Photomator

Photomator is a robust and intuitive photo editing application developed by the Pixelmator Team, designed for Mac, iPhone, and iPad. It combines professional-grade tools with user-friendly features, making it suitable for both beginners and advanced photographers. Below is a detailed overview of its features and capabilities:

Key Features

AI-Powered Editing

Automatic Adjustments: Machine learning algorithms analyze and optimize parameters like exposure, contrast, and saturation with a single click.
ML Super Resolution: Enhances photo resolution using AI, allowing for significant upscaling without losing detail.
Smart Debanding and Denoising: Removes color banding and reduces noise from images, improving overall quality.
Selective Adjustments: Automatically masks specific areas (e.g., subject, sky, or background) for precise edits without manual selection.

Advanced Color Management

Comprehensive Color Adjustments: Tools include white balance, selective color editing, hue/saturation/vibrance controls, curves, levels, and more.
Texture-Aware Adjustments: Refines details in highlights, midtones, and shadows using clarity and texture sliders.
LUT Support: Enables users to apply or export custom LUTs (Look-Up Tables) for consistent color grading across projects.

Retouching Tools

Repair Tool: Removes unwanted objects or imperfections from photos seamlessly.
Clone Tool (Mac-only): Copies parts of an image to another area for precise retouching.
Skin Smoothing & Red-Eye Correction: Offers localized retouching for portrait photography.

Batch Processing

Allows users to apply edits to multiple photos simultaneously, streamlining workflows for large projects or photoshoots.

Creative Filters and Presets

Includes a library of presets tailored to various styles like landscape or black-and-white photography. Users can also create custom presets.

Non-Destructive RAW Editing

Supports over 750 RAW formats (including Apple ProRAW), enabling full-quality editing with tools like repair and clone applied non-destructively.

Cropping and Perspective Tools

Offers cropping, straightening, perspective correction, and machine learning-powered auto-cropping for artistic framing suggestions.

Watermarking

Custom watermarking tools allow users to add text or image-based watermarks to protect their work or enhance branding.

HDR Support

Works with HDR images and can even convert non-HDR photos into HDR for enhanced dynamic range.

Integration and Compatibility

Fully integrates with macOS features like Core ML, Metal, and SwiftUI for fast performance.
Syncs seamlessly with the Photos app via iCloud Photos, ensuring edits are updated across devices.
Supports external drives on Mac for direct editing of stored photos.

User Experience

Photomator’s interface is designed to be intuitive while still offering advanced functionality. It features:

A clean layout with easy access to tools via toolbars or shortcuts.
Seamless navigation through the photo library using iOS/macOS-native design elements.
Support for Apple Pencil on iPadOS for precise edits.

Advantages

Accessibility: Combines professional tools with simplicity, making it ideal for beginners while catering to advanced users.
Performance: Optimized for Apple Silicon processors and macOS/iOS technologies for smooth handling of large files.
Affordability: Available via subscription at a lower cost than competing apps like Adobe Lightroom.

Limitations

While Photomator excels in many areas, some users may find limitations such as:

Lack of advanced local adjustment tools compared to Lightroom.
Perspective correction features are less comprehensive than those in some alternatives.

Reception

Photomator has been widely praised for its innovative AI tools, performance optimization on Apple devices, and affordability. It was awarded "Mac App of the Year" in 2023 by Apple. Its combination of advanced features and ease of use makes it a compelling choice for photographers seeking a Lightroom alternative.

Sources [1] Photomator – Photo Editor on the App Store - Apple https://apps.apple.com/us/app/photomator-photo-editor/id1444636541 [2] Photomator: The Best Photo Editor for Mac, iPhone and iPad - CYME https://cyme.io/photo-editing-applications/photomator/ [3] Review: Pixelmator Photo for iOS. A Lightroom alternative? https://nocamerabag.com/blog/review-pixelmator-photo [4] Photomator tools and features - Pixelmator Support https://support.pixelmator.com/photomator-user-guide/get-started/photomator-tools-and-features [5] Mac App of the Year : Photomator – Photo Editor - App Store https://apps.apple.com/us/story/id1701920365 [6] In Depth Review - An Inexpensive and Excellent Photo Editor for Mac https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbuyiWAd2Zo [7] Photomator - Pixelmator Pro https://www.pixelmator.com/photomator/ [8] Photomator lets me protect my original images with this new feature https://bgr.com/tech/photomator-finally-lets-me-protect-my-original-images-with-this-new-feature/ [9] This app let me say goodbye to Photoshop and I might be better off ... https://www.techradar.com/computing/websites-apps/this-app-let-me-say-goodbye-to-photoshop-and-i-might-be-better-off-for-it [10] Photomator is the Mac App of the Year - Pixelmator Blog https://www.pixelmator.com/blog/2023/11/30/photomator-is-the-mac-app-of-the-year.html

Your photo editing powerhouse

Description

Photomator is a photo editing powerhouse, offering incredible tools for enhancing, retouching, and managing your photos. It includes an extensive collection of cutting-edge color adjustments, automatic selections powered by AI, powerful batch editing features, Clone and Repair tools, watermarks, and much more. Simply put, it has everything you need to make every shot your best.

The ultimate photo editing experience

• Adjust colors and lighting using a collection of powerful, nondestructive color adjustments

• Automatically make precise subject, sky, and background selections in photos using AI

• Add gradient masks, make color range selections, or simply paint over the areas you want to adjust using a brush

• Seamlessly clone or remove unwanted objects using state-of-the-art retouching tools

• Easily copy and paste edits between photos or batch edit entire photoshoots at a time

• Crop, straighten, and change the perspective of photos with a powerful and easy-to-use Crop tool

• Quickly change the look of photos using an extensive collection of presets, designed for landscape, black and white, and other photography styles

Tools powered by AI

• Automatically enhance shots using a machine learning algorithm trained on 20 million pro photos, or fine-tune individual adjustments, like White Balance, Selective Color, or Color Balance with a single click

• Magically increase the resolution of photos while keeping them detailed and sharp

• Remove camera noise and image compression artifacts with the Core ML-powered Denoise feature

• Instantly improve the quality of photos by removing color banding and increasing color depth with AI-powered Smart Deband feature

• Copy the look of any photo to another using the incredible color-matching feature

• Intelligently crop photos using machine learning-powered auto-cropping

State-of-the-art color adjustments

• Enjoy powerful tools for effortlessly adjusting the temperature, tint, exposure, contrast, brightness, hue, saturation, and vibrance in your photos

• Recover incredible amounts of detail in the highlights and shadows of photos

• Magically enhance fine details and structure in photos using powerful Clarity and Texture adjustments, or adjust textures in the highlights, midtones, and shadows separately

• Selectively edit individual color ranges with Selective Color, or improve the balance of colors in the shadows, midtones, and highlights with Color Balance

• Adjust lighting and colors with full precision using Levels and Curves adjustments

• Mix the balance of the red, green, and blue color channels to create intense color effects in your images

• Replace any color with any other using the Replace Color adjustment

• Create beautiful black and whites even from your color photos

• Use a range of additional adjustments, like Sharpen, Fade, Grain, Color Monochrome, Sepia, and Invert to make your photos stand out

• Instantly change the look of photos with LUTs or export custom LUTs to use in other apps

RAW editing made simple

• Open and edit over 750 RAW image formats, including Apple ProRAW and compressed Fujifilm RAWs

• Edit RAW photos as easily as photos in other formats using all the nondestructive tools, including Repair and Clone tools

• Easily batch-edit RAW photos together with photos in other formats

Compatibility

• Edit photos on your Mac, in cloud, or on external drives with full macOS file system support

• Enjoy seamless Photos integration, instantly syncing edits between both apps

• With the support for iCloud Drive, enjoy seamless edit syncing across Mac, iPhone and iPad

Photomator is built from the ground up for Mac and integrates seamlessly with macOS Ventura. It uses powerful Apple technologies like Metal, Core ML, and Core Image to deliver staggeringly fast performance, even when editing large RAW photos or batch editing multiple images at a time.

What’s New

Version 3.4.5

Photomator 3.4.5 adds a few fixes to keep the app running smoothly.

The RAW icon would be displayed for certain RAW photos in the toolbar and Info window even when the actual photo opened was not RAW (for example, when opening a RAW edited in another app). Fixed.

• Sort options would not be restored in the Files browser for non-folder collections. Fixed.

• The selected folder and sort options would not be restored more than one level deep in the Files browser. Fixed.

• The search field would sometimes expand incorrectly when it had a compact appearance. Fixed.

• In the batch editing view, when reopening a batch worfklow with HDDR JPEG as the saved export format, the JPEG option would be selected instead. Fixed.

Ratings and Reviews

Editors’ Choice

Looking for a simple but powerful way to freshen up your photos? Photomator makes editing approachable even if you don’t know your contrast from your saturation. With a few taps, the app lets you adjust specific color ranges, perfect your photo’s shadows, and fix up highlights. And once you’ve found settings you like, save them as your own presets.

Best iOS photo editor for everyday use

This is by far the best iOS photo editor for everyday use. I’ve used it since its original iPad release and it has only gotten better over time. Some of the features that have made it great for a long time are iOS photos integration (no importing/exporting hassle), all basic editing features that work as expected (color, exposure, sharpness, etc.), custom setting options, batch editing capability, and RAW support. The recent-ish additions of super resolution, denoising, iPhone support, and a more fluid browsing/editing interface have pushed this app over the top as the best editor for casual users who like to make their everyday photos shine. There are, of course, still opportunities for improvement, such as more customizable batch processing, the ability to better customize the interface (for example, to hide the overall ML button but surface the denoise option, rearrange the tool order, etc.), masking capability, setting sync between iPad and iPhone, and so on… but these would all be quality of life improvements on what is already a superb app. Highly recommended over every other iOS photo editor (and I have used more than I care to admit).

bigballerbanana , 09/29/2024

Phenomenal, it genuinely needs so few features to overtake Lightroom completely

This is the kind of photo editor we need more of in the 2020s. Every company offerring a service offers subscriptions and licenses to their product telling you “no, you don’t own the software just because you paid for it. You’re paying us for permission.” This isn’t that. Not totally anyways. The option to buy it for life is growingly a rare delicacy because every apologist might want to defend how you lose your money for the products you need or want.
Regardless, the only few features I’d need to make this be my ONLY app because I need lightroom for only 2-3 things: exporting files in desired color ranges like P3/ProPhoto/AdobeRGB/sRGB, exporting in my preferred file format like JXL (don’t kid yourself that it isn’t a better file format than HEIC if Apple is willing to start replacing it with the iPhone 16 since it can handle lossless encoding + massively wide color ranges), and lens correction/removing chromatic abberation. The editor is so good at parity that these ate the only few things I can even say.
As of now, the workflow is to edit the RAW in Photomator, export the TIFF to Lightroom, then export the TIFF to JXL on 90% in Display P3 (sometimes Rec. 2020 for HDR photos). Cut out lightroom from my ultra simple workflow. The upcoming plans make me excited to dive more into photography.

Developer Response ,

We truly appreciate you taking the time to share your experience in such an extensive yet nicely formatted way. Your suggestions here have been noted and if you'd like to further specify them or have any other ones, feel free to drop us an email to support@pixelmator.com, so that we can forward your ideas to the team. :)

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The developer, Pixelmator Team, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy.

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Information

UAB Pixelmator Team iPhone Requires iOS 17.0 or later. iPad Requires iPadOS 17.0 or later. Mac Requires macOS 13.0 or later. Requires visionOS 1.0 or later. English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Traditional Chinese © 2024 Pixelmator Team In-App Purchases 1. Yearly Subscription $29.99 2. Monthly Subscription $7.99 3. Yearly Subscription $29.99 4. Yearly Subscription $39.99 5. Monthly Subscription $7.99

1. Yearly Subscription $29.99
2. Monthly Subscription $7.99
3. Yearly Subscription $29.99
4. Yearly Subscription $39.99
5. Monthly Subscription $7.99