LilleG

Status: Beta Release
Purpose: New features, fixes, improvements
Requirements: Purchased Affinity Photo
Mac App Store: Not Submitted
Download: 1.5 Beta 1 Here
 
This is an early beta of a substantial change to our codebase and as much as we have tried to ensure the quality of the code, it should be considered to be not suitable for production use. This means that you should not attempt to use it for commercial purposes or for any other activity that you may be adversely affected by the application failing. In addition it is definitely worth noting that files created in Affinity 1.5 cannot be opened in 1.4 so always make a copy of your important documents before opening them in 1.5 to ensure you do not accidentally overwrite them and are unable to open them in your 1.4 version.
 
To use this beta, simply download the file from the link given above and double-click on the file to open the installer. Follow the instructions to install the beta version. The beta sits alongside the Mac App Store version and will not interfere with it.
 
With all that said, here is a list of all the new things we can do with 1.5. This will be a fairly short beta (approx. 6 weeks) and things will likely be bad / broken for the the first week or two. After that, we expect the beta to become more stable and usable.
 
Please understand that all betas must start somewhere - and that they are beta for a reason!
 
Thanks once again for taking the time to download and use our beta :) - here's the list:
 
Focus Merge Support
  Focus merging allows you to generate a detailed composite image from a number of images focussed at differing lengths. Use File -> New Focus Merge to get started.   HDR Merge Support   HDR merging lets you create a deep, unbounded 32-bit image from a number of exposure bracketed source images. Use File -> New HDR Merge to get started.   New 32bit RGB Editing Mode   Photo now offers a full compositing / editing environment for 32bit unbounded images. It correctly deals with 0-alpha cases (as per the OpenEXR spec) and generally operates in linear space.   Known Issues: Whilst most filters will work out of the box, we still have significant work to do to make all adjustments / blend modes work correctly in 32bit. Don't be surprised if you get weird result sometimes.   Known Issues: Our renderer will seem very slow when dealing with 32bit documents - it's because we are (at the moment) falling back to CPU where we should be able to use the GPU. This will get faster soon :)   Tone Mapping Persona   Full tone mapping Persona for both HDR and LDR images. This is obviously best used with an image merged by HDR merge - although you can use it on any image.   Known Issues: The UI still requires refinement and eventually there may be more sliders!   OpenEXR / HDR (Radiance) Import / Export   Photo can now import and export .hdr (Radiance, RGBE) and .exr (OpenEXR) images.   Known Issues: We know that people need lots of export options - mainly for OpenEXR - these will drop in in the next few weeks.   Macros   Using the View -> Studio -> Macro and View -> Studio -> Library menu items, you can access new panels which will allow you to record actions, save them, then play them back later. You can also store them in a handy gallery which will offer you live previews of what each stored macro would do to your document if you applied it.   Known Issues: You will find that you can not record some actions which seem natural / obvious (eg. selecting layers). This will be fixed soon.   Batch Processing   Using File -> New Batch job, you can queue up processing on a large number of files. You can resize, convert format and apply any number of macros to each file. The batch processing happens in the background - so you can continue working whilst the jobs are processed.   Live Projections   Photo 1.5 contains a new mechanism which allows you to edit an image in different spatial domains - we currently support the “Equirectangular” domain (360 pano - Ricoh Theta, etc.). You can use all tools when editing - and you can convert back once you have edited. This is especially useful for cleaning up stitching artefacts, or artefacts at the zenith / nadir of the image. Use the options in Layer -> Live Projection to get started.   Known Issues: Perspective projection is disabled. Will be introduced soon.   Improved Pixel Tool   The pixel tool is improved in 1.5 - you can hold shift when dragging to constrain the direction of painting (sorry we did not get this working sooner!). You can also select what happens when you hold Alt and drag - erase to transparent, erase to background colour, or erase to whatever the nominated snapshot / history location is (like in the Clone tool).   New “Pixel Art” Document Resizing   Photo now contains an alternative way to resize a document - using well known pixel-art resampling algorithms. If you work with pixel art and want to use this feature, it’s located under the Document menu.   Known Issues: This can crash if your document is huge - we will fix this.   New “Accumulation” Brush Dynamics   Many users have asked for “Opacity Jitter”. For us, opacity is a constant thing and will remain constant. However, we have added a new property to brushes - “Accumulation” - which should allow you to get what you need :) Please let us know how this works out for you..   Text Styles   Affinity Photo now has the same Text Styles support as Designer - it’s all shared code so it should work right out of the box :) Let us know if you find anything odd about it.   New Marquee Modes (Polygonal, Magnetic) [NOT AVAILABLE YET]   We are committed to adding these modes in 1.5. There are already icons / modes for them in the context toolbar of the Freehand Marquee tool. At the moment, it won’t let you enter these modes - but it will in a subsequent beta build :)   Even more RAW cameras supported   We have upgraded our RAW support again! I’m sorry I can’t give a full list of supported hardware right now, but I aim to do so tomorrow :)   Improved Metadata Mining   Our detection of RAW / JPEG / etc. metadata has been upgraded - after reports of certain lenses not being properly recognised - hopefully this update will fix the missing ones, but if not, please let us know!   Massive Improvements to Export Persona   Our Export Persona has seen huge upgrades in this cycle - you now have total control of exactly what resolution sets get exported. You can also use our handy batch export builders to quickly generate content for external consumption - ie. Xcode .assets - even Spline compatible metadata can be generated!   Layered TIFF Interop   Users have constantly asked us to support “Layered TIFF”. Layered TIFF is not a thing. TIFF with embedded data is a thing - and I’m happy to report that we now import embedded PSD / Affinity data and can write TIFF with embedded Affinity data.   Halftone Filter   We have a marvellous new halftone pattern filter in 1.5 - it can approximate monochrome, colour, circular and line halftones and can even be applied as a “Live Filter”.   Known Issues: This filter can be a bit funky in "Live Filter" mode - and if you have a retina screen, you will see some jittering even in non-live.   Dust & Scratches Filter   Many user have asked us for a “Dust & Scratches” filter - so we have made one. It’s extremely useful for removing sporadic small defects in images. Please let us know if it works for you.   Layer Linking [NOT IMPLEMENTED YET]   Layer linking will happen in 1.5 - at the moment it is currently not exposed in this beta. Look out for it soon though - it should set the benchmark for how linked layers should work in a raster editor.. More on this soon!   “Edit in Affinity Photo” Photos extension   This is something which we didn’t think we could do - a Photos extension for Mac OS 10.9 and above which simply allows you to use the full Photo app to edit your images - and stores the changes you have made as a layered document.   New Colour Picker Tool   After literally thousands of requests, we have implemented a dedicated picker tool for colours. It requires little explanation - so let us know if it works for you :)   New Clone Sources Panel   We now have a new studio panel which allows you to store up an unlimited number of global sources for the Clone / Healing brush - it even works across multiple documents.   Direct PSD Write-Back   One of the most requested features - direct write-back to PSD. A number of 3rd party DAM applications will happily deal in PSD - but until now, Photo required you to File -> Export for PSD. No longer! You can now just hit File -> Save! You will need to turn this on - in File -> Preferences - please read the warning there carefully!   No Thumbnails Option   This is more a Designer feature, but I promised it some time ago so here it is - you can choose (in Preferences) not to write out a thumbnail with your documents. This has the advantage of making your documents use less space - but obviously you won’t get Finder thumbnails, etc.   Improved Vectorscope   Our old HSL vectorscope is no more - replaced by a vastly more appropriate Rec.709 YUV scope with an improved graticule :)   Improved Photoshop Plugin Support   We have found a significant bug with our plugin code - it has been fixed :) That said - please don’t expect all your plugins to now work. This fix primarily puts us in a position to work properly with plugin makers to move forward. That said, some plugins will now spring into life - “Focus Magic” being a notable example.   Multi-monitor Colour Profile Support   Sorry it took so long to get this fixed - we now can profile different on different monitors.   Adjustment Performance Improvements   Found and fixed a simple issue which made changing adjustment parameters appear to be slow. Fixed.   This update also includes literally hundreds of fixes and small improvements, some of which are listed below:   - User control over two pass rendering on Retina devices. - PSD import / export improvements. - PDF import / export improvements. - Snapping improvements - candidate-free snapping, gaps-and-spans (Alt key in Move Tool), so much more!   - Performance and stability improvements for macOS Sierra.   Thanks again for taking the time to use this beta!   Affinity Photo Team  :ph34r:

'Fence' is finished and replaced: http://manuschwendener.ch/2015/07/26/zolli-2
 
> replace the dark fence with one of the greens next to it
selection and refine selection, invert selection (to preserve the Meerkat's fur next to the fence)
loads of inpainting brush a bit of clone, dodge, burn and sponge, all at less than 100% opacity
 
Still would have preferred to just change the colour of the fence to green, keeping the texture - and be done with it ;)
 
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Rui, thanks again for posting the .afphoto file for the columns; I'll try to follow your steps - might take some time..

[i still stand behind my first post though: wouldn't it be great if replacing one colour with another could be achieved with 2 clicks? ;) ]

Matt? Did you heard him? 
 
I want as well in the next beta to be able to use Siri on MacOS. Something along those lines: “ Hey Siri, make awesome art for me in AD! “ :D

Hi,
 
No worries lhodaniel - we have been late on this release, and have been unclear (even to our own staff) with regards to beta dates..
 
That said, in my humble opinion, 1.5 is a massive release - worth waiting for ;) - and I look forward to delivering it to you all this week :)
 
Andy.

Evening all,
 
AP 1.5 will go to public beta this week (probably late this week). I hope this clears up any ambiguity :)
 
Thanks,
 
Andy.

great I already couldnt wait for the end of the week... now this? :D I am very excited though!!

Ah okay, you have to create the first copy by using Cmd+J for example, rotate and resize it and then just hit Cmd+J again and again … simple as that … please find the Power Duplicate tutorial here:
 

 
Another idea … why not combine Ronny’s method and Power Duplicate … see below …  ;)
PowerDuplicate.mov

Can I ask what it is you are drawing that needs this? Designer is intended for illustration and user-interface design, and Publisher is intended for posters, leaflets and books. I appreciate Publisher isn't available yet, so people are using Designer for things which Publisher would be better for.
 
As it happens, you can achieve the effect you want in Designer, by creating a text frame that is a rectangle with a bite taken out of it, but it's a bit clumsy.

Hi Dave, hi Petar,
 
I’m not a professional user, it’s my hobby.
 
Your tip „creating a text frame that is a rectangle with a bite taken out of it“ solves my problem completely.
I draw a rectangle (or other forms), convert it to curves, convert it to a text frame, fill it with text, and with the node tool I can create various forms (adding further nodes, too). The text will follow automatically the form. WONDERFUL.
 
AD is a very powerful tool. Therefore I would like to have an extra manual as pdf, to learn more about it. The videos are very good, but a manual would complement this very well.
 
supplementary question:
What means "0 warning points" under my picture?

I agree whole-heartedly. This and taking on enough to where you can finish but not do anything well.

Just my 2 cents.
 
Favourite Linux distro: Pear OS: free.
 
Favourite OS: Mac OS X: free ugrades.
Favourite hard drive recovery software: DiskDigger...legendary! If Stan Lee did HD recovery software! Free!!!!
 
Favourite Win software: Serif Plus ware. Paid for.
 
Favourite Mac art Software: Affinity of course! Paid for.
Favourite Mac Software: 4K video downloader. Paid for/free (Edit)
Favourite Mac music Software: Arturia ARP 2600 Emulator! Paid for/Free 20 min demo.
 
Favourite Mac console emulator: OpenEmu! Free.
 
So let's put the ethics question to bed, once and for all.
 
These people, have built these apps through blood, sweat and tears. They deserve thanks and respect and if they have the cheek to ask for payment: for the privilege of making your like easier/happier. Remember this...Do you want them to claim welfare/benefits/dole or do you want them to get a job, and stopping spongeing off the state. They also have gas/electric/food/mortgage/taxes to pay for.
 
We all deserve good apps/software.
 
We must show gratitude too, whether it's via WOM, online recommendations, like on FB/Twitter/Pinterest, 5* reviews or just a token donation. Either way, we should all be grateful for this and dump the politics.
 
...phew. :blink:
 
peter
 
...and relax. -_-

Exactly. There must be some money involved in a project if it's to meet certain quality standards. There's nothing wrong to pay for good software regardless if it's proprietary or not. Even open source doesn't mean it has to be for free. What it boils down to is quality (UI/UX) and excellent costumer service. Affinity definitely does a good job on both ends, even though it will take a little till it's going to be a replacement for the usual suspects. 

"Proprietary software is not ethical." Really!?!?!?! How??? Because someone earns a living from it. Because they don't do all the work and then give it away to you for free?

I'm not understanding how this isn't FedEx Office's fault. They should reprint and do the lamination again. I have two of them fairly close. The smaller of the two often mucks up a large format print and/or lamination job. The other, a larger FedEx Office, does superb work. If the smaller place mucks it up enough, I have them send the job to the larger place and they do it. I have never paid any more for this service.

Yes but supporting workflows such as these is important and its ok to admit that PS can do something better than AP, if AP was a perfect replication of 20+ years of development in 3-4 that would be unbelievable bc its impossible. AP has room to grow, it is however an AMAZING piece of software and has an awesome dev team behind it. It will get there as long as people continue to give that great dev team good feedback

The gradient fill GUI in Designer is, in my opinion, "acceptable".  A number of usability issues exist, and when I compare to other software, it is easy to see how it could be improved further:
While a gradient fill tool is available in Designer, it is rather awkward that the same tool forces the user to switch the context to stroke before the user is able to control a stroke gradient applied to the same object. And the tool icon state changes when the user switches to stroke context, which is confusing.

It is not possible to control both gradients (fill and stroke) simultaneously. This means back and forth switching in order to make changes to both, which is time-consuming to say the very least. The user is forced to move the mouse to the tool properties bar to switch context, then make a change to either the stroke gradient or the fill gradient, and again these steps are required to change the gradient for the other context.

The dropdown menu to change gradient context is slow to work with - perhaps buttons instead?

An alternative method: select an object, switch to the gradient tool, and both gradients can be simultaneously controlled with similar on-screen widgets: no context switching is required.


  Color stop colours can only be changed via the colour chooser panel and the gradient editor in the tool properties in Designer, again forcing the user to break the workflow by having to move the mouse cursor from the artwork to either the tool bar or the colour panel.

It is not possible to double-click a colour stop, or right-mouse click a colour stop to change to a different colour.

Allowing the user to either double-click or right-mouse click a colour stop to quickly change the colour would be much faster, and maintains control context more.


  To change gradient type properties in Designer, again the user must work through the tool properties only.

It would be useful to allow the user to access gradient properties such as gradient type, revert gradient, colour mode, and colour stop interpolation with a simple right-mouse click on the gradient itself, which would speed things up.

And it is a shame Designer does not support alternate interpolation modes between colour stops - it makes working with gradients simpler and more effective.


  When saving a gradient swatch, the actual transformation of the gradient is not saved. I can see why this is, but it is actually quite handy to be able to save the gradient transformation state in the colour swatch. Ideally both options would be available to the user, depending on the context.
  Finally, the small stuff: it is not possible for the user to click & drag a new colour stop in one action. Colour stops cannot be simply dragged off the gradient widget to remove stops. As far as I can tell,  it is not possible to move the entire gradient with linear gradients. It would be nice to have the option to move the mid-point of a circular/elliptical gradient separately from the other control points. Anyway, food for thought. My main gripe with Designer's gradient tool is that it feels a tad clunky and slow to work with when I want to change both the stroke and fill gradients of the same object.

Hi all.
 
I included this in a thread in the bug-report area, but it really belongs here.  I think consolidating the fill controls into a single panel would clarify their use for users.  Currently, an object's fill control presents a series of tabs that offer conflicting functions.  The tabs represent different types of fills and are exclusive of each other; therefore I submit that these fill types should be offered in a drop-down list and not as tabs.  When the user selects a fill type, the panel can display the appropriate set of controls in the panel and the appropriate on-canvas controls (like gradient angle), which currently do not appear at all when using the Fill control panel for an object.
 
Also, the current panel for gradients can be improved by indicating to the user that he needs to click on those circles to set colors and properties, and indicating which of the controls pertain to the selected control point and which pertain to the entire gradient.  A colored highlight makes the current selection more clear than simply having a bigger circle and smaller circle (and that size difference isn't even shown on first use of the panel; I assume this is a bug).
 
Users should be able to right-click in that gradient display to insert, delete, copy, or paste control points.  Currently it doesn't seem that there's any way to determine where a new one will be inserted.  All of the current buttons, except Delete, suffer from major ambiguity:  If I press Insert, where will the new point go?  If I copy one, how do I paste it?  Or does Copy here actually mean Duplicate?
 
Without some hint, however, I don't think users would ever guess that they could add more control points.  And then a bunch of Affinity's work would go to waste.  I vote for putting a label below the gradient display instead of the buttons, instructing users to right-click to add or manipulate control points.  It's more clear, and space-efficient to boot.
 
And finally, I had no idea what "stop" meant.  I guessed it was some kind of option for determining what should happen beyond the end of the gradient, but of course the functions offered by those buttons didn't seem to make sense in that context.  In any similar type of editor, I see "control point" used more than any other term.
 
I think the flexibility of Designer's fill function is remarkable!  Some revision of the UI will help users find it and take advantage of something that Affinity clearly put quite a bit of effort into.
 

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Editing Colours in the Gradient Map panel needs to select the colour point and then clicking on the Colour field. I supposed editing Colours just by double clicking the round colour point on the gradient. I think this would be more intuitiv and more efficient.

Thank you. That is good to know, but I am curious as to why there is not a default action highlighted by the buttons so users will know what Enter will do.

Thanks for your tireless help, MEB!  | :), :) :) :)
 

I must add, using Photoshop's method is a ton easier!
 
Cheers,
 
David

Thank you, Callum, for posting that.  I thought I had not only watched but downloaded all the tutorial videos for re-watching.  Somehow I managed to miss even watching that one.  I've download it now from Vimeo and it will be very helpful if I decide to try to create that Distorto stroke.  It was always something to play with mostly.  A fun tool that I kinda' missed.  But I will use the liquify tool more now that I've seen this video.

Hi LillleG,
 
There isn't anything exactly like the Distort Brush in Affinity Photo I'm afraid. However it may be possible to achieve similar results using the Liquify persona I have included a tutorial on this below :)
 

 
I hope this helps 
C