Pixelmator Pro 2.1 launches with new Machine Learning crop tool

Mac image editor Pixelmator Pro 2.1 has been released, featuring automatic cropping with Machine Learning, plus Quick Fill options, and a new brushstroke painting feature.

Five weeks since it went on half price sale, and also teased its forthcoming Machine Learning features, Pixelmator Pro has been updated to version 2.1. The new edition of the Mac image app comes with a range of new and updated features to do with leveraging ML, and also giving users faster ways to accomplish common tasks.

The most visible of these is the newly revised Crop tool. This now optionally offers automatic guides showing composition techniques such as the rule of thirds, and the golden ration.

Still more visible, though, is the automatic cropping. Pixelmator Pro's developers stress that this isn't meant to be truly automatic and replace a photographer's decisions. However, it will offer a crop that is intelligently based on the current image and all of the benefits of the app's Machine Learning.

In practice, users select the Crop tool as normal, and can then choose to click on an ML Crop button. If they do that, Pixelmator Pro crops to reframe the image automatically.

Users can specify that the result be a crop to a particular ratio, such as 16:9, and the ML Crop respects that. The new Crop tool does also feature the ability to specify sizes, but that doesn't affect the ML composition.

The makers say this is a tool that will chiefly help newer photographers as they learn about image composition. However, it's fast enough, and good enough, that any user is likely to look at what it suggests before they decide to crop by themselves.

Top left: an original image. Bottom left: Crop tool selected. Top right: how Pixelmator Pro's ML suggests it be cropped

Pixelmator Pro 2.1 also features a new Quick Fill control. Colors can now be dragged directly onto an object, or a layer, and thereby quickly change the color of the image.

A new Stroke with Brush feature is also about speed. With it, users can paint a brushstroke that follows along selections, and shapes.

Pixelmator Pro 2.1 for Mac remains on its $19.99 half-price sale until July 6. It's available from the Mac App Store.

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