photon v0.44.0

Highlights

• Edited photos open faster, and export faster. A cropped or turned photo is drawn fresh at full size whenever you view or export it. That picture is now saved with libjpeg-turbo, which photon already uses for thumbnails, and saving it takes about a third of the time it did. Viewing an edited photo is about a quarter faster overall, and exporting edited copies is quicker too. The files come out the same size as before.
• Faster thumbnails. The large preview behind each thumbnail is now saved with a quicker WebP setting, and the small grid tile is shrunk from it with a faster resampler. Together they take about a seventh off each photo's thumbnail, most noticeable on a first import.
• AVIF photos load more than twice as fast on Intel and AMD computers. photon's AVIF decoder now uses its hand-tuned assembly on 64-bit Intel and AMD processors (Windows, Linux, and Intel Macs). A 12-megapixel AVIF's thumbnail takes about 230 ms instead of 520. The pictures are exactly the same, pixel for pixel.

Your files are untouched

Nothing about how photon treats your photos has changed. It still never writes to, moves or deletes a photo file; these changes only affect how quickly it reads them and draws them.

Upgrading

Nothing needs to be done. The library format is unchanged, so an older photon can still open a library 0.44.0 has used, and no thumbnail is regenerated.

Previews made from now on use the quicker setting. They look the same, but the thumbnail cache can grow up to about a sixth faster than before, depending on your photos (a very grainy photo's preview can even come out smaller).

Not in this release

Faster AVIF on Apple Silicon and other ARM computers. The published version of the AVIF decoder cannot build its ARM assembly, so those machines decode AVIF as before.

A before-and-after check on a folder of real camera photos. The speed-ups above were measured on 64-bit AMD Linux, with a synthetic 24-megapixel test image, a real photo scaled up to 24 megapixels, and a 12-megapixel AVIF made from it.

Unsigned installers. See the README for the security warnings each OS shows, and how to get past them.

Full Changelog: v0.43.0...v0.44.0

photon v0.43.0

Highlights

• See how much memory photon is using. Settings → About now shows photon's memory use, updated every couple of seconds while About is open. On Linux and Windows the figure includes the web view's processes, which draw photon's window and are often the larger part; it is measured the way your system monitor measures, so it can be compared with it directly. On macOS the web view's processes cannot be told apart from other apps', so the figure is photon's own process alone, and About says so.

Your files are untouched

Nothing about how photon treats your photos has changed. It still never writes to, moves or deletes a photo file.

Upgrading

Nothing needs to be done. The library format is unchanged, so an older photon can still open a library 0.43.0 has used.

Not in this release

The web view's memory on macOS. Only a private system API links those processes to photon, and a figure that could break with a macOS update, or count Safari's pages as photon's, would be worse than a partial one clearly labelled.

Unsigned installers. See the README for the security warnings each OS shows, and how to get past them.

Full Changelog: v0.42.0...v0.43.0

photon v0.42.0

Highlights

• Faster thumbnails for large JPEGs. photon now makes a big JPEG's thumbnail with libjpeg-turbo, which decodes the photo straight at the size the thumbnail needs instead of decoding every pixel and throwing most away. For a 24-megapixel photo that is about a quarter faster on a Mac and on Linux, and about 40% faster on Windows, which you will notice most on a first import. Photos that libjpeg-turbo does not handle (small ones, black-and-white and CMYK JPEGs, damaged files) are read exactly as before.
• Look-alike detection gets through a library faster. Finding photos that look the same reads every thumbnail once. Those thumbnails are now read about three times faster, which matters most the first time it runs over an existing library.
• Quicker sidebar tags and grid rebuilds. Counting the sidebar's tags takes about a tenth less time, and rebuilding the grid a little less.

Your files are untouched

Nothing about how photon treats your photos has changed. It still never writes to, moves or deletes a photo file; these changes only affect how quickly it reads them.

Upgrading

Nothing needs to be done. The library format is unchanged, so an older photon can still open a library 0.42.0 has used, and no thumbnail is regenerated. Thumbnails made from now on come from libjpeg-turbo. They look the same as the ones already cached, and look-alike detection treats the two alike.

photon now includes libjpeg-turbo, a small C library compiled into photon itself, as SQLite and libwebp already were. It still needs no system libraries beyond the system's web view.

Not in this release

Faster full-size viewing and export. Those still decode the whole photo, as before.

The planned before-and-after check on a folder of real camera photos has not been run yet. The speed-ups above were measured on a synthetic 24-megapixel test image.

Unsigned installers. See the README for the security warnings each OS shows, and how to get past them.

Full Changelog: v0.41.2...v0.42.0

photon v0.41.2

Highlights

• The Tags list in the sidebar updates faster. Counting how many photos carry each tag is the slowest part of refreshing the sidebar, and it runs whenever your photos change - including while a scan is indexing new ones. It now takes less than half as long: about 0.2 s instead of 0.5 s on a library of 300,000 photos with three keywords each.
• AVIF photos are turned into thumbnails a little faster. Converting a decoded AVIF's colours for display takes about 40% less time, which makes a 12-megapixel AVIF's thumbnail about 6% quicker. The picture comes out exactly as before, to the pixel.

Your files are untouched

Nothing new is read from or written to your photos.

Upgrading

Nothing needs to be done. The library is not changed, so 0.41.1 can still open it, and no files are re-read.

Not in this release

New features or fixes: this release only speeds up the Tags list and AVIF thumbnails.

Unsigned installers. See the README for the security warnings each OS shows, and how to get past them.

Full Changelog: v0.41.1...v0.41.2

photon v0.41.1

Highlights

• New photos are indexed a little faster. When photon indexes a photo it reads the start of the file for keywords and a caption. For a photo with no XMP metadata, which is most camera originals, finding that out took about 66 µs and now takes about 5 µs. On a first import of 100,000 such photos that is around six seconds less work for the scan.

Your files are untouched

photon reads the same bytes of each photo as before and only searches them faster. Nothing is written to your photos.

Upgrading

Nothing needs to be done. The library is not changed, so 0.41.0 can still open it, and no files are re-read.

Not in this release

New features or fixes: this release only speeds up reading new photos.

Unsigned installers. See the README for the security warnings each OS shows, and how to get past them.

Full Changelog: v0.41.0...v0.41.1

photon v0.41.0

Highlights

• Every date a photo has, in the info panel. A new Dates section lists when the photo was taken, digitized and last edited, as its EXIF records them (a video shows its creation date), and when the file was created and last modified. A date shared by several of them is shown once, as "Taken, digitized", so a typical camera photo shows two or three rows, not five. The camera's dates are shown as the camera's clock read them; the file's dates are shown in your own time zone.
• A photo whose capture date photon refused (say, one dated 4501) now shows that date under Taken, which explains why the photo is filed under the file's date instead.

Your files are untouched

The dates are read from the photo when you open the panel; nothing is written to the file.

Upgrading

Nothing needs to be done. The library is not changed, so 0.40.0 can still open it, and no files are re-read.

"File created" appears only where the filesystem records a file's creation time. Most Linux filesystems, Windows and macOS do; some network shares and older filesystems don't, and there the row is simply absent.

Not in this release

Editing a photo's dates; an "added to library" date, which photon does not record.

Unsigned installers. See the README for the security warnings each OS shows, and how to get past them.

Full Changelog: v0.40.0...v0.41.0

photon v0.39.0

Highlights

• Starring across many folders no longer rescans the whole library folder. Starring photos in more than a handful of folders at once, or renaming an album in Picasa (which rewrites every member folder's .picasa.ini), used to make photon walk every one of those folders, and past eight of them rescan the entire watched folder. When the only file that changed in a folder is its Picasa INI, photon now just rereads that INI: stars, faces, hidden flags and album names update in moments, with no scan. Any other change in the folder is still scanned as before.
• Less work on every change in a large library. After a star, a keyword, an edit or a video's poster frame, photon no longer re-sends the whole folder list to the window, nor recounts starred, hidden, duplicate and video photos when nothing they depend on changed. With 5,000 folders that was about 0.8 MB on every change; it is now a few hundred bytes.

Your files are untouched

photon still never deletes, moves or alters a photo or a video. The one file it writes in a watched folder is still Picasa's .picasa.ini, only when you star a photo, exactly as before; this release changes how photon notices changes and what it sends to its own window.

Upgrading

Nothing to do. The library is not upgraded, so 0.38.0 can still open it if you go back.

Not in this release

• The quicker handling of star and album changes has been checked on Linux only. On Windows and macOS it may still scan the folders as before. If you star photos in many folders and see the status bar scan, please report which system you are on.
• Sorting inside each folder while keeping the folder headers.
• Trimming, editing or turning videos; AVI, MKV and 3GP; playing videos inside a slideshow.
• Picasa's own crops and rotations are still not imported.
• HEIC and camera RAW: every way of decoding them means shipping a C library.

Unsigned installers. See the README for the security warnings each OS shows, and how to get past them.

Full Changelog: v0.38.0...v0.39.0

photon v0.38.0

Highlights

• Every photo can be scrolled to, however big the library. Browsers stop laying out a page at about 33 million pixels, fewer on Windows with display scaling above 100%. With large tiles in a narrow window, the grid of a library past about 140,000 photos was taller than that (about 70,000 on Windows at 200%), and scrolling, End, a folder jump and the year strip all stopped partway. They now reach the last photo. Past that size the scrollbar thumb is approximate while you scroll and settles on the right spot when you stop; the wheel and trackpad keep their usual speed. Smaller libraries scroll exactly as before.
• Scans do less work:
  • Reading a photo's details reads the start of the file once instead of twice, and no longer decodes that whole stretch as text to find the metadata.
  • On Linux, photon no longer follows symbolic links when it starts watching a folder, the same as the scan. A link inside a watched folder to a big tree elsewhere no longer costs a walk of that tree or its share of the system's watch limit.
  • A folder photon can't watch live is rescanned no more often than every five minutes or ten times its last full scan, whichever is longer. A slow network share is no longer rescanned back to back.
• Drag-selecting in a very large library only checks the rows the selection can reach, not every row.

Your files are untouched

photon still never deletes, moves or alters a photo or a video. This release changes how photon scrolls the grid and how it reads and watches your folders.

Upgrading

Nothing to do. The library is not upgraded, so 0.37.0 can still open it if you go back.

Not in this release

• The scrolling change has been checked in a test browser, not yet by hand on each system. If scrolling a big library feels off anywhere (a jump when you stop, the thumb in the wrong place), please report it.
• Sorting inside each folder while keeping the folder headers.
• Trimming, editing or turning videos; AVI, MKV and 3GP; playing videos inside a slideshow.
• Picasa's own crops and rotations are still not imported.
• HEIC and camera RAW: every way of decoding them means shipping a C library.

Unsigned installers. See the README for the security warnings each OS shows, and how to get past them.

Full Changelog: v0.37.0...v0.38.0

photon v0.37.0

Highlights

• Changes are saved even when the grid can't refresh straight after. Starring, keywords, albums, hiding or renaming a folder, turning a photo and removing a folder used to report an error in that case, although the change had been saved. The viewer then flipped a star back, unticked an album or left photos selected for a retry that had nothing left to do. Now the change simply shows up on the grid's next refresh.
• Hiding a selection lands in the right place. After selecting a whole folder, opening a photo and closing the viewer again, H could land thousands of photos past the folder. It now lands just after it. Hiding photos while a drag-selection is still finishing no longer puts them back in the selection.
• Slow drives and network shares hold up less of the app:
  • An export, checking an export folder, Reveal, Open with and starring now run in the background. Several at once, or one waiting on a share that has stopped answering, no longer stall the rest of photon.
  • Watching for file changes now starts as soon as the startup scans finish. Before, it waited for the whole-library duplicate and look-alike check, and files changed in the meantime went unnoticed until the next rescan of their folder.

Your files are untouched

photon still never deletes, moves or alters a photo or a video. This release changes only what photon reports after a change and where its work runs.

Upgrading

Nothing to do. The library is not upgraded, so 0.36.x can still open it if you go back.

Not in this release

• Very large libraries in a narrow window: with large tiles and one or two columns, the end of a library of roughly 140,000 photos or more cannot be scrolled to (fewer on Windows with display scaling above 100%). The viewer still reaches every photo. A fix is being designed.
• Sorting inside each folder while keeping the folder headers.
• Trimming, editing or turning videos; AVI, MKV and 3GP; playing videos inside a slideshow.
• Video playback on macOS and Windows has still not been checked by hand.
• Picasa's own crops and rotations are still not imported.
• HEIC and camera RAW: every way of decoding them means shipping a C library.

Unsigned installers. See the README for the security warnings each OS shows, and how to get past them.

Full Changelog: v0.36.1...v0.37.0

photon v0.36.1

Highlights

• No more photos popping in while you scroll. In 0.36.0 a quick wheel spin or trackpad flick left rows blank until each thumbnail faded in. photon now loads the rows ahead of the way you're scrolling and shows a thumbnail it already has at once, without a fade. Jumping with End, the year strip or the scrollbar stays as quick as it was.
• Hiding many photos is instant. Select everything in a large folder and press H: the photos are hidden straight away, and the selection moves on to the next photo after them. Before, photon read through the whole selection first. A click you make while the hide finishes is kept.
• A library photon can't read says so. Instead of "No photos yet", photon now shows that it could not read the library, with the reason.
• Less background work:
  • Switching views fetches the grid once, not twice.
  • Video poster frames and the duplicate check no longer make the sidebar reload its albums, people and tags.
  • Photos whose thumbnails finish after a scan are now checked for look-alikes a few seconds later, without waiting for the next scan.
• Fixes:
  • The live count on a long drag-selection is right, and no longer dips when you let go.
  • A hide that succeeded is no longer reported as failed when the grid could not refresh straight after it.
  • A thumbnail request that crashed used to leave its tile loading forever; it now fails like any other.

Your files are untouched

photon still never deletes, moves or alters a photo or a video. This release changes only how photon draws the grid and keeps its own library up to date.

Upgrading

Nothing to do. The library is not upgraded, so 0.36.0 can still open it if you go back.

Not in this release

• Sorting inside each folder while keeping the folder headers.
• Trimming, editing or turning videos; AVI, MKV and 3GP; playing videos inside a slideshow.
• Video playback on macOS and Windows has still not been checked by hand.
• Picasa's own crops and rotations are still not imported.
• HEIC and camera RAW: every way of decoding them means shipping a C library.

Unsigned installers. See the README for the security warnings each OS shows, and how to get past them.

Full Changelog: v0.36.0...v0.36.1