With version 1.7 of Affinity Photo in the pipeline, the beta for the next update is now available for you to take for a spin…

The next update to Affinity Photo 1.7 for Mac and Windows isn’t too far away, and if you fancy taking part in the beta, and own Affinity Photo on desktop already, you can download it now.

Here’s some of the new things you can look forward to:

Brushes

Affinity Photo 1.7 introduces a new sub-brush mechanism , developed in conjunction with Paolo Limoncelli from 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.

, developed in conjunction with Paolo Limoncelli from 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. 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.

(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.

and 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 on the fly nozzle rotation.

RAW

The RAW processing engine in Photo has been rewritten—producing better results and improved performance.

RAW files now load much more quickly.

Reimplemented support for XTrans sensors.

The denoise algorithm has been rewritten.

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.

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.

filter with advanced presets support. New Voronoi filter.

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

, and filters have been rewritten (using technology from the ). More filters are now available as Live Filters —including the new Procedural Texture filter.

—including the new 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.

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.

now supports output levels. The White Balance Adjustment Layer has been rewritten.

has been rewritten. The Selective Colour Adjustment Layer has been rewritten.

has been rewritten. PSD import / export of adjustments has been improved.

The Vibrance Adjustment Layer has been rewritten.

has been rewritten. The Recolour Adjustment Layer has gained a lightness slider.

The Crop Tool has been rewritten—it now supports resolution changes, absolute pixel size and has a much improved pre-set mechanism.

has been rewritten—it now supports resolution changes, absolute pixel size and has a much improved pre-set mechanism. The Sponge Brush Tool now gives more correct / pleasant results.

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. Affinity 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.

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. Affinity 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’.

Affinity Photo now supports custom document presets.

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

—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.

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!

Using Affinity Photo on Mac?

We’ve also put a lot of effort into taking advantage of the powerful discrete GPUs in modern Mac hardware and are seeing huge performance improvements. 1.7 also now supports external GPUs on mac too! We’d love to know what you think!

A new look?

You will notice that we have revamped the icons for 1.7—primarily to ensure better consistency between different operating systems. We are still refining these, and will talk more about it closer to the 1.7 launch.

You may also notice our amazing new splash screen, illustrated by the brilliant Michał Karcz.

Download the Affinity Photo 1.7 beta today!

You can download the Affinity Photo 1.7 beta using the buttons below:

For MacFor Windows

PLEASE NOTE that you need to have a paid for version of Affinity Photo 1.6 installed to take part in the beta. If this is your first time using a customer beta of an Affinity app, it’s also 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.

Remember…

As this is a beta it is 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 where you may be adversely affected by the application failing, including the total loss of any documents.

Thank you for all your help!

We hope you enjoy the new features and improvements in version 1.7, and as always, if you find any bugs or have any suggestions to improve Affinity Photo, please post on the relevant forums here.

It’s your feedback that will help to shape what version 1.7 of Affinity Photo will be. We really value all your help and support.