Pixelmator for iPad – First Impressions

Loving the iPad Air 2 For Creativity

I have been very busy to set up lots of different applications on my new iPad and one of these is the new Pixelmator for iPad app. My first try at using it yesterday didn’t go quite so well as I thought it would. I was trying to open files that I had created on my Mac and I think that the problem was due to needing to wait for some synchronisation. I’m not known for my ability to be patient. This morning I am trying the application again and I managed to get into one of these files. It is a picture of a pizza that I did some work with in Topaz Impression. One of the things that was shown during the Apple event to announce the iPad Air 2 was how easy it was to delete an object from a picture intelligently using the retouch tool. So I gave this a try, I removed one of the tomatoes from pizza and I have to say that it is impressive indeed. It worked very quickly and afterward the edit you cannot tell where the edit was made. The picture still looks spot on. I have given a quick try to the painting tools and they worked very well. I can also use my Intuos Creative Stylus 2 for Apple iPad
which is excellent news.

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Adding effects to your photos

I can add effects to my images and there is a whole host of effects to choose from. You can start with the standard effects that will do things like blur, sharpen, noise, hue and saturation as well is more interesting things. You can completely destroy or make your pictures interesting with filters such as Bump, Pinch or Kaleidoscope. I like the way that these controls work within Pixelmator for iPad. So if for example you are using the Bump effect you get a spot on the end of a dotted wobbly line. It looks kind of like a soap on a rope. The spot is where you want to place the centre of the effect and then there is another spot connected to that main one which allows you to say how far the effect extends. Once you have everything set up the way that you want with your effect, you click on done and hey presto the job is done.

Completely intuitive to use

One of the best things about this Pixelmator for iPad application is that you don’t really need much help in working out how to use any of the tools and effects. All you need to do is to jump in there and play. If you don’t like what you have done, you always have the undo button to take you back a step. If you do need any help at all to work out how to do things there is a question or icon in the top right-hand corner. A quick tip matter and you see a whole load of tips appear on screen pointing to what each of the available buttons do.

Pixelmator for the iPad Artist

Using your fingers to do resize of your objects is as easy as you would expect it to be. If you do any sort of artwork whether that be creating digital drawings and paintings or working with your photographs then I have to say that this is a must have application for the iPad. There is a possibility I could be using this in preference to my previous favourite, Procreate. Without a doubt I am going to be creating some art on my iPad to post to my social network accounts.

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