When comparing Pixelmator vs LightZone, the Slant community recommends Pixelmator for most people. In the question“What is the best photo editing software?” Pixelmator is ranked 5th while LightZone is ranked 21st. The most important reason people chose Pixelmator is:
Pixelmator's interface is pleasant to look at, easy to use and specifically optimized for OS X users, making it very intuitive for long-time Mac users.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Beautiful, easy to use UI
Pixelmator's interface is pleasant to look at, easy to use and specifically optimized for OS X users, making it very intuitive for long-time Mac users.
Pro Feature rich
Not only does Piexelmator provide easy to use tools that you should expect in any image editor, it also has rare tools such as layer styles, liquify tools and OS X optimized, fast image manipulation engine among others.
Pro Supports layer styles
Layer styles allow non-destructively applying effects to a layer.
Pro Powerful effects
Dozens of visual effects available, easily discovered from the visual Effects Browser, broken into categories. Effects have interactive dialogs and live preview.
Pro Multiple-display support
Pixelmator can be used across any number of monitors.
Pro Loads quickly
Gives you common image editing capabilities almost instantly.
Pro Great performance
Pixelmator's image engine is specifically optimized for use with Macs, providing one the best performance results available on OS X.
Pro Inexpensive
Pixelmator costs just $30 on the App Store. Additionally, it often comes bundled with other software that you might also find useful bringing the price down.
Pro Allows users to create and edit RAW profiles
Unlike most other RAW editors, LightZone supports user-created RAW profiles and allows editing existing RAW profiles.
Pro Allows changing the order in which adjustments are applied
You can change in what order sharpening, saturation, tone, etc adjustments are applied simply by switching around their order in the tool stack.
Cons
Con Asset management is basic
Browser module includes a file browser, metadata viewer and a really basic metadata editor (allows editing just 6 fields), and allows you to give images a rating, but no advanced asset management is supported. There's not even a way to assign keywords to files.
