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Affinity Photo Customer Beta (1.6 - Beta 1)


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Status: Beta Release

Purpose: New features, fixes

Requirements: Purchased Affinity Photo

Mac App Store: Not Submitted

Download: Here

 

This is the first 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 that may be adversely affected by the application failing. In addition it is definitely worth noting that files created in Affinity 1.6 may not open in 1.5 so always make a copy of your important documents before opening them in 1.6 to ensure you do not accidentally overwrite them and are unable to open them in your 1.5 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.

 

Fixes/Improvements:

  • First and foremost, the 1.6 version is mainly about: Light UI! (go to Preferences->User Interface)
  • Improved view pan/zoom performance and new pixel-differencing pixel shader
  • Improved performance with large documents
  • New font chooser dropdown with recents, used fonts and favourites
  • New Glyph browser
  • Stroke stabiliser for all pencil and brush tools
  • Align to key items (first/last selected)
  • Text frame vertical alignment options
  • Fit frame to text (double-click on bottom centre handle).
  • Transform panel uses the rotation centre
  • Scale/shear can now be performed about rotation centre
  • Double-click now resets shape handles and rotate/shear handles
  • Many PDF export improvements including vector export of multi-stop gradients
  • Numerous bug fixes and stability improvements
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Isn’t it nice? The is an update, and what happens? Before testing and trying – demanding additional features!

That is really the best way to motivate the engineering team!

 

I get that my question may come across as crass, but the reasoning is actually much less entitled than it seems. I literally only need the two features I listed above, everything else in this software could be left as is and I wouldn't mind, because it works perfectly fine for my purposes. I think that speaks volumes about the top notch quality of the work done by the team, especially for a software this young. :)

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Oh Wow, the light UI is lovely!  And if my eye had hands, they'd be clapping their little hearts out.  Thank you so much for taking care of all of us, the one who love the dark UI (beautiful but squinty) and those like me who need..and like!...the lovely light one.

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What do you think about adding GLSL shaders? I love that option in Hexels. It enables users to create features that not a lot of others need and don't warrant a full-on plug-in. 

 

Character Panel

Can you add a "Fonts in Document" option in the list? It would list all fonts used in the current document (even when freshly opened). That way you can hit the ground running when adding to a document from someone else.

 

Also, can you make an interim update to get that Character panel out there sooner? It's absolutely brilliant.

 

So fun, I was typing the first letters of a font's name going 'will that finally wor… whoa!' Full search in the character panel. NICE!

 

 

Glyph Browser

  • Good idea to have that separate from the current selected font. It'd be great though to have an on/off button to toggle between that and the currently selected font (in the character panel). 
  • It'd be cool to be able to drag a glyph from the glyph browser and have it auto generate an 'artistic text tool' object populated with the dragged glyph.

 

Any news on support for colour fonts?

 

Oh yeah and LEVELS effect layer doesn't work anymore. It's an omen I say! Affinity Photo wants a new one :) 

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Brush stabilising  :D

It'd be nice to have these settings closer to the brush's use. Something floatable or a pie menu around the cursor lime Modo or the Autodesk sketching tools.

Window mode. Maybe range mode would be an easier to understand term. 

 

Cropping tool

Still doesn't constrain. Should behave like resizing an item.

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Character Panel

Can you add a "Fonts in Document" option in the list? It would list all fonts used in the current document (even when freshly opened). That way you can hit the ground running when adding to a document from someone else.

The document fonts should be included in the recent fonts section at the top of the font list.

 

Glyph Browser

  • Good idea to have that separate from the current selected font. It'd be great though to have an on/off button to toggle between that and the currently selected font (in the character panel). 
  • It'd be cool to be able to drag a glyph from the glyph browser and have it auto generate an 'artistic text tool' object populated with the dragged glyph.

Thanks for the suggestions.

 

Any news on support for colour fonts?

Not likely to be happening any time soon, I'm afraid.

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If I could choose I would prefer to have a predictive stroke instead of a stabiliser. Just take a look at Autodesk Sketchbook Pro. That app has both modes but the predictive stroke is much more useful because I can not only draw smoother curves but also elipses, circles, straight lines, rectangles, triangles, etc.

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I hope in the next versions Photo will pay more attention to improve quality and UX of existing tools and functions than making its list of features longer and longer. What looks nice on app store and marketing communication does not help on daily basis, when results produced by particular tools matters and small nuances of usability make difference and impact overall experience. Sometimes I have impression that Photo already has more bells and whistles than adobe's counterpart but when it comes to use its poor crop tool, clipping shadow and highlights processing, clunky vignette filter or lack of sticky setting after two yrs of dev, I give up and go back to camera raw quickly. There are more important things waiting for improvement than introducing a new color of user interface, really... Please make a tool, not a toy :)


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Please make a tool, not a toy :)

 

AP & AD are definitely not toys, this is kind of ridiculous. I worked so many years with adobe products and affinity's software is simply outstanding for this price. Don't forget how many customers are satisfied about this great product. Sure, there are always many things to improve, but this is a small company and what they have done so far deserves a lot of respect!

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Document fonts from freshly opened documents definitely don't appear there. Even if, that would be misleading.

Here's how you can test it yourself. Make a document in the store version and open it in the beta. What you were seeing is what happens when you test within the same app since the 'recents' cache isn't flushed after the beta is closed.

 

That's why I made the suggestion of reading out the fonts used in a document. Not everybody in a team uses styles (or reads style guides) and seeing all used fonts in a document in their own list can prevent output errors before they occur. 

 

 

The document fonts should be included in the recent fonts section at the top of the font list.
 

Thanks for the suggestions.
 

Not likely to be happening any time soon, I'm afraid.

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Hmm … I believe the matter is a bit more convoluted, Frank. Try the following:

  • Open the Beta and reset your fonts from the preferences
  • Open a document created either in the App Store or in the Beta version
  • Select the Text Tool and click the font chooser on the context toolbar
  • Now toggle between Recent and Used
  • On my machine, this will add the document fonts to the Used list

I have the impression that the font readout is triggered by the toggling. Do you see the same?  :)

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Bug report: Love the new Font features... when one selects All fonts, there's a blue outline showing that it's selected. Moving left to right, selecting Recent, Used and Favorites, this blue outline does not appear to indicate they're selected. Though interesting, moving right to left from Favorites to Used to Recent, highlights the All incorrectly! Also, I really feel that the fonts should autoscroll as one's cursor hits the bottom or top of the font lists, as if one is trying different fonts in a long list of fonts, you'd have to scroll and auto-scroll via the cursor is far more efficient and expected. Additionally I'll join the voices asking for more contrast or visual cues when a tool is selected, or things like the close box on open documents.

 

Cheers - Timber

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Note, followup: I see the selection contrast in the fonts menu list is better in the Light UI vs the Dark UI. The blue outline of All... Recent, Used, Favorites would help in the Dark one if implemented correctly. – Timber

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Bug report: If I place some artistic Text on a layer over a photo layer background and then try to use the gradient tool on it, the program crashes. I've been able to do this every time I've tried it.

 

Cheers - Timber

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Ah right there's that. I rarely look that far up the screen when working so I haven't noticed. I guess I just figured devs don't put important stuff away from focus areas anyway. Especially when it's so blurry you can hardly read it.

 

The "used" category seems to be what I'm after. No idea why it isn't in the characters panel where it belongs. Makes no sense to just have it in that blurry mess tucked away up top.

 

 

 

 

Hmm … I believe the matter is a bit more convoluted, Frank. Try the following:

  • Open the Beta and reset your fonts from the preferences
  • Open a document created either in the App Store or in the Beta version
  • Select the Text Tool and click the font chooser on the context toolbar
  • Now toggle between Recent and Used
  • On my machine, this will add the document fonts to the Used list

I have the impression that the font readout is triggered by the toggling. Do you see the same?  :)

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