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Notes

• Pixen 4 requires OS X 10.11+

Features

• The Background picker has been re-designed
• Setting, apply, and resetting default backgrounds is now easier
• A "Share" command has been added to the File menu and can be used to quickly share images as PNGs and animations as animated GIFs
• A new Brightness tool has been added for lightening and darkening pixels underneath the cursor
• Use the Option key to toggle between Lighten and Darken modes
• A new Text tool has been added
• Pressure-sensitive drawing is now supported on Force Touch trackpads
• Blend modes can be set for layers by right-clicking them in the Layers pane
• Pixen Image (PXI) and Pixen Animation (PXA) file formats are now more space-efficient
• Note: PXI and PXA files saved in Pixen 4 cannot be edited in previous releases of Pixen
• Animation documents now show a unified color palette or a per-canvas color palette
• A "New Layer from Image" command has been added to the Layers menu (you can also drag-and-drop an image into the Layers list)
• A "Flatten Image" command has been added to the Layers menu
• A "Stroke Selection" command has been added to the Edit menu for quick framing/outlining
• Opacity percentages in the Layers list can now be double-clicked and edited
• Patterns can be exported from the Pattern Editor by right-clicking a pattern and selecting the new "Export..." command
• The left [ and right ] square bracket keys can now be used to change the line thickness, tolerance, or border width of the respective tools
• Pixen can now open and save files in the LEGO MINDSTORMS Graphics Format (RGF)
• A new Posterize filter has been added that snaps each pixel value to the closest color in a palette
• Images can now be reduced to their top N primary colors using the Reduce to Primary Colors filter
• The padding, frame spacing, row spacing, and maximum number of frames per row can now be customized in the Export Sprite Sheet window
• Images can now be exported at multiple resolutions/file types using the revamped "Export" command under the File menu
• The most recent file name and types used for export are now saved in PXI/PXA files
• Images can now be exported as SVGs
• Pixen now directly integrates with iCloud Drive
• Document colors can now be sorted by frequency or hue
• A preference for choosing the top or bottom left as the origin has been added
• A preference for changing the preferred drawing cursor has been added
• The color of the Alignment Crosshair can now be changed in the Preferences window
• Patterns can now be shared with system sharing services from the context menu in the Pattern Editor
• New filters for changing the hue, exposure, saturation, contrast, and brightness of a layer or selection have been added
• A new Remove Alpha Components filter has been added
• The new "Convert Pixen Image" Automator action can be used to convert batches of images from the PXI format to other image formats
• Palette panels can now be shown with the "Show New Palette Panel" command in the "Palette" menu
• Note: This was previously possible with the "pop out" button in the Pixen Colors color picker, but discoverability was an issue

Improvements

• In animation documents, the Scale Canvas command now scales all selected animation frames
• The Scale Canvas window has been re-designed
• Pasted images are no longer clipped beyond the bounds of the canvas
• Rotated layers are no longer clipped beyond the bounds of the canvas
• Using the Move tool no longer clips pixels beyond the bounds of the canvas
• The scroll position of animation frames is now preserved during frame selection
• Animation frame selections are now preserved across app relaunches if Auto Save is enabled
• Per-document default frame durations can now be specified in the Animation Settings sheet
• Pixen now prevents document windows from getting too small
• Pixen now warns when a hidden layer is about to be modified
• When Auto Save is disabled, Pixen now warns when saving documents with multiple layers to a file format that does not support layers
• The look and feel of the Tools palette is more modern
• The look and feel of the palette switcher is more modern
• Patterns drawn with the Pencil and Line tools are now drawn at multiples of the pattern size
• OS X El Capitan: Layers and background templates can be deleted with a two-finger swipe
• Backgrounds can be set again via the action button in the Preview window
• Changes to the document's background can now be undone
• Image backgrounds can now be configured to fill or fit the canvas
• The Recently Used color palette is now refreshed more frequently
• Holding the Shift key in combination with Hotkeys will assign tools to the right mouse button
• Pressing the tab key when editing animation frame durations will now move to the next frame
• Changes to the grid can now be undone
• An option for replacing or blending transparent pixels while drawing with the Pencil and Line tools has been added
• The frame/layer selection, active document palette, and zoom level are now preserved across launches
• The Info Bar now shows selection sizes when appropriate
• The Info Bar is now more compact in certain configurations
• The Info Bar can now be set to display colors in hexadecimal format
• The items displayed in the Info Bar can now be explicitly configured under the new View > Info Bar Mode menu
• Duplicated layers are named more intelligently (no more "Main Layer Copy Copy Copy")
• Flipping a canvas or layer with pixels selected now also flips the selection mask
• The Eyedropper tool is more accurate when picking colors from merged layers
• The "Export Document Palette" command now includes colors from all frames of animation documents
• The Pattern Editor is now shown after a new pattern is imported
• A toolbar button for accessing the Pattern Editor can now be added by using the Customize Toolbar menu item
• The Export button in the Export Sprite Sheet window is now disabled when no documents are included for export
• Pasted layers are now pasted above the active layer rather than the top of the list
• The "Copy Merged" command is now always available, not just when there is a selection
• Single-pixel regions can now be selected with the Rectangular Selection tool
• Using the arrow keys when a selection tool is active now only moves the selection, not the contents of the image
• Right-clicking on empty areas of the film strip view in animation documents now shows a command to select all frames
• Multiple frames can now be copied or moved at once in the film strip
• Backgrounds drawn in the Image Size prompt now match the canvas in orientation
• Palettes are now shown after they're imported
• Palettes can now be locked for editing
• The Flip Canvas command is now called Flip Frame(s) in animation documents and it operates on all selected frames
• The Rotate Canvas command is now called Rotate Frame(s) in animation documents and it operates on all selected frames
• The Scale Canvas command is now called Scale Frame(s) in animation documents
• The Resize Canvas command is now called Resize Frame(s) in animation documents and it operates on all selected frames
• Fills are now rendered as shapes are being drawn
• The tabbing order in the Scale sheet has been improved
• Pixen now warns before scaling a single frame of an animation
• It is now harder to accidentally pick up frames for re-ordering in the animation film strip
• JPEG compression quality settings can now be changed in all save sheets supporting JPEGs
• Support for entering percentages with decimal numbers in the Scale sheet has been improved
• Support for working with animations containing frames of different sizes has been improved
• Newly-created frames are of the size of the selected frame
• When a frame of a different size is about to be pasted, you are now asked if you want to resize it to fit

Changes in behavior

• Since Pixen now supports infinite layers, clear colors (with alpha = 0) are no longer shown in the color frequency palette

Under-the-hood improvements

• The entire UI is now GPU-accelerated
• Rendering of thumbnails in the Layers list is now GPU-accelerated
• Quick Look previews are now drawn with the same rendering engine as Pixen's canvas for consistency
• Pixen now uses the sRGB color space and features improved color accuracy
• Support for scaling canvases has been re-written and is now faster and yields more accurate results

Performance improvements

• Pixen has a new multi-threaded and GPU-based rendering engine for improved performance
• Performance when working with multiple documents has been improved
• Performance when opening and working with large documents has been improved
• Performance of the Preview window has been improved
• Color frequency palette updates are now significantly faster
• Applying filters is now faster
• CPU usage has been reduced during most drawing operations
• Selection animations are now smoother

Bug fixes

• Animation frame selection is more reliable after frame deletion
• Pasting animation frames of different sizes is now more reliable
• The selection tools are more reliable
• Importing JASC color palettes is more reliable
• Clicking the background of the animation frame strip no longer selects the first frame
• Changing the duration of animation frames no longer selects the first frame
• The "Merge Down" command does a better job of preserving layer and color opacities
• Color frequency palettes are now more accurate
• Hotkey handling is now more robust
• Re-ordering palette colors by dragging is now more reliable
• Fixed undo and redo issues app-wide
• Fixed an issue where tool properties would disappear when working with multiple documents
• Fixed an issue where the selection marquee and alignment crosshair would disappear
• Fixed an issue where images copied from Photoshop would appear blurry
• Fixed an issue where scaling the canvas could not be undone
• Fixed an issue where exporting sprite sheets would crash Pixen