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Limner
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Changelog

What's new in Limner.

Every release, newest first. Limner updates itself, so you're always one click from the latest build.

Current build · v0.8.7

v0.8.7

Latest July 2026
New
Pan the canvas with a tool. A Hand tool now sits on the left tool strip for moving the view, alongside the existing Space-drag and middle-mouse pan. Easier on a pen, or a tablet with no middle button.
Canvas scrollbars are on by default. New installs get horizontal and vertical scrollbars around the canvas. Existing settings are untouched, and View > Canvas scrollbars still toggles them.
Favorites stop vanishing. Quick Access entries that do not fit the bar now move into an overflow menu.
Improved
Everything fits your window. Modal dialogs cap to the window, the menu bar moves trailing menus into an overflow, the tool strip scrolls, and the status bar, tool-options bar, Layers, Color, Navigator, Reference, Timelapse, timeline, Book toolbar, and filter dialogs all gained compact layouts instead of clipping their own controls.
The Brush Settings editor was rebuilt. Values live on bar sliders you can drag anywhere along the track, with the label and number inside the bar and a double-click to type an exact value. The category rail collapses to icons when the panel is narrow.
The brush picker no longer collapses. Cells stretch to fill the pane, names shorten around the grip and trash buttons, a compact list appears at very narrow widths, and thumbnails stop being clipped at the panel edge.
Type and chrome match the design. Limner now loads the proper semibold face for headings and emphasis, which had been silently falling back to regular weight, and picks a sensible system UI font on each operating system.
Dialogs stop dulling the interface. The dimming behind a modal is now a light veil, so the canvas and the accent colour stay true while a dialog is open.
Antialiased edges look cleaner. The canvas, camera view, panel display, and live stroke preview filter in premultiplied space, so thin strokes and soft edges stop looking washed out against transparency at fit zoom.
Fixed
A refused stroke could paint on a locked layer. A click rejected on a locked, text, fill, adjustment, or keyframed layer caused the next click to replay the previous stroke onto the newly selected layer, straight through the lock, with an undo step recorded for it.
Free Transform could corrupt a keyframed layer. Transforming a layer driven by a transform keyframe altered its pixels even when cancelled, and discarded the only undo record. It is now refused with an explanation.
Eight blend modes committed as Normal. Subtract, Divide, Vivid Light, Linear Light, Pin Light, Hard Mix, Darker Color, and Lighter Color rendered correctly in the preview but not on commit.
Brush packs are no longer refused. A safeguard against malformed .abr files measured each tip at its authored size even though Limner shrinks every tip on import, so ordinary commercial packs were rejected outright, importing nothing at all.
The brush library could stop saving. One failed read of brushes.dat, even a momentary one caused by another program holding the file, stopped Limner saving any brush change for the rest of the session and made Reset silently do nothing.
A Plus key you just bought could be refused. Pasting a newly purchased key was rejected as a downgrade before activation could run, and revocation now requires a signature, so a tampered update manifest can no longer drop a paying customer to Free.
Big documents refuse gracefully instead of quitting. Free Transform on many large layers, a canvas resize on a many-layer document, an oversized Book page, and an impossible timelapse segment used to exhaust memory and end the process, losing every unsaved document. Each now explains the limit and leaves your work untouched.
A Book that Limner created could refuse to open. A page-size check meant for new Books was also applied when opening one, which made a large Book unopenable and quietly dropped it from Recent Books.
Dragging files no longer freezes the window. Hovering or dropping files from a slow or unreachable network share could lock up Limner, and the window you were dragging from, until the network timed out.
Crash recovery is safer with two copies open. Quitting one Limner no longer deletes another running copy's recovery snapshots, and a failed graphics read no longer substitutes transparent pixels into artwork.
Smaller fixes. Crop keeps a sideways shift, Cut and Copy keep a feathered edge, switching tools mid-selection is undoable, Apply Layer Mask on a disabled mask no longer erases visible pixels, opening files from Explorer is more reliable, and the Text dialog stops growing when you pick a long font name.

v0.8.6

July 2026
New
Build deep, durable layer stacks. Folders now nest up to 8 levels, empty folders persist, and a selected folder can be moved or deleted with all of its contents in one undoable action.
Adjust without destroying pixels. Solid Color and Gradient fill layers plus live Levels, Curves, Brightness / Contrast, Color Balance, Posterize, Invert, Gradient Map, and Threshold layers stay editable, respect folders, clipping, opacity, and masks, and can be baked with Rasterize Layer.
Save selections for later. Named selection channels preserve hard, anti-aliased, and feathered masks inside the document and reload as Replace, Add, Subtract, or Intersect.
Reach any command faster. Ctrl+K opens the command palette with ranked search, live shortcut labels, recent commands, favorites, and a one-click Quick Access strip.
Keep layouts for each job. Named workspaces restore panel and tool-strip arrangements, while Canvas Focus hides Limner's chrome until Esc brings it back.
Reference boards now travel with each canvas. Every document saves its own board inside the .limner file, restores it on reopen, and lets each photo flip horizontally or vertically. Board editing stays disabled until a document is open.
Animate with production controls. The timeline adds filmstrip review, zoom and scrubbing, frame ranges, cel exposure and retiming, color tags, 2D camera keys, and per-layer position, scale, rotation, and opacity keys.
Bring animation in and send it out. Import animated GIFs or numbered image sequences, then export the selected range as GIF, MP4, or a PNG sequence with camera and layer motion baked in.
Improved
Folder work stays in context. Merge Down and Merge Visible now accept layers inside folders. Click Merge to merge down, or press and hold it to flatten every visible layer. Add Layer Below inserts where expected, Remove from Folder moves one level, and clicking the empty panel exits folder scope for the next layer.
Photoshop exchange keeps more structure. Layer masks and folders now round trip through PSD import and export, ZIP-compressed channels import, and malformed files are handled more defensively. PSD import remains limited to 8-bit RGB; smart objects, live adjustments, editable text, and effects do not round trip.
Generated layers protect their recipes. Pixel tools and destructive filters leave fill and adjustment bodies untouched, while masks remain paintable and Rasterize provides an explicit, undoable conversion.
Document format v28 preserves the new data. Files that use nested or empty folders, generated layers, named channels, or a saved Reference board do not open in 0.8.5. Feature-free documents keep the older compatible file shape.
Fixed
Opening the construction-aids group no longer places a stray ruler before you choose Symmetry or another aid.
A clipped layer now stays clipped throughout a move instead of briefly showing its full contents.
Stabilized strokes no longer wobble when a tablet sends unevenly spaced input samples.
Double-clicking a grouped tool now opens its flyout, while a single click continues to select the shown tool.

v0.6.7

June 21, 2026
New
Vector workspace. Editable Bézier paths with fill and stroke, a pen tool, and live shapes, on the same canvas as your painting.
Pathfinder booleans. Unite, subtract, and intersect shapes, plus a Scissors / Join group for paths.
SVG export from the Vector workspace.
Improved
One document, three modes: switch how you work without ever changing your file.
Faster tiled rendering keeps large canvases smooth at high zoom.
Fixed
Smart Guides occasionally snapping to the wrong anchor in Vector mode.

v0.6.5

May 2, 2026
New
Brush Studio. Build brushes from dynamics and response curves, and turn any image into a tip.
Import and export Photoshop .abr brush sets.
Improved
Brush picker rebuilt as a library with folders and live stroke previews.
Fixed
Stabilizer over-smoothing very short strokes.

v0.6.3

March 18, 2026
New
Native-resolution 4K timelapse, recorded inside the file and resuming across sessions.
Export with speed control, social crops, and an end-card hold.
Improved
Built-in H.264 recording on a dedicated CPU thread, with no FFmpeg or hardware video encoder required.
Fixed
Timelapse frame drift on documents with odd dimensions (sizes are now forced even).

v0.6.0

January 27, 2026
New
Layers overhaul: folders, 18 blend modes, clipping, alpha lock, and non-destructive masks.
Mesh Warp and Liquefy tools.
Improved
Selections are now anti-aliased coverage masks with an optional feather.
Fixed
Autosave and crash-recovery reliability after unexpected shutdowns.

v0.5.0

First public beta November 10, 2025
New
Raster painting engine with custom brushes, native pen pressure and tilt, and a real-time stabilizer.
Filters: Levels, Curves, HSL, Color Balance, Gradient Map, and Blur.
PSD, PNG, and JPEG import and export.
No entries of this kind in the releases shown.

Release history is illustrative and set before launch. Dates and version numbers are placeholders.

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Limner

A native Windows art studio. Illustration and vector art on one canvas, with 4K timelapse built in.

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