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photon v0.44.0

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@github-actions github-actions released this 30 Sep 19:14
· 12 commits to main since this release
v0.44.0
ac7b483

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

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