What's New in PD Pro 8.1

"Oh Sassy!"

Showcase: Landscape with Particle brushes

• The quicker color picker (activated by pressing the space bar) now has a quick media bin where you can quickly store a couple of medias for rapidly switching back and forth.

• There's a new tool to alter (recalibrate) the pressure to your comfort level when using a stylus device (graphic tablet) such as a Wacom tablet.  No more sore wrists because of having to press too hard. No more frustration because of having it be too sensitive. Easily re-calibrate the sensitivity right inside the application, anytime you want to change it.  click here to view a YouTube video about this feature
  

• The toolbar now operates in a sidebar instead of a floating panel by default.  You can still also float it at any time.  The toolbar now defaults to single column if it fits and automatically adjusts to double-column otherwise (such as when you have a very low resolution screen).

• The layers panel is now sizable on the sidebar.

• There is a New noise removal tool.  The 'Iterative median' filter has been repurposed from the convolution menu into a full iterative noise-reduction filter, and now lives in the noise menu. This may be great for camera pictures in low lighting or high film ASA setting, and other scenarios. Note: 'iterative median' was originaly an academic 'proof of concept' to prove that an iterative median isn't all that beneficial.  A threshold box/tent filter is now employed by default, which is great at removing low amplitude noise.
  

• Change to color picker (turkey baster) keyboard shortcut:

The turkey baster (quick color picker) 'comma' shortcut (,) may have been broken by utilities that disable a touch device when typing (to keep the cursor from jumping around. This should be fixed now. In any event, this seems to be a common enough situation on laptops that the tool has been re-thought. The shortcut has been changed so that it now activates the Turkey Baster tool, and you will get your original tool back once you have picked your color. Formerly, the original tool was restored when you let up on the comma (,) key.

• Duotone is threaded for more speed.

• Color Replacer is threaded.

• Alpha/Select by/color key is rewritten and threaded for dramatic speed improvent.  Also, functions that work with an alpha are improved, such as gaussian blur alpha.

• Tooltips added to foliage and rules library settings.

• Particle panel formatting adjusted for netbooks.

• The button for paper textures on the curve tools context strip has been removed due to being redundant.  The button is featured on the natural tool constrip, which is always coupled with the curve tool when active.

• The linear alpha fader tool (renamed "selection fader") has been re-thought.  There's a new visualization for the tool, and a link from the selection menu.

• "Focus click zones"  There are windows and controls that can steal keyboard or mouse focus from the main window and prevent it from receiving mouse and keyboard events. Normally you might click on the main 'canvas' window or just outside of it to restore focus.  This has the disadvantage of creating a new undo point. There are also other areas where you can click to restore focus to the main window, and several have been added:
  

- The context strip, anywhere outside of a tool area.
- The sidebar, anywhere under the last tab.
- The toolbar, anywhere under the lowest icon.

• The following plugins have been internalized:

• Seamless is internalized, but also there's now a menu item to it from both the image menu and the brush menu so you don't have to first create a brush if you want just the main image to be seamless.
• Transform alpha is rewritten and internalized.
• Photographic/Polarize, now renamed "Blue enhance" to better describe what it does.
• Max sharpen, renamed Art sharpen.  Rewritten/multithreaded.
• Oilify.  New options.  Rewritten/multithreaded.
• High pass filter.  Rewritten/multithreaded.
• Convolution kernel + new presets. Rewritten/multithreaded.
• Cross contour Rewritten/multithreaded, realtimed.
• Graphics pen (!)
  
• Weave. Rewritten/multithreaded, realtimed.
• Woodcut.  New option.  Rewritten/multithreaded, realtimed.
• Mirror. converted from lua script.
• Numeric alpha selection.  Faster.
• Globe.  Faster algorithm.  Threaded.  Tweaks added.  realtimed.
• Starfield.  More interactive.  Somewhat threaded.
• Cold lava.  More interactive.
• ShiftRGB in video menu.  Converted from lua script.
• Mirrage.  Faster algorithm.
• Video/television.  Converted from lua script.
• Sepia +tweaks added.  Threaded, realtimed.
• Video/Scanlines.
• NTSC legalize.
• Pal legalize.
• Maximum
• Minimum
• maxmin
• minmax
• solarize
• Day for night

• Continued to clean up redundant plugins that have been replaced with internal versions, resuling in slightly smaller installer. but more importantly, a cleaner plugin folder with less clutter when browsing.  It may also install a little faster (we suspect that virus scanner software slows down installation to scan .exe files, so fewer .exe files means faster install)

• Decided to remove several plugins, though not internalized, because they may may be either outdated, redundant, or just not very useful, namely...
  

• Clock has generally been replaced by clock2.  Also, Halloween clock has been removed since it was pretty much just a gag.

• It seemed silly to have 2 versions of the mod player plugin with different shaped windows so we kept just the 'round' one. 
  

• Also, "thread_test" was a nice multithreading test, but it had nothing to do with the paint program or the plugin interface, and only threaded on 2 threads, so it's been removed.  However the lines_test remains as a nice plugin to test threading speed.

• Select by color key did not refresh its preview when reopened after an initial use.  Fixed.

• The browser may have crashed if the last browsed folder is no longer available when reopened, such as with a removable device.

• The gradient editor is now centered when opened.

• If clicking on the timeline button from the animation control panel, when displayed on the bottom instead of top, the timeline would open offscreen.  fixed.

• Fixed small typo on "undo to animation" feature.

• Made several minor GUI corrections such as the dropdown list on the "Select by color key" panel being a combo box style instead of a dropdown list style.