For those who don’t need all of the bells and whistles (and overhead) of Adobe’s Photoshop for photo editing, another product has taken off in the Mac platform.  Pixelmator is a $30 Mac App, now in the App Store which gives you 80+% of what Photoshop offers.

The good news is that Pixelmator 2.0 is on the way with additional tools which may be able to take care of the needs of light Illustrator uses as well the inclusion of Vector Drawing tools:

..and some more sophisticated Photoshop tools like content aware fill and a more advanced type tool.

Interestingly, TUAW notes that eventually it will cost $59 but users who buy the current $29 version will be upgraded for free so that would mean now is a time to get in.

All the new features after the break.

More at Pixelmator.com

Look and Feel

Handcrafted to the very last detail specifically for working with images, the new user interface of the app is as beautiful to look at as it is easy-to-use.

Drawing Tools

Enjoy perfectly precise, full-featured drawing tools that allow you to easily create and edit any vector shapes, whether simple or advanced.

Shapes

Use the Rectangle, Rounded Rectangle, Ellipse, Polygon, Star, Line or Custom Shape tools to quickly add shape layers to your compositions.

Healing Tool

Paint with the new Healing Tool on objects or any other details in an image to magically remove them, as if they never existed. Watch the video….

Content-Aware Fill

Take advantage of a breakthrough technology that helps magically get rid of unwanted elements in images.

Smudge Tool

Use the new Smudge Tool to smear paint, or to rub out blemishes or any other details in your images, as realistically as if you were using your fingers.

Sponge Tool

Paint using any brush tip either to add more color to or to take color away from objects, details or any other areas of an image.

Burn Tool

Use the Burn Tool to naturally darken specific areas of an image—whether in the highlights, midtones or shadows range for a given area.

Dodge Tool

Use the Dodge Tool to naturally lighten specific areas of an image—whether in the highlights, midtones or shadows range for a given area.

Red Eye Tool

Use the Red Eye Tool to easily—either automatically or manually—get rid of the red-eye effect in your images.

Pixel Tool

Enjoy editing images at the pixel level by taking advantage of the hard-edged, pixel-precise, pixel art-type Pixel Tool.

New Eyedropper Tool

Use the new magnifying Eyedropper Tool to efficiently snap colors from an image to use as needed.

Info Bar

The new Info Bar provides you with the most useful information required at a specific moment, depending on the tool in use.

Tools Customization

Make the app truly personal by adding, removing, arranging, even grouping tools in the fully customizable Tools palette.

Tool Options Bar

Enjoy the new contextual Tool Options bar, which shows the exact set of tool settings needed at the moment, depending on the tool in use.

New Type Tool

In addition to easily placing and formatting text on your images, now also enjoy advanced typography features.

 

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