Affinity Photo Customer Beta (1.5.0 - Beta 11)

[Andy Somerfield]

Status: Beta Release
Purpose: Fixes, improvements
Requirements: Purchased Affinity Photo
Mac App Store: Not Submitted
Download: 1.5 Beta 11 Here

This is a 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 in which you may be adversely affected by the application failing. In addition it is definitely worth noting that files created in Affinity Photo 1.5 cannot be opened in Photo 1.4 so always make a copy of your important documents before opening them in 1.5 to ensure you do not accidentally overwrite them and are unable to open them in your 1.4 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.

It's also worth noting that this beta is completely file-format compatible with the recently released Affinity Designer 1.5.3 in the Mac App Store - although the above disclaimer still applies!

Improvements & Fixes

- New preferences options (under Colour) for handling of OpenEXR (separate alpha, post-divide alpha, perturb zero alpha).
- Layered OpenEXR files were coming in upside down (layer-wise). Fixed.
- OpenEXR import should default to a transparent background.
- Fixed big problems when trying to use any brush-based tool on more than one layer at once.
- Fixed clone tool hiding the source marker under while dragging.
- Information panel now shows alpha values.
- Fixed issues when importing TIFF with malformed DPI tag.
- Improved X3F focus-pixel removal for more modern cameras.
- General Tone Mapping stability improvements.
- Respect tone curve preference when doing HDR Merge, Focus Merge.
- Develop now properly respects user-chosen profile defaults.
- Focus and HDR merge now respects user-chosen profile defaults.
- Fixed further crash issues with the Font dropdown.
- Improvements to numerous filter which use Gaussian samplers.
- Fixed more issues with badly formed TIFF being loaded as RAW (sigh).
- Fixed importing of PSD gradient map adjustments.
- Alt-Click on the “Add mask” button in the layers panel to add an empty mask.
- Disabled buttons in Macro panel when no document is loaded.
- Fixed LZW decompression bugs when importing PDF.
- Fixed Lighting filter in CMYK.
- Fixed spurious history items when using freehand selection tool.
- Fixed magnetic selection bugs.
- Fixed redraw issues with freehand selection tool.
- Fixed weird 32bit bounding issues with Gaussian samplers.
- Improved panorama alignment.
- Numerous PSD import / export improvements.
- Gradient tool now works on 32bit masks.
- Show bad equations in red when using Equations filter (incomplete).
- Avoid crashes when “Resize Pixel Art Document” is used on massive documents.
- Improved macro panel icons.
- Ctrl-Alt drag in brush tools should be limited to 4096, not 1024.
- Fixed issues where Live Filter panel would not reflect opacity, blend mode correctly.
- The “red button” should never auto-commit filters.
- Fixed more white scroll bar bugs in macOS Sierra.
- OpenEXR can now be exported from non-32bit documents.
- Fixed terrible “Save with History” problems when user has deleted from a layer using a pixel selection (sorry!).
- Fixed crash in Apply Image when using equations in LAB format.
- Macro recorder can now record “Resize Document”.
- Numerous minor cosmetic improvements.
- Numerous other small stability improvements.

- Improved localisations.
- Improved help.

Unfortunately, the “Link Layers” feature has missed the cut - as has the “Pause Macro” feature. Apologies for this - we will try to get them into a beta as soon as possible after Photo 1.5 has shipped.

Photo will go to RC at the start of next week. We are still working on a number of bugs / improvements until then.



Thanks again for taking the time to use this beta!

Affinity Photo Team :ph34r:

[CekariYH]

Nice, was just testing beta 10 when this one came out :-)

[ONSO]

Today was a good day in the world of Affinity. We got the latest version of Designer and now the latest and greatest for Photo. Thanks! We truly appreciate all the hard work. 

[yakk]

- Alt-Click on the “Add mask” button in the layers panel to add an empty mask.

 

Many thanks for that !  :)

[anon1]

Will you be able to select multiple layers (Just like single layers with the great popup) and group them during macro recording or do you not plan to add that feature until the MAS launch?

Definitely a huge issue for me.

 

hope to see some more refinements after the MAS release finally. Not only big features.

Cheers

[smadell]

Looking forward to 2 additions to macros:

 

1) Rename a Spare Channel, Choose a Spare Channel (by name), and Delete a Spare Channel (by name)

2) Choose a tool without using it (for instance, choose the Brush tool as the last step of a macro that sets me up to paint)

 

Andy - many thanks for your work.

[Seneca]

We seem to have some problems with the preferences window on macOSX sierra in the latest beta 11.

 

See Keyboard Shortcuts, Photoshop Plugins, User Interface

[livetheshot]

Found a Batch processing bug.

 

Add the files as normal.

 

Tick same location as source.

 

Untick Save as AFPhoto. 

 

Tick Save as Tiff and leave dimensions as blank.

 

Don't select a Macro.

 

Untick Parallel Processing.

 

Click Go.

 

It's gone and processed all the files but didn't write it into the source directory.  In fact, it didn't write anything at all.

[Andy Somerfield]

livetheshot,

 

Thanks - we already have this one on our list - it will be fixed in the next beta :)

Andy.

[pruus]

And the brush-bug is gone! Great work all. I like it more and more.

[smallreflection]

Any chance we'll get an option to export Develop Persona Studio Presets for backup purposes, or to move from Betas to MAS installs?

[DavidMac]

Great to see this getting better and better. One little item. ( I've posted elsewhere but since this is the last beta I am popping it in here in the hopes that it is easy to fix. ) The macro recorder records Edit > Cut and Edit > Paste but for some reason refuses to record Edit > Copy. This is a very common command and it's a real pain not being able to include it in a macro. Any chance you can look at this before final release please?

[Frank Jonen]

Will the 'mondrian invasion' effect be addressed in b12? (HSL + Levels + Gaussian Blur in 32-Bit = Mondrian Painting). I can work around it by flattening and round-tripping, but that's not really that much fun with large files.

 

 

BTW: using the arrow keys with the hand/view tool still is broken. Used to work but since a few beta iterations it's gone for some reason.

[Frank Jonen]

One more thing I keep forgetting to nag about: Constraints with the crop tool.

 

It would really be so much easier if the Crop Tool worked like Move Tool. Hold OPTION and drag, it modifies the respective axis in both directions. Hold OPTION + CMD, scale the tool with the current aspect ratio locked.

[tnargs]

Thanks for addressing the Sigma sd Quattro focus pixels, but you still haven't addressed (or even dignified with a response or discussion) the much larger problem with Sigma Quattro camera files, that I raised in this thread, with links to examples.

 

There is seriously no point in fixing the focus pixels if the images remain this poor in the broader, more general sense.

 

cheers

[EdD]

Andy: A question. In the beta 11 announcement you say it's going to RC next week. What is RC?

 

Just started with beta 11 - looks good so far. I'm impressed with the speed and volume of work coming of the Affinity team. Bravo!

 

 

[Frank Jonen]

Andy: A question. In the beta 11 announcement you say it's going to RC next week. What is RC?

 

Just started with beta 11 - looks good so far. I'm impressed with the speed and volume of work coming of the Affinity team. Bravo!

 

RC = Release Candidate

[EdD]

Thanks Frank

 

 

Ed

[AdrianKLægreid]

I dont know if this is a bug or not (I haven't been following the betas of AP for quite a while I'm sorry :( ), but when I tried to drag an image into AP I managed to put it over the welcome window and the picture went on top of the default purple stripey one. I can scroll around in the image. Sorry for a really bad post grammar wise.

[scho37]

Seeing some serious aliasing in Sigma x3f files from the sdQ when processed in beta 11.  On a positive note, happy not to see those pesky pdaf black dots.

[kirk23]

Would be nice to hear something about how linked layers would work.  Would it be just transform link in-between layers like in Photoshop or maybe some extra features? 

 

I am dreaming about some formula based interconnections between layers, not only transform links.   Would eliminate an advantage  node based image editors  usually provide over layers ones.

[tnargs]

Seeing some serious aliasing in Sigma x3f files from the sdQ when processed in beta 11.  On a positive note, happy not to see those pesky pdaf black dots.

 

Yes this is the same issue I raised here, and opened a thread for, which contains links to online examples, but so far not even an acknowledgement. Complete silence. It has been a couple of weeks now.

 

Does this mean they don't see the issue? I'm imagining it? Or I am a nobody and don't count? Who knows?

[anon1]

just tried to do a macro with exposed parameters 

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/28722-ad-edge-aware-unsharp-mask/?p=139715

I had the rasterized mask ready but could not drag it onto the live filter

 

but not only is selecting multiple layers missing in macro recording but also reordering layers.

both would need the very same options as selecting layers....hope that get´s in there prior to the MAS release 

[Nana]

Hi Andy,

 

Just wondering if any progress has been made in the area of plug-in support for the DxO products.  I tried ViewPoint3 today on an image and there was an instance crash.  Please see the crash report attached.

 

Edit: Just to add that the same thing happened with DxO FilmPack 5. I have attached the crash report as well.

 

Cheers,

 

Nana

 

[Michael Allman]

There are some changes in the handling of 32-bit color images in beta 11 compared to beta 10 that seem to be bugs.

 

When I load a raw file it looks like Affinity is using my default rgb profile for 32-bit images instead of my default 32-bit rgb color profile. That is, the color profile is non-linear and so is the histogram. This is confusing because I thought all color handling was supposed be linear in 32-bit images. When I develop into a 32-bit color space, the color profile is still non-linear. If I convert to a new color profile in 32-bit mode, all of the options are labeled as linear. If I convert to the linear version of my current non-linear profile, the colors change subtly, the document color space is marked as linear (though the text label in the UI is truncated on the right) and the histogram looks like the histogram of a linear 32-bit image.

 

Can someone explain what's happening here? Thanks.