What’s new

Beta 27

Beta 27 merges two clip commands into one, adds a plain Squares page, speeds up describing and puts more of the hardware to work in the editor. Timings for that last part are still being measured.

New

• Video › Make a Clip… is one command for clips, pictures and bursts, in place of Clip from Pictures and Clip from Burst. Two pictures are enough. Edit Clip… reopens either kind of made clip.
• Natural Squares is a squares page that shows your pictures unchanged, with no ink and no ring.
• Squares can put its spot ink on the subject or the background of each square. From the hero now puts the spot ink on a cool picture’s warm part when no subject is found.
• Quick Look on a library in Finder shows pictures, counts, dates, sizes, sources, when it was last opened and how far describing has got.
• Agents get labelled contact sheets (number, rating and title), a diagnostics tool, a way to find similar pictures, and distinct shortlists that group near-duplicates. A connected agent keeps its tools, and is told to retry, while the app is away.
• Contact No. 27 has three new pages: a straight print, two shots that are enough, and lots of copies.
• Info shows Backed up to, with the date of each place, and a collapsed History, newest first.
• New libraries start with sidecars on; existing libraries keep their setting. Back Up Library records where each picture has been and says when it couldn’t refresh a sidecar.
• File › Export as Library… moves chosen pictures into a new library, checked before anything leaves this one. The pictures go to Recently Removed, or stay here too if you choose; referenced originals stay where they are. It warns when copied-in pictures aren’t in any backup, checks free space first, has Stop, and offers to tidy up after an interruption.
• File › Import Library… merges another library into this one. That library is only read; its own copies are copied in, and referenced pictures stay referenced. Duplicates are found by content, a preview lists clashes and this library’s version is kept, and one Undo covers the whole import. Choosing clash by clash isn’t there yet.
• Continue’s Pending Sidecars row appears only when sidecars are still waiting after a short grace.

Changed

• Describing is faster: the next picture is made ready while the model works, a Photos preview waits at most 3 seconds, the time left is steadier, and pauses are named in the log.
• Print and video stills, Dehaze and Smart Lighting analysis, brush masks and Clean Up do more of their work on Accelerate or the GPU, with the same results. The editor should feel quicker; we are still measuring how much.
• A GPU live viewer is built in but off by default, behind a hidden switch.

Beta 26.1

Beta 26.1 fixes slow background describing, mostly in Photos libraries with pictures kept in iCloud.

Changed

• Describing no longer waits for the next picture’s preview, which could hold each picture for about 20 seconds when Photos had to fetch it from iCloud.
• Describing uses only pictures already on your Mac and never downloads from iCloud. A picture with nothing here is skipped and tried again later.
• Finding similar pictures no longer starts again after every description.
• The time left counts only describing time, and says “working out time left…” for the first 20 pictures.

Fixed

• Describing a large Photos library slowed to about 25 seconds a picture on slow stretches. It should now run at about the speed of the model itself, a few seconds a picture; this has not yet been measured on a library that large.

Beta 26

Beta 26 puts more of Apple’s hardware to work, keeping the quality, and adds a second ink to clip styles.

New

• Clip styles print in two inks. A slider runs from all main ink to all spot ink, with an ink well at each end and a swap button; Spot ink on puts the second ink on the subject or the background; From the hero takes both inks from the hero picture.
• Visual search offers Show Near Matches when nothing passes, for you and for agents.
• Metadata › Describe These First: on-device descriptions start with the pictures you choose, and a burst’s frames share its cover’s suggestions, so a few descriptions cover many pictures.
• Opening a library from an earlier beta shows its upgrade on the welcome screen: each step, a progress bar and the time taken.
• Agent Activity groups each connection by the chat or session it came from.
• Contact No. 26 has four new pages: a split fountain, a fringe of sky, a frame line and a family likeness.

Changed

• Combine’s cut-out edges no longer carry a rim of the hero frame’s own sky.
• A video trim whose cuts land on whole frames is copied rather than encoded again: a 4K trim took 1.8 seconds before and 0.4 second now (a test clip; yours will differ).
• Retire Frames archives into an “Anarchive Archive” folder; an existing “Framehouse Archive” folder is renamed once on its drive, its files moved, not copied.

Beta 25

Beta 25 is the settling beta: library stability, speed and polish, with no new making features.

New

• Anarchive has a new name inside macOS. Your settings, presets, set lists and models carry over once. Recent libraries and referenced originals need your permission again: File › Reconnect Folder… reconnects everything in a folder you choose, checking each file first. Photos asks again, and the footprint password is asked once.
• Agents can show their results as a temporary view, with Return to Previous View, and send a contact sheet (it counts as that many pictures, and asks under Ask Each Time). They also say each preview’s size.
• Crash reports, if you want them: off to begin with, kept on your Mac, and sent only if you attach them to feedback yourself. See the privacy page.
• Help › How It Works has five short notes on the ideas behind what Anarchive does, and Contact No. 25 has three new pages, on bent lenses, a crowd’s middle guess and drawings held on twos, and names its contributors.
• A promise about libraries: from beta 25 on, a library keeps opening in later builds. One made by a newer build says which, and offers Check for Updates.

Changed

• Later opens of a Photos library read only what changed: 50,000 pictures took 13.7 seconds before and 0.1 second now (a test library; your own Photos library will differ).
• The agent connector stays quick while others run: a ping 2 seconds before, 2 milliseconds now. Busy and time-limit replies say so, it reconnects after the app quits or changes library, counts name their unit, and results sort by date, rating or visual match.
• Combine opens without a separate checking pass and shows the reference frame first, in about 0.7 second.
• Four places that could stall Anarchive under heavy load (panoramas, time-lapse movies, clip-style previews and Frame Stills) now run off the busy lanes.
• An accessibility sweep: labels and values, Return and Escape, Reduce Motion and Differentiate Without Colour.
• Listen moves to ⌥⌘0.

Fixed

• JPEG and HEIF pictures from any camera are no longer lens-corrected a second time: the camera has already done it.

Not yet

• Detailed downloadable offline maps (delayed), and a playing movie of a Time Wall.

Beta 24.1

Beta 24.1 sharpens and speeds up beta 24’s making: clip previews at full size, finer dots for clip styles, and a faster Combine.

New

• Detail for clip styles: Riso, Squares and Impact print with Coarse, Standard, Fine or Finest dots, so the picture can be made clearer. Standard is the look as before; the choice is kept with the clip.
• Help › Removing Anarchive… lists everything Anarchive keeps on your Mac, where it lives, and how to remove it.
• A privacy page says what stays on your Mac and what ever leaves it, and this page has the notes for each beta.

Changed

• Clip from Burst and Time-lapse preview at the size of the stage, not the old sheet’s: up to 2,048 pixels while it plays, sharp when paused or on the hero, and for clip styles too. The first frame shows as quickly as before.
• Combine shows its first picture in about a second and a half, and the settled one three or so seconds sooner.
• Combine lines frames up more finely again (optical flow), without the halo that kept it off in beta 24.
• Check for Updates names the beta (“0.1 beta 24.1”) instead of a build number.
• Steps says plainly that it holds each picture for two, three or four frames.

Fixed

• Closing Combine part-way no longer leaves its queued work running ahead of the next one.

Not yet

• Detailed downloadable offline maps (delayed), and a playing movie of a Time Wall.

Beta 24

Beta 24 is about making things: new looks and timings for clips, the Make tools working in the panel beside the picture, and descriptions that learn your words.

New

• Clip styles, chosen under the preview when you make a clip or time-lapse from a burst or pictures: Steps (held beats), Squares (a contact page filling a beat at a time), Pan and Hold (the hero held while the camera moves slowly in), Riso (two inks on cream through a fine dot screen) and Impact (the hero struck with motion streaks). Riso and Impact print in Steel and Sunset, three other pairs, or two inks of your own. Styles are recipes you can read.
• Slow In, Hero First and Bounce shape a clip around its hero frame. Paused, or on the hero, the preview shows a sharp 1,024-pixel frame.
• Make in the panel: clips, time-lapses, Time Wall, Long Exposure, Slit-Scan, Spatial Photo and Print Frames open in the viewer with their controls in the inspector, as Combine does, instead of in a sheet. Return makes, Escape leaves. With the Make panel turned off, the sheets open as before.
• Descriptions use your library’s context: your albums, keywords, similar pictures you captioned yourself and pictures taken alongside. Change a word in a suggested caption once and pictures like it use your word. Your words, beside Your corrections, lists what was learned, with Forget. A project or album can carry one line of context. Nothing is trained, and it all runs on your Mac. Notes never go to the describing model.
• Import from Camera counts what you mean: “50 photos” picks 50 pictures, “random 20 from yesterday” picks 20 at random, and a camera recording a backup to its second card shows each picture once and imports one copy.
• The grid opens newest first and remembers the sort you choose.

Changed

• Combine builds its background from the frames that agree and leaves out the rest, so edges come out cleaner and doubled lines single.
• Closing or switching a library stops background work at once and waits only for what keeps the library consistent. Describing, faces, text and other analysis start again the next time it opens.
• The first read of a Photos library fills the grid from the newest, with Photos’ own small pictures, and no warning triangles. Analysis waits until the read is done.
• Your chosen highlight colour is used for the sidebar’s selection, the Settings tabs and Import from Camera’s ticks.
• Selection has a paper margin between its ring and the picture, everywhere a picture can be selected.
• Notes move from Info to Describe, beside the title and caption. Nothing about where a note may go changes.
• Faces in People & Pets are bigger, and a group shot’s face is marked by a fine dotted line.
• Takes split where the subject changes, and two files of one moment (a MOV and an MP4) show as one clip.

Fixed

• A pinch over a Make draft only zooms its preview. It no longer throws the draft away.
• Cancel and Make stay in view in the Make panel; only the controls above them scroll.
• A RAW written to both cards no longer shows twice in a search, the second named “Original copy”.
• Something made from a made thing stays with its burst.
• “50 images and videos” selected 70; backup copies are no longer downloaded twice.
• “Preview failed” on Photos items whose picture had just arrived.
• Echoes shows more different echoes, fewer repeats; a take’s running time counts each moment once.

Not yet

• Detailed downloadable offline maps (delayed), and a playing movie of a Time Wall.