Image editing: Pixelmator

I recently had need of a straightforward, easy-to-use image editing tool.  The occasion is the final formatting of my dissertation, which includes a number of images that need to be touched up.  It’s nothing too technical — just some airbrushing here and there, color adjustment, cropping, getting rid of extraneous marks, etc.  I wanted something more sophisticated than Skitch, but nothing as complex as Photoshop or the like.  Ideally, I wanted a tool that I could acquire and learn to use in a matter of minutes.

The technorati over at DiaryProducts suggested that I try out Pixelmator. Pixelmator is a photo editing app built for MacOSX.  It seems to have all the basic features you’d need in an image-editing app, and more to boot.  Pixelmator is not free (it costs USD 29.99 at the Mac App Store) however you can get a complimentary trial version that lasts for 30 days.  I can attest to its ease-of-use.  After downloading the trial version I had my images cropped, brushed up, and ready to be imported into my document within about 30 minutes.