Flare - Photo Editor 26.6 for Windows is out. Copies from this site offer it through Help › Check for Updates…, and the Windows page has the new installer and ZIPs. Almost everything below comes from your reports — thank you.
Layers and adjustments
- Adjustment layers over masks, groups and blend modes such as Linear Light no longer flip, shift or band the photo on some graphics cards, and the Color Range preview matches the canvas.
- Merge Down keeps exactly what you see: the lower layer’s mask is no longer applied to the upper layer, and smart filters are not applied twice.
- Layer Mask › Apply keeps the mask’s Feather and Density.
- Drop Shadow is no longer cut at the edge of a layer that is the base of a clipping group.
- Free Transform leaves an unlinked mask where it is, in the preview as on commit.
- Image Size, Rotate, Canvas Size, Crop and Straighten move shape layers, vector masks and paths with the pixels.
- Color Wheels: Preview off shows the layer as it was, and Cancel discards the changes. HSL Curves show the right curves after Undo. A tinted Black & White adds no color to a Grayscale document, and the Curves preview respects a single Lab channel.
Text and the Layers panel
- Editing a text layer keeps it in the Layers panel, selected, with its styles (Stroke, Drop Shadow, Outer Glow) and the name you gave it.
- A double-click on a layer’s name opens a field that stays until Enter, Esc or a click elsewhere.
Filters
- The preview of a new smart filter, and the Filter Gallery, start from the smart filters already on the layer, so they match the result.
- Gaussian Blur as a smart filter keeps its Depth Map, and Edit Smart Filter shows it.
- Remove Object with Smooth (Fast Marching) fills smoothly, without rainbow streaks.
- Add Noise leaves transparent pixels alone; Lens Correction’s preview shows what OK does on a Background layer.
Menus and commands
- Edit › Fill can use any color (Use › Color…).
- Window › Centered View centers the image in the view instead of resizing the window.
- The Window and Help menus keep working after a dialog such as New Workspace…; a marquee drag released away from its start always makes a selection.
- If the app closes unexpectedly, it now leaves a report you can send on the next launch — this helps us find the few crashes we could not reproduce yet.
Also in this release
- Rare legacy formats are no longer supported (PCX, PNM, IFF, DPX, Cineon, PICT, MacPaint, EPS and others). PNG, JPEG, TIFF, PSD, WebP, HEIC, AVIF, JPEG XL, OpenEXR, OpenRaster, TGA, PDF, AI, SVG and camera RAW stay.
- Preferences no longer has a Creator Suite pane: the service connects on its own.
Keep the reports coming through Help › Send Feedback… or on Discord.