By Graham K. Rogers

In my Bangkok Post column this week, I discussed the use of extensions in Photos and my satisfaction with the two I had installed from Macphun: Intensify and Tonality. I had examined these in depth earlier. I also commented on BeFunky Express: an application developed specifically to take advantage of extensions. In the item, I speculated on the imminent arrival of an update to Pixelmator.

This is a strong image editing application that has more than enough tools for most users and also has the advantage that it synchronises with the iOS version of Pielmator. If its full editing panel were available in Photos, that would expand the value of Photos greatly.

Sadly that is not the case. The update to Pixelmator does add an extension to Photos but it is limited to some distortion tools: Warp, Bump, Pinch, Twirl Left and Twirl Right. There is also a Restore tool. Each of these tools is controlled by two sliders: Size and Strength.

Pixelmator Extension in Photos

The standalone application works fine although at first glance seems to be the same as before the update. However, the app now supports the split view feature of OS X, El Capitan and changes the interface font to San Francisco. There are other bug fixes and improvements.

Updated Pixelmator Standalone Version

Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs. He is now continuing that in the Bangkok Post supplement, Life.