Pixelmator 3.1 brings photo printing, Mac Pro GPU acceleration and more

Pixelmator 3.1 for Mac (screenshot 001)

Pixelmator is my favorite Photoshop replacement and today’s 3.1 update code-named Marble brings a new Order Prints feature, full support for the Mac Pro and its dual-GPUs, including 16-bits per channel color image support, a few new effects, a number of improvements for Layer Styles, Type Tool and selections and a whole bunch of other minor refinements and bug fixes. The update is free for those who’ve purchased the app, a $29.99 download from the Mac App Store…

The new photo printing integration taps Pixelmator’s partnership with the MILK Print on Demand service to let you order fine-quality prints as postcards, notecards, gallery frames, or posters, at prices ranging from $15 to $125.

Of course, your prints get delivered right to your door.

A video of photo ordering in action is available via the Pixelmator blog.

If you own a new Mac Pro, you’ll benefit from Pixelmator’s full support for the dream machine’s dual-GPU architecture, including support for 16-bit per channel images. This allows for greater color accuracy when rendering effects, applying layer styles and performing just about any other touch up you can think of.

Pixelmator now uses both Mac Pro graphics cards to accelerate composition rendering and compute demanding tasks, one GPU being utilized for computing the effect and the other for composition rendering. This makes a world of difference when editing large and complex compositions.

Mac Pro (open, bottom part 001)

Pixelmator benefits from the Mac Pro’s increased memory bandwidth by computing image auto-saving in the background, while image composition is being rendered.

And thanks to optimizations made for all four-core, six-core, eight-core and twelve-core Intel Xeon processors, the app will handle zooming out handling and bitmap layer duplications faster than ever before.

Speaking of the effects, Pixelmator 3.1 has brought back the Mandala, City Lights and Color Hatch effects that were dropped during the transition to a new Effects Browser.

Check out Layer Styles enhancements:

  • Now, you can select more than one layer with styles and change the opacity of the selected layers all at once.
  • When you move a selection made on layers with styles, the layer style always stays visible, even when you go to another app and back.
  • You can now apply styles on a new layer right after you’ve painted with the Paint Bucket Tool or the Pixel Tool.
  • When converting layers with styles into regular layers, the Opacity setting always stays intact.
  • When you clear layer contents, the layer style icon disappears as well.
  • The Styles palette stays active when you copy layers with styles into a newly created document.
  • You can now change the gradient fill for newly created text or shape layers from the Gradients palette without opening the Styles palette.
  • When you choose a color in the Colors palette, it doesn’t change the color choice in the Styles palette.
  • You can now remove style presets even if you have several layers with styles selected.
  • After you clear a layer style, you can now remove layer style presets.

The official changelog lists dozens of other small tweaks and refinements.

Pixelmator 3.1 costs $29.99 in the Mac App Store.

The 36.7MB download needs a Mac with a 64-bit Intel processor and OS X 10.8.5 or up.