(Those at the top are ‘closer’ to your eyes.) Tap a layer to access its menu.

Tap-hold and drag layers to move them up or down the stack. Drag it down to access the new layer button (another +). To access the layers pane, drag from the left of the screen. You can also use it for building up photos or art with separate objects that can be individually adjusted within the composition at any point. This can be useful for adding effects without affecting an underlying photograph. Pixelmator has a layers system, meaning you can create items on each layer and edit them independently from the rest of the document. Other standard iOS actions generally work as you’d expect: tap to select an object (and bring up a menu for cut/copy/paste/delete/duplicate) drag to move a selection (which will provide alignment guides as appropriate) two-finger rotate to rotate something. Most tools work by dragging a finger on the canvas. We’ll explore some Pixelmator tools in our walkthroughs, but there are some more global controls and methods that are useful to know first. The Share menu is identical to the aforementioned one in the document picker. The Settings menu provides the means to adjust your canvas size and rotation, toggle the intelligent guides that appear when dragging items around the canvas, and also houses Pixelmator’s Help guide. The + menu has four tabs, enabling you to insert a photo, a new layer (blank, from the clipboard, or with a colored/patterned background), text, and vector shapes. Styles include opacity, blend modes and drop shadows Arrange provides a means to change the layer’s position in the layer stack, its size and rotation, and whether it’s locked from editing. Tools also houses the Format menu, for adjusting the style and arrangement of the current layer. Tapping a tool will often provide options (such as a brush type), and you then make your edits and tap Done to finish. In Tools, you’ll find Paint/erase, Retouch, Distort, Colors, Effects, Select and Crop tools. To the right are four icon-based menus: Tools (a paintbrush) Insert (+) Settings (a cog) and Share (the standard share icon). (Tap multiple times to undo more actions tap-hold to ‘redo’.) The former takes you back to the document picker, and the latter undoes the previous action. Once you’re in the main editing view, there are two buttons at the left of the toolbar: Images and Undo. Below ‘basic’ are other categories with pre-existing content to swap out for your own, to rapidly create collages, cards, and beautiful photographic effects. (Pixelmator works in either orientation.) Tap ‘Custom…’ and you can choose specific custom dimensions. ‘Blank’ is a canvas the size of your iPhone’s display in portrait ‘Blank Landscape’ is the same, but in landscape. The ‘basic’ templates are blank documents. Create Image opens a screen for selecting templates. All but the first enable you to select an existing image to work with. Tap + and you get several options: Create Image iCloud Drive Photos Take Photo. Select one of these, then choose an image, and you’re presented with relevant further options (such as the format to use for sending a copy, or an app list to open the file in).

The Share button provides four options: Send a Copy Open in Another App Save to iCloud Drive Save to Photos. Edit enables you to select and then duplicate or delete an item, or rename it by tapping its filename.

Pixelmator pro tutorials