Affinity Photo Customer Beta (1.9.4.241)

[Andy Somerfield]

Status: Beta

Purpose: Features, improvements and 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 1.9.4 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 1.9.3 version recently released to all customers (although it still installs parallel to the released version, 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.

The 1.9.4 beta will have a performance focus as we circle back to clean up some inefficiencies which have crept in over time. If you notice performance improvements (or regressions!) over 1.9.3, or if you notice rendering bugs which appear to have been introduced in 1.9.4, please let us know.

Affinity Photo Team  

 

Changes Since Previous Beta

 

- Added support for Xtrans sensor images in astro stacking.
- Added GPU acceleration for blending ranges (in Advanced Blending).
- Further, significant, performance improvements for documents with many layers.
- Significant performance improvements when converting documents between ICC profiles / pixel formats.

- Fixed performance issues with previous build with certain GPUs.
- Fixed spare channel / mask editing.

- Assorted metadata panel tweaks.
- Further panorama stitching performance tweaks.
- Assorted bug fixes.

 

Changes Since 1.9.3

 

- Added a new "median" mode to the frequency separation filter.
- The gradient map adjustment now has a GPU implementation.

- Restored the GPU rendering improvements which were dropped towards the end of the 1.9.2 beta. The benchmark version is once again set to 1920.
- Improve performance when manipulating the selected layer immediately after loading a document.
- Significant performance improvements in low-memory situations, reducing use of the swap file.
- Panorama stitching performance improvements.
- Significant performance improvements for documents which contain flattened, opaque layers (usually the result of merge visible).
- Render EXIF exposure time as decimal if above 1.

- Fixed F-number always showing as "f/0" for Leica M-series cameras (and others).
- Fixed issue whereby LUTs would incorrectly report "Identity" as the description.
- Fixed potential crash when quitting with layers still on the clipboard.
- Fixed performance issues with CMYK documents when GPU acceleration is enabled.

- Assorted small fixes.
- Localisation improvements.

[jdvoracek]

Thank you and just sadly confirming that on macOS Big Sur 11.2.3 the Procedural Texture dialog in this beta still does not display the Custom Input value fields or sliders.

Edited April 23, 2021 by jdvoracek
Added system information

[ZufDraw]

I was about to post a flood fill bug, but noticed it has been fixed already in this build! Kudos for that! Flood fill is still pretty slow though. 

And there are still brush issues. I found out that these mainly start occurring with pressure settings of 48% and above. Both size and hardness no longer show these issues below this threshold.

[ZufDraw]

Hm I'm sorry I posted too soon. I just found the flood fill bug is still present.  

As can be seen in the movie, the flood fill does not seem to work on already filled areas but I'm not sure. In general it often doesn't to antyhing. And when I disable contiguous, it seems to fill anything but the area I select. But it's not super consistent so that's why I added the file where it happens. And I do really miss the fact that you can only flood fill with layers below, not above. Ok that's a feature request, sorry

Flood Fill Bug2.afphoto

[Stargate94]

Hi there,

can i ask why on my macbook air i3 2020 , the beta does take 7 seconds to launch and the normal version , 40 sec? (everything up to date even the os).

On windows gaming machine works well the standalone version no problem detect.

[Patrick Connor]

@Stargate94

There seem to be more OS security checks on the release builds. We know why the release builds are slow at the moment (still working on it), what is unclear is why the beta builds are not also slow.

[Stargate94]

19 minutes ago, Patrick Connor said:

@Stargate94

There seem to be more OS security checks on the release builds. We know why the release builds are slow at the moment (still working on it), what is unclear is why the beta builds are not also slow.

Thanks for the reply! Very helpful.

[IPv6]

There is some cases when beta hangs without recovery. Aside from problem described here - https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/138303-192229-beta-constantly-hangs-with-mix-brush/ - it is also hangs when working with curves sometimes, when dragging curve layers in outliner. Although i can`t repro this with sure, but hoping this will be fixed soon too.

Anyway, have to say this beta is much more robust (than release)in terms of working with big files with many layers. Much much less lags overall.
Keep it up!

 

[abarkalo]

Is there a way to tell Mac OS that Affinity Photo Beta IS Affinity Photo? The issue I'm having is that within certain apps such as asset manager Eagle - which is very Affinity friendly by the way - recognize all the Affinity apps but not the beta. So this leaves me two options if I want to use the "open with" right click option. First option - I cannot - I have to drag the image to the desktop and then use right click and then the beta shows up under Finder right click options. Or the second - make all JPEGs and PNGs use Photo Beta as the default app - which is what I've tried but it's honestly very impractical. I might revert to the Mac App Store app but if you tell me that this is so much better especially on an M1 MacBook Pro then I guess I'll just hang on.

[walt.farrell]

2 hours ago, abarkalo said:

s there a way to tell Mac OS that Affinity Photo Beta IS Affinity Photo?

No, because it's not. They are two different programs.

2 hours ago, abarkalo said:

The issue I'm having is that within certain apps such as asset manager Eagle - which is very Affinity friendly by the way - recognize all the Affinity apps but not the beta.

That's going to be something you have to configure in Eagle, somehow.

[abarkalo]

I understand, Walt. I just am hoping that the beta, which at this point is more of a fix version (as per documentation - otherwise I don't know) just becomes a general update to the MAS version sometime soon. From what is written about - these performance and GPU updates are very important.

[abarkalo]

On 4/27/2021 at 2:53 AM, Stargate94 said:

Hi there,

can i ask why on my macbook air i3 2020 , the beta does take 7 seconds to launch and the normal version , 40 sec? (everything up to date even the os).

On windows gaming machine works well the standalone version no problem detect.

yes I will confirm that this is almost the same amount of time for MacBook Pro 16Gb M1 - 7 sec for the beta and around 40 sec on the MAS version. It's no big deal but thought I would also add this info.