Affinity Photo Customer Beta (1.8.4.184)

[Andy Somerfield]

Status: Beta

Purpose: Features, Improvements, Fixes

Requirements: Purchased Affinity Photo

Mac App Store: Not submitted

Download ZIP: Download

Auto-update: Available

 

Hello,

We are pleased to announce the immediate availability of the second build of Affinity Photo 1.8.4 for macOS.

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.

This beta is an incremental update to the 1.8.3 version recently released to all customers (though it installs parallel to the release, as described above). We recommend that you use this beta in preference to the store version if you are affected by any of the issues listed below.

Affinity Photo Team  

 

Changes Since Last Build

 

- Improved selective viewing of LAB document channels in the Channels panel.
- Improvements for Force Touch Trackpad users.
- Improved layers panel representation of empty groups.
- Improvements to Canon EOS-1D Mk. III metadata import.
- Improved reliability of Canon CR3 RAW loading.
- Improved support for .fff RAW files.

- Right click in the Move Tool will offer a tree of layers to select from.
- Honour the monochrome flag in X3F files.
- “Save document with history” will now show up as a recorded macro step.
- Resetting the Voronoi filter now resets to the correct values.
- Mask thumbnails now look the same in dark / light UI mode.
- General layers panel tidying & drag improvements.

- Fixed a crash when refining selection.
- Fixed an issue where the history page could get out of step in Develop.
- Fixed erroneous blend mode imports for PSD files.
- Fixed potential hang when using “Move inside”.
- Fixed issue with the Colour panel when switching away from a mask.
- Fixed a crash in red-eye removal.
- Fixed loading of X3F files with non-square pixels.

- Localisation improvements.
- Help improvements.
 

Changes Since 1.8.3

 

- Integrated x3f-tools project, significantly improving support for X3F RAW.
- Added ability to show folders as icons in the layers panel.
- Added option to always show folders as “small” in the layers panel.

- Improved dragging behaviour in the layers panel.
- PDF import performance improvements.
- Document save performance improvements.
- Detect Edges improved on 32bit documents.

- Lens profile popup might report incorrect state.
- RW2 files can cause a crash.
- Text performance improvements.
- Selection brush width is not remember after being changed using modifier keys.
- Placing RAW files now produces Pixel layers, as opposed to Image layers.
- Fixed reading of XP metadata under certain conditions.
- Fix for Nikon D90 RAW loading issues.
- Fixed High Pass filter when using LAB colour.

- Assorted small bug fixes.

- Help improvements.
- Localisation improvements.

 

To be notified about all future macOS beta updates, please follow this notification thread 
To be notified when this Photo update comes out of beta and is fully released to all Affinity Photo on macOS customers, please follow this thread

[Aftemplate]

- Improved selective viewing of LAB document channels in the Channels panel.

I'm proud of you! 

[IPv6]

- Fixed issue with the Colour panel when switching away from a mask.
Yes! Finally! Hooray! Thanks :))

[A_B_C]

3 hours ago, Andy Somerfield said:

- Right click in the Move Tool will offer a tree of layers to select from.

What does that mean? 😲

[MEB]

Hi A_B_C
You have to press and hold command (cmd) while you right-click. This is already present in Designer (for quite some time now).

[fde101]

@MEB, in your example, the ellipses at the top level are still showing a cascade triangle but have no associated menu.  I tried with a pair of rectangles and if I click on one of those, everything gets deselected - it does not select an object from the first level of menu.

Is that intentional or a bug?

 

It definitely feels like a bug.

[MEB]

I've noticed that too. I'm logging this as we speak. Thanks.

[R C-R]

6 hours ago, A_B_C said:

9 hours ago, Andy Somerfield said:

- Right click in the Move Tool will offer a tree of layers to select from.

What does that mean? 😲

I am wondering the same thing. I have only tried this with a few layers & the only thing I can find is if I right-click on a layer with another layer nested in it, I get some new (?) items in the Arrange submenu, but nothing that looks like a tree of the layers.

OK, adding CMD to a right click does work, but only if everything in the area of the pointer is already selected or directly under it.

EDIT: I don't know if this has anything to do with trying to use this new right-click feature but after a few brief tests of it, I closed my test doc without saving it & hid the beta so I could continue browsing these forums without cluttering up my screen. About 10 minutes later, I got a notice that the AP beta had crashed. This occurred while I was doing nothing with any app other than just browsing with Safari.

Weird.

[walt.farrell]

5 hours ago, MEB said:

You have to press and hold command (cmd) while you right-click. This is already present in Designer (for quite some time now).

How long is "quite some time"? It still doesn't seem to be present in the Windows version.

[RNKLN]

1 hour ago, walt.farrell said:

How long is "quite some time"? It still doesn't seem to be present in the Windows version.

I can confirm that it is there in Affinity Designer for Mac (latest version). Press and hold CMD + Right Click. Without the Press and hold CMD you get the contextual menu.

 

[Patrick Connor]

1 hour ago, walt.farrell said:

It still doesn't seem to be present in the Windows version.

There is no Windows implementation of this feature.

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, Patrick Connor said:

There is no Windows implementation of this feature.

Yet? Or ever, because it depends on something Mac-specific?

[Aftemplate]

11 hours ago, MEB said:

Hi A_B_C
You have to press and hold command (cmd) while you right-click. This is already present in Designer (for quite some time now).

Do you have a way about this?  @Mark Ingram  

[A_B_C]

Thank you so much, Miguel!

Seems I completely missed that feature in earlier iterations. Incredibly useful.

 

 

[R C-R]

5 hours ago, A_B_C said:

Seems I completely missed that feature in earlier iterations. Incredibly useful.

Just curious but in what earlier iteration did this first appear? Also, why is it listing in the OP in the "Changes Since Last Build" section?

Well, duh! I just realized that @MEB said it was already present in Designer ... & this topic is about the latest Mac 1.8.4 Photo beta. But I guess I am still missing something because this feature works in the Mac 1.8.3 retail version of Photo, too.

Regardless of the version or app, its usefulness is even better when layers have unique names, so it is easier to know which curve, ellipse, or other item in a complex fly-out tree to select.

Edited July 17, 2020 by R C-R

[Mark Ingram]

12 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

Yet? Or ever, because it depends on something Mac-specific?

Because the Ctrl equivalent is right mouse button on Windows. So the shortcut would require holding RMB while you then click with RMB...

I wasn't aware of that feature until now, so we'll have to look at implementing a new shortcut on Windows.

[Aftemplate]

3 hours ago, Mark Ingram said:

Because the Ctrl equivalent is right mouse button on Windows. So the shortcut would require holding RMB while you then click with RMB...

I wasn't aware of that feature until now, so we'll have to look at implementing a new shortcut on Windows.

Just a suggestion (perhaps a panacea):
WinKey is almost useless and rarely used by users.
AutoHotKey is open source and only 1MB in size.
AHK is able to take over WinKey so that the Start menu does not pop up when WinKey is pressed.
Integrate AHK (dll) to affinity, This seems to be a permanent solution.

Edited July 17, 2020 by Aftemplate
Strikethrough

[Mark Ingram]

44 minutes ago, Aftemplate said:

Just a suggestion (perhaps a panacea):
WinKey is almost useless and rarely used by users.
AutoHotKey is open source and only 1MB in size.
AHK is able to take over WinKey so that the Start menu does not pop up when WinKey is pressed.
Integrate AHK (dll) to affinity, This seems to be a permanent solution.

I use the Windows key all the time, Win+E to launch Explorer, Win+1/2/3 to launch apps from the taskbar, Win+R for Run dialog, Win+Shift+S for the Snip tool. etc etc. 

People have an expectation for how the Windows key behaves, and applications shouldn't override that expectation. Perhaps there could be a preference to enable it, but it could never be the default.

[Aftemplate]

2 hours ago, Mark Ingram said:

I use the Windows key all the time, Win+E to launch Explorer, Win+1/2/3 to launch apps from the taskbar, Win+R for Run dialog, Win+Shift+S for the Snip tool. etc etc. 

People have an expectation for how the Windows key behaves, and applications shouldn't override that expectation. Perhaps there could be a preference to enable it, but it could never be the default.

OK, obviously a significant number of people other than me use WinKey. 
(I use CLaunch (mouse friendly), I don't use WinKey.) But people do use WinKey, and that's my negligence. )
Finally, you are correct and WinKey should be retained.
I believe you will solve the above problem. You have fixed the brush parameter shortcut key.
Cheer! (Don't forget to rest properly.)

[walt.farrell]

4 hours ago, Mark Ingram said:

Because the Ctrl equivalent is right mouse button on Windows. So the shortcut would require holding RMB while you then click with RMB...

I wasn't aware of that feature until now, so we'll have to look at implementing a new shortcut on Windows.

But the Mac implementation uses Cmd, so Ctrl is the natural mapping on Windows

[A_B_C]

13 hours ago, R C-R said:

Regardless of the version or app, its usefulness is even better when layers have unique names, so it is easier to know which curve, ellipse, or other item in a complex fly-out tree to select.

Yes, that’s true, of course. I tend to name my layers, as that has proved useful for collaborators. Which is obvious too. I wonder whether there would be a slightly better way of presentation with layers that are not named. Layer icons in the right-click menu? Is that even possible?

But I guess such questions should be discussed elsewhere. I was just curious about the meaning of the description. And I’ve learned something really useful. Thanks again. 😀

[ronnyb]

How about realtime highlighting of the item currently being rolled over in the pop-up menu?

On 7/17/2020 at 5:24 PM, A_B_C said:

Yes, that’s true, of course. I tend to name my layers, as that has proved useful for collaborators. Which is obvious too. I wonder whether there would be a slightly better way of presentation with layers that are not named. Layer icons in the right-click menu? Is that even possible?

But I guess such questions should be discussed elsewhere. I was just curious about the meaning of the description. And I’ve learned something really useful. Thanks again. 😀

[A_B_C]

That! 😊

[mfarooqi]

This issue is still there..

 

Merging a larger image into smaller image which is scaled up.. will scale down the resolution of  larger image to the smaller one. 

[iambia]

On 7/16/2020 at 3:44 AM, Andy Somerfield said:

Status: Beta

Purpose: Features, Improvements, Fixes

Requirements: Purchased Affinity Photo

Mac App Store: Not submitted

Download ZIP: Download

Auto-update: Available

 

Hello,

We are pleased to announce the immediate availability of the second build of Affinity Photo 1.8.4 for macOS.

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.

This beta is an incremental update to the 1.8.3 version recently released to all customers (though it installs parallel to the release, as described above). We recommend that you use this beta in preference to the store version if you are affected by any of the issues listed below.

Affinity Photo Team  

 

Changes Since Last Build

 

- Improved selective viewing of LAB document channels in the Channels panel.
- Improvements for Force Touch Trackpad users.
- Improved layers panel representation of empty groups.
- Improvements to Canon EOS-1D Mk. III metadata import.
- Improved reliability of Canon CR3 RAW loading.
- Improved support for .fff RAW files.

- Right click in the Move Tool will offer a tree of layers to select from.
- Honour the monochrome flag in X3F files.
- “Save document with history” will now show up as a recorded macro step.
- Resetting the Voronoi filter now resets to the correct values.
- Mask thumbnails now look the same in dark / light UI mode.
- General layers panel tidying & drag improvements.

- Fixed a crash when refining selection.
- Fixed an issue where the history page could get out of step in Develop.
- Fixed erroneous blend mode imports for PSD files.
- Fixed potential hang when using “Move inside”.
- Fixed issue with the Colour panel when switching away from a mask.
- Fixed a crash in red-eye removal.
- Fixed loading of X3F files with non-square pixels.

- Localisation improvements.
- Help improvements.
 

Changes Since 1.8.3

 

- Integrated x3f-tools project, significantly improving support for X3F RAW.
- Added ability to show folders as icons in the layers panel.
- Added option to always show folders as “small” in the layers panel.

- Improved dragging behaviour in the layers panel.
- PDF import performance improvements.
- Document save performance improvements.
- Detect Edges improved on 32bit documents.

- Lens profile popup might report incorrect state.
- RW2 files can cause a crash.
- Text performance improvements.
- Selection brush width is not remember after being changed using modifier keys.
- Placing RAW files now produces Pixel layers, as opposed to Image layers.
- Fixed reading of XP metadata under certain conditions.
- Fix for Nikon D90 RAW loading issues.
- Fixed High Pass filter when using LAB colour.

- Assorted small bug fixes.

- Help improvements.
- Localisation improvements.

 

To be notified about all future macOS beta updates, please follow this notification thread 
To be notified when this Photo update comes out of beta and is fully released to all Affinity Photo on macOS customers, please follow this thread

How do I use this beta? It won't load on my MacBook Pro. Says I need a key. But I own all Affinity apps via App Store. Would like to give it a try given that Affinity Photo suddenly stopped working on Big Sur. I was using it today, was adding some swatches, it quit and refused to open again after that. It shuts down each time I open and try to create a new file. I have uninstalled and reinstalled it twice, still shuts down each time I try to use it. Not sure what happened when I was simply adding a swatch color, but there you have it. Was working on Big Sur up until today with the swatch issue.