bagmetv

Status: Beta Release
Purpose: New features, fixes
Requirements: Purchased Affinity Designer
Mac App Store: Not Submitted
Download: Here
 
This beta version represents 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 may be adversely affected by the application failing. In addition it is definitely worth noting that files created in Affinity 1.6 may not open in 1.5 so always make a copy of your important documents before opening them in 1.6 to ensure you do not accidentally overwrite them and are unable to open them in your 1.5 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.
 
Fixes/Improvements:
Improvements to Metal view mode - performance and reliability, also reduced flickering when moving artboards Fix for incompatibility with OS X Mavericks or earlier Fix for 'ghost' text objects found when moving text after typing it Fix for nudging the selection with the arrow keys and pressing Escape causing the selected items to revert back to their original location Fix for grid visibility issues in the Metal view mode Fix for path text handles not responding to mouse interaction Fix for rotating via Transform panel in the Node Tool not responding correctly if the user dragged the 'R:' label Fix for occasional incorrect results from Outline layer effect OpenType improvements Better support for fonts which the system is unhappy with (if they have a 'name' table error, we may still work now) SVG and PDF export improvements Fixed issue seen after choosing 'Retina view mode: High Quality (Slowest)' in preferences Assets panel should now remember its expanded state between application sessions 'Find in Layers Panel' should now activate the Layers panel if it was not active Miscellaneous other fixes and tweaks

I think this was a beta version bug that was fixed then accidentally re-broken. It is fixed again for the next beta I believe - sorry!

I'm developing on the 15" 2016 MacBook Pro with TouchBar - and Metal is noticeably faster on mine I've just fixed something over the weekend that was causing simple documents to go slower than they should've done, so maybe that might help? It'll be in this week's beta (I was trying to fix that problem last week, so wasn't in a position to launch a new Beta last week - but I can launch one soon, now) Let me know if this changes things for you in the next beta version!

Status: Beta Release
Purpose: New features, fixes
Requirements: Purchased Affinity Photo
Mac App Store: Not Submitted
Download: Here
 
This is the fifth 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 may be adversely affected by the application failing. In addition it is definitely worth noting that files created in Affinity 1.6 may not open in 1.5 so always make a copy of your important documents before opening them in 1.6 to ensure you do not accidentally overwrite them and are unable to open them in your 1.5 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.
 
Thanks,
 
Affinity Photo Team 
 
Changes this release
 
Build with macOS High Sierra SDK, Xcode 9. Fixed panorama stitching when using Core Image RAW. Further Light UI improvements. Fixed problems with full colour brushes. PDF import improvements. Text Styles improvements. Documents which have no changes don’t require saving. Fixed floating windows in full screen mode. The visibility of the left / right studio is now saved per persona. Fixed some DNG loading regressions. Fixed drag behaviour in the Curves tool. Develop now has button to rotate the image. Fix issue where documents could get stuck when loading. Node tool now allows rotation of nodes. Fixed many localisation truncations. Fixed Shadows & Highlights filter artefacts. Live Halftone filter UI improvements. Selection brush was not remembering size between uses. HSL adjustment now contributes per-channel adjustments to exported LUT. Mitigated Live Perspective crashes. Liquify now behaves correctly on rotated images. Fixed occasional layer corruption under extreme load. Stopped Liquify slightly blurring images (with Metal Compute enabled). Numerous adjustment now do not pollute the K channel in CMYK (with Metal Compute enabled). Fixed halftone filter in CMYK (with Metal Compute enabled). Localisation improvements. Numerous other small fixes and improvements. Help improvements.  
Changes since last App Store release
 
New “Live Halftone” filter. Added noise reduction slider to “New HDR Merge” panel. Added menu to layers panel with an “Auto-scroll” item (to quickly enable / disable). Importing ASE files now supports spot colours. Increased performance of Metal compute mode. Increased the maximum size of the liquify brush tools. Fixed some grid drag / drop issues. Improved Metal compute acceleration of HDR merge. Small SVG import improvements. Further TIFF import improvements / fixes. Better quality equirectangular projection previews if Metal compute enabled. Fixed Diffuse Glow opacity slider. “Always show brush crosshair” is more completely obeyed. Fixed vignette artefacts. Colour correction fixes for Metal view on AMD cards. Fixed issues with the quick mask toolbar dropdown. Fixed crashing on export / save. Numerous other small fixes. Improved localisation.  
Selection refinement performance improvements. Show progress when committing a refined selection. Handle layers with 0 width / height more correctly. Improved PDF / vector export. Remember Align To settings between sessions. Opening and saving document will now support macOS filesystem tags correctly. Export panel also support tags correctly. Improved RAW support - more cameras etc. Further efforts to reduce the size of the application binary. Improved TIFF loading correctness. Fixed some “Effects” brushes looking wrong on masks / adjustments. Prevent Tone Map being macro recorded (proper support for it will be reintroduced later). The “Undo” brush should do nothing on masks / adjustments. Fixed crash when using File -> New Batch Job in light UI mode. Fixed crash when loading a document with an OCIO space which is no longer available. Support malformed 8bit grayscale TIFFs (which were loading as sRGB). Fixed some scroll bar panel issues in light UI. Fixed Ctrl-reset startup crash in light UI. Fixed some flickering issues with sliders. Removed “Set as Default” for Pantone palettes. Improved drag & drop in the Library page. Numerous other small fixes. Localisation improvements (especially Russian).  
Metal compute acceleration. Significant improvements to light UI. Metal display acceleration. Custom brush wet edges. Outlier stacking mode. Fixed Export LUT Red/Blue swapping bug. Fixed inability to hold shift and click in brush tools to create a straight line. Improved Photoshop Plugin support. Fixed bad / crashing macros cause by recording a 32bit preview mode change. Fixed B&C macro arguments issues. Fixed info panel samplers not being drawn. Fixed artefacts with Live Filters. Improved Live Filters performance Pasting pixel data should always past pixel-aligned. Fixed inability to load Procreate PSD files. Localisation improvements. Numerous bug fixes and stability improvements  
First and foremost, the 1.6 version is mainly about: Light UI! (go to Preferences->User Interface) Improved view pan/zoom performance and new pixel-differencing pixel shader Improved performance with large documents New font chooser dropdown with recents, used fonts and favourites New Glyph browser Stroke stabiliser for all pencil and brush tools Align to key items (first/last selected) Text frame vertical alignment options Fit frame to text (double-click on bottom centre handle). Transform panel uses the rotation centre Scale/shear can now be performed about rotation centre Double-click now resets shape handles and rotate/shear handles Many PDF export improvements including vector export of multi-stop gradients Numerous bug fixes and stability improvements

Hi Matt,
 
Many thanks for new beta! Great performance and speed, I'm so impressed!!!
 
The very first request is please make (or fix) 'copy/paste in place' feature) from artboard to artboard.
It really slows down workflow when you have to copy one element (logo, for example) from one artboard then to paste it in other (with same size) artboard and... after that to correct element position.
 
Here's a link about this issue earlier:
https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/14983-copy-paste-between-two-artboards/
 
Cheers
Vitaliy

Hi Vitaliy!
 
Thanks for your document - I've now fixed the black flickering when moving artboards around in your document - it'll be in the Beta 9. Thank you again!
 
Matt

Thank you for this! I'm looking into it now...
 
Incidentally, I did find and fix the issue with 'white shapes' when moving dartboards around, so that one will already be fixed for the next beta...

I have an iMac 2015 i7 5K 32GB 1867 RAM, Radeon R9 4GB and a MacBook Pro 2016 i7 Radeon Pro 460 4GB GPU and I don't have these issues.  As Matt knows, I try to break things here What I was getting yesterday though was some weird shadow/garbage/pixellation whenever I moved text frames (containing lot of text) around.  That's gone now and I don't know why but glad it is.
 
Since Matt can't reproduce and I can't on my end (I have a document with a LOT of embedded docs and a 50 artboards) perhaps reinstall both MAS and beta versions entirely, reinstall and reboot.   If that doesn't work then there is something specific in your doc - I have some quirky issues like that with specific docs, not overall, I just reserve or copy info over and all is well. 
 

Hi Everyone,
my name is Tom Schülke,
I am from Hamburg in the north of Germany and i ´ve been long years the lead 3d Artist of a big german architectural Company that is develloping big Projects all over the the World mainly in China. I Was responsible for the 3D Renderings using 3ds max , Vray, Adobe Photoshop, premiere and aftereffects.
Now my next responsibilty is to introduce affinity Photo as a great alternative to our company to   switch from our adobe licences for their 500 employees to a better alternative.
While i feel that Affinity is allready a great Product i see some parts that could be improved in respect to workflowenhancements in our company and i think others could benefit from our ideas too..    So while i am still in the learning process (after watching all 200 tutorial videos ...) my next step is to develop workflows for my company to avoid those minor missing funktionalitys, Affinity Photo still has.
 
never the less.  I hope the voice of us useres will have an effect on your developement roadmap, so that Affinity Photo will convince the last Photoshop Neards in my company to switch over to your Software..
 
greetings from Hamburg
gmp architekten
 
Tom

Status: Beta Release
Purpose: New features, fixes
Requirements: Purchased Affinity Designer
Mac App Store: Not Submitted
Download: Here
 
This Beta has been updated to fix a translation issue as of 2pm (BST), Thursday 24th August. Aside from the translations, the application remains the same so you only need to download it again if you had a problem. Sorry for the inconvenience.
 
This beta version represents 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 may be adversely affected by the application failing. In addition it is definitely worth noting that files created in Affinity 1.6 may not open in 1.5 so always make a copy of your important documents before opening them in 1.6 to ensure you do not accidentally overwrite them and are unable to open them in your 1.5 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.
 
Fixes/Improvements:
Fix for incorrect grid behaviour with isometric grid in Metal view mode, also Triangular grid misbehaviour Fix for incorrect document background area being drawn when zoomed in on an Artboard document in pixel view mode (fixed for Metal view only) Fix for text frame resize via double-clicking handle causing crash Fix for crash on EPS import Fixed some PDF import issues Added ability to rotate the selected nodes in the Node Tool - via the Transform panel Fix for studio panels not correctly restoring their hidden/visible state between application sessions Path text now allows baseline editing when text is multi-line Further tweaked Expand Stroke results to not be so aggressive Miscellaneous other fixes and tweaks

This isn't a bug, but it's not what you'd expect, I'll agree... When you create an artboard it is forced to be pixel-aligned, so you won't get the wrong output, but if a user then moves the artboard to off-pixel then they will get inflated output. The Export Persona deals only with the final output space, so if your content is not pixel-aligned the output area must be inflated in order to show the correct antialiased partial coverage on all sides. Hope that makes sense?

It's only 'not what you'd expect' because people are expecting that an Artboard in some way is the top-level thing and that it would just go out pixel-aligned by itself. It's completely logical and once you know why it's happening it makes sense, in my opinion...

bagmetv,
 
Thanks for the tip. I tried it and it worked. Having to go up to the menu to show the Studio panels on the left side has been driving me crazy.
 
Hokusai

Hi!
 
Thanks. I've just toggled UI (tab key) on and off and left tab side is start working ok as expected after that.
 
Cheers
Vitaliy
 

Hi!
 
Thanks. I've just toggled UI (tab key) on and off and left tab side is start working ok as expected after that.
 
Cheers
Vitaliy
 

Thank you! That means a lot to hear! 

I'll ask for this to be looked at - my experience is as MBd's but clearly something is wrong...

woking fine on my end
 
if you switch personas, the new persona has it's own side panel which has a different/ separate state
 
however, switching back to the previous persona should restore it as it was when you left it, works on my side so far (remembering on restart works as well)
 
maybe there is some additional bug but maybe you're just seeing intended behavior/ a feature 

Status: Beta Release
Purpose: New features, fixes
Requirements: Purchased Affinity Designer
Mac App Store: Not Submitted
Download: Here
 
This beta version represents 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 may be adversely affected by the application failing. In addition it is definitely worth noting that files created in Affinity 1.6 may not open in 1.5 so always make a copy of your important documents before opening them in 1.6 to ensure you do not accidentally overwrite them and are unable to open them in your 1.5 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.
 
Fixes/Improvements:
Fixed a number of PDF import issues. Fix for Corner Tool error introduced in the last Beta (sorry...)  Fix for embedded documents not updating the host document properly when modified Fix for artboard labels not updating correctly when the names are changed in the layers panel (Metal view mode only) Tweak to the Metal view to improve performance further

Just to let everyone know, I've resolved the issue with the Corner Tool - sorry about that... 

Status: Beta Release
Purpose: New features, fixes
Requirements: Purchased Affinity Designer
Mac App Store: Not Submitted
Download: Here
 
This beta version represents 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 may be adversely affected by the application failing. In addition it is definitely worth noting that files created in Affinity 1.6 may not open in 1.5 so always make a copy of your important documents before opening them in 1.6 to ensure you do not accidentally overwrite them and are unable to open them in your 1.5 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.
 
Fixes/Improvements:
Fix for text appearing blurry while typing. Fix for artistic text creation jumping between different sizes while you drag out a new object. Also added a tooltip next to the cursor to show the size of the text you are about to create. Fix for boolean operations of overlapping areas failing since Beta 5. Fix for fonts not updating correctly when told to reset. Hopefully reduced 'over-eager to serve' behaviour of hidden left and right studio panels. Reduced complexity of the results from 'Expand Stroke' so that they're hopefully more usable. I have not rewritten what it does, just made the result more usable. I will improve this to provide better results on thin strokes for the next beta... Fix for a few OpenType text style bugs. Fix Beta App icons appearing all kinds of crazy colours on macOS High Sierra! Fix for Metal View grid not matching the legacy view's grid when gutter is involved... Added 'Find in Layers Panel' menu item to the 'Layer' menu so that users can assign a shortcut to it for improved workflow. Miscellaneous other tweaks.

I can definitely make it update text without fuzziness, so I'd recommend that in the next beta you set your settings back to Automatic. Incidentally, it's worth noting that the 'perfect clipping' option is done in CPU, so it will affect how long things take to draw in the document...

Status: Beta Release
Purpose: New features, fixes
Requirements: Purchased Affinity Designer
Mac App Store: Not Submitted
Download: Here
 
This beta version represents 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 may be adversely affected by the application failing. In addition it is definitely worth noting that files created in Affinity 1.6 may not open in 1.5 so always make a copy of your important documents before opening them in 1.6 to ensure you do not accidentally overwrite them and are unable to open them in your 1.5 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.
 
Fixes/Improvements:
Fix for crash when exporting Fixed incorrect colours when using Metal view option in Sierra with AMD GPUs Added support for macOS file system tags when saving Fix for crash changing between Asset categories with an active search term Fix for editing a colour in the system palettes Fix for SVG import of scaled content (found in certain CorelDRAW exported SVGs) Fix for some panels crashing in the Light UI scheme Performance increase for boolean operations performed on many objects at once Fix for 'Always show crosshair cursor' not being honoured for non-round pixel brushes Fix for exporting 'Selection with background' causing artefacts if the same area is included in the selection more than once Miscellaneous other tweaks

Status: Beta Release
Purpose: New features, fixes
Requirements: Purchased Affinity Designer
Mac App Store: Not Submitted
Download: Here
 
This beta version represents 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 may be adversely affected by the application failing. In addition it is definitely worth noting that files created in Affinity 1.6 may not open in 1.5 so always make a copy of your important documents before opening them in 1.6 to ensure you do not accidentally overwrite them and are unable to open them in your 1.5 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.
 
Fixes/Improvements:
Further Light UI improvements Added 'Lock'/'Unlock'/'Unlock All' and 'Hide'/'Show'/'Show All' menu items with shortcuts Fixed many symbol bugs and crashes Fix for PDF/EPS export of large rasterised areas causing visible gaps on occasions Fix for Gray8 format documents failing to draw as intended Fix for crash when copying artboards that contained symbols with text inside Fix for crash when moving compound objects inside constrained containers Fix for slices and guides not drawing correctly sometimes after a pan/zoom Custom pixel brush wet edges Fixed inability to hold shift and click in brush tools to create a straight line Fixed inability to load Procreate PSD files Localisation improvements  
* Please note that macOS Sierra has a bug in Metal with AMD graphics cards which means colour correction will not function perfectly, hence why it is disabled by default. If you have an Intel or Nvidia card then feel free to try it. This bug was fixed in High Sierra so all cards should work as expected  :)

I can definitely make it do this if you think it's the only case that matters, but I was finding it quite useful to select a layer (for example) and choose 'Unlock All' and it unlock all the things on the selected layer and produce a selection of them... If you just hit Escape to remove the selection, hitting 'Unlock All' will do what you described you're looking for? I'm happy to change it, just don't want to lose any useful functionality if it can be avoided...
 
I'll add 'Hide' to the menu too so you can assign shortcuts to all of these...
 
'Hide all but selected' is a different command and I'd need to add that - I will do, but not in the next couple of weeks... I'm trying to nail down these view drawing problems I keep hitting with Metal changes on High Sierra - as fast as I can fix one thing, they throw me another curve ball with their next update :(