Pixelmator Professional feels designed for the iPad

No matter your qualms about Apple Creator Studio — and I have some — the subscription bundle, like Apple’s different subscription bundles, is a deal. To get high quality apps like Ultimate Lower Professional and Logic Professional, plus a bunch of different skilled apps, for the comparatively low worth of $12.99 monthly, will likely be value it to some individuals. The true query about Apple’s new subscription is not whether or not it makes financial sense, however how Apple Creator Studio will work as one thing individuals pay for long-term.

The inclusion of Pixelmator Professional within the bundle’s lineup provides a very attention-grabbing wrinkle. Apple acquired Pixelmator, the developer behind Lightroom-replacement Photomator and Photoshop-replacement Pixelmator Pro, in November 2024, however largely left the corporate and it is apps alone till the launch of Apple Creator Studio. Pixelmator Professional is out there to subscribers in each macOS, and for the primary time, iPadOS variations. With the iPadOS model carrying over all of the options of its desktop counterpart. After testing Pixelmator Professional for iPad for my day-to-day picture making work, it completely matches the standard of the perfect iPad creation instruments, however I am undecided, as the only unique app in Apple Creator Studio, it’ll get anybody to subscribe.

Pixelmator Professional has all of its finest desktop options

The app’s brushes, choice instruments, and results are all right here

From the bounce, Pixelmator Professional for iPad does an excellent job of recreating the feel and appear of the desktop model of the app. Pixelmator excelled at making third-party apps that appeared like first-party macOS apps even earlier than the corporate was acquired by Apple, so it isn’t shocking the corporate can be good at supporting Apple’s different gadgets, however the firm has additionally achieved work to undertake the most recent Apple design components. The variations of Pixelmator Professional included in Apple Creator Studio are all in on Liquid Glass, Apple’s new shiny and translucent design materials. Past that, the fundamental structure of Pixelmator Professional for iPad mirrors what you will discover on the Mac.

The appropriate aspect of the app is dedicated to a toolbar of various instruments for choosing components of a picture, making use of results, retouching errors, erasing content material, cropping, drawing, and extra. The left aspect of the app is dedicated to a collapsible layer menu, the place the totally different layers and masks of your picture reside, and may be rearranged as you see match. That leaves the middle of the app on your canvas, the place the picture itself or no matter else you are engaged on is and may be manipulated with the same old iPad contact gestures. Exterior the workspace, Pixelmator Professional has additionally adopted Apple’s menu system. Whenever you first open the app, you will discover the identical fullscreen unfold of information to open, similar to Apple makes use of in Pages, Keynote, and Numbers, and whichever display you are on, a macOS-style menu bar with dropdown menus like File, Edit, and View are accessible everytime you want them (a latest addition to the iPad included in iPadOS 26).

If, like me, you’ve got used Pixelmator Professional for some time, navigating Pixelmator Professional for iPad ought to be instantly acquainted. The app is intentionally similar to its desktop counterpart for a motive. That does not imply there aren’t benefits to utilizing the app on an iPad, or particularly paying for the Apple Creator Studio model, although.

The iPad is a pure match for Pixelmator Professional

Enhancing together with your fingers and stylus simply is sensible

Maybe unsurprisingly, I actually loved utilizing Pixelmator Professional with an Apple Pencil. The superb element work of choosing components of a picture, erasing issues, and simply typically manipulating issues on display simply feels proper with a stylus on a pill. Studying the place every part was and the way I might use Pixelmator Professional has a studying curve that I am nonetheless getting a deal with on and, for no matter motive, I at all times neglect the best way to make a masks, however in any other case the app feels clean and quick to make use of.

What’s additional good too is that, as a result of iPadOS 26 is making an attempt to be a bit like an alternate-universe macOS, you need to use all of the apps with no stylus if you’d like, and it really works almost in addition to the desktop model. In actual fact, I regularly arrange initiatives with my iPad Air on a Magic Keyboard, loaded in photographs from the Recordsdata app, after which popped my iPad off its keyboard and used an Apple Pencil as soon as I truly began enhancing. It feels pure, and the one factor that might make it higher is that if I did not need to remove my iPad from its keyboard at all.

Apart from the fundamental flexibility of utilizing an iPad, the Apple Creator Studio model of Pixelmator Professional additionally features a instrument that is unique to subscribers. It is referred to as Warp, and it permits you to manipulate, nudge, and usually reshape a complete layer of your undertaking with pure curves created by sliders, your mouse, or an Apple Pencil. In my transient time utilizing it, the Warp instrument was a versatile technique to match a picture in a single layer round one other — changing the content material of a display with a warped screenshot, for instance — and appeared prefer it may very well be equally good for extra experimental edits. I am undecided if the Warp instrument ought to be the rationale anybody ought to subscribe to Apple Creator Studio, although, which is a bigger drawback for Pixelmator Professional as a complete.

Pixelmator Professional for iPad ought to be accessible individually

Why cannot I pay for a subscription to a single app?

Pixelmator Professional for iPad works effectively and is a pure translation of Pixelmator’s already wonderful desktop app. Which makes it all of the extra irritating you possibly can solely get it in your iPad with an Apple Creator Studio subscription. As an unique, it would get some individuals to pay month-to-month, but it surely appears equally doable the price will drive individuals to the various alternative image editing apps on the App Retailer. That doubtless would not trouble Apple as a result of it will get a lower of these transactions, too, but it surely does imply {that a} good app is a bit more annoying to make use of.

OS

MacOS, iPadOS

What’s included?

Professional picture enhancing software program

Pixelmator Professional is an up to date model of the category macOS picture enhancing app that is included in Apple Creator Studio and now runs on iPadOS.

To keep away from relitigating the issues with packaging every part beneath one subscription, Pixelmator Professional for iPad ought to be accessible to buy in another means. It would not need to be a standalone buy, and it might even be a single app subscription, like Apple used to do with Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro for iPad. However as is, making the app an unique hurts its possibilities of being loved by extra individuals.