Update: Pixelmator Photo is now available for iPad. Original story follows.

The team behind Pixelmator, the popular photo editing app designed for Mac and iOS, today announced the upcoming launch of a new app, Pixelmator Photo.

Pixelmator Photo is an app designed to allow photographers to edit images on the iPad with a collection of nondestructive color adjustment tools that match those available through the Pixelmator desktop app. Pixelmator Photo was designed specifically for the ‌iPad‌ and takes advantage of Apple's latest iOS technologies.


It features AI-based auto enhancing tools, RAW support, a repair tool for removing unwanted objects from photos, and preset filters inspired by analog film.

pixelmatorphotocolortools
There are tools for adjusting brightness, exposure, hue, saturation, vibrance, shadows, and highlights, and there are standard features you'd expect to find in any photo editing app like levels and curves, plus options for selectively adjusting colors, fixing white balance, cropping, and more.

The ML Enhance tool powered by machine learning automatically enhances and crops photographs using a Core-ML powered algorithm that the Pixelmator team trained with 20 million professional photos. It fixes white balance, exposure, and individual color range in each image, while also cropping photos to the ideal composition.

pixelmatorphotoautoenhance
Pixelmator has always had a powerful repair tool, which has been brought to Pixelmator Photo. It can be used to remove blemishes or cut out whole objects accurately from photos while preserving the background.

pixelmatorphotorepairtool
The app offers a collection of presets inspired by different photography styles, including black and white, cinematic to emulate the orange and teal film look, classic films based on classic film looks, and modern films for a more modern style. There are also presets for landscape shots, urban shots, and night shots, plus users can save their own custom presets.

pixelmatorphotoepresets
Pixelmator Photo can be pre-ordered for $3.99, a $1 discount off of the $4.99 launch price. The deal will end when the app becomes available on April 9. [Direct Link]

Top Rated Comments

GoAndrius Avatar
79 months ago
Probably the simplest and most obvious way to put it is: Pixelmator is a layer-based image editor. Kinda like Photoshop. Pixelmator Photo is photo editor with a focus on RAW editing specifically. Kinda like Lightroom. Obviously not the most marketing-y description but probably the kind of description most people will immediately understand. :D

As for the device cut-off — there isn't a way to differentiate between, for example, the iPad Air and the iPad Air 2, so in order to make sure that everybody who gets the app has a great user experience, we've had to set the cut-off point a little later than we maybe would've liked to. Compatible devices are listed on the App Store page ('https://itunes.apple.com/app/pixelmator-photo/id1444636541') and our Pixelmator Photo page ('https://www.pixelmator.com/photo/').
Score: 16 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Amazing Iceman Avatar
79 months ago
Is this app really needed if you already have Pixelmator and Affinity Photo?
What are the advantages?
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
nicho Avatar
79 months ago
Just out of interest, what was it you didn't like about the transition from the original Pixelmator to Pixelmator Pro? Bearing in mind the facts that, for App Store apps, there isn't a way of providing upgrade discounts...
I don’t know how you did the transition so I’m taking this comment without any context but there absolutely is a way of providing an upgrade discount for people who own app A1 and want to buy app A2. You put them in a bundle at a reduced price of A1 price + upgrade price. Complete my bundle does the rest by removing the price they paid in the first place from the amount to pay for the bundle.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ipedro Avatar
79 months ago
This gets very close to providing a successor to Aperture but on iPad. What’s still missing is a photo management system. A professional photographer needs to be able to keep their hundreds, even thousands of photos per shoot, separate from their personal photos. If Apple were to update the Photos app with multiple libraries, along with this app as an external editor, I can confidently say that I’d drop Lightroom.

In the meantime, I’ll buy this app even though I can’t use it professionally because I want to support the developer. I want to invest in the future of this company. I love how the Pixelmator team sticks so closely to Apple UI standards, so much that their apps look like they were designed by Apple themselves, — essentially what a native advanced photo editing app would look like if Apple were to make one.

I would not be at all opposed to Apple acquiring this company if they kept the team intact and let them do their thing.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
GoAndrius Avatar
79 months ago
What about the new iPad Mini 5? That should have enough horsepower for the app.
iPad mini 5 is supported, strange that it's not appearing on the list... We'll have to double-check this. As far as I know, it's possible to buy the app (or at least test via TestFlight) on the 5th generation mini and 3rd gen Air.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
now i see it Avatar
79 months ago
....$3.99

And photoshop back in the day before creative cloud cost $699.00 retail for the DVD.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Popular Stories

iphone 17 air iphone 16 pro

iPhone 17 Air USB-C Port May Have This Unusual Design Quirk

Wednesday April 30, 2025 3:59 am PDT by
Apple is preparing to launch a dramatically thinner iPhone this September, and if recent leaks are anything to go by, the so-called iPhone 17 Air could boast one of the most radical design shifts in recent years. iPhone 17 Air dummy model alongside iPhone 16 Pro (credit: AppleTrack) At just 5.5mm thick (excluding a slightly raised camera bump), the 6.6-inch iPhone 17 Air is expected to become ...
AirPods Pro 3 Mock Feature

AirPods Pro 3 Just Months Away – Here's What We Know

Tuesday April 29, 2025 1:30 am PDT by
Despite being more than two years old, Apple's AirPods Pro 2 still dominate the premium wireless‑earbud space, thanks to a potent mix of top‑tier audio, class‑leading noise cancellation, and Apple's habit of delivering major new features through software updates. With AirPods Pro 3 widely expected to arrive in 2025, prospective buyers now face a familiar dilemma: snap up the proven...
iOS App Store General Feature JoeBlue

Epic Games Wins Major Victory as Apple is Ordered to Comply With App Store Anti-Steering Injunction [Updated]

Wednesday April 30, 2025 4:01 pm PDT by
In a victory for Epic Games, Apple was today found to be in violation of a 2021 injunction that required it to allow developers to direct customers to third-party purchase options on the web using in-app links. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who has been handling the Apple vs. Epic Games dispute for the last five years, said that Apple is in "willful violation" of the injunction she issued to ...
General Spotify Feature

Spotify Submits iOS App Update With Out-of-App Purchase Options

Thursday May 1, 2025 3:37 pm PDT by
Spotify today submitted an app update to Apple that will include information on Spotify plan costs and options to subscribe through weblinks without using the in-app purchase system. Spotify will not need to pay a fee to Apple when customers subscribe to the service using alternate payment methods in the Spotify app. In a blog post announcing the changes, Spotify said that yesterday's ruling ...
iphone 16 display

iPhone 17's Scratch Resistant Anti-Reflective Display Coating Canceled

Monday April 28, 2025 12:48 pm PDT by
Apple may have canceled the super scratch resistant anti-reflective display coating that it planned to use for the iPhone 17 Pro models, according to a source with reliable information that spoke to MacRumors. Last spring, Weibo leaker Instant Digital suggested Apple was working on a new anti-reflective display layer that was more scratch resistant than the Ceramic Shield. We haven't heard...
iOS 19

Apple Already Testing iOS 19.4 After Delaying Personalized Siri Features

Thursday May 1, 2025 9:03 am PDT by
A subset of Apple's software engineers started internal development of iOS 19.4 last month, according to the MacRumors visitor logs. iOS 19.4 is expected to be released in March or April next year, so the software update is still nearly a year away. However, Apple develops both "Fall" and "Spring" versions of iOS each year, with our website's analytics logs indicating that both iOS 19.0 and...
fortnite apple featured

Epic Games Offers Apple 'Peace Proposal' to Return Fortnite to the App Store Worldwide

Wednesday April 30, 2025 5:12 pm PDT by
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney today said that Fortnite will return to the U.S. App Store next week, and he offered a "peace proposal" with a pledge to bring Fortnite back to iOS worldwide if Apple follows certain steps. "Epic puts forth a peace proposal: If Apple extends the court's friction-free, Apple-tax-free framework worldwide, we'll return Fortnite to the App Store worldwide and drop...
nest thermostat

Google Announces End Date for Original Nest Thermostat Support

Wednesday April 30, 2025 3:08 am PDT by
Google has announced that first- and second-generation Nest Learning Thermostats will lose support in October 2025, disabling their connected features (via ArsTechnica). After October 25, 2025, these devices will no longer receive software updates or connect to Google's cloud services. Users won't be able to control them via the Google Home app or voice assistants, though basic temperature...