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Affinity Photo Customer Beta (1.7.0.122)


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  • Staff

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 a pre-release build of 1.7 - we will release 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. To be notified when there is a new beta please press follow on this announcment thread

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  :ph34r:

 

Changes This Build
 

- General Metal performance improvements on discreet GPUs.
- Added an option to Tone Mapping to clamp to SDR values.
- Further metadata mining improvements.
- Fixed some EDR clamping bugs.
- Improved accuracy of LAB colour sliders.
- Improved EDR headroom / maximum readout.
- Improved Metal compute performance on complicated documents.
- Inserting fill stops in 32bit documents now correctly interpolates intensity.
- Added preferences option to allow automatic enabling of EDR in 32bit views.
- Fixed lighting filter in 32bit documents.
- Improved colour picking in 32bit documents.
- Stock panel improvements.
- Fixed Core Image RAW crash on older version of macOS.
- Support TIFF files with old-style JPEG compression.
- Fixed channels preview when Metal is enabled.
- Improve rendering performance with multi-GPU systems containing a mixture of integrated and discreet GPUs.
- Fixed missing macro arguments on recorded adjustment commands.
- Fixed occasional flickering when using Metal view.
- Fixed crop tool “Reveal” mode.
- Fixed numerous masking issues.
- Assorted other small fixes.
- Localisation improvements. 
- Help improvements.

 

Changes Since 1.6 Release

 

EDR

- Added support for EDR displays to Photo. When editing a 32bit document, enabling EDR will switch macOS into a mode whereby it will increase the backlight intensity and darken screen content - increasing the dynamic range available when rendering content.

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.
- Allow Ctrl key to be held when typing numbers in a brush tool (will change flow instead of opacity).

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.
- Develop now respects the output profile when previewing.
- Added support for CR3 RAW when using the Core Image engine.
- Show which autofocus rectangles were in focus and which were selected by the camera (yellow, green respectively).
- 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!).
- Automatically fall back to Core Image for cameras which are not supported by Serif Labs.

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.
- Added round dot type to the halftone filter.
- Bilateral blur accuracy improvements.

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.

Layers

- Layers page - added option for transparent background for thumbnails.
- Layers page - added multiple thumbnail size options.
- Layers page - added ability to tag layers with a colour - including PSD round-trip.
- Allow adding an empty group from the Layer menu.
- New “Duplicate Selection” item in Layer menu (old behaviour). Duplicate now duplicate the whole layer ignoring pixel selection.
- Alt / Option is now used to make a pixel selection from layer luminance. You can now also hold shift to add the result to the current selection.
- Hide / Show / Show All Layers options in layers menu.
- Ability to either rasterise or rasterise and trim a layer. Previously recorded macros will trim.

 
Selections

- Significant improvements to selection refinement.
- When using selection tools with no pixel selection, default to New / Add as appropriate.
- Added “Alpha Similarity” to Select Sampled Colour tool.

Tools

- Grouped tool shortcuts now default to needing the shift key held to cycle (option in preferences).
- 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.
- Allow brush rotate / size key changes while dragging.
- Added a “Reveal Canvas” checkbox to the crop tool - defaults to off.
- Added new “Transform object separately” mode into Move tool.
- A general tools overhaul has been performed - providing editing of grids, guides, page origin, across multiple tools (not just in the Move tool)
- Patch tool now supports arrow keys for rotate / scale.
- All brush tools can now be axis constrained once brush has started - not just the pixel tool.

History

- “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.
- The History page now has an “advanced” mode - which shows thumbnails and time info.

I/O

- 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.
- TIFF export now has user selectable compression method.
- Added support for 12bit TIFF files.
- Introduced new metadata mining - completely rewritten to improve performance, flexibility and correctness.
- Metadata is now dynamically synchronised with your document - so if you resize then export, the values will be correct.
- Added Focal Length to metadata summary view.
- Added a button in general preferences to open a folder from which Photo will read LensFun-style XML files - if users wish to add / experiment with their own lens profiles.
- Support 16bit CMYK TIFF import.

General

- New ability to control how macros are scaled / aligned when playing back.
- Added an “Assets” panel to Photo.
- New cube setup mode for grids.
- Add “Fill with Primary / Secondary” to the Edit menu for fast access.
- The batch process dialog now fully supports expressions for height and width - available constants are “w”, “h” and “dpi”.
- “Lock guides” added to menus.
- Support for drag dropping .afstyles into Photo.
- Support for drag dropping .afpalette into Photo.
- 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, Pexels and Pixabay. All of these providers offer full-resolution stock imagery which is free to use.
- Numerous text improvements have been made - including new features.
- Significant stability improvements when working on non-local files (network shares, USB drives, etc.).
- Significant PDF import / export improvements and fixes.
 - Numerous other bug fixes - too many to list!

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Was about to post a serious drawing lag using my Wacom tablet, but apparently has now been fixed on this release. You're on fire! :27_sunglasses:

• Frankentoon Studio - Tutorials and Resources for Designer, Photo and Publisher

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2 hours ago, Frankentoon said:

Was about to post a serious drawing lag using my Wacom tablet, but apparently has now been fixed on this release. You're on fire! :27_sunglasses:

Actually, i now AM experiencing a serious lag. I use the trackpad of my MBP.

Affinity Photo - Affinity Designer - Affinity Publisher | macOS Sonoma (14.2) on 16GB MBP14 2021 with 2.4 versions

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6 hours ago, RNKLN said:

Actually, i now AM experiencing a serious lag. I use the trackpad of my MBP.

Sorry I didn't try this very last update yet but in the beginning I thought oops is it really made for digital painting/drawing or is the Photoshop only solution? Last beta has blown me away by performance (even wacom have made update to it's firmware) so I was so happy and surprised (maybe there was still some delay of rendering strokes into retina quality but I could see what I'm drawing immediately).

Writing this without testing just to say I'm really pleased by all improvements and frequent updates that push this software forward to be # 1.

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Hello @Andy Somerfield

My side, download was okay no breaks but good speed.
The install was fluid and no issue at all.
First launch was Okay and everything was just there.
So up to now, i'm enjoying this release and what it brings.

Never be the Same Again !
---
Dell Optiplex 5090 SFF
Intel Core i5-10500T @2.30GHz with 12GiB 2666MHz DDR4
Intel UHD Graphics 630 for 10th Generation
M.2 2280, 512 GB, PCIe NVMe Gen3 x4, Class 40 SSD

Windows 11 Pro x64 22H2 + LibreOffice 7.5.3

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Thanks, Just downloaded.

Everything looks great. Nice extra features

Like the new Crop tools options implemented.  The Darken (which we already had) + the Reveal checkbox ( very needed) .

Not a a bug but Just PLEASE add  the sticky settings to the Crop mode.  Hopefully it's added on this version.

fjv

 

P.D. Also Just a quick question. If I use this Beta an create a 1.7 Beta file will I be able to open it on the final 1.7 Release or is there a chance they won't be compatible...?

 

------------------------

Fernando Velarde

www.velarde.com

Instagram.com/soyfervelarde

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37 minutes ago, velarde said:

If I use this Beta an create a 1.7 Beta file will I be able to open it on the final 1.7 Release or is there a chance they won't be compatible...?

I wouldn't do any important work in a beta. There is always a chance the file would not be compatible and the beta you used to create it will no longer work.

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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So now I've created a simpler macro from scratch that simply does a one stop exposure increase and a merge down.

The batch job now runs ok with or without parallel processing ticked.

BUT

The JPEG output does not have any exposure change to it!

Am I missing anything else?

When I create a batch job and apply the Black & White macro only, that works, so I'm at a loss :(

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  • Staff

Dear participant, please post bugs into new threads as it's very hard to offer 4 people advice in one thread

@Chris B

Some of these posts should be split off into new threads

Patrick Connor
Serif Europe Ltd

"There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man. True nobility lies in being superior to your previous self."  W. L. Sheldon

 

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