Imerge Pro: New Features & Updates

Highlights

New in Imerge Pro Version 2021.5

• Added a Median Blur effect which blurs the image using a median filter, perfect for reducing noise while maintaining structure.
• Added a Dot Matrix effect which transforms your image into a grid of dots, reminiscent of a Dot matrix printer.
• Added a Tile effect which allows you to quickly tile an image without the need for layer duplication.
• Added a Reflection effect which allows you to position mirror lines, perfect for adding reflections to subjects in your composite. You can also set the number and rotation of the mirror lines to create kaleidoscopic effects.
• Added a Cartoon effect that smooths and posterizes the image, as well as overlaying pen lines to the edges. All to give the image a cartoon-style appearance.
• Added a Posterize effect which reduces the color detail to produce blocks of color.
• Added a Solarize effect which creates the appearance of a film negative that has been exposed to light during development.
• Added a Color Vibrance effect that is perfect for adding color to grayscale textures, like fractal patterns or particles.

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Highlights

New in Imerge Pro Version 2021.3

• Added a preset browser sidebar with live previews of the presets that can be applied. This is used to favorite, categorise, create, update and apply effect stack presets making it much easier than before to find the look you want.
• Updated our effect add menu to provide a faster, cleaner UI, whilst adding new features. You can now hover over effects in the list to view a preview of the effect along with a description of example use cases. The menu now also tracks and shows which effects you use, this, in combination with the new ability to favorite effects makes finding the effects you want easier.
• Added a Caustics effect that can be used to simulate both the light and distortion effects found in water refraction.
• Added a Color Balance effect which is used to balance the red, green and blue colors in a layer’s shadows, midtones and highlights.
• Added an Emboss effect, which can create a colored or monochrome emboss of your layer.
• Added an Inverted Highpass effect which is great for smoothing skin. This workflow is further assisted in this effect with the addition of an optional skin matte generation.
• Added a Mosaic effect that turns your image into a mosaic tile pattern. This effect has multiple options to change the mosaic such as tile shape, color variation and lightning.
• Added a Pencil Sketch effect that effortlessly converts an image into a pencil drawing, both in greyscale and full-color. There are many options for adjusting the sketch too, such as the pencil’s thickness, roughness, color, and many more.
• Added a Roughen Edges effect to add fractal-based noise variation to the edges of an image.
• Added a Shadows & Highlights effect which gives much finer control of adjusting the highlights and shadows of an image.

Details

Enhancements

• The color gradient UI has been improved to give you more control. You can now change the end color’s position and adjust the balance between two stops using a midpoint control.
• Text layers are now instantly editable when they are added.
• Content text items are now shown with their full font styles applied.
• A new downsample dropdown has been added in conjunction with a new canvas size downsample setting. Using these, you control the trade-off between editor performance and editor quality. Exports are unaffected.
• You can now drag your mouse up/down while picking a tone in the Curves, Saturation Editor, and Black & White effects to immediately begin editing its value.
• The Saturation Editor control handles adding new points better than before.
• The Vignette effect now has a blend mode option and opacity slider to control how the vignette is applied.
• Added extra canvas controls to the Keystone Correction and Quad Warp effects to make them easier to use.
• Handles on the Curves effect’s control are no longer removed when they cross each other. And are now easier to select.

Bug Fixes

• When a new text layer is added, the text’s size now better suits the size of your canvas.
• Improved gradients to make their rate of change smoother.
• Fixed an issue where some Panasonic S1 RAW files would not load correctly.
• Fixed an issue where some Nikon Z6 Raw files would not load correctly.
• Added option to disable chromatic aberration correction on RAW images.
• The Image Luminance Mask no longer generates more undo commands than it should.
• Removed the handle limit for the Curves, Saturation Editor, and Black & White effects.
• Reset layer properties are now undoable.
• Fixed issues where certain asset properties were not undoable or not undoing properly.
• Font and style selection no longer causes stability issues with certain machine setups.
• Improved how text behaves when batch exporting with multiple output sizes.
• The Tone coloring effect now resets correctly to its defaults.
• After inverting a Gradient mask, its controls now work correctly.
• The canvas size no longer reports incorrectly in the canvas settings dialog.
• Fixed an issue where some batch output items were not undoable or not undoing properly.
• Fixed an issue where some effects had minimums and maximums that didn’t match their canvas controls.

Details

Enhancements

• The curves effect now has the ability to apply curves in the HSV, YUV, LAB, and CMYK color spaces.
• Selecting a point on a vector mask now shows the adjacent points’ control points, allowing you to see all of the control points that make up the curve.
• The LUT effect now has a dropdown that will allow you to quickly pick another LUT file in the same folder after selecting a LUT file.
• Effects that allow you to pick images now show a preview of the selected image and quickly pick another from within the same folder.
• The “Set canvas to same size” option now also applies to group layers and selections of multiple layers.
• The Chromatic Aberration effect now has the option to soften the aberration applied.
• Slightly adjusted the Fractal Distortion effect’s UI.
• Default layer names now better suit the type of layer that has been added. This also extends to the new layer presets.

Bug Fixes

• Improved visibility of canvas controls against bright backgrounds.
• When a layer is copied, its layer name will have “copy” added to the end.
• When an item is added with a preset, the name of the item will now be the name of the preset.
• Using Imerge with different DPIs and scale factors no longer causes style, text, and layout issues.
• Exporting to HDR image formats no longer results in data loss.
• Fixed issue with the Keystone correction effect not applying if done in a certain order.
• Fixed issue where you could create a group from a selection that you shouldn’t be able to.
• “Set canvas to same size” no longer resizes the canvas incorrectly.
• Duplicating a group will now copy it next to the existing group instead of inside it.
• Fixed issues when using keyboard shortcuts on the saturation editor.
• Fixed issue where the shadow and highlight overlay colors wouldn’t update until the project was changed.
• The mask display mode is no longer retained after deleting all masks.
• Fixed issue with the “updates behind” not appearing correctly sometimes.
• The Saturation Editor and Tone Coloring effects now work correctly on HDR image formats.
• The Sharpen effect no longer produces incorrect results on HDR image formats.
• HDR image detail is no longer lost if exported with the Lens Distortion or Vignette effects applied.
• Adding multiple images with “resize” checked no longer results in incorrect scaling in some circumstances.
• Setting a custom logo correctly checks for a 2x version.
• Custom logos are now set and reset correctly.
• Fixed an issue that would allow website navigation in the tutorials web feed on the project screen.
• Fixed a minor styling issue on mask mode labels.
• Fixed a minor styling issue on effect reset icons.
• Changing an image on disk now correctly updates in Imerge.
• Certain characters are no longer incorrectly prevented from being used as item names.
• The Luminance Key effect no longer behaves incorrectly on HDR images.
• Layer editors no longer become detached from the underlying images.
• Fixed an issue with the crop tool if you used the right mouse button at the same time.
• Fixed an issue where the crop tool label would report values higher than the proposed crop.
• Using multi-byte characters in the text layer’s text content item no longer causes instability issues.
• The canvas resize dialog now correctly appears after loading an image file directly.
• Fixed an issue where the cursor would reset on the batch output folder name field.
• Different types of HDR images no longer have different thumbnails.
• Using the Colorize black and white effect on HDR images now works as intended.
• Fixed an issue on macOS where the color dropper preview grid was misaligned.
• Metadata fields on the batch outputs are now reset correctly.
• Fixed an issue where delete an export preset would reset to the wrong file type.
• Imerge no longer gets stuck loading the same asset.
• Slightly improved the selection of vector mask points.
• Importing multiple layers to a single layer no longer causes multiple canvas resizes.
• Opening the preview window while a render is in progress no longer causes instability issues.
• Fixed an issue where an effect’s canvas UI would not reappear correctly in a specific case.
• The batch completed dialog now shows milliseconds correctly.
• Undoing while the color picker is open no longer causes instability issues.
• Vector mask points no longer retain their selection incorrectly while points are being added.
• Using brush masks on specific GPUs no longer causes instability issues.

Details

Enhancements

• Changed the way the canvas resize dialog works to speed up initial asset importing.
• Slightly improved the performance of our render engine.
• The Black & White, Colorize Black & White, Saturation Editor, Linear Gradient, Radial Gradient, and Rotational Motion Blur effects are now significantly faster.
• You can now change the mask overlay color in the settings menu.
• Improved and fixed some issues with the blend-if controls.

Bug Fixes

• Dragging a layer to the bottom of a closed group is now ordered correctly.
• Fixed an issue where the layer’s opacity slider would behave incorrectly if it were clicked at the bottom.
• Resetting a color mask now resets all of its properties correctly.
• Resetting the transform of a text layer will no longer change the layer’s size to the canvas size.
• Fixed instability when you dragged images onto the canvas from a web browser.
• Fixed icon style for crop and snap buttons when you are on the batch view.
• Locked layers can no longer be moved via multiple selections.
• Resetting a vector mask now resets all of its properties correctly.
• Fixed an issue where resetting a preset drop-down would reset the selected item as well.
• Fixed an issue where batch processing was consuming more memory than it should have.
• Fixed an issue where a text layer’s size mode would not size to fixed when you resized them.
• Fixed an issue where canceling the save of a project template could cause the application to get stuck.
• Fixed instability when closing the application while the preview window is open.
• Fixed issue with the Threshold effect not working correctly at 100% opacity.
• Fixed issue with Long shadow rendering incorrectly when scaling the layer.

Details

Enhancements

• Added more controls to the Luminance Key effect.
• Added keyboard toggles for hiding and showing effects and masks.
• Added opacity sliders next to some color pickers.
• Added a color dropper on the saturation editor.
• The “Set canvas to same size” (previously “Trim canvas to layer”) feature now takes into account the rotation and scaling of the selected layer.
• Added the ability to hold shift while dragging a layer to lock it to move only horizontally or vertically.
• Added option for a matte color to replace the alpha when exporting to the non-alpha format JPEG.
• Added ability to configure how the batch system handles duplicate files.
• Tooltips now show their associated keyboard shortcuts.
• The font size dropdown can now be adjusted using the arrow keys in conjunction with optional keyboard modifiers.
• The save project dialog will now remember the last save location and will use that as the default for the next new project.
• Masks on adjustment layers can now be shown or overlayed.
• Improved support for high dpi monitors on Windows.
• Improved the selection behavior when copying and pasting multiple layers.
• Improved the performance of effects and masks in the UI.
• Improved UI at greater than 100% scaling.

Bug Fixes

• The color in the color picker can now be accepted, even if it has not been changed.
• Some stability and performance issues with AMD graphics cards have been addressed.
• The zoom to fit option in the print preview window now works correctly.
• Applying Exposure below other effects no longer causes rendering issues.
• Navigating to text inputs using the Tab key now works correctly.
• Loading a project with unlinked assets no longer causes stability issues.
• Color dodge blend mode now works as intended.
• Failing to load RAW images no longer causes instability issues.
• Making a crop with a width or height of 0 no longer causes issues.
• Having multiple content items on a text layer no longer causes stability issues.
• Loading a project after a project had already failed to load no longer causes instability issues.
• Dragging vector mask points no longer causes rendering issues.
• Drop-down menus no longer unexpectedly open on other monitors.
• Using Exposure no longer causes single-pixel artifacts to occur.
• The Chroma Key’s color match background feature now works as intended.
• Loading RAW image files no longer causes pink highlights or image artifacts.

Details

Enhancements

• Metadata can now be customized per batch output.
• The project search on the home screen now also matches projects based on layer names and image filenames used inside the project.
• Suitable input fields, most commonly rotation-based, now automatically wrap around.
• Ability to configure the UI, so the layers and layer controls are on the left instead of the right.
• H and V keyboard shortcuts for hand and selection tools.
• Added ability to rename effects.
• Added ability to preserve aspect ratio when resizing area masks and radial gradients when holding down the shift key.
• Chroma key matte can now be blurred to introduce a uniform softening to all its edges.
• Content items can now be copied and pasted.
• HUD labels now stay within the viewer region.
• Added Targa import support.
• Added support for embedded grayscale color profiles in imported images.

Bug Fixes

• Hex color field on the color selector now updates the selected color when changed.
• Multiple layers selected from the layer list now properly move together when dragged or nudged.
• Changing the dpi of a canvas template now properly accounts for template orientation.
• Fixed an issue where the curves effect white picker was not working correctly.
• Zoom to fit can now zoom to over 100%.
• Area mask HUD and controls now have the same maximum softness.
• Improved layout of vector mask controls.
• Fixes an issue where you could paste masks and effects onto layers that could not support them.
• Fixed last opened project sorting on the home screen.
• Layer locking and unlocking are now on the same keyboard shortcut.