Affinity Photo Customer Beta (1.9.0.199)

[Andy Somerfield]

Status: Beta

Purpose: Features, Improvements, Fixes

Requirements: Purchased Affinity Photo

Mac App Store: Not submitted

Download ZIP (Intel): Download

Download ZIP (Apple Silicon): Download

Auto-update: Pending

 

Hello,

We are pleased to announce the immediate availability of the third 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 1.9.0.196

 

- Added support for Apple Silicon (separate download for now).
- Added “Duplicate spare channel” to right click menu.
- Added missing “Convert to Path Text” menu item.
- Small improvements to the benchmark UI.
- Update app icon for Big Sur.
- Fixed numerous bugs with brushes, introduced in the 1.9.0 betas.
- Fixed issues when opening multiple RAW files at once.
- Fixed significant memory leak introduced in 1.9.0 betas.
- Fixed UI issues with Big Sur.
- Fixed assorted other GPU acceleration issues introduced in the 1.9.0 betas.
- Localisation improvements.

 

Cumulative Changes Since 1.8.4

 

- Text on a path is now available in Photo.
- More filters now work on masks / adjustments / spare channels (Add Noise, Perlin Noise, etc.).
- Improved Metal rendering performance (over 195).
- Improved experience when editing a spare channel (view artefacts, histogram and navigator).
- Setting a blend mode on a sub-brush will now work properly - paving the way for import of PSD dual-brushes in a future build.
- Attempted to fix startup crash on machines with no compatible Metal GPU.
- Fixed localisation issues affecting non-UK users.
- Fixed issues when attempting to add layers to a spare channel (!).

- 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

[dcarvalho84]

11 minutes ago, Andy Somerfield said:

- Update app icon for Big Sur.

Seems a little smaller in Catalina, especially when it's side by side with Designer or Publisher. Maybe due to the rounded corners... At this point i can't say if i like it or not 😁

On the top left, the persona one will remain square?

[smadell]

Good morning, Andy (well, it's morning here...)

Studio Presets are still really buggy - lots of crashes. Also, still bummed out that the Presets still seem to update themselves if changes are made to a preset. I also noticed that the App always seems to start up with the "Default" preset chosen, rather than remembering the most recently chosen preset.

Any hopes that these issues will change?

[abn5x]

@Andy Somerfield how's the performance of the Apple Silicon DTK version compared to the iPad Pro performance? If you can share that info of course 

[R C-R]

6 hours ago, Andy Somerfield said:

- Small improvements to the benchmark UI.

Is there any way to save the benchmark text, other than as a raster image via one of the screen capture options?

[Mark Oehlschlager]

I see that the app icon has much rounder corners. Was this imposed by the Apple Human Interface guidelines for Big Sur?

[joel_ec]

Auto updating on catalina from 1,9,196.. it complains about being on a read-only volume... (IIRC I already experienced this last year....on another beta...) (and it's of course not, it's into the apps folder on main APFS volume)

[ZufDraw]

I'm sorry if it seems i'm spamming, I just don't know where to turn. Any chance you guys could look at the ('Wacom') brush quality. There are a few issues and in guess it really deserves an update. The lines are not smooth on low (eg 25%) zoom levels, the brush pressure sensitivity parameters like transparency and hardness are inconsistent, the line endings sometimes look slightly 'arrowish' and it is just so slightly lagging compared to other programs (in order of importance). Pressure sensitivity in general is somehow unnatural no matter what settings and curves I use. I'm not asking for Corel paint, just a steady, natural brush line behaviour with a digital pen. (I'm on a Mac 1.9.0.199, although it have similar issues on the iPad). It's fine for photo work and erasing I'm sure, but imo nearly unusable for (even simple) writing or drawing. If I use a basic brush in photoshop it's already fine, I just taylor it for my speficif needs. In AF I have to jump to hoops to get a decent line. 

The best reference imo is the notes application in the iPad with the apple pen. This just feels right in many ways. But Autodesk sketchbook pro and Photoshop are also good references of how a brush should behave imo. AF is so near to perfect for my work, I just hate to have to jump applications (and lose great functionality like live perspective layer) just to draw or write something simple.  The biggest issue is the jagged lines on low zoom levels. I work on big drawings and often draw at around 25% zoom. If that would work I can deal with the rest and hope these will get fixed in time. 

[Murfee]

On 9/26/2020 at 3:30 PM, Andy Somerfield said:

Blend modes now work on “alpha only” layers (masks, adjustments, live filters, etc.).

Hi Andy, am I missing something here? I have created a very simple file with 2 pixel layers, there is a mask that was created from some simple shapes with gradient black to white fills then rasterised to a mask. I am not seeing any difference when I change the Mask blend mode...even the erase mode doesn't seem to do anything

[lepr]

4 hours ago, Murfee said:

Hi Andy, am I missing something here? I have created a very simple file with 2 pixel layers, there is a mask that was created from some simple shapes with gradient black to white fills then rasterised to a mask. I am not seeing any difference when I change the Mask blend mode...even the erase mode doesn't seem to do anything

The blend mode of a tool, such as Paint Brush, now has an effect when operating on a Mask or Spare Channel.

[Murfee]

1 minute ago, anon2 said:

The blend mode of a tool, such as Paint Brush, now has an effect when operating on a Mask.

Thanks I realised that, I was expecting a layer blend mode to have an effect, no idea why. Things have been a bit intense lately so my creative brain is not functioning properly 😀

[mattspace]

Studio Presets Feedback:

A major use of savable workspace presets for palette layouts, is to restore a workspace layout after changes have been made throughout a work session. Or, if something goes wrong and a palette gets lost, or trapped off screen and is no longer reachable.

Photo's Studio Presets seem to have that backwards, in that they autosave any changes to palette layouts, and so provide no recovery capability to get the application back to a specific UI layout.

This is a real problem when (in my case Publisher) can end up with palettes' grab areas off-screen, and unable to be clicked on to move. I imagine it's also an issue for people using laptops and switching between single and dual (internal and external) screen layouts.

[kirkt]

A bug (?) that is present in the current release version (1.8.4) and the current beta (1.9.0.199): in the Filters > Colors > Procedural Texture ...  When operating in CMYK and targeting all color channels, if you enter "0" for the C, M and Y channels and "K" for the K channel, you get the full color image, not the K channel.  See first screenshot.  Perhaps I am doing something incorrect, but when you do the same for each of the C, M and Y channels (all others set to "0" and the channel of interest set to itself) you get a representation of just the channel of interest (second screenshot).  The third screenshot is just the image displayed with only the K channel enabled in the Channels palette - I assume this is what I should see as a result of the first Procedural Texture equation.

kirk

 

[evtonic3]

Im glad that there has been lots of work in the channels

On 9/26/2020 at 9:30 AM, Andy Somerfield said:

- You can now single click a spare channel in the Channels panel to edit it like a layer.
 

I was thinking we could finally get to edit the channels as is mentioned in the notes, but I'm not sure I can add a levels adjustment to a spare channel yet as in the video attached. Someone please let me know if we can now do what the video shows with Photo's new channel functionality.

Thanks

 

It would be nice to see and edit a newly added channel in the channels selection of the levels adjustment as in this image:

[Mark Oehlschlager]

@evtonic3

I've tried to reproduce the video tutorial above, and I can't apply levels directly to the spare channel in Affinity Photo either. You can paint on the spare channel, but you cannot apply levels, curves, or any other adjustment.

The only approach is to rasterize any placed background image; Control + click on a layer channel and select Create Grayscale Layer; apply a Levels adjustment to that Grayscale layer; then Control + click on the adjusted Grayscale layer and select Rasterize to Mask.

But none of that is achieved by working directly on a spare channel.

[evtonic3]

Thanks for trying, just wanted to make sure I didn’t miss anything. I know about the greyscale layer technique but it takes too many steps. 

[kirkt]

Right now, it appears that you can apply destructive Filters to the spare channel (the pixel operations in the Filters menu) - because it is not a layer, you cannot apply adjustment layers or live filter layers to the Spare Channel.  Unlike PS, AP does not have a Levels or Curves adjustment that is a destructive adjustment (similar to PS, Image > Adjustments ...) that one could use in such a case, i.e., when the narrator in the above video instructs the viewer to "... open the Levels window with CTRL-L...."

Also - remember that once you create the mask that will make the graphic look weathered (the mask from the high-contrast channel of the rusty background image) you can adjust that mask with a Levels adjustment layer.  That is, you use create Spare Channel to extract the high-contrast channel from the rusty image*.  You use whatever technique you would like to make that into a pixel layer and rasterize it to a mask.  Then apply that mask to the graphic you want to make look like it is scratched, etc.  Then apply a Levels adjustment to the mask and select the Alpha channel from the dropdown menu in the Levels dialog window.  In other words, you are adjusting the contrast of the mask once it is in place, and you are doing it non-destructively as well.

 

Kirk

 

*You can create a pixel layer from channels in an active layer using Apply Image... and Equations.  Lets say you wanted to make a pixel layer out of the red channel in the rusty image.  Make a duplicate of the rusty image layer and make it the active layer.  Select "Use current layer as source" - enable Equations (RGB) and use the equations: DR = SR, DG = SR, DB = SR.  This will result in a grayscale image that replaces the duplicate rusty image - it will be a grayscale representation of the red channel because all three "Destination" color channels have been set to the original "Source" red channel.  In the equations, "D" represents Destination and "S" represents Source.

[R C-R]

22 minutes ago, kirkt said:

Right now, it appears that you can apply destructive Filters to the spare channel (the pixel operations in the Filters menu)...

I give up. How do you select the spare channel so you can apply a destructive filter to it?

[kirkt]

@R C-R - create the spare channel from whatever source you like.  Then simply click on it in the Channels palette (it is named "Spare Channel" by default) - it will now appear in the document window as a grayscale image.  Select, for example, a Gaussian Blur filter from the Filters... menu.  It will apply the filter to the spare channel.

Kirk

[kirkt]

In the attached screen capture, I select the Red channel and make a Spare Channel out of it.  I then select the new Spare Channel and apply a Gaussian Blur to it.

Kirk

[R C-R]

11 minutes ago, kirkt said:

@R C-R - create the spare channel from whatever source you like.  Then simply click on it in the Channels palette (it is named "Spare Channel" by default) - it will now appear in the document window as a grayscale image.  Select, for example, a Gaussian Blur filter from the Filters... menu.  It will apply the filter to the spare channel.

Thanks. I have tried that & it works as you say ... but as soon as I click on the Pixel layer to select it (or deselect all layers by clicking with the Move tool outside the canvas), the filter seems to have no effect at all, even if I apply a very strong Gaussian Blur or anything else to the spare channel.

What am I missing?

BTW, I am still having the same problem I reported elsewhere getting videos like yours to play on my iMac when using the Safari browser. It works OK if I open the page in Firefox or Chrome. I know this must be something specific to my iMac but I have never been able to figure out what the issue is or how to fix it.

[kirkt]

@R C-R The Spare Channel is blurred, but it is not doing anything in the document until you use it for something.  For example - after you blur it and make the background layer active, right-click on the Spare Channel and select "Load to Background <select any channel>" - this will load the now blurred Spare Channel into the Background layer's channel of your choosing, where you will see the effect.  You can also make a new pixel layer, for example, and load the Spare Channel into the R, G and B channels of the new pixel layer.  Now you have a grayscale layer that you can rasterize to a mask.  You can also make a new Curves adjustment layer, for example, and load the Spare Channel into the Alpha channel of the Curves adjustment layer, masking the Curves layer.

kirk

[Old Bruce]

26 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Thanks. I have tried that & it works as you say ... but as soon as I click on the Pixel layer to select it (or deselect all layers by clicking with the Move tool outside the canvas), the filter seems to have no effect at all, even if I apply a very strong Gaussian Blur or anything else to the spare channel.

What am I missing?

Not sure if this is what you want, we have to apply the edited spare channel to something. You have a Pixel layer and choose the Red channel to make a Spare Channel. Click on the thumbnail of the Spare Channel, blur it and apply the blur. Click on the Pixel layer to select it and then right click on the Spare Channel and choose Apply Spare Channel to Pixel Red.

This is after editing the (obscured by the dropdown menu) Spare Channel.

[R C-R]

Thanks @kirkt & @Old Bruce for the help with this.

For some reason none of the load options were doing anything until I applied the 'IT Crowd fix' (quitting & relaunching the AP beta). Now it works as I assume it should. 👍