Seneca

Status: Beta
Purpose: Features, Improvements, Fixes
Requirements: Purchased Affinity Photo
Mac App Store: Not submitted
Download DMG: Download
Auto-update: Available.
 
Hello,
We are pleased to announce the immediate availability of the latest beta of Affinity Photo 1.7 for macOS.
Photo 1.7 is a (very) significant change to the currently shipping 1.6 version, so, as ever, I would strongly urge users to avoid the 1.7 beta for critical work. This is a pre-release build of 1.7 - we will release more builds before 1.7 ships. Things will be broken in this build - please use it to explore the new features and not for real work.
If this is your first time using a customer beta of an Affinity app, it’s worth noting that the beta will install as a separate app - alongside your store version. They will not interfere with each other at all and you can continue to use the store version for critical work without worry.
It’s also worth noting that we aren’t done yet - we are still working through reported bugs from previous releases and hope to fix as many as possible before the final release of 1.7. To be notified when there is a new beta please press follow on this announcment thread
With all that said, we hope that you will enjoy the new capabilities introduced in this release and we look forward to any and all feedback you give to us.
Many thanks (as always),
Affinity Photo Team  
 
Changes This Build
 
- Provided an upgrade path for adjustment layers created in 1.6 documents which now look wrong in 1.7. When you load those documents, they will now look correct - until you attempt to change their settings - at which point a message will be shown explaining that they have been upgraded.
- Fixed issues with Unsharp mask looking different at small radii with Metal compute enabled.
- Fixed HSL adjustment clamping 32bit values > 1.0.
- Fixed Vibrance adjustment clamping 32bit values > 1.0.
- Noise reduction improvements.
- Brightness / Contrast now work properly in 32bit mode and the Linear checkbox works again.
- Mitigated screen corruption with AMD Vega GPUs.
- Photoshop plugins which are ICC aware can now query Photo for the document profile.
- Fix Colour Balance adjustment on older GPUs.
- Improved Colour Balance mid-tone adjustments.
- Improved lens correction detection rate for Panasonic Lens IDs.
- General stability and performance tweaks.
 
Changes Since 1.6 Release
 
EDR
- Added support for EDR displays to Photo. When editing a 32bit document, enabling EDR will switch macOS into a mode whereby it will increase the backlight intensity and darken screen content - increasing the dynamic range available when rendering content.
Performance
- The core processing engine in Affinity Photo has been rewritten to take advantage of the powerful discrete AMD GPUs in modern Mac hardware. It will now automatically use any compatible discrete GPU, alongside the Intel GPU support present in 1.6. Typically this improves compositing / editing performance by at least 1000%. Performance when using integrated Intel GPUs has also been massively improved.
- External GPUs (eGPU) are also supported - including hot-plug-and-unplug support.
- Multiple GPUs are supported - if you have more than 1 GPU (ie. Intel + AMD in MacBook Pro, or Intel + eGPU in other Macs) Photo will use them all, at the same time, to improve performance. There is no limit to the number of GPUs which can be used.
Brushes
- Photo 1.7 introduces a new “sub-brush” mechanism, developed in conjunction with Paolo Limoncelli (DAUB® Brushes). This exciting feature allows any brush to have a list of other brushes attached which will draw at the same time. Each sub-brush has a fully separate and customisable set of dynamics. You can control when the sub-brushes are drawn and how they blend with the main brush.
- The brush engine in Photo has been rewritten to use the new GPU architecture described above. With GPU support, even huge brushes with 1% spacing will perform well. All brushes / brush tools are accelerated.
- Symmetry (up to 32-way) is now supported - including on-canvas controls and optional mirroring. We have more symmetry features on the way - so stay tuned during the beta process.
- Wet edges and accumulation are now available on colour brushes and brushes with HSL variance.
- Brushes with multiple nozzle textures have always chosen the nozzle at random. In 1.7, the nozzle choice has a dynamic controller and ramp for greater control.
- All brush tools now support left and right arrow keys for rotation - a common feature request.
- Allow Ctrl key to be held when typing numbers in a brush tool (will change flow instead of opacity).
- Fixed ABR brush import (would ignore "random" controllers).
RAW
- The RAW processing engine in Photo has been rewritten - producing better results and improved performance. It also takes advantage of the GPU architecture changes described above.
- RAW files now load much more quickly - especially if you have a compatible GPU.
- Reimplemented support for XTrans sensors.
- The denoise algorithm has been rewritten. It produces better results and takes advantage of the new GPU architecture.
- Hot pixel removal is now automatically performed by the Serif Labs engine.
- Profiled lens correction are more stable, apply more quickly, and can be toggled in the Develop UI.
- The histogram in the Develop persona is now presented in the output colour space - as opposed to always being linear.
- Develop now respects the output profile when previewing.
- Added support for CR3 RAW when using the Core Image engine.
- Show which autofocus rectangles were in focus and which were selected by the camera (yellow, green respectively).
- A large number of new cameras are supported for RAW development (we will provide a list of the new supported cameras as soon as possible!).
- Automatically fall back to Core Image for cameras which are not supported by Serif Labs.
Filters
- New “Procedural Texture” filter with advanced presets support.
- New “Voronoi” filter.
- Denoise, Clarity and Shadows / Highlights filters have been rewritten (using technology from the Develop Persona).
- More filters are now available as Live Filters - including the new Procedural Texture filter.
- Live filters have been rewritten to improve performance - especially when multiple filters are used in a document.
- Improved Polar to Rectangular and Rectangular to Polar filters.
- Added round dot type to the halftone filter.
- New “Lens Correction” filter - apply lens correction from the built-in lens database.
- Bilateral blur accuracy improvements.
Adjustments
- The HSL adjustment layer has been rewritten. It now supports custom hue ranges, a new algorithm, new UI and picker controls.
- The Levels adjustment layer now supports output levels - a common feature request.
- The White Balance adjustment layer has been rewritten.
- The Selective Colour adjustment layer has been rewritten.
- PSD import / export of adjustments has been improved.
- The Vibrance adjustment layer has been rewritten.
- The Recolour adjustment layer has gained a lightness slider.
Layers
- Layers page - added option for transparent background for thumbnails.
- Layers page - added multiple thumbnail size options.
- Layers page - added ability to tag layers with a colour - including PSD round-trip.
- Allow adding an empty group from the Layer menu.
- New “Duplicate Selection” item in Layer menu (old behaviour). Duplicate now duplicate the whole layer ignoring pixel selection.
- Alt / Option is now used to make a pixel selection from layer luminance. You can now also hold shift to add the result to the current selection.
- Hide / Show / Show All Layers options in layers menu.
- Ability to either rasterise or rasterise and trim a layer. Previously recorded macros will trim.
 
Selections
- Significant improvements to selection refinement.
- When using selection tools with no pixel selection, default to New / Add as appropriate.
- Added “Alpha Similarity” to Select Sampled Colour tool.
Tools
- Grouped tool shortcuts now default to needing the shift key held to cycle (option in preferences).
- The Crop tool has been rewritten - it now supports resolution changes, absolute pixel size and has a much improved preset mechanism.
- The Sponge Brush tool now gives more correct / pleasant results.
- Allow brush rotate / size key changes while dragging.
- Added a “Reveal Canvas” checkbox to the crop tool - defaults to off.
- Added new “Transform object separately” mode into Move tool.
- A general tools overhaul has been performed - providing editing of grids, guides, page origin, across multiple tools (not just in the Move tool)
- Patch tool now supports arrow keys for rotate / scale.
- All brush tools can now be axis constrained once brush has started - not just the pixel tool.
History
- “Alternate futures” for document history have been added. Traditionally, if you roll back the undo history then do something else all your changes after that point are lost. Photo will now display a small branch icon in the history tab when you do this. Pressing that button will cycle between all the different “futures” after that history entry - meaning you will never lose work you have done.
- The History page now has an “advanced” mode - which shows thumbnails and time info.
I/O
- HEIF images can now be loaded directly into Photo. If they contain a depth map, this will also be loaded as a second layer. Because depth maps are typically lower resolution than the main image, optional “smart” upsampling will be performed.
- TIFF export now has user selectable compression method.
- Added support for 12bit TIFF files.
- Introduced new metadata mining - completely rewritten to improve performance, flexibility and correctness.
- Metadata is now dynamically synchronised with your document - so if you resize then export, the values will be correct.
- Added Focal Length to metadata summary view.
- Added a button in general preferences to open a folder from which Photo will read LensFun-style XML files - if users wish to add / experiment with their own lens profiles.
- Support 16bit CMYK TIFF import.
General
- New ability to control how macros are scaled / aligned when playing back.
- Added an “Assets” panel to Photo.
- New cube setup mode for grids.
- Add “Fill with Primary / Secondary” to the Edit menu for fast access.
- The batch process dialog now fully supports expressions for height and width - available constants are “w”, “h” and “dpi”.
- “Lock guides” added to menus.
- Support for drag dropping .afstyles into Photo.
- Support for drag dropping .afpalette into Photo.
- Photo now supports custom document presets - a popular feature request.
- A new blend mode - Linear Burn - has been added.
- New “Move inside / outside” commands have been added - useful for quick operations on clipping masks etc.
- The Hard Mix blend mode has been improved.
- New provider options have been added to the stock panel - support for Unsplash, Pexels and Pixabay. All of these providers offer full-resolution stock imagery which is free to use.
- Numerous text improvements have been made - including new features.
- Significant stability improvements when working on non-local files (network shares, USB drives, etc.).
- Significant PDF import / export improvements and fixes.
- New welcome screen layout and all new samples.
- Numerous other bug fixes - too many to list!

Hi Horys.
Perhaps I am so old and use to the ID/QXP method that I don't find the present APub method complicated that I don't see a need for making it simpler. I do believe should Serif ever provide ePub/HTML5 export that a character style will either need to be present for a bullet change from the base style or they will need to use spans for each and every bullet in such an export anyway. From a POV of editing the resulting ePub/HTML5 output, a character style for this (and other overrides) is preferable.

Well done.

It will be nice to see in the Master Pages and Pages windows that a spread is made of two pages.
For exemple Master A and Master B are visually identical, but one is a spead and the other is a page.

No, they should leave it as is. 

Fanfabulous.

So, which is which in the screen shot taken in ID below?

A question. Why is it that Optical Kerning is not the default?
User-configurable kerning tables is a good idea. But that said, I am amazed at how many people that use QXP have never used them.

Every font is different, so I can't really tell (and I assume you are not doing manual kerning also). My guess is that the one on the left is "metrics" and the one on the right is "optical."  If such is the case, then the font you chose is a case where the font as designed leaves more space after the apostrophe than optical kerning, while Minion Pro is the opposite in that the designers did not leave enough space. In fact, either of your examples would be better in my mind than what Minion Pro (and some others) does in this case, and the easy fix in InDesign is to use optical kerning.
 
I assume it is because a well designed font should typically be better kerned by the designer than a kind of automatic spacing algorithm. I probably use optical kerning less than half the time, but it always depends on the font. I usually try both options to see which is better, and sometimes "better" must simply be better on the balance.
In my case, I am looking for a solution for a specific problem (globally tweaking poor kerning) rather than a specific solution (such as optical kerning). A different solution that lets us tweak kerning pairs (perhaps like QXP? I am not familiar with it) could be better. If it had to be one or the other, I think I would prefer being able to tweak the kerning pairs rather than an optical kerning.

I need to disagree with this one.  Global and spot colors in particular have some issues with the way that they are currently handled which are borderline on showstoppers for some users and which are kind of silly in their current state (in some cases the wrong swatch gets highlighted in the swatches panel when selecting an object even though the object itself has the correct one applied to it, for example) - these kinds of problems were already bad for Designer but are much more of an issue for Publisher.  There are also the various UI glitches that have been reported that need to be addressed, cases where opening documents from earlier versions produces different results in the newer version, etc.  Documentation is not complete yet.
In terms of the feature set, I do think they have a good enough working set for a first release... but I wouldn't want to see a production release until some of those more fundamental problems are fixed.  Lots of loose ends to tie off.

I wouldn't expect (or want) any templates in a pro level software ... if I need or want templates I'm going to create them myself or buy them somewhere. I fear that a set of flashy, colourful templates will keep the professional users away. Neither InDesign nor Quark come with any templates and that's the league Serif is playing in.
If someone needs templates, they can just buy them online (there's plenty available).
IF templates were supplied to any extent, I would expect them for separate download on the Serif website - either free paid - but not included in the app.

An interesting snippet of information:
Adobe has doubled the subscription price for Photoshop and Lightroom.
It's 100% increase on previous price offering.
https://macdailynews.com/2019/05/02/adobe-doubles-the-price-of-its-creative-cloud-plan-for-photoshop-and-lightroom/

Automatic Hyphenation between 2 words separated by a Non-Breaking Space kicks-in when the minimum prefix is 1 or 2 and when the first word is composed of 1 or 2 letters.
I think that Hyphenation should not be attempted between words separated by a non-breaking space anyway.
The non-breaking space is used to prevent 1 or 2 letter words at the end of a line. This can be remedied by increasing the minimum prefix to 3 for example but my previous point is still valid.
Please see below:

Screen-hyphen.mov

They are a fantastic way to show what can be achieved with styles in Publisher. You are not forced to keep them however.
If you are creating a new application then just delete them by going to the Burger menu to the right of the Text Styles and selecting Detach and Delete all Styles.

Tables are currently broken. This has been reported a number of times already. The developers are aware of this and hopefully we will have a fix soon.

If you want to design a pamphlet then use affinity Designer.
While useful, the Book option in Publisher is not essential as you seem to be implying.
Some professional use Book facility in inDesign or QuarkXpress some don't and both produce very long docs.
What I'm saying is that we should not exaggerate the importance of that feature.

The older software is still supported on the CommunityPlus Legacy Product Support Forum.
Given that the Windows-only ‘Plus’ applications were developed over three decades and are hugely dependent upon specific Windows functions, whereas the Affinity desktop apps are available for both Mac and Windows and have been written from scratch with platform-agnostic core code, I think that’s a highly unrealistic expectation.

This one comment, as others have pointed out, was the clue to me that you are not actually looking for beta software.
As a more general response, whether you want to label this as beta or something closer to an alpha, the truth is that the way it was opened up to the community has allowed the community to have much input in the direction of development of the app prior to its official launch. The different beta versions have shown many hundreds (or thousands even) of changes and improvements because Serif has asked for and listened to feedback from the community.
If that is not what you are looking for, then you should probably skip the beta altogether and wait for the first "finished" product, or even better, the second or third release as it matures. For the rest of us, we are grateful that we can have a part in development of an app that in the end will be more useful to us because we could be in communication with the developers.

This discussion is bringing to light some of the reasoning behind my original suggestion of having three different states:
The current "embedded" stays as-is The current "linked" becomes "tracked", "embedded but still linked", "linked with an embedded copy", whatever you want to call it The new "linked" is the more traditional version of "linked", with at most a tiny embedded thumbnail for faster rendering while loading the original, or to use as a substitute when the original is missing (but with the expectation that quality would suffer).

That too deservers a big round of applause.

Fanfabulous.

Fanfabulous.

Then use Affinity Designer.

That too deservers a big round of applause.

Fanfabulous.

If you want to design a pamphlet then use affinity Designer.
While useful, the Book option in Publisher is not essential as you seem to be implying.
Some professional use Book facility in inDesign or QuarkXpress some don't and both produce very long docs.
What I'm saying is that we should not exaggerate the importance of that feature.