Photomator 2 - In Depth Review - An Inexpensive and Excellent Photo Editor for Mac

[@derekhandforth1287]

You can increase the range of the sliders by holding down the the option key before sliding.

[@Andyhutchinson]

True - but only on a subset - and unfortunately it's not the ones I actually need i.e. highlights and shadows :)

[@VivekHaldar]

I recently bought Photomator and am only an amateur at photo editing, but this review finally made it click for me. Thanks!

[@Andyhutchinson]

That's great - glad it helped. :)

[@maxheadroom6663]

Just ditched Lightroom / Photoshop last week for Photomator. Apart from panoramas and focus stacking it serves me perfectly.

[@Andyhutchinson]

Nice one. Seems like panos/stacks would be a great upgrade for the app.

[@maxheadroom6663]

Meanwhile I use Affinity on the iPad and Luminar on Mac for those…

[@MrMartin246]

On iPad If you open the … menu at the top on the adjustments and go into Settings, there is an option to expand (roughly double) the range of some sliders. The option is called Extended Values. The same option exist on the Mac.

[@Andyhutchinson]

No option on the Mac for extending the values unfortunately.

[@MrMartin246]

I recall now, on the Mac there is no option because all you have to do is hold the Option key, and then the slider have extended range. It is the same in Apple Photos app by the way. So no need for the option. And it works for some sliders, not all of the them. Works for exposure. My bad not recalling this difference@@Andyhutchinson

[@Andyhutchinson]

Thanks. Just tested this and it only works on some of the sliders - specifically vibrance, brightness, exposure, contrast, black point and vibrance. Unfortunately the only ones I need to work on are highlights and shadows. But I do appreicate the tip - thankyou. :)

[@inSurfersParadise]

Thanks my man. Much appreciated. Been using Affinity Photo but its raw processing is way too cumbersome. Experimenting with Darktable. Very powerful, superb results, but it is not pretty. Photomator looks like a very interesting product.

[@Andyhutchinson]

It's a little powerhouse of an app for sure - far better than Affinity Photo for most photographers, I feel :)

[@TristanX]

I like your reviews.

[@Andyhutchinson]

Thank-you :)

[@gitefermetteenfrance]

Thank you for your explanation. I do have Lightroom ( adobe abonnement) Now I am trying Photomator and I think this works much better for me. All I need as an amateur photographer is in this program. After seeing your video I am sure to stop the adobe and continue the Photomator. Thanks !

[@Andyhutchinson]

That's great - I'm sure it will be a good fit for you. :)

[@gitefermetteenfrance]

Yes, I have a qustion, is it already possible to adjust a watermark? Thanks@@Andyhutchinson

[@ola_vii]

Thanks for the review. I’m going to check out the free trial and see how it goes. I’m planning to ditch Adobe, since I’m not doing photography as a profession any more. I would still need AdobeRGB proofing and decent library management and export tools. It’s nice to have a new alternative to try out.

[@Andyhutchinson]

Yea, give it a go, see if it's a good fit for you - there's no right solution. :)

[@Happy_Snapper]

I'm sold

[@chrisroze8097]

Thanks Andy, this is a very informative review.

[@Andyhutchinson]

Thanks mate :)

[@Xer0.Visual5]

The full on clone / Repair tool is working perfect for mid -large stuff. It just how you use it. :P I'm full on using Photomator and Pixelmator Pro for every payed shoot. And with the new folder use it's 100% on par with Luminar Neo / LR / Capture one.

[@Andyhutchinson]

Must be me then - lol - couldn't get it working with any degree of accuracy :)

[@MartinHarvey]

Thanks Andy and another excellent review. While I do most of my editing on Lightroom (with a few plugins notably NIK) I have been happy using Photomator lately especially as it picks up images from my iPhone 13 mini. I must see if I can edit on an external dive. Plus I wonder if I could copy Photomator images and “sidecar” XML files into a LRC folder and then Sync inside LRC and see if it would pick up all the Photomator edits? This does seem to work with DxO.

[@Andyhutchinson]

Yep - I like processing with Photomator too - I really like the demosaicing engine they're using.

[@derekhandforth1287]

If I edit a photo from the Photo section (as opposed to the file browser) are the edits saved to Apple Photos? Great in-depth review. Combines well with Pixelmator Pro.

[@Andyhutchinson]

No, that wouldn't be the case because they're separate entities. Photos in the Apple Photos catalog are entirely stored within the library file that it generates and would be separate to any that you manually import using the Files browser.

[@mjpt57]

Thanks for the review. I've just installed it on my Mac Mini and am running the free trial. It might be the answer to get away from Adobe. Just have to work out how to sync between the Mac, the Macbook Air and the iPad Pro. Often when I go away I might take just the iPad. I import RAW images into Lr on the iPad. Later at home I sync it up with the Macs. They say that you can use cloud storage to sync photos. I'll have to look at that option. Currently I'm paying $14/mth for 1tb of space with the Adobe Photography Package. But that may go up soon. More gadgety things to play with...

[@Johnthetripper]

Yes, you would have to drop everything you want to sync into Apple Photos to get the sync happening. You could use Drop Box etc if you're paying for that and have the space. The only way you will get a sync between devices is having some sort of synced cloud storage. I'm sure you already know that though. Cheers.

[@mjpt57]

@@Johnthetripper been playing with it today. Not much luck on the sync side of things. I imported a few images (RAW files) into the Mac version, did some edits and saved. However, they don't appear on the iPad version. I then imported a couple of images into the ipad version, did the same thing, editing and saved. Nothing on the Mac. I can see iCloud Drive on the iPad in the sidebar menu (the same menu as you see in the Files app) and I also have Dropbox (the basic account) and One Drive which has one terabyte of storage via my MS 365 subscription. And I can see my NAS on the network. What I'm looking at on the Mac is a list of files that were imported in the browser pane. On the left it has: Library All Files Edited Files Imported Folders Pictures 2023 and under 2023 various other folders that were created by me some time ago. And if I change from "Files" to "Photos" then I see my Photos albums. I want to stay away from that if I can. It's cluttered enough as it is with all the photos taken with the iPhone and so on. I'm used to using Lightroom Classic and Lightroom Mobile (on the iPad) and having a sync'ed catalog of images which sync across the devices. Looks like Photomator doesn't do that. It's also missing a few editing features that I use a fair bit such as merging images (when stitching photos for a panorama), pre-sets (if they exist I can't find them). I have a week to sort it out before the subscription free trial ends. Hopefully I'll work it out. It shows a lot of promise for me as I want to depart the Adobe eco-system.

[@Andyhutchinson]

Just testing the sync between my Macbook Pro and my iPhone 14 Pro and it worked perfectly for me with a photo in the main Photos catalog. Did an edit on the Mac, fired up the iPhone app and it showed the edits I'd made 30 seconds previously. Also did a test with iCloud Drive. Made a new folder - put a test image inside - opened it on Mac and made changes - fired up iPhone app, switched to Files browser, opened photo in iCloud drive - all edits were showing up. :)

[@mjpt57]

@@Andyhutchinson and this is where it's failing miserably for me. Please note: under "Photos" I can see and edit images. Under the "Files" option I cannot view any external drives other than what's under the "pictures" folder on the Mac's SSD. This is the folder that Photomator asked for when I installed it. I tried pointing it to an external drive but it wouldn't let me. So, all I am seeing in the left pane is the Title Library and under that is the Files heading. Under that I see Imported images. Under that is the heading Folders and under that is the Pictures folder and all of its sub-folders. Obviously I'm missing something quite significant here. Are you able to help? Thanks Martin

[@Andyhutchinson]

Ah ok I think I understand. It doesn't show folders/drives in the sidebar - you import the images (either on your Mac or your iPad) from the cloud based location and then any edits you make (on either Mac or iPad) will sync. In any case you need to import them at one end or the other. I'm not sure if they'll add traditional Finder style drives in that sidebar, but it is the first iteration of the files browser in Photomator, so it is possible. :)

[@hywel3143]

Hi Andy. I was keen to purchase Photomator for the Mac as a good quality product that would blend seamlessly with the Apple Photos library. I want to switch from editing in Apple Photos to a more feature rich editor. However, as a landscape photographer I need the facility to manually create an HDR image from bracketed images using my Canon 6D. I approached Photomator to request this, but they have just replied saying that this will not be in their Roadmap. The surprising (to me) reason they give is that many new cameras/devices automatically produce HDR images, so that there is no need to build this facility into Photomator. So unfortunately I've had to strike it off my shortlist, which just leaves me with Affinity Photo, unless exposure blending is possible in Photolab 7, which it does not seem to be. Am I correct in thinking that Photolab does not have this feature? I did have it on trial, but forgot to check this...

[@Andyhutchinson]

No Photolab doesn't do HDR and I'd be very surprised if it ever did. Did you try Luminar Neo? It does HDR, panos _and_ focus stacking.

[@rymdskrotet]

In raw, when to use brightness and when to use exposure? The ai features is not implemented in the ordinary editing tools (according to the dev). I have had quite hopes for this app, but I miss Photoshop Lightroom a LOT. I have tried other photo editiors as well, but they all feel either slow or missing a lot of feats.

[@mjpt57]

Question: can Photomator merge images? Can't seem to find out if it can. One of the things that I do with LrC is to take a number of "portrait" shots of a landscape then merge them as a single large image. Perfect for printing to the A3+ Canon ProGraf 300. The Canon R6 has a 20mp sensor and printing landscapes to A3 is a bit iffy if I take say a single shot of a scene. At least that is my experience. I'm still new at this and I marvel at your examples that I've seen.

[@maxheadroom6663]

Panoramas are not (yet) a feature of Photomator. But I regularly print A3 photos from iPhone 13 Pro and old Fujifilm X-E1… works perfectly

[@Andyhutchinson]

Hoping that merges (pano, HDR, stack) are on the roadmap. :)

[@TheOmegagent]

what is the oldest model imac 21.5 inch that I can properly use for pixelmator/photomator. I now use the iPad Pro M1

[@bambanx]

Photomator is coollll ty

[@Andyhutchinson]

No worries. :)

[@IgorOchev]

So basically I would import photos into my PhotoLibnrary and then go to Photomator to edit them and share. Ifs there a way to have the edited versions in the PhotoLibrary? I like to create shared albums for family and it sounds like they will only see the originals .... Thank you

[@Andyhutchinson]

Yes I'm pretty sure they'd only see the original image. I think the only way to do this would be to export them in their processed state, but that's obviously less than ideal.

[@mike_qbik]

Sync settings not copy paste over multiple photos and straightenning / distortion made better. Then I would leave Lightroom.

[@Andyhutchinson]

Yea those would be nice features.

[@simplysaso]

How is the raw processing compared to Lightroom

[@Andyhutchinson]

RAW processing is clean with a beautiful fall-off on the sliders, but it lacks a bit of punch in highlight and shadow recovery and I'm hoping they dial that up a bit in a future release. Also it doesn't support all RAW file formats so you should check compatibility first. Other than that it's my go-to lightweight RAW editor when I just want quick results.

[@EricGross]

I don't see how to use layers in photomater 2.

[@Andyhutchinson]

Top-right of the Edit suite is a drop-down box for layers.

[@xuanmauricioprz8095]

😄😂😂😂 powered by RITALIN 10 😂😂😂 so true

[@Andyhutchinson]

ADHD Army represent. :)

[@mj7195]

Still doesn't support Nikon Zf, ive sent emails to both Nikon and Apple, they are still blaming each other.

[@Andyhutchinson]

That sucks. Weird how they leave out such popular models for no apparent reason.