First Look: Pixelmator private beta arrives

My apologies. That's what I get for not reading all the way before I fire off a post. Kevin

Sorry for missing the requests for the wallpaper everyone. It's "The Hill" and you can find it here:

http://manicho.deviantart.com/art/The-Hill-52831315

another shoutout for that background pic in the first image in the gallery. pure awesome. sure you can't give us a link to it? :D

If you would like to see a different paradigm for editing photos, check-out http://www.greenwavesoftware.com/magicbrush-photo/

The first 100 buyers using this coupon (CPN5059878658) will get a 50% discount.

#16: Talk about presumptuous -I bleed 6 colors, baby. The fact is, UI design is steering *away* from having millions of discreet palates. Pixelmator persists with this paradigm, which is sad. I would prefer fewer, but contextual palates. The iApps are going in this direction a bit, if you look at the inspector.

Nevertheless, given discreet palates, as a seasoned Photoshop jock i've found that having them in a persistent, locked down position unobstructing the main document is critical to efficient workflow. Call it a Fitts law sort of thing.

But even with all that, the HUD look is really the worst offender. You have to ask yourself: what is the *benefit* of being able to see through every single palate in the application? When I work on images, I want LESS distractions. PIxelmator, with it's candy-colored elements, superfluous swinging ropes and such bring nothing to the usability table.

To answer a few questions:

1) Pixelmator does indeed have a full screen editing mode. I simply didn't mention it in this First Look. I definitely plan to cover it in the bigger review I'm drafting.

2) Be nice to our graphic designers. I used to think our logo was kinda icky too until I realized that it actually spells T-U-A-W. The T is stacked on top of the U, with the A atop the W. This cleverness turned me around; now I dig it.

@#1 - I agree the desktop picture in the first screenshot is awesome.

The second screenshot simply reminds me how god awful the TUAW logo is. It is seriously hideous. The designer should be beaten, burned alive and his ashes scattered.

#11 Aren't you being a bit presumptuous? Not everyone works like you and you seem to be from a windows background. You mentioned iPhoto which has a full-screen editing mode while this is apparently not a fullscreen app and you also mentioned Photoshop with the docking of controls. Controls docking to the sides is a very "windows" concept and Photoshop for windows is an MDI style interface. Even though the the mac version is not MDI, the docking behavior of palettes near the screen tend to mimic the window version as if it ws treating the current screen as the root window in the MDI scheme.

I prefer having free floating toolbars to docking ones. If you find then getting in the way, you can always move them off the editing window or onto another screen so I don't see the problem here.

#14: Did you even bother to read the beginning of my post? I had express permission from the Pixelmator developers to write about this. Email them yourself if you're having that hard of a time with this.

I'm fairly new to macs and new to doing photo mods, have only used iPhoto. Tried GIMP and its very... un-mac like. I don't want or need a super suite ala photoshop. I'm just touching up and modifying a bit for web posting some of my pics. Have no desire to become a pro. If pixelmator provides this to "the rest of us", mission accomplished!