Pixelmator for Mac adds Force Touch pressure-sensitive painting, even better Repair Tool, more

The developers behind Pixelmator have just released another free update to the Mac app, available in the Mac App Store ($29.99). Despite the bug-fix identifier, Version 3.3.2 packs some cool enhancements to support Apple’s latest technologies and hardware.

For one, as demoed in the screenshot above, Pixelmator brushes now support Force Touch so you can draw with multiple levels of pressure by pressing harder on the touchpad of your new Retina MacBook (or early 2015 13 inch Retina MacBook Pro). This is useful for quick adjustments although serious painters will still want to use dedicated drawing tablets. The update also adds support for the Photos app and a revamped Repair Tool …

Pixelmator made big improvements to the Repair Tool a few versions ago, but now it is even better. You drag over the areas you want to automatically replace and let go. With the new version, the repair process is even faster and more intelligent. I tested a demo image that included two people on stairs with railings; in just a few drags the Repair Tool automatically removed the railings, substituting the surrounding content. Again, these ‘magic’ features do not work flawlessly every time — but it works very well indeed.

The Photo Browser in Pixelmator for Mac now also lists photos imported into the new Photos app. This is a neat integration but I think I still prefer using traditional Open-Save workflows.

As usual with a Pixelmator update, the headline features are also supported by a slog of small changes and fixes. The full release notes are included below. You can download Pixelmator from the Mac App Store for $29.99. Naturally, the update is free download for existing users. You can also buy Pixelmator for iPad, which 9to5Mac reviewed when it launched last year.

This update includes support for the new Photos app and the new Force Touch trackpad. It redefines the performance of Pixelmator’s awesome Repair tool, and contains other improvements and bug fixes.

•Now you can quickly access your Photos library right from the Photo Browser in Pixelmator.

•Paint with pressure sensitivity using the Force Touch trackpad on the new MacBook and MacBook Pro.

•Wipe away unwanted elements from your photos up to five times faster with the enhanced Repair tool.

Other improvements and bug fixes:

•You can now repair images non-destructively on a transparent layer placed in front with the “Sample All Layers” option selected.

•The app would previously stop responding on certain Macs when using the Repair tool with the document name popover visible. We fixed this.

•Performance used to get a little slow when working extensively with colors and styles of text and shape layers. Not anymore.

•The “New Layer from FaceTime” feature now works perfectly on all Macs.

•The Layers palette no longer dims after changing the image size.

•After using crop and undo actions one after the other, the thumbnails of grouped layers used to show inaccurate previews of the enclosed images. Now they’re displayed beautifully.

•Sometimes, after dragging an image from a Web browser when the app was hidden or closed, the palettes failed to open. No more surprises.

•Now you can open 16-bit Photoshop images exported from Aperture.

•Previously, opening Photoshop images containing outer glow adjustments could cause the app to stop responding. That won’t happen again.

•Small images used to jump to full zoom when zooming out with the pinch gesture. We fixed that, too.

•The scroll bar of the Gradients, Styles and Shapes palettes used to hide part of their thumbnails when the “Show Scroll Bars” feature was set to “Always” in System Preferences. Fixed.

•The app used to stop responding when grouping shape layers into many subgroups. Fixed.

•Sometimes, when connecting a MacBook Pro with discrete graphics and OS X Yosemite to an external display, weird graphical glitches would occur. We fixed that, too.

•Once in a while, the alert “The file doesn’t exist” would pop up when trying to export a file in a different file format. It won’t happen again (fingers crossed).

•Now you can Send Backward as many layers as you wish.

•The thumbnails of newly created gradients wouldn’t show up properly in some localizations. Now, they are displayed just as they should be.