App of the week: Pixelmator Photo review

Picture perfect

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of Pixelmator Photo is what it gives you for so little effort. I opened a range of photos in the app, and also in popular consumer-oriented tools Photos and Snapseed. In almost every case, Pixelmator Photo bettered them. It didn’t artificially boost colours, or screw things up in other ways. The Pixelmator Photos output just looked better – more balanced; more natural.

There’s a similar quality to other aspects of the app. The repair tool mostly works really well for eradicating small blemishes. It’s mildly irritating to get going – the drag gesture it uses clashes with the one for moving images, and so you must tap-hold, pause a bit, and then move your finger. Still, it’s hard to gripe when you see the results.

Similarly, the app has a slew of lovely film emulation presets to apply as one-tap filters. And, yes, so does every other photo app under the sun, but these are better than most I’ve seen on iOS.

Chop it

The app stumbles slightly when cropping – at least when you use the ML option. It seems like it’s embarrassed and just feels the need to do something. So mostly it makes tiny crops, but once it hacked off my kid’s arm, which I’d argue isn’t perfect framing.

Fortunately, automated straightening works much better, as does, well, everything else. If you’re like me, you’ll soon move past just prodding the automated ML button all the time, and will end up down an hours-deep rabbit hole of transforming basic snaps into photographic works of art (or eye-searing disasters – the app can’t stop you when you get a bit too slider happy).

Given its consistency, quality, feature-set, and almost comically low price, only avoid this app if you don’t have an iPad – or happen to hate the idea of making your photos look nicer.

Pixelmator Photo is available for iPad.