Pixelmator This instant

I am an intermediate-level Photoshop user - not an expert by any means, but pretty good. Anyway, I had the opportunity to try Pixelmator and I love it! For the price, it's amazingly powerful.

One of the first things that struck me about Pixelmator is its speed. On my quad core iMac, there's really nothing I can throw at it that it can't handle with blazing speed. I also love the fact that many effects are rendered in real-time - for example, if you draw a gradient, you see what it looks like as you're drawing the gradient line. An amazing feature that isn't in Photoshop, where you only see the gradient once you've drawn the line. I also appreciate the fact that there are multiple levels of "undo" - having to use "step backward" in Photoshop always bugs me.

The interface is beautifully designed, and it's a Mac-only program so it's very much tailored to the OSX experience. As a Mac user and lover of good design, it makes me very happy! There's just so much to like about Pixelmator and I keep finding more. Press "F" and you enter full screen mode so you can focus on your work with no distractions. Press "TAB" and all the palettes appear or disappear. Want to install new brushes? Just drag the brush file onto the canvas, and voila - they're automatically installed! As much as I love Photoshop, it's quite a bloated piece of software. Those times when I want to do something quickly I'll be using Pixelmator.

If you've used Photoshop before you'll have no problem using Pixelmator. It's pretty much the same in terms of layers, brushes, etc. If you're new to graphics programs, the manual is excellent and this program is very easy to learn. There are some fantastic tutorials on the official Pixelmator website that are definitely worth checking out so you can see just what this program is capable of.

Although I'll continue to use Photoshop, I'll definitely be using Pixelmator a lot. Its speed, simplicity and power make it an irresistible purchase. I highly recommend it, either as a standalone graphics program or as a very useful companion to Photoshop.Get more detail about Pixelmator.