This app let me say goodbye to Photoshop and I might be better off for it

I’ll let you in on a little secret. I’ve been frustrated by something since 2013. It’s not a huge frustration but rather a little niggly stone in my shoe that has refused to go away. It all began in June of that year when Photoshop decided to transition from a one-off purchase model to a subscription model. I remember thinking, “Can they do this? Is this even legal? If I buy something, then surely I own it, don’t I?” The answers turned out to be, yes, yes, and no. It turned out that this was a one-way train that no one could stop.

Fast forward 11 years and it’s become difficult to own anything outright. I even have friends who hire their washing machines on subscription. It’s infiltrated every area of our lives and I’m not particularly happy about it.

With no desire to give in, if I have a choice between a one-off purchase and a subscription model, I’ll usually go for the former. I want the control and I don’t like being tied in. I’ve been a loyal Photoshop user because of a lack of viable alternatives but one little app, called Pixelmator, is making me question my allegiance. 

Pixelmator is a full-featured image editor available across all iOS devices and even works great on old iPads or iPhones you might have lying around. The app is designed specifically for iOS and iPadOS meaning it can take full advantage of Apple silicon, Metal, Core Image, and Core Animation – all resulting in amazing performance and responsiveness.

Designs can be edited across both types of Apple devices thanks to seamless syncing using iCloud Drive. This lets me work on images at coffee shops, on the bus, at home, or even in the middle of meetings. The flexibility is incredible.

Did I mention that it only costs $9.99? That is an absolute steal for what this app provides. It delivers tools for creating, editing, and enhancing images on the go and is a dream to work with. One of my favorite things about it is the layer-based interface that allows for complex setups without becoming too cumbersome on a mobile device.

One of the photos that I used Pixelmator for was a gorgeous image that I had taken of my children. It was one of those moments where they were all smiling and demonstrating a ‘we never have nor ever will do anything wrong’ sort of persona. They looked like they never succumbed to an argument with each other and I was grateful for the fleeting memory and glimpse of how things might be. 

The only problem was that there were two people in the background distracting and therefore limiting the visual appeal of the photo. I knew that Pixelmator contained a repair tool that could remove these types of things so I thought I would give it a go. 

I launched Pixelmator, navigated to my photos, and selected the photo. After selecting the ‘Repair’ tool, all I had to do was use my finger to paint out the unwanted elements and before my eyes, I saw them not only erased but replaced with more of the background. To be fair, it wasn’t perfect but after a little more fine-tuning, I was amazed at how believable the results were.

Not wanting to limit my creativity, I thought I could do more to enhance the photo. I hopped into the ‘Adjust Colors’ tool and chose one of the preloaded effects. Some of the options just ruined the photo but the ‘Rich’ option did wonders for the photo by enhancing contrast and giving it a slightly nostalgic feel.

With all the changes applied, I just knew I had to share it with my family. This was easily done with the built-in sharing tools, which means you don’t have to exit Pixelmator to share your happy memories with the world. There are also professional export tools that support formats including PSD and TIFF. 

Pixelmator is now my go-to image editing app. It is responsive, contains a ton of tools, and is super cheap. Being able to edit photos on the go with just a phone gives me the sort of flexibility Photoshop users could only dream of.

Download the Pixelmator app for free on iOS