Affinity Photo Customer Beta (1.9.0.195)

[Andy Somerfield]

Status: Beta

Purpose: Features, Improvements, Fixes

Requirements: Purchased Affinity Photo

Mac App Store: Not submitted

Download ZIP: Download

Auto-update: Pending

 

Hello,

We are pleased to announce the immediate availability of the first build of Affinity Photo 1.9.0 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 significantly different from the 1.8.4 version available for purchase - we strongly recommend that you do not use this beta for real work as data could be lost and the files you save are not guaranteed to open in previous / future versions of Affinity Photo.

Furthermore, massive behind the scenes work has been done to enable GPU acceleration for the Windows version of Affinity Photo in 1.9. In theory this should have no consequences for macOS / iOS users - but it’s likely that a couple of things will have become broken along the way. We are giving ourselves a longer beta period with 1.9 in order to find and fix those things.

This also means that the full complement of new features is not available yet in this 1.9 beta - more will be added over the coming weeks.

Thanks again for your continued support!

 

Affinity Photo Team  

 

Changes Since 1.9.0

- Improved “Serif Labs” RAW engine.
- You can now single click a spare channel in the Channels panel to edit it like a layer.
- The Curves adjustment now has numeric field controls for precise positioning.
- Studio presets are now available.
- A benchmarking tool has been added in the help menu. It will only become available when no documents are open.
- Blend modes now work on “alpha only” layers (masks, adjustments, live filters, etc.).
- Added a new “Divide” blend mode.
- Added “Create from centre” for the elliptical marquee tool.
- Allowed snapping to the bounds of the pixel selection.
- Added ability to create brushes from the current pixel selection with one click.

 

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

[IPv6]

> Blend modes now work on “alpha only” layers (masks, adjustments, live filters, etc.).
> Added a new “Divide” blend mode.
> Added ability to create brushes from the current pixel selection with one click.

Wow, thats cool! thanks!!

[JGD]

Thanks! I'll give it a spin on Catalina and on the latest Big Sur customer beta when I get around to boot it and update it.

[evtonic3]

Thank you for allowing editing the alpha layer!!! better masks are now possible!

[Dazmondo77]

All actions: new document, open existing document, open stock image, drag and drop - result in bombing 

Crashed Thread:        9  Dispatch queue: com.apple.root.utility-qos

Exception Type:        EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)
Exception Codes:       KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS at 0x0000000000004358
Exception Note:        EXC_CORPSE_NOTIFY

Termination Signal:    Segmentation fault: 11
Termination Reason:    Namespace SIGNAL, Code 0xb
Terminating Process:   exc handler [11151]
 

Full crash log attached:

Affinity photo beta 1.9 mac crash log.txt

[pmi]

is there a mini tutorial to watch the news?

[Andy Somerfield]

Dazmondo77,

Would I be right in assuming you have no Metal compatible GPU?

Edit: Yes, I see that that is the case. Thanks for the report - will be fixed for the next build.

Thanks,

Andy.

[Andy Somerfield]

evtonic3,

Thanks - the next build will enable most filters on masks to further improve things.

Andy

[Dazmondo77]

14 minutes ago, Andy Somerfield said:

Edit: Yes, I see that that is the case. Thanks for the report - will be fixed for the next build.

Great stuff Andy, look forward to testing👍 

[000]

🕺 Studio Presets! Studio Presets! 🕺

[smadell]

Andy...

The menu item for Benchmarking currently says "Support..." (and duplicates the Support... item directly below it). I'm using MacOS Catalina, US English. I'm assuming this is just a language localization issue, but thought it should be reported.

[antonkudin]

Merging pixel layers under a group with layer effect applied will 'render/bake' the effect on to resulting merged layer.

Let me know if i should post this as a separate thread in beta bugs forum.

[smadell]

Andy...

I love the idea of Studio Presets (and I'm sure they'll be quite popular). The current implementation is really buggy. (i) I can create a new Preset, but once I try to do anything else, the application almost always crashes. (ii) I was able to create 2 presets – one for my own default setup and a second for a setup with a single panel removed. When I tried to use the Remove Preset command, the app crashed at least 50% of the time. (iii) When I was able to remove the second preset (leaving only my "normal" setup in the menu) choosing that preset still gave me a studio that did not have that panel included – i.e., it was labelled as my normal studio, but created a setup matching my test studio (that I had already removed).

Also, 2 suggestions. First, the Remove Preset command really ought to have a confirmation dialog attached (à la "are you sure?"). Second, if I choose a Studio preset but then modify my studio (add or remove a studio panel, etc) the preset remains checked. Is there a way to uncheck the preset to indicate that the current setup is actually NOT the indicated preset, but is something different?

[Frozen Death Knight]

8 hours ago, Andy Somerfield said:

- Added “Create from centre” for the elliptical marquee tool.

Very nice first patch! I have a question about this, though. Will you expand this functionality to include the Rectangular Marquee Tool as well? Also, the Crop Tool could have good use of this by allowing you to transform your canvas crops from the centre. ^^

Anyway, looking forward to the Windows build! Can't wait!

[Andy Somerfield]

smadell,

Thanks for the heads up re. the localisation bug. It's more nefarious than it seems and is likely causing some of the preset crashes (in any language other than UK English).

At the moment, selecting a preset then moving panels actually updates that preset on the fly. That might be counter-intuitive and if so will be changed. I agree also about the confirmation dialog.

Thanks,

Andy.

[Andy Somerfield]

Frozen Death Knight,

Thanks. I could not think of a reasonable need for the "from centre" when using rectangular marquee (given as there is only a "creation" mode, not a "resize" mode) - if there is one, I will happily add it!

The ability to resize crops from the centre is already in the reported list of bugs I think - so will get sorted out sooner or later

Andy.

[Andy Somerfield]

antonkudin,

Thanks - this appears to already have been logged recently. It will get sorted out soon I hope.

Andy.

[Frozen Death Knight]

16 hours ago, Andy Somerfield said:

Frozen Death Knight,

Thanks. I could not think of a reasonable need for the "from centre" when using rectangular marquee (given as there is only a "creation" mode, not a "resize" mode) - if there is one, I will happily add it!

The ability to resize crops from the centre is already in the reported list of bugs I think - so will get sorted out sooner or later

Andy.

 

Well, the reason I want it is because it makes it a bit easier to create selection patterns with precision. Not to mention it makes using all the tools a little more consistent. I use the selection tools quite a bit when doing artwork, so any amount of extra control is much appreciated. If you only have one source point to draw the selection from the centre it makes it a bit easier to do this stuff shown in the video below. It also allows you to combine the rectangular and elliptical selection tools with better precision (i.e. creating a rectangular/square hole inside of an ellipse/circle selection at the centre or vice versa).

[RNKLN]

2 hours ago, Jens Krebs said:

🕺 Studio Presets! Studio Presets! 🕺

I don't know what to expect from the Studio Presets.

Update: i've downloaded the beta and played with them.This is a nice new feature. Would be even nicer if you could create a shortcut which brings up a particular preset, so that it's really easy to switch (what is offered currently is already appreciated, though).

[smadell]

Andy...

In response to your comment about Studio Presets – it would be extraordinarily confusing to have a preset update itself when a change is made. In my mind (and only mine, for now), what good is a preset if it is that fluid? To me, the whole idea of a preset is that I can come back to it at any time; in that scenario, it should be stable (in the sense of not updating itself).

Also, how would I ever make a second preset? If I start at my default studio, add and subtract and move around studio panels, then create another preset, it seems I would have 2 presets that have become the same. The only way to do this would be to create the second preset at the beginning and then start changing things. To me (again, this is only me for now) this is the exact opposite of what I would expect.

Obviously, your game and your rules. But I think you'll get more traction (and user acceptance) if the studio presets don't update themselves.

[antonkudin]

Preset is pre-set. It shouldn't change. Unless user forces overwrite or somehow confirms the action of updating the preset with new settings. Just my 2c. 

[fde101]

35 minutes ago, antonkudin said:

Preset is pre-set. It shouldn't change. Unless user forces overwrite or somehow confirms the action of updating the preset with new settings. Just my 2c. 

True.  As it is implemented right now this should not be called a preset but perhaps a "configuration" or a "room".

[SillyWalk]

1 hour ago, smadell said:

Andy...

In response to your comment about Studio Presets – it would be extraordinarily confusing to have a preset update itself when a change is made. In my mind (and only mine, for now), what good is a preset if it is that fluid? To me, the whole idea of a preset is that I can come back to it at any time; in that scenario, it should be stable (in the sense of not updating itself).

Also, how would I ever make a second preset? If I start at my default studio, add and subtract and move around studio panels, then create another preset, it seems I would have 2 presets that have become the same. The only way to do this would be to create the second preset at the beginning and then start changing things. To me (again, this is only me for now) this is the exact opposite of what I would expect.

Obviously, your game and your rules. But I think you'll get more traction (and user acceptance) if the studio presets don't update themselves.

Totally agree and I prefer not selfupdating preset, please.

[fde101]

There is something to be said for both behaviors.  If I make a change I like and forget to save it, this way I don't lose it.

A hybrid approach exists by having each "preset" store two copies of state: when created, both would be set to a copy of what is present when they are created.  One of the states would implement the current behavior of updating automatically and being the state that would come up when switched to.

The other would not update unless a menu command was selected to commit changes to the preset/configuration/room.

A second new menu command would revert the preset/configuration/room to the other saved state so that you could always fall back on what you had explicitly saved.

 

I'm ok with any of these three behaviors personally (current, "true" preset, hybrid), but as I said above, if the current behavior is kept, it should be renamed to something other than a preset.

[Frozen Death Knight]

17 minutes ago, fde101 said:

There is something to be said for both behaviors.  If I make a change I like and forget to save it, this way I don't lose it.

A hybrid approach exists by having each "preset" store two copies of state: when created, both would be set to a copy of what is present when they are created.  One of the states would implement the current behavior of updating automatically and being the state that would come up when switched to.

The other would not update unless a menu command was selected to commit changes to the preset/configuration/room.

A second new menu command would revert the preset/configuration/room to the other saved state so that you could always fall back on what you had explicitly saved.

 

I'm ok with any of these three behaviors personally (current, "true" preset, hybrid), but as I said above, if the current behavior is kept, it should be renamed to something other than a preset.

You could always just have Affinity tell you that your Studio Preset has been changed and ask you if you want to change it when closing the program. This could also be configured to not show up through a checkbox if you are happy with your current presets and Affinity just simply ignores any change you've made on start-up unless you re-enable the option in the Preferences window (manual saving will of course always work).