Pixelmator Pro 1.5

The Pixelmator Team has issued version 1.5 of its Pixelmator Pro image editing app (with the Bryan Ferry-esque nickname, Avalon), adding full compatibility with macOS 10.15 Catalina, including support for the Apple Pencil and Sidecar so you can use your iPad as a second display for painting, sketching, retouching, and more. The release will also bring a performance boost on the forthcoming Mac Pro thanks to its multi-GPU support and optimized Metal architecture, adds support for the upcoming Apple Pro Display XDR, introduces the ML Denoise machine learning-powered noise removal tool to intelligently remove noise and compression artifacts, and adds support for SF Symbols (Apple’s collection of over 1,500 configurable vector icons). The update also applies and renders effects up to three times faster, improves zooming and scrolling speed with asynchronous rendering, fixes a bug that caused text in SVG files to be displayed incorrectly, resolves an issue that caused the Export command to produce smaller-than-expected images, and ensures that images with large custom color spaces are opened correctly. ($39.99 new from Pixelmator and the Mac App Store, free update, 174 MB, release notes, macOS 10.13+)