Pixelmator Pro 1.5 adds support for Catalina’s Sidecar and the Mac Pro

Pixelmator Pro today received a major update that brings full support for macOS Catalina and the upcoming Mac Pro alongside a bunch of improvements. 

Codenamed Avalon, Pixelmator version 1.5 now fully supports macOS Catalina, including the Sidecar feature. This means the app will now work seamlessly on your iPad when used as a second Mac display. Not just as an extended workspace in screen real estate, the app also supports Apple Pencil operations. And handy controls appear at the bottom of your second Mac display on Pixelmator Pro even though your Mac doesn’t have a TouchBar.

Pixelmator Pro takes full advantage of the upcoming Mac Pro’s GPU-powered editing engine with an optimized Metal architecture. The configuration offers big performance boosts on Pixelmator Pro, which goes even further with each additional GPU. The graphics app is also optimized for the new Pro Display XDR, with EDR Mode that lets you display clipped details in RAW photos.

The new ML Denoise feature, based on Core ML, removes luminance and color noise created by cameras in low-light photos. It can even reduce artifacts caused by image compression algorithms.

Performance improvements are core to Avalon, with always responsive and at least 10x faster zooming and scrolling, up to 2.7x times faster effects, and up to 2.4x faster painting. There’s also support for SF Symbols, the new set of over 1,500 configurable vector icons designed by Apple.

Pixelmator Pro 1.5 Avalon is available as a free update for all existing users. For new users, the app is available for $40 on the Mac App Store.