, and you cannot define adjustment presets or metadata presets.
I will keep my main photo library in Aperture for the time being and wait for a few improvements to Photos.
How does Pixelmator save it's adjusted photo back to the Photo app? Does it create a new copy?
How does Pixelmator save it's adjusted photo back to the Photo app? Does it create a new copy?
Yes. The saved, edited photo will be a new import in Photos.
Pixelmator as an alternative to Aperture?
