PhotoCraft v0.22.0: PDF open, RAW Develop, seven new languages and the Star tool

PhotoCraft v0.22.0 came out on 9 November 2026, about 64 hours after v0.21.0. Its release notes list 202 merged pull requests from 61 contributors, 24 of them first-time contributors. Two entries are integration batches: #11643 brought nine larger pull requests onto main together, and #11671 the seven language pull requests; #11648 carries the follow-ups. Unlike v0.20.2 and v0.21.0, nothing here shipped in an earlier release: every listed pull request was merged after v0.21.0's code was taken on 6 November, and the tag's code is main as of 9 November, 10:55 UTC (the merge of #9864), plus the version number. A few entries change little for users: #11780, #11608, #3498, #12080, #12375 and #12399 change tests and checks, and #11984 and #12012 regenerate the scorecard.

The biggest changes: PhotoCraft opens PDF files, page by page as artboards. Camera Raw is now called RAW Develop, and it opens several raws at once in a filmstrip. Seven interface languages join, for 35 in all. The Star tool brings PhotoCraft to 69 tools, the shape tools can draw paths, and the Pen can turn a path into a shape layer. Toolbar slots and tool keys remember their last tool across launches, and the in-app updater says when an update is installing, ready or installed. Dozens of smaller changes make tools behave as in Photoshop, the Background Eraser most of all. Windows 32-bit builds are gone: v0.21.0 was the last one. The web build still doesn't start as packaged, and this site's online editor skipped this release; see Web build below. PhotoCraft is still early alpha, so expect rough edges.

v0.23.0 followed on 11 November and v0.23.1 on 12 November; see How to update.

Highlights

• No more Windows 32-bit builds. The release has no windows-x86.msi, windows-x86-portable.zip or windows-x86-symbols.zip. Upstream's shared release workflow dropped Windows 32-bit on 7 November (craft-common-actions#163), the day after v0.21.0 was built, so v0.21.0 is the last 32-bit release. The x64 and arm64 builds are unchanged. The README and docs/releasing.md still list the x86 files, even at v0.23.1. See /download/windows.
• Opening PDF files. File › Open…, drag and drop and photocraft-cli accept .pdf files, and .ai files that are PDF inside (they start with %PDF-) (#11647). Each page becomes one artboard, side by side, rendered as pixels at the DPI set in Edit › Preferences › File Handling… (300 by default) or with --pdf-dpi, so it keeps its print size. Up to 16 pages come in; when a page would be larger than the renderer allows (8,192 px on a side, 64 million pixels a page), PhotoCraft lowers the DPI and says so. Annotations and filled-in form fields are drawn into the pixels. Password-protected PDFs fail with an error; there's no password prompt. The renderer is craft-pdf, written in Rust and shared with the other Craft apps, so nothing extra is installed. The web build refuses PDFs. Editable import turns paths into shape layers and embedded-font text into text layers, with pages it can't handle kept as pixels with a warning, but only in photocraft-cli convert --pdf-editable; the app itself always imports pixels (#12275). Saving a PDF already wrote one page per artboard; now each page is labelled with its artboard's name, and hidden artboards get a page too. See /guides/pdf.
• Camera Raw is now RAW Develop. The raw workspace is called RAW Develop, the filter Filter › RAW Develop Filter… (still Ctrl/⌘+Shift+A) and the preferences Edit › Preferences › RAW Defaults… (#12403). Only the names change: the filter.cameraRaw command, preference IDs and saved settings stay the same, documents keep the filter names they were saved with, and a Photoshop action's step still reads "Camera Raw Filter". See RAW Develop below and /guides/raw-develop.
• Seven new interface languages, 35 in all: Azerbaijani, Thai, Hebrew, Urdu, Romanian, Tamil and Georgian. See Languages below.
• The Star tool, Path mode and Make Shape. The shape slot of the toolbar has a Star Tool between Polygon and Line, a polygon shape with a star ratio, on U like the other shape tools (#12142); PhotoCraft now has 69 tools. The Rectangle, Ellipse, Triangle, Polygon, Line and Custom Shape tools get Path mode next to Shape, which draws into the Work Path instead of making a layer, for example to set type on an ellipse (#9456). In Path mode, the Pen options bar has Make Shape next to Make Selection: it makes a shape layer from the active path, with the shape tools' fill and stroke, as one History step (#11005). See /guides/tools.
• Tools remembered across launches. Pick Pencil, Paint Bucket and Polygonal Lasso from their slots, quit and start again, and the toolbar and the B, G and L keys still pick them; before, only the selected tool survived a restart (#11322). On fresh settings, a tool key picks the first tool of its group in toolbar order, so W gives Object Selection (#11852). A right-click on the toolbar's "…" button opens Edit Toolbar… (#11541). See /guides/shortcuts.
• The updater says what it is doing. Help › Check for Updates… shows Installing, or Ready with a Restart to Update button, while an update is under way, instead of opening no window. After a self-update, the next start says "PhotoCraft updated to …" or why it couldn't install. On Windows the install helper starts when PhotoCraft exits (#12384, #12435).

New tools and features

• Crop: a Contextual Task Bar floats under the crop frame, with the preset menu, Straighten, a "…" menu and, while a crop is pending, Cancel and Done; drag it by its grip, or hide or pin it from "…" (#11669). A fresh Crop tool, and Reset Tool, show the overlay always, as Rule of Thirds, and an untouched frame shows only itself (#11022). Shift+H, Shift+P and Shift+I switch tools again (#9233), and an invalid rectangle is refused instead of cropping to the selection (#9280). Perspective Crop dims the image outside its quad and shows Cancel and Commit only during a session (#12227, #12221). See /guides/crop.
• Move and Free Transform:
  • an arrow-key nudge moves one screen pixel at every zoom, as in Photoshop (#10438);
  • the Move options bar gets Distribute buttons, the "…" panel and the gear menu (#11540), and Auto-Select targets Layer by default, with Group and Layer in the list (#12166);
  • a click on another layer's pixels commits the transform box, and the next click picks that layer (#9862); the Background can't be transformed together with other layers (#11252);
  • Free Transform has the relative positioning toggle between X and Y (#12139), handles along the whole edge (#11221), and redraws only what the box changes, preparing large layers as a job (#12312).
• Selections:
  • after moving pixels, a Marquee or Lasso drag moves only the outline (#11672), and a small Polygonal Lasso shape no longer closes on its last corner (#6734);
  • the Magnetic Lasso follows the visible image, not just the active layer, spaces its points as Photoshop does, jumps to its width limits with Shift+[ and Shift+], and opens no menu on a right-click while drawing (#11710, #11700, #11701, #11692);
  • Magic Wand Subtract and Intersect grow from the clicked point through the selection, and Anti-alias keeps the region whole (#11848, #12146);
  • Select and Mask resizes the brush with Alt+right-drag (#10559).
• Painting:
  • Shift+Alt+Q sets the Brush and Pencil to Behind (#12092). Pressure for Size starts off, Reset Tool gives the Brush a 13 px soft tip and the Healing Brush a 19 px hard one, and the Brush's opacity goes down to 1%, with "00" for 100% (#11847, #11856, #12383, #11823).
  • Background Eraser: soft edges fall off over the whole Tolerance, Find Edges grades them instead of cutting, Protect Foreground Color fades with distance, partly erased pixels lose the sampled tint, and transparency-locked layers can be erased. Tolerance takes whole numbers from 1 to 100 or the number keys, Alt+click picks the foreground colour, the bar gets Angle and Pressure for Size, and Reset Tool gives a 13 px hard tip (#12150, #12152, #12153, #12154, #12191, #12188, #11920, #12190, #12186, #12253, #12257).
  • Color Replacement: Alt+click picks the foreground, in Lab the Color mode keeps lightness, and documents it can't work on (32-bit RGB, Grayscale, Bitmap, Indexed) are refused with an alert (#12256, #12260, #12265). The Mixer Brush has the "Useful mixer brush combinations" list (#12293).
  • Retouching: Content-Aware Move's Transform On Drop starts on, so a drop shows the scale and rotate box (#12389, #12395). The Patch tool starts with Sample All Layers on, moves the selection with the patch in Destination mode, keeps it straight with Shift and shows what a drag will do (#12164, #12298, #12274, #11115).
  • Twelve more painting tools wrap across the canvas edges in Pattern Preview (#9348). More on brushes: /guides/brushes.
• Pen and paths: the Pen carries on an open path of a shape or vector mask, and the Curvature Pen one from its selected endpoint (#9396, #10744). ⇧⌥⌘↩ (Shift+Ctrl+Alt+Enter) intersects the path with the selection (#10429). Dragging a Work Path previews smoothly (#9306), and a selected shape's box resizes from anywhere along a side (#11698).
• Type: the Type tool starts at 50 pt (#12110). Escape commits a Type Mask, which always replaces the selection (#12333, #12338), vertical text gets Top, Center and Bottom alignment (#12341), and faux bold is sized as in Photoshop (#10344). Type layers have Convert to Shape and Create Work Path in the Layers panel (#9821).
• Layers and smart objects: the Layers panel filters by Group (#11092), and Select › Find Layers opens its Name filter (#11238). Drag a layer mask onto another layer or group to move it, with Alt to copy it (#10549). File › Open as Smart Object… opens a file as a new document holding one embedded smart object (#12212), Layer › Smart Objects › Reset Transform undoes a smart object's transform (#11675), and Layer › Copy CSS copies a layer's CSS (#10569). Dragging on the image moves a Gradient Overlay while Layer Style is open (#10840).
• Adjustments and filters: in Curves, Option/Alt+2 to 6 pick the channel (#10475); Levels shows clipping with Alt-drag (#3693); Liquify has a Preview checkbox, and P shows the image unwarped (#10566); Replace Color gets Add to Sample and Subtract from Sample (#10443); Equalize with a selection asks whether to use the selected area only (#9604); Photo Filter opens at its last settings (#9970); Hue/Saturation's colour range zones can be dragged (#9272); a click on the image centres a filter dialog's preview (#9981); and Fade previews live (#8261). PSD files with Photoshop's Puppet Warp smart filter are drawn with their stored mesh (#8140).
• Windows, panels and menus:
  • the Hand tool's Scroll All Windows, or Shift while dragging, scrolls every document shown, and the borders between documents in Window › Arrange layouts can be dragged (#9144, #10695);
  • a menu too long for the window shows scroll arrows (#6417), and the foreground and background colours are kept between launches (#8485);
  • Preferences gets Skip Transform when Placing (#9075); New Guide takes arithmetic in its position, and the guide dialogs keep exact positions (#10445, #9876);
  • Color Sampler points land where the drag ends and have a right-click menu, the Eyedropper samples the targeted layer mask, and notes show once created (#12173, #11921, #11862, #11865);
  • the Zoom and Hand tools' bars and menus match Photoshop's (#12286, #12291), and many labels follow Photoshop's spelling, such as Layer Via Copy (#8239, #12382).
• Print and export: Print has Japanese paper sizes (Hagaki, Ofuku Hagaki, JIS B5 and B4, L) (#8307). Save for Web shows slices and exports selected ones (#10557). Export dialogs start in the last folder you exported to (#10448).

More on the tools: /guides/tools.

RAW Develop

Besides the new name (#12403):

• More cameras: Canon sRAW and mRAW CR2 files (#7122), Nikon NEFs saved as "lossy after split" (#10529) and uncompressed Hasselblad 3FR/FFF files from the X2D II 100C (#9058).
• Several raws at once: raws opened together share the dialog, in a filmstrip (#7120). Done saves their settings to their sidecar files without opening them (#7121), and a sidecar's crop is now applied (#9991).

See /guides/raw-develop.

File formats

• PDF: opens since this release; see Highlights and /guides/pdf.
• PSD and PSB: a single save, from Save As or the CLI's --out *.psd, can choose whether to write the merged image (Maximize Compatibility); before, only the preference decided (#10001). Legacy frame-animation data and Count groups are read and kept (#8633, #12093).
• JPEG: JPEG Options remembers the last quality and format (#9661), and Export As keeps colour detail in high-quality JPEGs (#7985).
• Indexed Color gets Matte options (#9887), and a save's temporary file is no longer a hidden dot file (#11691).

What opens and saves where: /guides/file-formats.

Languages

Seven interface languages join, so the official builds offer 35, English included: Azerbaijani (az, #10555), Thai (th, #10241), Hebrew (he, #10365), Urdu (ur, #10361), Romanian (ro, #10547) and Tamil (ta, #10359), all through batch #11671, and Georgian (ka, #5845). Hebrew and Urdu are written right to left, and PhotoCraft lays out its interface right to left for them, as for Arabic. The same batch adds 344 Korean entries that were missing (#8185), and #11738 translates the new Contextual Task Bar into Azerbaijani. Setting the language: /guides/language.

Actions and automation

• Actions: loaded actions play and save Blend If and Gradient Fill layers (#11249). Batch now says which files failed (#10730). The Actions panel menu gets five more of Photoshop's classic commands (#10766), and Create Droplet and the Gradient tool's recorded steps play (#12134). See /guides/actions.
• CLI: --metadata none|all leaves the document's XMP out of convert, run --out and batch exports (#9975). photocraft-cli takes --pdf-dpi and --pdf-pages for PDF input, and convert takes --pdf-editable (#11647, #12275). Setup and examples: /guides/mcp-cli.

Platforms

• Windows: no more 32-bit builds; see Highlights. The pen's eraser end selects the Eraser (#11684).
• macOS: if you assign ⌘H, ⌘M or ⌘, to a command yourself, the key now reaches that command instead of being left on Hide, Minimize or Settings in the menu bar (#7809). Despite the pull request's title, the defaults don't change: ⌘H is still Extras, and Hide PhotoCraft is ⌃⌘H, as in Photoshop.
• Linux: files dragged in from a file manager drop natively on Wayland (#10222). In a sandbox without a cgroup mount, free memory no longer reads as 0 bytes (#11538).

Performance

Smudge starts without per-pixel work, procedural brush textures are cached between strokes, Texture at a scale other than 100% samples about 1.6 times faster, and the Mixer Brush's Sample All Layers reads only the dab's rectangle (#11146, #11148, #11142, #11147). Affinity files decode their tiles in parallel (#9414), 16- and 32-bit PSD compression takes one pass (#9745), colour conversion is faster in blocks (#9746, #9747), and live painting and canvas navigation draw in the frame that receives the input (#5238). Render Video caps how much an animated GIF keeps in memory (#10947).

Web build

The v0.22.0 web zip still doesn't start as packaged. We read its file list: app/photocraft-web.js still imports ./snippets/eframe-d31a8450ea12dfc1/inline0.js, and snippets/ is still only at the top of the zip, as in v0.17.0 to v0.21.0, so on a plain static server the page stays at "Loading PhotoCraft…". #10017 is still open, and the fix, #10248, isn't merged. The web build refuses PDF files; they need the desktop app.

This site's online editor skipped v0.22.0. It ran v0.21.0 from 9 November and moved to v0.23.1 on 12 November 2026, with the same workaround; see the v0.23.1 notes and /download/web.

The zip is 14,909,301 bytes (14.2 MiB), up from v0.21.0's 14,408,940. The app is one gzipped part, app/photocraft-web-f33f7850b836d0f3.part-aa, of 14,800,637 bytes (14.1 MiB). Chinese, Japanese and Korean text in the web build is still tracked in #1615.

Fixes and stability

• Notes and keys: Delete with a note selected deletes the note, not the layer (#11841). Escape in the Brush Preset picker reverts what was typed (#11850).
• Menus and prompts: a click outside a context menu closes it without also running the tool (#9841), and the rasterize prompt no longer replays the click that opened it (#9864).
• Properties panel: sliders keep a drag, and a wheeled Transform field is one edit (#10403).

More known problems and fixes: /guides/troubleshooting.

Breaking changes or things to know

• No Windows 32-bit build. A 32-bit install has nothing newer than v0.21.0. If your Windows is 64-bit, install the x64 build (or arm64 on an ARM PC) from /download/windows.
• New names: Camera Raw is RAW Develop in menus, windows and preferences. Scripts that use filter.cameraRaw and saved settings keep working (#12403).
• Changed defaults: the Brush's Pressure for Size starts off, the Type tool starts at 50 pt, the Move tool's Auto-Select targets Layer, Content-Aware Move's Transform On Drop and the Patch tool's Sample All Layers start on, and the Crop overlay always shows (#11847, #12110, #12166, #12389, #12164, #11022).
• Arrow nudges are smaller when zoomed in: one screen pixel, not one image pixel (#10438).
• PDF import is pixels only in the app; editable layers need photocraft-cli convert --pdf-editable.
• The web zip doesn't start as packaged; see Web build above.
• Update and Restart on Windows MSI installs. The report that it restarts without installing (#10477) is still open on 12 November 2026. If it happens, download the MSI from /download/windows and run it once.
• Windows 7 and 8: PhotoCraft still needs Windows 10 or later.

How to update

v0.23.0 followed on 11 November and v0.23.1 on 12 November, so install v0.23.1 instead; see the v0.23.1 notes and /download: Windows, macOS, Linux or the web build. The v0.22.0 release has 52 files, three fewer than v0.21.0 because the 32-bit Windows files are gone, with SHA256SUMS.txt to check them against. The Linux files and SHA256SUMS.txt are still signed, with the same release-signing-key.asc as v0.20.2 and v0.21.0; check them as shown in /guides/verify-download. Builds come only from the official GitHub release; avoid third-party mirrors. If you are coming from v0.20.2 or earlier, also read the v0.21.0 notes.

Full release notes, with every merged pull request: PhotoCraft v0.22.0 on GitHub.