Photomator – Photo Editor Reviews

by SnakeFire3

Previously I recommended Photomator to lots of my friends for one important reason. It was a one time payment alternative to Lightroom. Photomator used to be a one time purchase of 7.99. Now they want something like 5 dollars a month for it, and if you want to purchase Photomator to own forever it’s now 60 dollars, which means they increased the price by 750% without adding anything new. The subscription plan is the same price as Lightroom premium now which is much more versatile and feature packed than pixelmator photo. So in other words, the advantage they had was not locking you into a subscription, and now that’s gone. Don’t buy this, just get Lightroom. I know Photomator is free still for people who bought it previously but that doesn’t make me any more disappointed that the only thing going for Photomator was not needing a subscription, and now it’s just another mediocre photo manipulation app that’s the same price as its much better competitors.

by Fototico

I really liked Photomator. It does a great job at manipulating exposure, contrast, and so on. I definitely want to play around with it to see what it can do. So far I think it's missing a dodge and burn tool to fine tune the image. One app I like a lot has the dodge and burn tool but it also has a similar tool for saturation/desaturation and another for sharpening/blurring. also has a similar dodge and burn tool, but it's for saturation. As good as Photomator is, such tools would me it even better.

To me this ap has one critical problem that will prevent me from using it. It has a undo button but not a redo button. I often like to compare the before and after the last change I just did. I am not talking about the original version and the now, sometimes when I changed the contrast, for example, I like to toggle between the undo and redo button to see a comparison between the change I just did and before. Sometimes I go a few steps back and redo them again just for comparison to see if I am going in the right direction. Photomator missing a redo button is like trying to make a hamburger with just one hamburger bun. This is a deal breaker for me.

by Yaslicious

I really liked Photomator. It does a great job at manipulating exposure, contrast, and so on. I definitely want to play around with it to see what it can do. So far I think it's missing a dodge and burn tool to fine tune the image. One app I like a lot has the dodge and burn tool but it also has a similar tool for saturation/desaturation and another for sharpening/blurring. also has a similar dodge and burn tool, but it's for saturation. As good as Photomator is, such tools would me it even better.

To me this ap has one critical problem that will prevent me from using it. It has a undo button but not a redo button. I often like to compare the before and after the last change I just did. I am not talking about the original version and the now, sometimes when I changed the contrast, for example, I like to toggle between the undo and redo button to see a comparison between the change I just did and before. Sometimes I go a few steps back and redo them again just for comparison to see if I am going in the right direction. Photomator missing a redo button is like trying to make a hamburger with just one hamburger bun. This is a deal breaker for me.

by Lamotteskiddalyboomboom

Knocking off one star because finding the help page to get started is a PIA. It needs to be a separate icon on its own. Once I found that I was mostly happy with Photomator . It is almost the same as the old iPhoto editor on my iMac from back before Apple killed it. I’d say if you’re an experienced editor than this is a good cheap choice.

I’m still confused about why the Pixelmator app for five bucks has feature not on Photomator. Sketching, painting and the ability to add text to a photo should be included on Photomator. Having to run it through Snapseed to add a signature is dumb.

I’m sure after some practice I’ll find joy. Til then and the addition of those missing features this gets a three.

by PI3141596

I bought Pixelmator Photo a couple of years ago, when it was $4.99. I use it only casually, and it is worth the one-time purchase. I mostly process and edit image files using desktop tools, but Pixelmator Photo can get you most of the way if you only need to do whole-image processing (e.g. white or color balance the whole image, adjust shadows or highlights, apply curves, cropping, etc).If you need to change color spaces, use masks or do local area adjustments like dodging or burning in, you’re out of luck. That said, I am going to wait and see before updating to to the subscription model version even though I’m grandfathered into unlimited use. I’ve seen other one-time purchase apps abandon the previous buyers and I want to see what improvements or new features get introduced.

by SirTimmyJimmy

A little glitchy, often after clicking on a photo from the file selector and then going back, it'll put you all the way back at the top of the list, which gets annoying fast when you have hundreds of photos and just want to sift through them. You also cant swipe to the next photo in the list after clicking on one, hence having to click back and then getting sent to the top of the list again. Also sometimes it flickers the image after clicking on it until it disappears into a gray screen. In total I just wish the selection screen fought me less, I like the menu and I like the editing selection and what it offers, its just a bit of a hassle at the moment. Using an iPad Pro 11inch with all updates.

by Horserious

Don’t know but Photomator is freezing up as soon as I open it. I love Photomator but can’t seem to get it working anymore. iPad Pro 11 inch M1. It’s really annoying. I can’t do anything. Photomator opens. That’s it. I want to reinstall Photomator but my data will be deleted it says. So I’m not sure what’s gonna be deleted if I do so. I really don’t understand what’s happening here. I updated my iOS to the latest release to date. Same problem. Long pressing the icon on my home screen gives me the option to import a photo. When I do so, Photomator opens and I see a spinning icon saying “importing”. But that is as far as it gets. It just won’t work. I can’t tap what I want, nothing happens. Can you please respond? Thank you.

Edit: Since I couldn’t wait and had no solution I deleted Photomator and installed it again. Problem solved.

Thank you for not responding at all. You’re welcome.

by Passepartout

The first thing I tried with Pixelmator Photo was the Magic heal tool. It’s pretty magical when it works. Just scribble over things you want to disappear and they, usually, disappear. Sometimes you get a nasty smudge, so undo and try it slightly differently. Good stuff.

In terms of adjustment capabilities, it provides a solid set of capabilities, well-packaged and with lots of nice presets. It’s pretty easy to punch up a landscape or portrait in a matter of seconds.

Now, the not so good.

Strangely for a photo editing app, it doesn’t seem to be able to see my photos. It can link to file shares, like Dropbox and iCloud but where are my photos? Other apps do not have this problem.

Next, if you so much as look at an image you get a giant sized file — e.g. I have a 5MB high quality 20MP jpeg exported from a raw editor. Just looking at it causes a new 45MB file to appear.

Contrast this with a truly non-destructive editor that stores your adjustments in a side file and requires essentially no additional storage space.

These basics are so annoying that I don’t really care to look deeper into the program until they are fixed.

by Decipiens

The intuitiveness of the application is unparalleled in comparison to other apps, but still find some features that are essential to my workflow missing, such as Lightroom’s upright features which make easy work of my interior shots. Regarding the ML features, I find that they can be sometimes too aggressive, and find better results with Lightroom’s auto adjustments also. Lightroom’s filters also seem to be more subtle and nuanced, and seem to overall achieve better results. For my use case, which is mostly architectural/interior photography, I’m currently finding a better workflow and results with Lightroom, but am eager to make the switch when and if these features are implemented/optimized.

by ZBohlman

I’ve played with this for about 30 minutes and I see two pain points right away. First, where are the borders? Why do nearly no apps include this basic feature? Only Darkroom does as far as I’m aware. It’s such a simple thing to include even if not everyone uses it.

Second, it alters and saves changes to the original photo which is worrying if I want to edit the photo in a different app. Devs, please tell me what am I supposed to do if I make some edits but want to come back to it later WITHOUT overwriting the original file? Also how am I supposed to produce multiple edits of the same photo without using undo or reset? This is the only photo editing app I’ve used that works like this. This seems to be a DESTRUCTIVE editing app as opposed to basically every single alternative out there.

I would love a dev response on these two points. Overall it seems decent but these two things have me scratching my head.

by 7 Billion People

These are my initial impressions after using Photomator for the first time. I was hoping it would be a Lightroom replacement, and it’s close. It would need selective edits, brushes, noise reduction, and masking on the sharpening tool. I can still use it in my workflow as a last stop to apply a filter. It would great for that because it has enough adjustment tools to fine tune the filter. I also like the idea of machine learning to supplement my creative process. It suggested a nice crop which made my model seem taller in the frame. I will be using that idea in the future! UI is great but would like to be able collapse an individual adjustment tool (on the right panel) so it’s out of the way when not in use. Currently collapsing an individual tool removes the adjustment. I would love for Pixelmator to replace Lightroom for me. I could be free of my Adobe subscription plan forever!

Edit: Love to see that batch editing has been added. Thank you! I love companies that listen to their customers. I added a star just for that alone. I see file management has also improved. Great!

by Majeztyk

Hope the Developers read this. This is a good photo editor. I’ve used many other editors, and so far I like using this one. It’s very simple with decent range of tools. However there are many improvement they can make in the coming months.
Two things I would really love two see is #1 adding a ‘Left Handed Toggle’ to switch all the tools to the other side. The lack of this feature which many other have, makes this a bummer for lefties like me.
#2 Add a Resizing tool(not crop) to be able to export images at different resolutions. Hopefully if this feature is added that the quality of the resizing is very well. Being to resize an image from 4000pixels to a smaller custom size would be a handy.

There are a few others, but for now these two would be great.

by IMIMIMIMI

This is a wonderful tool for photo editing. It’s such a huge improvement in workflow over Lightroom it’s just silly.
That said, there are a few super critical things missing in the Pixelmator photo ecosystem:

1. Now that there are versions for both iPhone and iPad can I please sync my presets?! I know I can import them (which is pretty nicely done BTW) but seamless sync seems like a prerequisite for a multi-platform system.
2. Pixelmator Photo for Mac already! This is a professional-grade tool. It’s convenient to occasionally play with it on my phone but let’s take advantage of the big beautiful MacBook Pro screens (and built-in SD reader!). I know… I can use Pixelmator Pro as an extension to Apple Photos and that’s very cool but it’s not nearly as seamless as the Photos app, and the presets aren’t truly cross-compatible (and don’t sync).
3. A community tool to share and find presets would be amazing. I’d engage endlessly with that. I’d even pay a small monthly fee to be part of that community.
4. Please allow a simple drag and drop to a shared album. That would significantly improve workflow. If this exists It doesn’t seem to work for me.
5. Really nice to have feature: some sort of indication of where the last edit was done. A simple bar showing the last edited photo would be great, as it would indicate the work I definitely haven’t done in recent imports.

That’s my top 5 list! Really looking forward to future improvements. Thank you!

by Otterman

UPDATE:
I subsequently read other reviews saying existing users are not affected by the subscription. Although I’m wary, I do appreciate that. I’ll just have to read the release notes for each release, which I do anyway for other apps to avoid stepping in a pile of subscription.

ORIGINAL:
The developers say, in response to other reviews, that they explained the switch to a subscription model in a blog post. Umm, I don’t read your blog posts and I suspect many other users don’t either. That’s a pretty shady way of introducing a new pricing structure. I’ve become very fond of Photomator, but not so fond that I won’t delete it when it starts to restrict features - nothing yet, but I stumbled on the “manage subscriptions” option when I used the ellipse menu to export a photo a few minutes ago. My hatred of subscriptions will override the strongest love of any app. I’ll start packing up my things now.

by Dj_Kru

I absolutely love using Photomator to edit my photos! The ML edit is like magic - it gets me (usually) ~90% of the way there in one tap. The editing tools, cropping, and workflow are all super easy and approachable while offering great flexibility.

Unfortunately, though - Photomator crashes fairly often for me. I like to swap back and forth between various takes in my library, and if I do that too often, Photomator just crashes. During a 1 hour editing session, it crashes maybe 5-8 times, which is a real speed bump on an otherwise lovely workflow journey. I’m using an M1 iPad Pro with 8GB of RAM, and I’m unsure if Photomator has been updated to take advantage of the larger memory pool available or not, but I hope that the developers can address this crashing in a future update!

by Ventedabde

This is an early review and i plan to update as i spend more time with Photomator , although i’m hopeful to make this my primary photo editor for photography since it has a buy once, cry once payment option (THANK GOD FOR THIS)

Photomator seems like it does a great job, but i wish the exposure and color editing controls were front and center, ESPECIALLY for masking. The masking options feel like they’re tucked away too far out of sight, and i don’t like that i had to dig for it. I would prefer that to be more intuitive to access and manipulate. Will update with more usage. Bottom line for now, it gets the job done but UI doesn’t suit my tastes.

by Tnt037

For the price you can’t beat this editor!! It’s a pretty powerful editor!! Just wished the presets worked a little differently! Here’s what I mean....

So if I have adjusted the colors and curves in my presets, I would like if when I add a preset It doesn't revert the other adjustments I've made before applying the preset. For example, if I edit the sliders in the light tab or correct the white balance before using a preset, I would like it not to set the sliders back to zero if there were no adjustments made to the white balance or in the light tab in the preset that I am using.

Other then that it would be great if you could add a couple of things at some point like... selective editing, noise reduction, borders and white point in the light tap! But I totally get this is a $5.00 app lol

by Kaplan Student

First of all I love Photomator. It’s my go to app for all of my editing while I’m traveling. But it’s not quite finished. There are some features that are missing that would enable this being my standalone editor. First off it’s got a ton of features that work fantastic. The ML feature gets it right more often than not. The program is intuitive for anyone who’s ever edited in that one program that shall not be named. It’s speedy enough to export hundreds of photos without any fuss (although my battery may disagree). What it’s missing though really is a bummer. We need masking. There is currently no masking abilities that I’m aware of and that is such a shame. The ability to add watermarks or layers would be awesome but I realize that’s not what Photomator was designed for specifically. This has lead to creating workflows that exist outside of Pixelmator. Please also consider adding some basic brushes in future updates. I’ve been able to create an alternative workflow here as well using snapseed but I’d love to have any excuse to get rid of that app. It’s clunky. Finally where is the noise reduction? I’ll tell you, not here. It doesn’t exist yet. That is a shame. Overall you won’t be upset with this for edits and corrections but it’s just not quite done in my opinion.

by Wbaj

I’ve been using Photomator for a while now and am happy with what it does and how it continues to improve. However, I keep running into a few issues. One, my photos are sometimes pixelated in Apple Photos after editing with this app. Two, once you have a few layers, things get extremely slow and clunky. Three, sometimes large areas of my edited photos appear as gray blobs. This is the only issue I’ve figured out how to fix; I can go change any adjustment and usually the problem goes away.

I don’t have the pro version yet. I might go for it but right now with issue number one, I worry if I should be using Photomator at all. I know my original files are backed up but what’s the point of editing with Photomator if the result is pixelated?

by Michael676767

This is the kind of photo editor we need more of in the 2020s. Every company offerring a service offers subscriptions and licenses to their product telling you “no, you don’t own the software just because you paid for it. You’re paying us for permission.” This isn’t that. Not totally anyways. The option to buy it for life is growingly a rare delicacy because every apologist might want to defend how you lose your money for the products you need or want.

Regardless, the only few features I’d need to make this be my ONLY app because I need lightroom for only 2-3 things: exporting files in desired color ranges like P3/ProPhoto/AdobeRGB/sRGB, exporting in my preferred file format like JXL (don’t kid yourself that it isn’t a better file format than HEIC if Apple is willing to start replacing it with the iPhone 16 since it can handle lossless encoding + massively wide color ranges), and lens correction/removing chromatic abberation. The editor is so good at parity that these ate the only few things I can even say.

As of now, the workflow is to edit the RAW in this app, export the TIFF to Lightroom, then export the TIFF to JXL on 90% in Display P3 (sometimes Rec. 2020 for HDR photos). Cut out lightroom from my ultra simple workflow. The upcoming plans make me excited to dive more into photography.

by TGNY2012

1. Fix the cropping issue/bug. Please allow users to pinch photos to crop. And please fix the issue that once I crop a photo I can't drag the cropping box back even when it's not at the edge of a photo.

2. I really hate the saving process/experience! I don't like that when I swipe a photo down by accident during editing or when I hit the check/tick icon on the upper right corner, a pop up shows up and I am forced to choose to either give up all my editing or overwrite my existing photo. How about a cancel option that allows me to go back and continue editing?

by KannazukiNoKo

I’d been eyeing Photomator for a while and finally bought it. I was immediately impressed with the smoothness of it and how easy it was to go from shooting to editing! The interface was quick to learn, too. A lot of reviews have talked about desired or missing features though, and I’d like to add some features of my own to that list!

The ability to use Replace Color on more than one color at a time. Even my two decade old Nikon could handle three different colors! Because the changes are non-destructive, I have to export the photo and re-import it to tackle a second color. Slow and repetitive!

Also, I don’t know how feasible this one is, but if you could save the crop size in Copy adjustments! I was hoping ML crop could speed through the process of cropping multiple photos to show the same area, but I’m constantly having to guide its hand…

Those aside, it’s an excellent companion for any photographer on the go! Recommended!

by Rick-G.

I’m shooting with a Leica X Vario. I have been using Raw Power for a few years. It’s been a love hate relationship. Raw Power works well, but with way too much fiddling. Plus Raw Power frequently locks up, even on a powerful Mac Studio. Well I just loaded this app this morning and it’s a dream to work with! So much better than Raw Power. The machine learning in this app is great too — it gets it right, or close to right, most of the time. Then any further minor adjustments can be quickly made for additional refinements. WOW the images are gorgeous! And having HDR onboard can be useful too. I’m blown away by how powerful and easy to work with this app is. I now have this app loaded on my Mac, MacBook, and iPad. I can see that this app is the missing piece for getting the best results for my editing needs. I love my Leica, it’s an investment in quality photography; so it makes sense to be able to squeeze every bit of juice out of the raw images. Very satisfied!!!

by Turkishoval

Pixelmator Photo is one of the handful of essential apps you can turn to when away from your desktop but still needing to get professional work done. The UI is a bit opaque upon first use and therefore at first I did not use Photomator as much as others, but over time I find, over and over, little things that it does that other apps simply can't, and implementations of other things that are just better and more elegant than other apps. Nowadays this is my go-to photo editing app on my iPad Pro and I'm consistently impressed with it. For example, tonight I had to crop a photo down to the exact pixel. Sounds simple, but give it a try with other iPad OS apps—you won't be able to zoom in to the pixel level while using the crop tool to make a 3000px crop, but here you can—that's not an accident, they had to go out of their way to make that work, and it just did, and it was great.

by Thisismikedee

I’m a Fujifilm fan boy, and I usually use the CamRemote to transfer JPEGs directly to my Apple Photos, from there I post to IG…but when the JPEGs just aren’t doing it for me, I start messing with the RAW .raf file. AND THATS WHERE EVERYTHING HAS FAILED ME UNTIL NOW. See, I wanted to keep things as streamlined as possible without having to do stupid stuff like copying into an editing program, and then exporting back to the camera roll for the apple photo stream sync via iCloud to take over…because thats gross, messy and unintuitive—not to mention a waste of storage and leaves duplicate photos everywhere etc. And this brings me to the best thing about Photomator, deep apple photos integration. Now, my workflow is as easy as plugging in my SD card, importing into my Apple Photos, rating, deleting as necessary, uploading the creamy X-Trans sensor beauties that my Fuji cams spit out in jpeg and editing the RAWs that need a little extra work…all non distructive without duplicates IN ICLOUD 🤑🤑. And because Apple Photos handles RAW+JPEG images exactly the same as your other photos everything says clean and sexy. Best app ever because of the integration bar none. They knocked it out of the park with this one.

by A Mad Chemist

I very much dislike (hate is a better word) subscriptions for apps, and I avoid them like the plague. Instead, I opted to pay the full forever price for Photomator. While I thought is was pretty pricey, I’m very glad I bought it. I am not a twiddle and fiddle with all of the settings to get the photo just right kind of person: I want to quickly make as few adjustments as needed in order to improve my photo. Photomator allows me to do just that, and the results are simply superb. Photomator’s combination of power and ease of use is truly exceptional, and I give it my highest recommendation.

by EOKaplan

Pixelmator Photo is 100% worth the money as it delivers an experience integrated with the Apple Files app. If you are on the latest iPadOS update, you will be able to select photos from your photo library that Photomator can have access to, and then always add more later. Those photos go into your special Pixelmator Photo library.

When you open up a photo, you can choose from other viewing options or select edit. In editing mode, everything is just how you want it. You can discover tools easily, and it works great for all skill levels.

Overall, Pixelmator Photo is a great choice for your next iPad photo editing app.

by Vegas Kid

I love Photomator and think your team did an amazing job, but when I’m looking at my photos and want to edit one of them, I find it a bit cumbersome to have to leave that app then open another to edit, when their a solution the developers could implement to make this seamless. I think enabling app extension in the photos app would make this the ultimate photo editing application. Right now I have to use retouch (app extension) and Darkroom (which also has an app extension) both of these together equal pixelmator pro. I’d love to only have to use one. I hope you are listening as this shouldn’t be to hard to do.

by Cybercrs

This is by far the best iOS photo editor for everyday use. I’ve used it since its original iPad release and it has only gotten better over time. Some of the features that have made it great for a long time are iOS photos integration (no importing/exporting hassle), all basic editing features that work as expected (color, exposure, sharpness, etc.), custom setting options, batch editing capability, and RAW support. The recent-ish additions of super resolution, denoising, iPhone support, and a more fluid browsing/editing interface have pushed Photomator over the top as the best editor for casual users who like to make their everyday photos shine. There are, of course, still opportunities for improvement, such as more customizable batch processing, the ability to better customize the interface (for example, to hide the overall ML button but surface the denoise option, rearrange the tool order, etc.), masking capability, setting sync between iPad and iPhone, and so on… but these would all be quality of life improvements on what is already a superb app. Highly recommended over every other iOS photo editor (and I have used more than I care to admit).

by ScottHounds

Photomator is a steal for the price. I have been using it for a while now and no complaints. However (you knew this was coming) I would gladly pay more for an updated version that had an adjustment brush, at least a dodge and burn brush. Photomator has let me move 90% of my editing to my ipad, which makes my photography much more enjoyable. If the addition of even simple brushes happen i will no longer need to fire up my macbook. You will completely put a fork into lightroom, in my opinion. Thanks for a great app, and btw i am a happy user of Pixelmator Pro as well. Keep up the good work.

by EOK-828

Pixelmator Photo is 100% worth the money as it delivers an experience integrated with the Apple Files app. If you are on the latest iPadOS update, you will be able to select photos from your photo library that Photomator can have access to, and then always add more later. Those photos go into your special Pixelmator Photo library.

When you open up a photo, you can choose from other viewing options or select edit. In editing mode, everything is just how you want it. You can discover tools easily, and it works great for all skill levels.

Overall, Pixelmator Photo is a great choice for your next iPad photo editing app.