FotoSketcher Studio 4.40 Beta 1 is ready for testing

 

Hi all,

The first beta of FotoSketcher Studio 4.40 is now available for download and testing. Alongside the two headline features I mentioned in the last post - light mode and a new crosshatching effect - this build brings a good number of workflow and user interface improvements, plus a few safeguards to help you avoid losing work.

Here is what is new in version 4.40 Beta 1:

- Light mode

FotoSketcher now has a light theme in addition to the existing dark one. You can switch between the two at any time, and your choice is remembered. Click on the little icon in the top right of the window to toggle between modes.

- New Crosshatch effect

A new Crosshatch effect has been added to the Pen & Ink effects.

- Settings are now remembered between sessions

Both your interface language and your dark/light mode choice now persist between sessions. Set them once and FotoSketcher will start up the way you left it, instead of reverting to the defaults each time. More persistent settings will be added in the future.

- Script Editor minimizes while a script runs

When you run a script, the Script Editor can now be minimized so you can see the result being built on the main image without the editor window getting in the way. It comes back as soon as the script finishes.

- Embedded example scripts

A set of ready-made example scripts is now included directly in the application, so you have working scripts without having to copy anything from elsewhere. These follow on from the scripting tutorial I posted on this blog recently.

- Keyboard navigation in the menu (F10)

The menu now supports full keyboard navigation. Press F10 to open it, then move around and select items entirely from the keyboard.

- Save and overwrite safeguards

FotoSketcher now checks for two situations:

• When you exit with an image that has unsaved changes, it will prompt you before closing rather than discarding the result silently.
• When a save would overwrite an existing file, it now warns you first so you do not accidentally replace a file you wanted to keep.

- Lots of UI improvements

This build also includes a wide range of smaller user interface improvements for better usability.

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You can download Beta 1 (for Windows) here:

https://fotosketcher.com/beta/FotoSketcher_4.40_beta1.zip

A macOS build will follow shortly.

As always, any feedback is very welcome - bugs, oddities, or anything that does not feel right on your particular setup, especially around the new light mode and the save/overwrite prompts. Please leave a comment below or send me an email at contact@fotosketcher.com.

Happy testing!

David

A sneak peek into what's to come...

Hi all,

Apart from doing some behind-the-scenes optimizations and bug fixes, two very visible new features will be present in v4.40:

• a light mode
• a brand new crosshatching effect

Stay tuned ;)

David

FotoSketcher Studio 4.30 is officially here! 🎉

Hi all,

After a good round of beta and release candidate testing, I am happy to announce that FotoSketcher Studio 4.30 is now available for download. A big thank you to everyone who tested the earlier builds and sent feedback - it really does make a difference.

This version brings two main new effects, a handful of workflow additions and the usual round of polish. 

Watercolor done with the default sample script

Here is what is new.

New LUTs effect 🎨

In the Photo Lab category you will find a new LUTs (Lookup Tables) effect for custom colour grading. It comes with 18 presets built right into the application (Cinematic, Kodachrome, Golden hour, Portrait and more), each with a live preview so you can see the look before applying it. Right-click the preview to compare with your original image. And if you have your own .cube files, you can load those from disk too.

New "Stylize" category

I have added a brand-new Stylize category with four new effects. Three of them (Mosaic, Circles and Triangles) are built on the same space-filling idea, turning your photo into tiled mosaics, clusters of circles, or a low-poly triangle look. The fourth, Cartoon, is a bit different: it gives a clean graphic style with defined lines and solid colours. A little tip - set the colour intensity to 0 and Cartoon draws a pure outline drawing with no fill. Combined with the "Do not erase background" option, you can run it on top of any other effect to add crisp contours in two quick steps.

Auto-Enhance and Full Reset

Two small but handy additions. Auto-Enhance (just press E) tries to optimise your source photo - exposure, white balance, local contrast - for a 'dehazed', natural-looking starting point. And Full Reset clears everything back to a clean slate in one step (working image, history, LUT, script, brushes and sliders) without having to close and reopen the program. Press Ctrl+Shift+N, or right-click the exit button.

Scripts

The script engine has been updated to support all the new effects, with a few new commands and improved help. If you would like some inspiration, the recent scripting tutorial on this blog walks through several ready-made example scripts.

The usual improvements

The interface now uses new colour accents for better readability, the history gallery has had a few tweaks, and you can now open .webp images directly. On top of that, this release includes some performance improvements and a good number of bug fixes.

You can download FotoSketcher Studio 4.30 for free (Windows and MacOS) here: https://fotosketcher.com/download-fotosketcher/

As always, thank you for your support, whether you test early builds, share your artwork, or help keep the project free with a donation. It is all greatly appreciated!

Happy sketching 😊

David 

FotoSketcher 4.30 Release Candidate is now available for testing

Hi all,

The Release Candidate for FotoSketcher 4.30 is now ready for download. This build is feature-complete: everything planned for 4.30 is in place, and the focus from here is on weeding out any remaining bugs before the final release. If the RC holds up well across different systems, it will become version 4.30 with little or no change.

For anyone who did not follow the beta versions, here is the full rundown of what is new in 4.30 compared to 4.20.

- New "Stylize" category with four new effects

A new Stylize category groups four brand-new effects, all built on the same space-filling algorithm:

• Mosaic turns your photos into classic tiled mosaic patterns.
• Cartoon produces a graphic style with defined lines and solid colours. Tip: With the colour intensity slider set to 0 it draws a pure outline drawing, with no colour fill. Combined with the "Do not erase background" option, you can apply any effect first and then run Cartoon at intensity 0 on top to add crisp contours to any result in two steps.
• Circles fills the image with circles of varying sizes that follow the colour edges in the photo.
• Triangles tiles the image with triangles for a low-poly illustration feel.

- Lookup Tables (LUTs)

A new LUTs effect has been added to the Photo Lab category for custom colour grading. It ships with 18 presets built directly into the application, selectable from a new "Select LUT…" button with a live preview of each look (right-click the preview to compare with the original):

Architecture, Blues, Cinematic, Cinematic saturation, Cyan skies, Film print, Film tone 1, Film tone 2, Golden hour, HDR, HDR natural, Kodachrome, Monochrome artistic, Monochrome balanced, Monochrome vintage, Portrait, Rich colors, Vibrant light.

You can also load your own custom .cube files from disk.

- Auto-Enhance

A new Auto-Enhance feature attempts to optimize the source image (exposure, white balance, local contrast) for a clean, natural-looking result. It is available from the menu or by pressing E.

- Script engine additions

The script engine has been updated to support the new effects (LUTs, Mosaic, Cartoon, Circles and Triangles), and three new commands are now available in the Script Editor:

• ENHANCE - auto-enhances the working image in a single line.
• LUT_FILE <path> - loads a .cube file from disk for the next LUTs effect step.
• LUT_EMBEDDED <name> - selects one of the 18 built-in presets by name (case-insensitive, spaces allowed).

If you would like to see these commands in action, the recent scripting tutorial on the blog includes several ready-made example scripts that use them.

- Full Reset

A new Full Reset function clears everything back to the application's initial state in one step: working image, history, LUT, script, custom brushes and all sliders, without having to close and reopen the program. To trigger it, right-click the exit button (the icon that turns red in the icon bar) or press Ctrl+Shift+N.

- UI improvements

• Thumbnails in the history gallery now show a blue dot to indicate images that have not been modified, making it easier to spot your original source images at a glance.
• Hovering over a thumbnail now displays a tooltip with the filename and file size.
• Added support for opening .webp images, a format often found on the web.
• Improved Italian and Korean translations - thanks to Roberto and Jaehyung!

- Bug fixes

• The window now correctly re-scales when moved between monitors with different DPI settings.
• Fixed an issue on macOS where the splash screen could reappear on top of the main window after being dismissed.
• When the "Erase background" option is off, the Cartoon effect now correctly blends the pre-effect pixels into the output instead of discarding them.
• Various smaller fixes and polish based on Beta 2 feedback.

Plus some under-the-hood code optimizations have also been made to (hopefully) improve overall rendering speed.

You can download the Release Candidate (for Windows) here: https://fotosketcher.com/beta/FotoSketcher_4.30_RC.zip
And for MacOS (Intel or Apple CPUs) here: 
https://fotosketcher.com/beta/FotoSketcher_4.30_RC_MacOS.zip

As always, any feedback is very welcome, especially anything that does not feel right on your particular setup. Please leave a comment below or send me an email at contact@fotosketcher.com.

Happy testing!

David