Pixelmator Pro, Image Playground, Mac, Apple Intelligence

The new Pixelmator Pro 3.7 remains a standalone app, but has Apple improvements throughout — image credit: Pixelmator

In the first major update since it was acquired by Apple, the Pixelmator Pro image editor for Mac has added features for pros with more RAW support, plus Image Playground from Apple Intelligence.

If you’ve been crossing your fingers since November 2024 that Apple wouldn’t strip its newly-acquired Pixelmator Pro for parts, now is the first real clue of just how Apple intends to use the image editor. For Pixelmator Pro 3.7 adds only one new feature that’s akin to its additions before the acquisition, but it’s remained a separate app — with a lot of Apple elements added.

The most immediately obvious of which is that Pixelmator Pro now includes Image Playground. It’s not quite as odd an inclusion as it was when professional video editing app Final Cut Pro got Image Playground, though.

For it looks now as if Apple wants to keep the strengths of Pixelmator Pro and expand them to reach a wider audience. Some of that audience will just want quick results, and Image Playground can do that. With Pixelmator Pro, you use Image Playground within the app, and decide whether the results are to replace a layer, or create a new one.

Equally, while Pixelmator Pro has always been an image editor rather than a page layout one, people do use it for designs that incorporate text. So if it’s previously offered tools for adding text on a shape, it isn’t an enormous leap that it now includes Apple Intelligence’s Writing Tools.

What’s definitely expanding the app’s reach is that Apple has clearly got to work on Accessibility. In the new Pixelmator Pro 3.7, for instance, Voice Over now speaks the name of tools as you use your keyboard to move between them.

Professional users are not forgotten

Then there is also one sop to the more power users of Pixelmator Pro. It’s now possible to open and edit RAW images from OM System’s OM-1 Mark II cameras, taken using High Res Shot.

So we are continuing to gain material improvements for pro users, and Apple is expanding its reach to more users. It looks as if the move to Apple has been a positive one.

Although there is an oddity in that despite the new Pixelmator Pro 3.7 being available on the App Store — it’s free for existing users, $49.99 for new ones — that’s not reflected on the official site. That continues to promote the previous 3.6 version.

Which means we don’t know yet whether the Pixelmator company has abandoned its cute way of giving names to each new release. Pixelmator Pro 3.6, for instance, is called Archipelago, but so far the newest one is just called 3.7.

Pixelmator often also discounts its Pixelmator Pro app to half price when it releases even a new point update, so that appears to be gone now, too.

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