Affinity Photo Customer Beta (1.7.0.105)

[Andy Somerfield]

Status: Beta

Purpose: Features, Improvements, Fixes

Requirements: Purchased Affinity Photo

Mac App Store: Not submitted

Download DMG: Download

Auto-update: Available.

 

Hello,

We are pleased to announce the immediate availability of the latest beta of Affinity Photo 1.7 for macOS.

Photo 1.7 is a (very) significant change to the currently shipping 1.6 version, so, as ever, I would strongly urge users to avoid the 1.7 beta for critical work. This is especially true as this is only an early build of 1.7 - we will release many more builds before 1.7 ships. Things will be broken in this build - please use it to explore the new features and not for real work.

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.

It’s also worth noting that we aren’t done yet - we are still working through reported bugs from previous releases and hope to fix as many as possible before the final release of 1.7.

With all that said, we hope that you will enjoy the new capabilities introduced in this release and we look forward to any and all feedback you give to us.

Many thanks (as always),

Affinity Photo Team  

 

Changes This Build

 

- Hide / Show / Show All Layers options in layers menu.
- Remove new destructive modes from crop tool (for now - will revisit).
- Fixed crash when RAW contains malformed GPS data.
- Fixed levels adjustment alerts.
- Fixed 32bit issues with Soft Light blend mode.
- Fixed flood fill bugs when colour is not opaque.
- Fixed various TIFF files which tried to load into develop persona.
- Fixed Voronoi bug if image has alpha channel.
- Allow Cmd key to be held when typing numbers in a brush tool (will change flow instead of opacity).
- Fixed remaining LUT export bugs.
- Small memory management improvements.
- Fixed red-eye correction in develop.
- Develop noise reduction performance improvements.
- Improved visibility of selected hue range in HSL UI in light mode.
- Fixed issues where sub-brushes could get reset.
- Sub-brush spacing / size sync buttons work properly.
- Dark / light UI improvements in brush editor panel.
- Fixed more Radeon R9 issues.
- Fixed more CMYK issues.
- Fixed some PDF import bugs.
- Numerous other small fixes.
- Help improvements.

 

Changes In Previous 1.7 Beta Builds

 

- The crop tool now defaults to the old behaviour (destructive).
- Added lens correction data for more cameras.
- More double click support for resetting adjustment sliders.
- Further HSL improvements in 32bit mode.
- Fixed issues when using Edit -> Fill with a transparent colour.
- Fixed issues exporting HDR files when some pixels have negative values.
- Fixed TIFF ZIP compression issues.
- Fixed a sporadic crash when exporting PSD.
- Fixed lens correction for Panasonic DMC-TZ60.
- Fixed orientation of RAW images during HDR merge.
- Fixed noise reduction in non-RGB documents.
- Fixed scale + rotate alignment mode in stacking.
- Reduce develop memory usage and further improve loading speed.
- Fixed recolour adjustment slider colour issue.
- Fixed displacement map “load from beneath” sometimes including the current layer.
- Fixed CMYK rendering on Radeon R9 GPUs.
- Fixed motion blur etc. disappearing in 16bit documents with Metal enabled.
- Fixed equation transforms not working in macros.

 

- Fixed incorrect RGB / BGR / Red-major-order export of LUTS.
- Ability to either rasterise or rasterise and trim a layer. Previously recorded macros will trim.
- Fixed issues when parsing autofocus rectangles in RAW develop.
- Show which autofocus rectangles were in focus and which were selected by the camera (yellow, green respectively).
- Fixed inability to open photos from Apple Photos from file -> open. Now correctly asks for permission.
- Threshold adjustment will always present an intensity histogram.
- Improved histograms on curves and levels adjustments.
- Fixed LAB issues with edge detection filters.
- Switching between adjustments and filters will close any existing panels accordingly.
- Fixed incorrect ability to drag a locked layer when there is no layer selection.
- Fixed loading of 8/16bit images with linear RGB profiles.
- Can now double-click most sliders in adjustments UI to reset the individual parameter.
- Make it obvious which nozzle is selected in the brush editor UI.
- Other small fixes.

 

- Improved Metal stability / performance with large documents.
- Fixed a number of dark mode issues.
- Fixed preview glitches in split preview mode for filters / develop.
- Fixed batch processor not obeying dimensions correctly.
- Improved Procedural Texture UI in light mode.
- Allow brush rotate / size key changes while dragging.
- Numerous text engine improvements.
- Fixed cursor issues with HSL and other adjustments.
- Fixed issues with some menu shortcut keys.
- Improved PDF export.
- Improved localisations.
- Numerous other small fixes.

 

- Fixed CMYK rendering when using Metal.
- Fixed loading of huge JPEG files.
- Added “Alpha Similarity” to Select Sampled Colour tool.
- Fixed a number of crash bugs in the adjustment panel.
- Fixed issues with some existing user documents crashing in 1.7.
- Assorted other fixes.

 

- Show the Curves / Levels histogram in the correct colour space.
- Fixed some GPU memory management issues.
- A further attempt to fix the HSL UI crash.
- Improve performance on Intel Iris Pro GPUs.
- Improved help.

- Numerous other small fixes.

- Fixed hardware acceleration issues on certain iMac devices.
- Fixed a number of brush bugs.
- Fixed hang in HDR merge with GPU enabled.
- Fixed HSL adjustment UI crash,
- Fixed Procedural Texture UI issues when switching from dark to light UI.
- Fixed Curves adjustment clamping issue when GPU is enabled.
- Fixed 3DLUT adjustments when GPU is enabled.
- Fixed issues with sub-brush UI.
- Numerous other small fixes.

- Added pixabay.com to Stock panel.

- New welcome screen graphics.
- New persona icon graphics.
- New splash screen.

Changes Since 1.6 Release

Performance

- The core processing engine in Affinity Photo has been rewritten to take advantage of the powerful discrete AMD GPUs in modern Mac hardware. It will now automatically use any compatible discrete GPU, alongside the Intel GPU support present in 1.6. Typically this improves compositing / editing performance by at least 1000%. Performance when using integrated Intel GPUs has also been massively improved.

- External GPUs (eGPU) are also supported - including hot-plug-and-unplug support.

- Multiple GPUs are supported - if you have more than 1 GPU (ie. Intel + AMD in MacBook Pro, or Intel + eGPU in other Macs) Photo will use them all, at the same time, to improve performance. There is no limit to the number of GPUs which can be used.

Brushes

- Photo 1.7 introduces a new “sub-brush” mechanism, developed in conjunction with Paolo Limoncelli (DAUB® Brushes). This exciting feature allows any brush to have a list of other brushes attached which will draw at the same time. Each sub-brush has a fully separate and customisable set of dynamics. You can control when the sub-brushes are drawn and how they blend with the main brush.

- The brush engine in Photo has been rewritten to use the new GPU architecture described above. With GPU support, even huge brushes with 1% spacing will perform well. All brushes / brush tools are accelerated.

- Symmetry (up to 32-way) is now supported - including on-canvas controls and optional mirroring. We have more symmetry features on the way - so stay tuned during the beta process.

- Wet edges and accumulation are now available on colour brushes and brushes with HSL variance.

- Brushes with multiple nozzle textures have always chosen the nozzle at random. In 1.7, the nozzle choice has a dynamic controller and ramp for greater control.

- All brush tools now support left and right arrow keys for rotation - a common feature request 

RAW

- The RAW processing engine in Photo has been rewritten - producing better results and improved performance. It also takes advantage of the GPU architecture changes described above.

- RAW files now load much more quickly - especially if you have a compatible GPU.

- Reimplemented support for XTrans sensors.

- The denoise algorithm has been rewritten. It produces better results and takes advantage of the new GPU architecture.

- Hot pixel removal is now automatically performed by the Serif Labs engine.

- Profiled lens correction are more stable, apply more quickly, and can be toggled in the Develop UI.

- The histogram in the Develop persona is now presented in the output colour space - as opposed to always being linear.

Filters

- New “Procedural Texture” filter with advanced presets support.

- New “Voronoi” filter.

- Denoise, Clarity and Shadows / Highlights filters have been rewritten (using technology from the Develop Persona).

- More filters are now available as Live Filters - including the new Procedural Texture filter.

- Live filters have been rewritten to improve performance - especially when multiple filters are used in a document.

- Improved Polar to Rectangular and Rectangular to Polar filters.

Adjustments

- The HSL adjustment layer has been rewritten. It now supports custom hue ranges, a new algorithm, new UI and picker controls.

- The Levels adjustment layer now supports output levels - a common feature request.

- The White Balance adjustment layer has been rewritten.

- The Selective Colour adjustment layer has been rewritten.

- PSD import / export of adjustments has been improved.

- The Vibrance adjustment layer has been rewritten.

- The Recolour adjustment layer has gained a lightness slider.

Tools

- The Crop tool has been rewritten - it now supports resolution changes, absolute pixel size and has a much improved preset mechanism.

- The Sponge Brush tool now gives more correct / pleasant results.

- A general tools overhaul has been performed - providing editing of grids, guides, page origin, across multiple tools (not just in the Move tool)

General

- “Alternate futures” for document history have been added. Traditionally, if you roll back the undo history then do something else all your changes after that point are lost. Photo will now display a small branch icon in the history tab when you do this. Pressing that button will cycle between all the different “futures” after that history entry - meaning you will never lose work you have done.

- HEIF images can now be loaded directly into Photo. If they contain a depth map, this will also be loaded as a second layer. Because depth maps are typically lower resolution than the main image, optional “smart” upsampling will be performed.

- A large number of new cameras are supported for RAW development (we will provide a list of the new supported cameras as soon as possible!).

- The batch process dialog now fully supports expressions for height and width - available constants are “w”, “h” and “dpi”.

- Photo now supports custom document presets - a popular feature request.

- A new blend mode - Linear Burn - has been added.

- New “Move inside / outside” commands have been added - useful for quick operations on clipping masks etc.

- The Hard Mix blend mode has been improved.

- New provider options have been added to the stock panel - support for Unsplash and Pexels. Both of these providers offer full-resolution stock imagery which is free to use.

- Metadata is now dynamically synchronised with your document - so if you resize then export, the values will be correct.

- Numerous text improvements have been made - including new features.

- Significant PDF import / export improvements and fixes.

 - Numerous other bug fixes - too many to list!

[dcarvalho84]

Just don't know it it is a bug or am i missing something, but CMD+8 is not changing zoom to "actual view" instead it is reducing the opacity to 80%. It is kinda not assuming the CMD.

[smadell]

I’ve had essentially the same problem. Working in “Separated Mode,” my first step(s) are always to enlarge the size of the window and then hit Command-0 to fit the image to the window. Nothing. Hitting Command-1, -2, and so forth occasionally does nothing, and occasionally changes the global opacity.

[R C-R]

7 hours ago, dcarvalho84 said:

Just don't know it it is a bug or am i missing something, but CMD+8 is not changing zoom to "actual view" instead it is reducing the opacity to 80%. It is kinda not assuming the CMD.

I am seeing that & the same thing for CMD + any other number, including 2 digit ones. The View > Zoom submenu works properly but not the keyboard shortcuts it shows.

[MEB]

The zoom shortcuts issue was already logged and should be fixed in the next build. 

[PatriotArcher]

I can't upload my macros to the beta version. I'm not sure if that's normal or not but I figured I would at least say something.

[RNKLN]

I changed the shortcut from Cmd-0 to Cmd+Ctrl-0. This solved the problem. Then i went back to Cmd-0. Still doesn't work. 

[Uncle Mez]

Hello @Andy Somerfield the download went smooth.
One shot no issue at all, now i need to update and do some stuff with this version to see if it's okay !
Was the issues with the HSL crashing the app fixed ? I've planned a color replacement tutorial and HSL is one of the tools i will demonstrate there.

[Barayase]

Still getting 16 bit Tiff compression stepping Otherwise great release.

 

[kervanoel]

I have no more problem with my dmg.

Optics correction on Canon M50 has been taken.