Pixelmator vs Photoshop

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.

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.

Layer styles allow non-destructively applying effects to a layer.

Pixelmator can be used across any number of monitors.

Dozens of visual effects available, easily discovered from the visual Effects Browser, broken into categories. Effects have interactive dialogs and live preview.

Gives you common image editing capabilities almost instantly.

Pixelmator's image engine is specifically optimized for use with Macs, providing one the best performance results available on OS X.

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.

Photoshop is used by professionals everywhere. It is taught in classes, used by artists and is even used by medical professionals. If you've seen a magazine ad featuring a model, you've probably seen the effects of Photoshop. You won't be alone when using Photoshop. The internet is full of tutorials and videos on how to use Photoshop. This fact, coupled with the trove of plugins available for Photoshop means you can use it it to make the professional looking or artistic images you need.

Photoshop is the most fully featured image editing software available today allowing you to perform highly advanced image manipulation.

On top of that it offers features beyond the realm of typical image editing software tools such as support for video editing, 3d elements and 3d printing among others.

Photoshop includes content-aware tools such as content-aware fill that can fill in a select area based on what surrounds it.

Lightroom is another image editing software from Adobe that's specifically designed for photo editing and managing of large quantities of digital images.

A stripped down version of Photoshop, called Photoshop Elements can be bought as a standalone application for $100.

There's a free mobile app available for iOS, Android & Windows Phone.

There's a huge number of both free and paid tutorials available online. Websites like Lynda.com offer premium high-quality, in-depth tutorials, but there are plenty of free alternatives to be found on YouTube, blogs and specialized sites on the Internet.