This Photoshop alternative for Mac now lets you remove colors easily

The latest update to popular photo editor Pixelmator Pro gives macOS users another reason to avoid defaulting to Photoshop.

Codenamed Mosaic, version 3.3 of the photo editing app for Mac has introduced a raft of new features – with the Remove Color adjustment taking center-stage. The tool lets users strip out solid colors from images and videos just by selecting the color with an eyedropper tool. 

According to the developer, users can adjust how much of a selected color is taken out using three controls: Color Range, Luminance Range, and Intensity sliders. Showcasing its use in a YouTube demonstration, the developer detailed how creatives can use the latest addition to remove a green screen in videos.  

What’s new in Pixelmator Pro 3.3?  

Remove Color, which apparently deploys “a state-of-the-art texture-aware algorithm”, isn’t the only update to make its way into version 3.3. 

The Clarity, Selective Clarity, and Texture adjustments first made their way into the company's mobile photo editing app Pixelmator Photo, and now they are set to join the Photoshop alternative; while Shadows, Highlights, Exposure, and Brightness adjustments have also seen enhancements for creating more natural-looking edited images.  

For illustrators and artists, the drawing software sees a significant bump in stroke styles and options for customizing them. Sidecar file support has also been introduced: by attaching a Pixelmator Pro document to images, users can open, edit, and save images in the original file format, while saving any non-destructive edits and layers to Mac or iCloud.

“Images with sidecar edits look and behave just like regular images. For example, you can easily share such images online or open them in other apps without having to export them first,” the firm explained. 

Elsewhere, the graphic design software, which includes logo maker tools and a RAW image editor, received a new Pattern fill style and the ability to use shortcuts when applying LUTs, color adjustments, effects, and auto-color adjustments to videos. 

Pixelmator Pro 3.3 is free to all existing users. New users can download it from the App Store by clicking here

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Windows 11 bug is messing with colors on some HDR monitors

Windows 11 suffers from a bug which is causing colors to be rendered incorrectly – with the most common error cropping up being white showing as yellow – at least with some HDR monitors when running certain image editors.

As Tom’s Hardware spotted, this is something Microsoft is actively investigating, and the software giant has flagged it up in the support document which lists the current known issues with Windows 11.

Microsoft observes: “After installing Windows 11, some image editing programs might not render colors correctly on certain HDR displays. This is frequently observed with white colors, which could display in bright yellow or other colors.

“This issue occurs when certain color-rendering Win32 APIs return unexpected information or errors under specific conditions. Not all color profile management programs are affected, and color profile options available in the Windows 11 Settings page, including Microsoft Color Control Panel, are expected to function correctly.”

The color glitch affects those running Windows 11 version 21H2, and Microsoft says it is working on a fix right now, with the expected timeframe for delivery being late January.


Analysis: Not so mellow yellow, but at least that fix is coming swiftly

The expected arrival date of late in January could mean we see this fix bundled in the cumulative update in preview (testing) for that month, which will see a full release come Patch Tuesday in February. So, if this bug is one which is plaguing you at times – and we imagine seeing white as ‘bright’ yellow (not even just a faint yellow) would be pretty jarring – at least you won’t have to suffer with this for much longer (assuming the cure arrives as planned and is successful, naturally).

While annoying, at least this particular bug is confined to a fairly limited subset of Windows 11 users in terms of it just affecting some image editors, and only with certain HDR monitors.

It’s a fairly niche problem, then, but more widespread Windows 11 bugs are an ongoing theme for Microsoft, and as we recently pointed out, it’s disappointing to see quite a lot of glitches popping up. Particularly ones which pertain to fundamental parts of the interface like File Explorer, as these contribute to the general impression of the new operating system being released before it was fully ready. Before it came out, we felt Windows 11 was a good opportunity to change the perception of Windows 10 being bug-ridden, but thus far, that hasn’t panned out.

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