Pixelmator has long been one of the best — and most affordable — alternatives to Photoshop, and now the team behind it is trying to bring the image editor's power to the iPhone. Pixelmator for iPhone is being released tomorrow around 8AM ET, and it's suppose to include some powerful features that don't often make their way to mobile. That includes support for layers, photo retouching, and detailed color adjustments. The app will probably be most useful for touching up photos before you send them off to Instagram, but Pixelmator also includes tools for digital painting, should you want to do that on the iPhone's small screen.

The offerings sound impressive. The trouble, of course, is making them useable on the iPhone. Other apps have brought powerful image editing tools to the iPhone before, but they've generally failed at making them easy to work with. If Pixelmator can offer that, it'd be great news for mobile photographers who want to make some more detailed edits before publishing an image. The iPhone app comes as part of Pixelmator for iPad, so people using it should be able to move their work between the two. The app appears to have momentarily disappeared from the App Store, but it should be available to purchase again soon for $4.99.