Photomator gains image culling but not everyone’s impressed

The Photomator image editor has gained image culling with flags, star ratings and new filtering options, but these features are currently pretty limited.

Photomator 3.4 for iOS, iPadOS and macOS is out now in the App Store. The new version lets you flag or reject favorites, reject unwanted shots, add star ratings, search photos with filters and more. Photomator is built by the same team that brought you Pixelmator, a powerful Photoshop alternative.

However, these features are pretty basic at the moment compared with dedicated photo-culling apps. As a result, some of the more vocal users responded to the announcement on the Pixelmator blog with disappointment. Software engineer Andrius Gailinuas responded by explaining that the team prefers to “make changes more incrementally rather than going silent for long periods of time.”

Photomator 3.4: Flags and star ratings

You can mark favorites, reject unwanted shots and apply star ratings using the in-app browser or the built-in filmstrip on iPhone, iPad and Mac. Additionally, Photomator for Mac enables you to perform these actions via the Info panel, the Image menu, Control-clicking an image or keyboard shortcuts.

Hit Z to mark an image, X to reject it or U to remove flags. Pressing a number from 1 to 5 lets you apply a star rating (0 remove the stars). The same shortcuts work on iPad. “Additionally, you can flag photos by clicking the flag icon inside a photo’s thumbnail or by using the Flag and Reject buttons in the toolbar,” the team wrote.

So far, so good. What people dislike is that flags and star ratings in the iPhone and iPad versions only work via the Photos browser. The system Photos browser doesn’t support these features, so applying flags and star ratings in Photomator for iPhone and iPad is clunky. You must touch and hold an image to bring up the contextual menu with these options, then choose Flag > Flagged/Rejected. Images with flags and star ratings can be found in the Utilities collection alongside other albums.

Flags and ratings in other apps

Your flags and star ratings are saved in metadata to be readily available in apps like Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop. Conversely, Photomator reads ratings that are already embedded in the metadata, including directly from the camera on import.

“This means that you can import entire photo libraries into Photomator and view flags and ratings, as well as access flags and ratings from Photomator in other editing apps,” the team wrote. A support page explains how to migrate your photo library to Photomator from different photo editing apps.

Photomator 3.4: Advanced filtering options

Photomator 3.4 brings new options to filter photos by file type, flag, star rating and file name. You can also include or exclude edited photos. However, advanced filtering is only available in the Mac app.
“On macOS Sequoia, you can also filter by date and location,” the team wrote. “For quick access, these filtering features are located in the toolbar of the browser and on the right side of the filmstrip.”

Room for improvement

Here’s hoping the Pixelmator team will address the critique. The iPhone and iPad versions definitely need a faster way to flag stuff from the Photos viewer, in addition to better photo reviewing to help you quickly decide which images to keep or discard. Things like an A/B comparison tool, a quick zoom to judge sharpness, focus peaking, a histogram with clipping indicators, and more.

Another issue is that the new culling features are unavailable in the iPad file browser. To display ratings and flags there, “we’d need to build a custom browser rather than using the system browser and that’s not currently in our plans,” Andrius explained. “However, that’s something we can absolutely keep in mind for the future.”

I’ve been following this company for many years, and all I can say is that the Pixelmator team always listens to feedback. With frequent updates the team puts out, I have no doubt in my mind that the limited photo-culling tools will be perfected over time to help you manage larger photo collections like a pro.

Photo culling alternatives

Meanwhile, you can always look for alternatives with better photo-culling features on iPhone, iPad and Mac. Some of the better recommendations include apps like Photoscope, Photo Mechanic Plus, RAW Power and Phoom.

Source link: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2024/10/16/photomator-image-culling-udpate-criticism/