For casual image editing, including photos, I turn to Pixelmator Pro most of the time. I'm not sure at this time how I would use Photomator. If it eventually integrates metadata management and cataloguing, then I would happily jettison Lightroom Classic.
- Photomater's photo library is the Apple Photos library
- Files are copied into the Apple Photos library when importing, even when Photos.app has the preference set not to
- Edits are not saved to the dng. (There is a preference to save a sidecar file when editing, but I couldn't find the sidecar. Could be a bug.)
I think that if they had just not used the Apple Photos library for their library, and had their own library browser, I probably would have bought it. The app performed really well and the experience was nice for simple photo edits. Their B&W editor was nice, and seemed to maintain brightness while adjusting individual color channels.
I'm still holding onto my LR6 perpetual license as tight as I can, even with all of the broken features, waiting for something that isn't a subscription that can function as a photo library and editor.
This revealed a potential showstopper for me. Each RAW file that I worked on created a 100 MB sidecar file. I think this is just an image preview though. I could delete the sidecar file and my edits were preserved.
Photomator might be an acknowledgment that pixel and photo editing are fundamentally different processes (... and never the twain shall meet).