When working with color adjustments, there are a few useful things you can use to optimize your workflow. For instance, you can customize the color adjustments pane to include only the color adjustments you use, temporarily disable certain color adjustments, reset all the effects applied to a particular layer, view how a particular layer looks like without any adjustments and more.
You can apply color adjustments to layers directly or add them as adjustments layers. Adding adjustments directly will automatically link them with the layer to which they are applied. This means that when editing, the changes applied to the layer will also affect the color adjustments and vice versa. E.g. if you paint on an adjusted layer with a brush, the brush color may look different because the same color adjustments will reflect on it.
Tip: In Pixelmator Pro, the color adjustments have a set order in which they appear within the adjustments list and can't be rearranged. If you'd like to change the order of adjustments, you can add them as separate color adjustments layers and arrange them as needed in the Layers list.
Color adjustments layers work as individual elements you can add to a project and edit separately from the layer (or layers) to which they are applied. Just like the regular color adjustments, color adjustment layers offer nondestructive editing. These layers can be moved freely up or down the layers list and will change the appearance of all layers below them. Other than that, all the color adjustment controls function the same way as they do when editing layers directly.
To add a color adjustments layer, do any of the following:
Tip: If you'd like to apply a color adjustments layer to only one layer below it, you can do that using a clipping mask. See Use clipping masks to learn more about working with clipping masks.
If a certain color adjustment isn't visible in the list of adjustments, it may be turned off. To access the adjustment, you'll need to add it from the Customize menu.
Do one of the following:
Click Customize at the bottom of the list of color adjustments.
Select effects to add them or deselect them to remove them from the list of adjustments. The changes you make apply to all Pixelmator Pro documents.
Do one of the following:
In the Layers sidebar, click to select the layer you’d like to edit.
In the Tool Options pane, turn off the color adjustment you want to hide.
Do one of the following:
In the Layers sidebar, select a layer from which to remove the color adjustments.
Do one of the following:
Do one of the following:
In the Layers sidebar, click to select the layer you'd like to see without the color adjustments.
Click and hold the Show Original button at the bottom of the Tool Options pane, or press + on your keyboard.
Using the Split Comparison view, you can see what an image looked like before and after you applied any color adjustments to it. There are a few ways you can turn on the Split Comparison view:
Press
+ on your keyboard.If you're using a trackpad, force click the canvas or two-finger tap the canvas and choose Split Comparison.
Choose Window > Customize Toolbar and drag the Compare item to the toolbar.
Flattening all color adjustments applied to a layer can be useful when you’re happy with the way it looks and you’d like to resize the layer without the color adjustment affecting other layers.
Do any of the following:
In the Layers sidebar, – click a layer and choose Color Adjustments > Flatten Adjustments.
Choose Format > Color Adjustments > Flatten Adjustments (from the Format menu at the top of the screen).
If you have a set of color adjustments you'd like to use in apps other than Pixelmator Pro, you can save them as LUTs. See Apply LUTs in Pixelmator Pro to learn more.