PhotoLine is an image and graphics editor for any task. You can edit images or create them for the Internet, but also create documents for printing (PDF).

PhotoLine offers everything for professional results: CMYK and Lab color space, color management with ICC profiles, adjustment layers, actions and 16/32-bit color depth per channel. You can edit vector graphics and edit PDF files.

Some new features of version 25 are:

• Painting tools with document preview: Tools such as the paint or filter brush show a preview in the document.
• Cryptomatte: Cryptomatte data from OpenEXR files can be converted into (layer) masks.
• Numerous improvements and optimizations in many areas.

If you double-click an element in the text ruler, the associated value is activated in the Tool Settings and you can change the value numerically directly.

The replacement of text shortcuts is more intuitive. Whereas previously text shortcuts always had to be terminated with a space or a tab, this now depends on the text shortcut. Text shortcuts that end with a letter or a number are replaced by typing any other character, text shortcuts with special characters are replaced by any non-special character.

In the tool settings of the text tool, in addition to the bold and italic buttons, there is now also a list of the styles offered by the current font family.

• A triple-click now selects paragraphs.
• On Windows, Ctrl+Up/Down Arrow now works paragraph by paragraph. If the Shift key is also pressed, the selection is made paragraph by paragraph.
• On Windows, PhotoLine can now also use fonts without Postscript names. On macOS this is still not possible due to the constrains of the OS.

• The Curve Creation tool no longer automatically closes the paths of new vector layers. If you want to close a path, you can either do this using the Close Path switch in the Tool Settings or by simply clicking on the starting point of the path.
• The Curve Creation tool now shows what the path segment you create with a mouse click will look like when you move the mouse.
• Right-click closes the current path and starts a new vector layer.

If you use a gradient color for the layer styles “Outline outside”, “Outline inside”, “Glow outside” and “Glow inside”, the gradient can now also be bent around the object in addition to the previous planar display:

(in the menu at “Effects > Layer Styles”)

• Layout > Vector > Optimize Vector Layer
  If a tool which shows the handles of a vector layer is active when “Optimize Vector Layer” is called up, they also remain visible in the document preview. This is useful because you can immediately see how many vector points remain. Sometimes, however, the handles are distracting because they may obscure the result. Therefore, you can now show and hide them with the “Optimize Vector Layer” dialog open by calling the “View > Show Layer Handles” menu function.

You can now group the elements in various lists. This makes it easier to keep an overview, especially if there are many entries.

• In list boxes with groups, these can be opened and closed with the middle mouse button. This means that the mouse no longer has to be placed exactly over the group triangle.
• As already in documents, the content of user interface controls can now also be scrolled using the middle mouse button.

• Find Layers: Shortcut
  Previously, the search function of the layer list had the same keyboard shortcut as “Edit > Search”. This had two disadvantages. On the one hand, the shortcut for text search only worked if a text layer was active, otherwise the search was performed in the layer list. And vice versa, when a text layer was active, the search was always for text and not in the layer list.
  The new keyboard shortcut for the layer list search function is Ctrl+Shift+F (Windows) or Command+Shift+F (macOS).
  If the input focus is on the layer list, the previous keyboard shortcut works as usual.
• Find Layers: linecolor and fillcolor
  The specification of the color searched for is now more flexible. If the color model can be clearly determined by specifying the color values, the color model no longer needs to be explicitly specified. “000000” is therefore RGB black, “00” is gray-black. Only if the opacity is also specified, the color model is still necessary, e.g. for “RGB00000080”, which would be interpreted as CMYK without the “RGB”.
• Search for (color) opacity
  If you have to create a print document in PDF format using PDF/X-1a or PDF/X-3, you usually want to avoid transparent colors because these are converted into image data and this increases the file size and reduces the quality.
  To make this easier, there are the search commands “lineopacity”, “fillopacity” and “opacity”. “lineopacity” and “fillopacity” search for the corresponding attributes, “opacity” also contains the layer intensity in addition to these two. “&opacity!=100%” therefore only shows those layers whose colors are completely opaque and whose layer intensity is not equal to 100%.
• Functions of the Edit Menu
  If it has the input focus, the Layer List now supports the commands “Delete”, “Select All” and “Deselect”.
• Path Text
  If you let text run along a path/vector layer, you can now drag the vector layer onto the text layer in the Layer List. This declutters the layer list and the layer structure makes it immediately clear along which path the text runs.

• Dockable Dialogs: “Close” and “Close All”
  The “Close” and “Close all” commands are available in the window menu of the dockable dialogs. “Close” only closes the active tab, “Close all” closes all tabs in the bar.
  In addition, you can hide the close button of the dockable dialogs in the settings with “Display > User Interface > Panels with Close Button”. This prevents you from accidentally closing a dialog after configuring your interface. It also saves space.
  You can still close the dialogs via the window menu or the main menu.
• Page List
  The Page List now has a toolbar at the bottom that allows quick access to the most important functions. If the “New page(s)” icon is selected while holding down the Ctrl key (Windows) or Command key (macOS), a new page is created directly without any further dialog.
• View > Lists > Clipart List
  You can now drag SVG and PLD files directly onto the Clipart List.
• New guides are optionally aligned to the lasso.
• The non-modal color editor and the color editor in the drop-down list now also have a slider for opacity.
  
• “View > Panels > Picture Info” has a new, space-saving list mode.

The painting tools now have a document preview. Previously, this was only the case with the copy brush. The preview allows you to see the effect of the tool as soon as you move the mouse over the image. This applies to all classic painting tools such as painting brushes and so on, but also to more complex tools such as the stamp, the filter brush or the color replacement pen.
The preview even works with layer masks and working layers.

You can configure the preview in the settings under “Working > Mouse”:

Here you can also set whether and how the outline of the tool brush should be displayed and what the mouse pointer should look with painting tools.

You can also optionally change the small icon field of the image toolbar in the settings under “Usage > Toolbars > Image tools” to suit your requirements:

In this example, the icons for displaying the lasso and for respecting the mask have been removed and replaced by the icons for displaying the brush outline and the document preview.

Cryptomatte data is created by 3D render programs and is used to create masks for the individual objects in a scene. Cryptomatte data is usually contained in OpenEXR files.
PhotoLine supports Cryptomatte data and can create masks from it:

(in the Document Attributes (“View > Panels > Document Attributes”) with the entry “Cryptomatte”)

If the gradient tool was applied to an image, it was already possible to edit the gradient - even after reloading - but only if the gradient was completely opaque. The gradient was not allowed to have transparent colors and had to have full intensity and the “Normal” mode.

These restrictions no longer exist. The gradient can now be edited without restriction.

(in the Toolbox)

• There is now a function for evenly distributing the gradient colors.
• If colors are moved in the gradient bar by holding down the Alt key, their positions snap to “even” values.

• Curve Editor
  If “Text input” is called up in the curve editor with the Shift key pressed, a formula for generating the curve can be entered. For example, a sine curve can be generated quickly:
• Curve Editor
  By pressing the Shift key, you could previously force curve points to be moved vertically only. Using the Ctrl key (Windows) or Command key (macOS), this is now also possible horizontally.
• Curves
  If the curve mode is changed by holding down the Shift key, the mode of all curves of the gradation is changed. So if you set the All curve from “Spline” to “Bezier”, the curves of the individual channels are also changed.
• Hue/Saturation
  The color under the mouse is now marked in the color range bar.
  In addition, the “Colorize” mode now works with greater accuracy at higher bit depths.
• External Programs and Layer Masks
  If an external program is called up with “Layer” mode, the layer masks and adjustment layers of the active layer are retained.
• External Programs and Selection
  If an external program is called with “Layer” mode and the active layer has a selection, only the selected area is changed by the external program.

• Additional channels are now read better.
• Brushes: Brushes with a higher bit depth are now also read.

• Raw Import
  With CR3 files, the EXIF data is read better.
• PDF Import
  PDF files with a large number of objects are now imported more quickly.
• PNG Import
  Defective files are read better.
• macOS: AVIF Export
  The macOS version of PhotoLine now also supports exporting AVIF files.

On Windows, the scripting connection to Powershell has been improved.

In addition, PowerShell scripts that are located in the “Automation” folder in the PhotoLine settings directory are listed in the menu under “Filter > Scripts”. This means that you can now also integrate PowerShell scripts directly into PhotoLine and assign them a keyboard shortcut, for example.

You can query the layer compositions of a document and activate a layer composition. This makes it possible, for example, to switch through all layer compositions using a script and then export each as a separate file.

You can use the Alert command to issue warning messages in a script if, for example, a document does not meet the requirements that the script needs.

• Browse
  More file formats are read in the background without slowing down operation.
• Browse
  The name of the color profile embedded in the file is displayed under “Prop”.
• Batch Converting
  Batch Converting can optionally retain the date of the original file.
• Edit > Paste
  Base64 images can be pasted directly from the clipboard.
• Edit > Paste
  In document mode, images are inserted in their physical size by default. It is now also possible to insert images unscaled (customizable in the settings under “Extended > System”).
• Layout > Page > Save Page(s)
  All file formats are now permitted for “Save page(s)”.

• Version 24
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