Recent news
- Jul 11, 2024
A new PhotoDemon release is here! As part of a commitment to more frequent releases, PhotoDemon now uses calendar versioning. The new 2024.7 release includes many new features and improvements, including JPEG-XL support, PDF support (import only, export coming soon!), "magnetic" object snapping and smart guides, a greatly expanded `File > Export` menu, improved PSD compatibility, Japanese language support, and much more.
- Sep 8, 2022
After two years of work, PhotoDemon 9.0 is available to download. New features include an improved user interface, multi-selection support, new image format support (AVIF, PSP, SVG, XCF and more), content-aware fill, new filters and effects, and much more.
- Aug 15, 2022
After two years of work, a new PhotoDemon release is almost ready. New features include an improved user interface, multi-selection support, full support for new image formats (AVIF, PSP, SVG, XCF and more), content-aware fill, new filters and effects, and much more.
- Feb 23, 2022
2021 was an exciting year for PhotoDemon. Here's a list of all the new features and improvements that made their way into nightly builds over the past year...
- Feb 7, 2021
PhotoDemon now has a new public forum! The new forum is hosted by GitHub (the same site that hosts PhotoDemon's source code), and anyone can participate. You can reach the new forum by clicking the "Forum" link at the top of this page.
- Sep 22, 2020
Building on top of the recent 8.2 release, PhotoDemon 8.4 is another minor update that brings additional stability and usability improvements. I may have also snuck a new tool or two into it...
- Sep 9, 2020
PhotoDemon 8.2 is a minor update that brings stability and usability improvements to the recent 8.0 release. It is recommended for all users.
- Aug 28, 2020
No matter how much a new stable release gets tested, a few bugs always slip through the cracks. If you're having trouble with PhotoDemon 8.0 (particularly on Windows XP), fear not - an 8.0.1 update is on its way. In the meantime, please try the latest nightly build to see if it improves your experience.
- Aug 21, 2020
After 2.5 years of work, PhotoDemon 8.0 is available to download. New features include clone and pattern brush tools, support for Adobe Photoshop (PSD) images, massive performance improvements, new filters and effects, and much more.
- Jul 28, 2020
After 2.5 years of work, a new PhotoDemon release is almost ready. New features include clone and pattern brush tools, a new gradient tool, support for Adobe Photoshop (PSD) images, massive performance improvements, new filters and effects, and much more.
- Jan 31, 2020
I'm excited to announce that the latest PhotoDemon nightly builds have (finally) received a long-requested feature - clone and pattern brush tools. I'd love your help testing them.
- Aug 16, 2019
The latest Windows 10 update ("2019-08 Cumulative Update for Windows 10 Version 1903") breaks a critical system library used by PhotoDemon. Microsoft is currently "working on a fix", but in the meantime, you may find that older nightly builds crash without warning. (Stable builds *should* be okay.) I have uploaded a new nightly build to mitigate the worst of this issue.
- Feb 20, 2019
PhotoDemon 7.2 will ship with full support for layered image formats like Adobe Photoshop (PSD, PSB) and OpenRaster (ORA) files. Help me improve these features by downloading the latest nightly build and trying it with your own PSD and ORA files.
- Jun 6, 2018
As part of the migration to a new website platform, nightly build auto-updates have been reworked. If auto-updates have stopped working for you, please manually re-download the latest nightly build.
- Jun 1, 2018
Big things are coming to PhotoDemon, and *you* can help me build them!
- Jan 15, 2018
PhotoDemon 7.0.1 contains minor security and stability improvements relative to PhotoDemon 7.0. It is recommended for all users.
- Nov 28, 2017
After 2.5 years of work, 1500+ code commits, and 3400+ builds, PhotoDemon 7.0 is finally available. This release includes more new features and improvements than the past four releases combined, including new on-canvas paint tools, text tools, custom interface themes, full Unicode support, and dozens of new effects and adjustments.
- Nov 7, 2017
I am *so excited* to finally write this article. After 2.5 years of work, 1,500+ code commits, and 3,000+ builds, PhotoDemon 7.0 is nearly ready for release.
- Nov 7, 2017
Even though new adjustments and effects weren't the focus of this release cycle, there were plenty of opportunities to make improvements. A full list of adjustment and effect changes would require ten more articles as long as this one, but suffice it to say that in one way or another, every filter in the project has seen at least minor performance improvements, and many have received top-to-bottom overhauls. Let's spotlight a few of the more interesting changes.
- Nov 7, 2017
PhotoDemon 7.0 now ships with full-featured pencil, paintbrush, eraser, bucket fill, and color picker tools. If you've used paint programs in the past, you probably know what each of these tools do. For first-timers, here's a quick run-down.
- Nov 7, 2017
While engine improvements don't always make for pretty pictures (because they exist "behind-the-scenes"), they're the foundation on which the entire program rests, so let's talk about some of the core engine changes that make this 7.0 release possible. (And perhaps most importantly - let's talk about how these changes will make future releases possible.)
- Nov 7, 2017
Some new features don't fit into an obvious category, so here's a quick list of miscellaneous improvements in the 7.0 release.
- Nov 7, 2017
After many months of detailed study, development, and testing, PhotoDemon 7.0 will finally be capable of displaying text from any language, and working with files or folders with names from any character set. Similarly, any text that you enter inside the program - from text tools to filenames - now supports characters from any language. (Note that this is true across all versions of Windows, including Windows XP if SP3 is installed.)
- Nov 7, 2017
I've talked about PhotoDemon 7.0's new UI in the past, but this is one of those areas where words don't really do it justice. So let's use pictures!
- May 2, 2016
In its next release, PhotoDemon will finally be running on its own custom-built user interface toolkit. This toolkit has slowly been constructed over the past two years, but it's finally nearing completion, and it will make a ton of long-awaited fixes and improvements possible.
- Aug 3, 2015
Most photo editors have miserably poor text tools. In PhotoDemon, I wanted to see if we could break this trend. Here's a sneak peek at the result.
- Apr 6, 2015
With every new PhotoDemon release, I receive a flood of emails about the VirusTotal website, and their analysis of the new PhotoDemon build. After a new release, it is common for several of the site's 60+ scanners to mark PhotoDemon as suspicious. Before anyone gets too nervous, let's talk about why this occurs, and why I'm not worried about it.
- Mar 24, 2015
After six months of hard work, PhotoDemon 6.6 is officially ready for download.
- Mar 12, 2015
Version 6.6 is a little different from past releases. I'm making great progress on adding on-canvas paint tools (and related tools, like text and shapes), but due to their complexity, the new tools still need a few more months of work. I don't want to wait that long to release an update, so I've back-ported as many non-paint-tool upgrades and improvements as I can - that's what you'll find in version 6.6.
- Feb 19, 2015
PhotoDemon 6.6 includes a bunch of new features designed to make updates more frequent, more reliable, and less of a hassle for everyone - me, translators, and end-users included.
- Jan 12, 2015
At long last, PhotoDemon now provides fully powered polygon, lasso, and magic wand selection tools. As with other selection tools, non-destructive antialiasing and feathering are supported for all selection types.
- Sep 9, 2014
After six months of hard work, PhotoDemon 6.4 is officially ready for download. For those upgrading directly from version 6.2, you're going to find a lot of improvements!
- Aug 12, 2014
It's that time again - PhotoDemon 6.4 is nearing release, and it's time for beta testing. A few minor items still need addressing, and some language files are incomplete, but the core program is 99% ready for release - so anyone who can give it a whirl is greatly appreciated.
- Jun 24, 2014
Layers are now a fully integrated part of PhotoDemon's workflow. All the expected features are there - variable opacity, 24 blend modes, drag/drop layer reordering, flattening and merging, etc. In the PhotoDemon tradition, there are also some extra amenities, like support for one-click merge up or merge down operations, automatically fitting the canvas to the active layer or all layers, trimming empty space from images, and other little things...
- May 2, 2014
Layers support has been one of the largest undertakings since PhotoDemon went public some 18 months ago, but so far progress has been smooth and steady. Here are some of the Layers-releated features already available in the latest development build...
- Apr 27, 2014
PhotoDemon 6.2.1 provides fixes for several issues found in version 6.2.
- Mar 13, 2014
After five months of hard work, PhotoDemon 6.2 is officially ready for download.
- Feb 21, 2014
I have two primary goals with the 6.2 release - modernizing PhotoDemon's interface, and preparing the program for Layers support.
- Jan 11, 2014
PhotoDemon 6.2 will ship with a complete redesigned JPEG export dialog.
- Oct 25, 2013
Up through version 6.0, PhotoDemon used a very old interface style called MDI, or "multiple document interface". That's about to change.
- Oct 18, 2013
The title says it all - new nightly builds are now available!
- Sep 30, 2013
After six months of hard work, PhotoDemon 6.0 is officially ready for download.
- Sep 23, 2013
Over the past few weeks I have been working on a new home for PhotoDemon, and today, that new home goes live! PhotoDemon.org will now host all downloads, updates, and help documentation related to PD.
- Sep 19, 2013
It's taken nearly six months, but PhotoDemon 6.0 is finally ready for release. I've already talked about some of the great features this release includes, like powerful selection tools, metadata (EXIF) support, Curves and other new tools, but today I have some additional improvements to announce.
- Sep 19, 2013
As benchmarking goes, this is very informal. PhotoDemon reports timing automatically in nightly builds, but for GIMP and Paint.NET I had to resort to using a stopwatch. Normally this is a terrible idea, but the algorithms involved take a very long time to run, so a stopwatch is sufficient for broad timing. (10ths of a second don't matter much when an algorithm takes twenty minutes to finish...)
PhotoDemon: the fast, free, portable photo editor