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Pixelmator purchased by Apple

CharlesH

CharlesH

LMF-Patron Gold
Pixelmator, an image editing software company in Lithuania with products for Apple computers, is being purchased by Apple. This puts Apple back where they were in 2015 when they dropped support for Aperture (and ticked off so many Apple users).

I have never used this software. It looks like it is very capable; does anyone on this forum use it of know about it?

I'm interested because it can edit in HDR, and I don't know any other software besides Lightroom that does this. The price for Pixelmator Pro has been $49, but I expect Apple will move this to an annual fee.
 
CharlesH said:
I expect Apple will move this to an annual fee.
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Don't know, these software subscriptions are generating hatred. They don't charge for iMovies as it comes with the OS, they might do that here and a huge boon for their products.

Adobe have really annoyed people with other ridiculous behaviour. They can stick their sub up ... Z04 Motzer
 
Oíche said:
Don't know, these software subscriptions are generating hatred.
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Apple's excellent video editor Final Cut Pro is a one time purchase. I got it years ago, and all upgrades are free and I've installed it on multiple Macs over the years. But this is a losing pricing strategy for a software company and my expectation is Apple with switch to an annual fee.
 
Oíche said:
Don't know, these software subscriptions are generating hatred. They don't charge for iMovies as it comes with the OS, they might do that here and a huge boon for their products.

Adobe have really annoyed people with other ridiculous behaviour. They can stick their sub up ... Z04 Motzer
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I’m very happy with Adobe’s subscription model. Developing and maintaining software is an expensive business. Seems to me we have to pay, whether that be a sub or purchasing new versions from time to time. It amounts to the same thing if we want the software publisher to be successful and keep the product fresh and relevant in the future.
 
CharlesH said:
Apple's excellent video editor Final Cut Pro is a one time purchase. I got it years ago, and all upgrades are free and I've installed it on multiple Macs over the years. But this is a losing pricing strategy for a software company and my expectation is Apple with switch to an annual fee.
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I don't think Apple need business advice. :p Imagine the damage to LR and especially PC photo edit sales if they include it with MacOS...

BTW they don't charge for MacOS either and that has more free software than MS Win.

We're speculating but I've an inkling they'll replace the old Aperture with this Pixelmator but they'll rename it as that is dreadful. It would go so well with their new M4 line.
 
pdk42 said:
I’m very happy with Adobe’s subscription model. Developing and maintaining software is an expensive business. Seems to me we have to pay, whether that be a sub or purchasing new versions from time to time. It amounts to the same thing if we want the software publisher to be successful and keep the product fresh and relevant in the future.
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That's not the case. Adobe did it purely for increased profits. Financial reports back this up
Personally, I refuse to pay the Adobe drip feed tax. I'm happy to support companies like those who make Silkypix. Who work directly with Fujifilm & Panasonic if I'm not mistaken. For the price of a couple of months Adobe tax, I can buy Silkypix outright. And it lasts/works forever. It's not like I have some irrational hatred of Adobe, I own a couple of versions of Elements as well as Lightroom when it was available for outright purchase, I just refuse to go down the drip feed tax route.
And Silkypix is very very good. I seem to be able to get quite a bit more detail out of the shots with it -without it getting that crunchy, brittle digital look, than I can with the Adobe products I own and use. And the colours/contrast etc match absolutely perfectly between camera generated jpegs and raw developed images
 
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AlanC said:
Affinity still have their six month free trial on Photo 2 (also on Designer 2 and Publisher 2) so, if anyone is interested, you can try it out for a good amount of time.
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You can buy the full featured Silkypix developer studio pro Panasonic or Fujifilm only versions for a very very reasonable price. They seem to go on sale pretty regularly for around the $30-50 USD mark. I can afford to upgrade to the latest version every year for a fraction of the subscription model cost.
 
$30-50 is not typical of the market leading PP packages. DxO is €229 or €99 for an update. Capture One is €349. And I wouldn’t consider Silkypix to be anywhere close to the other packages in terms of features. You’re not comparing apples with apples.
 
And even Silkypix is $149 according to their website.
 
Meanwhile, I pay £120 per year for Adobe. Compared to everything else I spend on photography, it’s really not a lot. A fancy coffee every two weeks would cost much the same. And for that I get LR, Photoshop, an online portfolio builder, cloud storage, and mobile versions of the apps.
 
pdk42 said:
Meanwhile, I pay £120 per year for Adobe.
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And as soon as you stop paying on the drip feed, it stops working. Meanwhile, the first version of Silkypix Pro I bought 10? years ago, still works. I think I've updated 2 times since then, the last time for the $27 I linked to a year or so back. Can't remember exactly.
 
I can also run Silkypix on 3 computers, unlike the miserable tight@r$e money grabbing versions of Elements I own, which require deactivating and reactivating if I want to use them on a different computer/laptop when I travel. Total PITA. Elements does a really good job at stitching panoramas I've found, easy and relatively intuitive to us, with excellent results. So I keep a copy on a compter pretty much just for that, as it can be bought outright, on sale, for a reasonable price.
Photography is a hobby for me, I simply don't have the need, or desire for high end professional editing tools. Hell, a lot of the time lightly edited jpegs work for me. Interestingly, Panasonic themselves seem to be heading down the same route with their real time LUT's etc.
 
Markuswelder said:
You can buy the full featured Silkypix developer studio pro Panasonic or Fujifilm only versions for a very very reasonable price. They seem to go on sale pretty regularly for around the $30-50 USD mark. I can afford to upgrade to the latest version every year for a fraction of the subscription model cost.
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The various Affinity applications are one off purchases, or you can buy all three at a discount. The only time you pay for upgrades is going between major versions (1 to 2 so far) and you get a discount as an owner of the previous version. I've been using them since the start, mainly Designer and Publisher for work purposes, but I bought Photo as well after the original Pixelmator was discontinued.

I haven't used Silkypix in ages: I tried it out many years back when I was looking at alternatives to Lightroom but ended up going for Capture One, and then moved on from that to Iridient Developer.
 
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