PhotoQt v4.4 brings a whole range of exciting new features, from support for color profiles, to accent colors, lossless zoom for vector graphics, and so much more – there is something for everybody. Thank you to all who gave feedback and suggestions!
Here is an overview of some of the bigger changes and additions to PhotoQt with this release:
Color profiles
One big addition with this release is the support for ICC color profiles. PhotoQt makes use of LittleCMS for supporting a wide range of color profiles and formats. It can also look for and apply embedded color profiles to make your images look exactly the way they were supposed to. If you have a custom color profile you can import it in the settings manager. When an image is loaded you can manually apply a color profile of your choice through the context menu. That selection is preserved per session but not beyond.
You want to know what color profile is currently used for any given image? Add the color profile tile to the status info in the settings manager.
Accent color
For as long as PhotoQt has existed, all the way back to the initial release v0.1, it used various shades of gray for all parts of its interface. This has now changed! In the settings manager you can now select from several accent colors to make your experience with PhotoQt a little more colorful. The colors have been well tested, however, the different color shades might be tweaked a little in future versions based on feedback.
Minimap
When zooming into images, in particular very large ones, it can become hard to keep an overview of where in the image you currently are. Thus, PhotoQt will now show a small version of the image in the bottom right corner whenever the image extends beyond the window edges. In that small version it indicates where you are in the image, and you can click at a location or drag the marker around to navigate to different parts of the image. There are a few different choices for its size. All of this can be adjusted from the settings manager or by right-clicking on the minimap.
Lossless zoom
Vector graphics (SVGs) come with the promise of lossless scaling up and down. This is now possible in PhotoQt. When you zoom into an SVG image, PhotoQt will refresh the shown image with the currently requested resolution, allowing for a lossless zooming experience.
Documents and archives
For quite a while now PhotoQt supported browsing the contents of documents and archives (including comic books) by entering a so-called viewer mode. Although that mode still exists it is now possible to also navigate through such files through small floating controls that pop up when they are loaded. Additionally, the left/right arrow keys can be set to iterate through such a document and archive regardless of what shortcut action they are connected to. In the floating controls you can find a small lock icon to easily toggle that behavior on/off.
Improved settings manager
The settings manager has been redesigned a bit to make it a bit more compact and to align all options (checkboxes, sliders, etc.) along the left instead of centering them individually. Additionally, various settings that previously were not included in the settings manager (namely the settings for the file dialog and slideshows) are now also accessible there.
In addition, several of the floating elements (thumbnails, metadata, histogram, etc.) have some settings relevant to them accessible through a context menu that can be open through a right click.
These are just some of the major changes additions, there also have been a whole bunch of smaller improvements and various bug fixes – shadows behind floating elements, contextual settings through context menus, improved spinbox/slider selections, faster histogram loading, fixed shortcut to text conversion, and much more. You can find a more complete list of everything that has changed in this release in the Changelog.
Get involved
I love to hear from people using PhotoQt. In order to get in touch with me for feedback/support/etc., there are a few different ways you can do so:
- You can always send me an email
- Feel free to open an issue over in the GitLab repository.
If you want to help PhotoQt, there are a few ways you can get involved:
- Join the translation team over on Crowdin. If your language is missing you can simply request it directly on Crowdin or send me an email and I can add it to the project.
- Give feedback of what you like/don't like, or what you think is missing from PhotoQt. To give feedback, send me an email or open an issue on GitLab.
If you are considering supporting PhotoQt by donation, please consider donating to the humanitarian relief in Ukraine instead, for example to the Ukrainian Red Cross.
Enjoy PhotoQt,
Lukas