Darkroom app updated with a host of photo-ready enhancements

Darkroom for iPhone, Mac and iPad has seen a host of helpful updates.
Photo: Bergen Co.

Darkroom, the well-known photo- and video-editing app for iOS, iPad and Mac, saw a new software update yesterday with a host of performance enhancements, refinements and bug fixes.

Many of the enhancements in the Darkroom 5.6 update involve image loading and generation, like the ability for the user to set a default format for loading images. User will also find improvements to the crop and transform functions, tweaks to the user interface and quite a lot more.

Darkroom app 5.6 top update: image loading and generation

Bergen, maker of Darkroom, said the largest areas of improvement include image loading and generation. Also signficant: changes to crop and transform, memory improvement in the Photos app extension, sped-up exporting and UI enhancements.

“We rebuilt our image loading and generation infrastructure to provide faster image delivery, more accurate results, and improve reliability,” the company said in its release notes, saying “we made our way through the list of rough edges in the Darkroom experience.”

You can see the full list and descriptions of updates in version 5.6 on Bergen’s Darkroom website.

A lightly edited version of the Darkroom 5.6 release notes appears below.

Image Loading

• We rebuilt our image loading and generation infrastructure to provide faster image delivery, more accurate results, and improve reliability.
• When editing a photo, we now pause library work that might interrupt your interaction with the sliders.
• All image views in the app now share the same image provider, ensuring they’re all up to date, share resources, and are fast/reliable.
• Fixed issues where images got stuck loading forever, plus the following issues. Bug aused thumbnails to be blurry in the grid after editing. Rendering glitches when backgrounding the app quickly while editing. A bug where cropped and/or framed images would stretch if you open the Crop Tool.
• We use a lot less memory in our caching layer, ensuring sliders stay responsive and stable.

RAW + JPG Photos

• Added a new setting to define what version you want to load by default. This allows us to skip asking you every time if you want to change the default when switching.
• Fixed an issue that could cause the RAW photos to appear too small, plus the following. JPEGs no longer show visual glitches when switching between the two. Issue that could cause RAW photos to display their dark regions too brightly is fixed.

Crop and Transform

• Improved crop aspect ratio option by making the selection of the “As Shot” and “Free” options sticky across edit sessions.
• Fixed an issue that caused crop corner controls to not properly settle on the edges if moving quickly past an edge, and an issue that caused crop controls to not respond if your drag gesture was slow to start moving; and a rare issue that could cause the crop controls to disappear; and a lot of alignment and visual layout issues with the Transform tool.
• When cropping, we now disable the gesture to dismiss the tools, which could get in your way of cropping.

Photos app extension

• Improved memory use in our Photos Extension, making it more stable.
• The Clarity slider is still using too much memory and causing the photo extension to crash, so we decided to removed it from the Photos Extension until we can address its memory use.

Exporting

• When you are exporting, we now pause all other image processing to speed up the export, and provide it as much memory as possible.
• We now re-use a lot more memory between editing and export, reducing the memory load of the app, and ensuring exporting jobs always have the memory it needs to finish their job.
• Improved HDR video export by ensuring it now exports to SDR with the correct colors. When we support end-to-end HDR editing & exporting, we will re-enable HDR exports.
• Fixed a bug where exporting 4K videos with a frame would crash.
• On iPhone, during export, the interface no longer adjusts to device rotation, which helps reduce memory usage and improves stability and reliability of exports.

UI improvements

• If the app interface is fully hidden (by tapping on the image to view it full-screen), we now allow you to swipe to dismiss to go back to the library.
• Fixed some layout issues with the batch toolbar, particularly on iPad. Also fixed our in-app announcement message not auto dismiss if you tapped to read the announcement post.
• Improved the Flag & Reject bar when swiping to reveal it when also have the edit tools open, now this won’t force the edit tools to collapse, but the Flag & Reject bar will auto collapse after using them. This way you have a quick way to flag or reject.
• When picking a photo to add to an album on Mac, double-clicking on a photo will now add it to that album.
• Fixed side swipe quick start of multi selection showing in the photo picker.

Price: Free. Offers in-app purchases.

Where to download: App Store

Darkroom app updated with a host of photo-ready enhancements
Source: Pinays Guide