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Affinity Photo Customer Beta (1.7.0.130 - Release Candidate 1)


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Status: Release Candidate

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 may release more builds before 1.7 ships. Things could still 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

 

- If you apply the crop tool using a preset, it will be remembered for next time.
- Improve performance when developing RAW images.
- Blemish tool performance improvements.
- Fixes for unsharp mask at small radii when using Metal.
- Improved Metal brushing performance when texture mode is “nozzle”.
- Fixed annoying lag at the end of brush strokes.
- Assorted small fixes.
- Localisation tweaks.
 

 

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).
- Fixed ABR brush import (would ignore "random" controllers).

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.
- New “Lens Correction” filter - apply lens correction from the built-in lens database.
- 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.
- New welcome screen layout and all new samples.
- Numerous other bug fixes - too many to list!

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Powerful tool, indeed. However, the image buildup in general but especially if you change to 100% (especially with metal enabled) seems slower to me than with the Beta 128.

iMac 2017, 16 GB RAM, Intel Iris Plus Graphics 640 1536 MB, MacOS Ventura 13.6.6 (22G630) - Affinity V2-Universallizenz 

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Hi there is a simple bug on text selection on all Affinity software - Photo, Designer and Publisher.  If you start with the text tool and then select a font you want to use the font selection reverts to Arial. This exists with the Art Text Tool as well as the Frame Text Tool.  The only workaround is to start typing in Arial and then change the text selection - and while this workaround works it really slows down my workflow, and honestly it's really quite annoying. This was not the case in previous betas and also with the MAS versions. Please fix.

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3 hours ago, JesusSheep said:

Is  color mode Disabled In Beta (Lab,Rgb,,8,16)?

Sorry, what are you seeing?

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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17 hours ago, JesusSheep said:

Is  color mode Disabled In Beta (Lab,Rgb,,8,16)?

Hi, is this your first 1.7 beta? The colour format fly-out on the Document menu is now found on the Convert Format / ICC Profile option (still under the Document menu). It allows you to convert bit depth and colour profile at the same time. You could for example go from 32-bit sRGB (which is unbounded) to 16-bit ProPhoto/ROMM RGB to preserve values that would have been out of bounds with sRGB but still available in 32-bit.

Product Expert (Affinity Photo) & Product Expert Team Leader

@JamesR_Affinity for tutorial sneak peeks and more
Official Affinity Photo tutorials

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Hi, for whatever it’s worth, I’ve used the beta here and there, probably three different versions of the 1.7 beta, and this most recent one feels significantly slower and more of a memory hog than the other versions of the 1.7 beta I’ve used. Previously, while using the 1.7 beta, everything I did felt incredibly fast compared to Affinity Photo 1.6, but after updating to this build a few days ago, it feels like things have slowed down significantly. It’s slightly better than 1.6, but it honestly feels like most of the major gains I noticed are gone. I’ve used it on two occasions to edit a photo and both times I’ve had to restart my computer after editing the photo because it gets the fan going so crazy even after closing other apps. I’m using an old computer (2013 MBP with 8 GB memory), but I was using the same computer for the other betas. 

 

My experience may be unique to me, but just in case you’ve made any changes that would be influencing this I thought I would let you know. I hadn’t updated the beta for a little while, so I can’t pinpoint at which point in the beta process this change might have been. Sorry, I know that isn’t very helpful.

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Bear Forester, I am in total agreement with your post.  I have been working on a very large panorama and noticed the same problem.  Saving this file is almost impossible yet there is no indication that AP  is not responding in the finder, no spinning wheel just trying hard to save.  Although the file is just sort of 5Gb, it was saving easily in the last iteration.  

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Wondering if I had done something to slow the program down, I went back into the pano to take a look at my steps.  Decided to delete it and start anew.  This time using Capture Pro I did some adjustments then exported 14 images in tiff format.  I created the pano in beta .130, Very quick.  But then the problems began.  I tried to quit the program and could not do that.  It completely hung my computer that would not shut down giving the message that AP was still open.  It wasn't but the finder continued to show that it was active.  I force quit my computer.  Reset, restart.  AP would not open.  I am sure at this point the beta file had come down corrupted, so I completely deleted it, and downloaded again.  

Then using the 14 images I recreated the pano without a problem.  The pano is 5.19 GB, and the program is running swimmingly. 

So my suspect was correct.  The original file was corrupted during download which I did from the Forum site, not thru auto update.  

Problem seems to be solved.  I have an older iMac (27-inch, Late 2013) 16 GB memory, sans Metal. 

 

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On 5/26/2019 at 4:50 PM, abarkalo said:

Hi there is a simple bug on text selection on all Affinity software - Photo, Designer and Publisher.  If you start with the text tool and then select a font you want to use the font selection reverts to Arial. This exists with the Art Text Tool as well as the Frame Text Tool.  The only workaround is to start typing in Arial and then change the text selection - and while this workaround works it really slows down my workflow, and honestly it's really quite annoying. This was not the case in previous betas and also with the MAS versions. Please fix.

Logged. This affects all release candidates. Thanks :) 

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@Bear Forester and @p_mac - I think we really need dev to comment on this as I don't know what may have changed. I haven't experienced this at all :( If doing the same process in 1.6 is faster and more fluid, we need to get more info. Edit - I have just seen p_mac's second reply. I'm pleased you think you've cracked it. 

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