Adobe’s Photoshop somewhat dominates the image-editing market. Whether in full or Elements version, it’s the best known and most-heralded editor. Trying to snatch Adobe’s crown is Pixelmator, a low-cost alternative which brands itself as an image editor for ‘the rest of us’.

You can download Pixelmator directly from the website as either a free 30-day trial, or a full version for just £40.49. The download takes just a few minutes and once you have unzipped the file, you’re ready to go.

The initial screen gives you three options – Create a New Image, Open an Existing Image or Start Using Pixelmator. Choose the latter option and the default palettes immediately appear on your screen, with a Layers, Swatches and Tools palette being familiar to anyone who’s worked with image editors before.

The Auto Enhance feature worked on some images, but also produced some very strange results on others, including portraits. Like most image editors, rather than letting the app do the work for you, it’s usually best to open up the Levels and Curves and experiment yourself.

Options for palettes on display include a very useful Photo Browser window, which allows you to see all your images in iPhoto albums for example, and access them quickly for editing. Palettes can be moved around your screen for optimum work performance, and can be switched on or off so that only your most-used features are on display. In Full-screen mode, Pixelmator pushes your image full screen and drops the rest of the display to black, in order to get rid of any distracting background.

In use, Pixelmator is simple and straightforward, with tools being logically placed and easy to use. However, in this respect it is remarkably similar to Photoshop, and those who have never used Adobe’s program might struggle to use this too.

Some of the automated features produced haphazard results, although this is true of all image-editing apps, and the manual functions do perform much better.

For the money, the time it takes to set up and for ease of use, this is one to consider if you’re looking for your first image editor.

Final Verdict This software performs well, with the added bonus that you could utilise the image-editing tools on any photo OVERALL

Jodie’s a fresh face on DP and DCE, armed with a Journalism degree and a long-standing love of both digital and analogue shooting. She’s keen to report back on the latest releases.