Changelog

Explore our latest software updates for an improved user experience, new features, and bug fixes based on your feedback. Let's dive in!

Legend

NEW - New features, bug fixes and various improvements
UPDATE - This is a new version of Black Ink that includes some important changes
FIXED - New version with bug fixes only

Black Ink 2023

In progress ➟ New version UI redesign, optimization, toolbar enhancements, new brush manager, magic, global color,...

2023.6

Changes in motion

Symmetry Radial Operator

Commands Load, Restore, and Clear have been added to the GlobalColors Preset Menu.

Better operator property for the Tiling Operator

Better MagicWand & Paint Bucket performance when selecting an area.

You no longer need to click on a child window to bind the mouse wheel to it. Simply hovering over the window is enough.

The persistent Gizmos remain visible more consistently depending on the selected layer.

The Eyedropper shortcut (hold Alt) now works when the Paint Bucket Tool is active.

The Brush Smoothness tool can be toggled with the shortcut Z. You need to hold Z, as before, to adjust the smoothing amount.

Crash when creating a Symmetry or a DomainWrap operator from the Layer editor ToolBar Menu.

Random Crash when using the DomainWrap operator

When Erase with current brush is disabled in the Stylus Preferences, the user can’t retrieve the brush when using the stylus eraser button after flipping the pen.

Sometimes the Paint Bucket doesn't finish to fill the desired area

Bad pixel color on transparent part of an exported png image.

Export problem when many of the exported images contain voids. Black Ink may become unstable afterward and display a 'Failed to access all tiles' message.

Invalid blending alpha when the input of a layer stack uses a 'Pass Through' blending mode with more than 2 recursively nested layer stacks.

sometimes wrong rendering for Tiling Operator

the “persistent” gizmo of the Tiling Operator is working

Random crash when closing Black Ink after using ColorImage type for brushes.

25 July 2024

2023.5

Changes in motion

Symmetry Operator

Domain Wrap Operator

The Tiling Operator doesn’t create some transparent line if the content has no alpha blending on his edge. Moreover the Mirror in X & Y option has been added

Improved Automatic Vram Occupancy target when using a system with a large amount of VRam when starting Black Ink for the first time

the DLL d3dcompiler_47.dll is now distributed with Black Ink to ensure better compatibility with Proton and Wine.

The Eraser now has its own history. This allows it to maintain its size and settings during a session. However, they are not preserved when Black Ink is closed because the eraser is created based on the brush given at its first use.

Moving the Black Ink window on a screen with a different DPI can make it to crash

Default Keyboard shortcuts modified by the user won't be saved on disk

Crash occurs when using an Undo shortcut while the Directional Blur Tool is active.

Issue with Windows Ink sometimes when using the stylus on a Child window causing a position offset.

The Erase With the Current brush was broken and we didn't retrieve our selected brush after using the Eraser Tool.

Crash after dropping an image and creating a mask.

Crash when doing a Undo after trying to transform an empty layer

Sometimes, hiding/showing the Layer Editor introduced significant latency.

An annoying bug causing Black Ink to progressively slow down when frequently modifying brush settings. After a while, selecting a color could take several seconds.

When attempting to stack panels that are in a floating configuration, it may happen that some of them are no longer visible.

14 May 2024

2023.4

Precision issue during lasso selection tracing.

Fixed crash when drawing outside the maximum size limits for a canvas.

Some popups were not rendered correctly when using multiple child windows.

When clicking on a selection in exclusive mode (with the Magic Wand & Color Select), you can drag the selection around without the need to press the T shortcut. more..

8 Feb 2024

2023.3

StandAlone Only Bug in auto updater. You need to re-download Black ink installer and reinstall it to fix the issue.

Popups contained within windows that move behind child windows will still be displayed within the content of the child windows. more..

Some Random Crash

Crash when you do a Undo / Redo when the Eyedropper tool is activated

25 Jan 2024

2023.2 - Hot Fix

StandAlone Only Bug in auto updater. You need to re-download Black ink installer and reinstall it to fix the issue.

Debug Section in Preferences. more..

Issue with the stylus when the overall UI scale wasn't set to 100%. see

15 Dec 2023

2023.1 - Hot Fix

StandAlone Only A lot of Timeout when doing update. You need to re-download Black ink installer and reinstall it to fix the issue.

When dragging and dropping a simple image into the Main Canvas, Black Ink would open the document instead of directly importing the image into the current layer, as was the case in previous versions of Black Ink. more..

When dropping an image and not being on a layer, we remain in Black Ink's image import mode, and you need to restart the program for it to behave normally.

Crash when using the MagicWand or BucketFill

23 Nov 2023

First Release

Changes in motion

Brush manager

A completely new Brush Manager that will allow you to intuitively manage, find, and categorize your brushes. more..

Brush Favorite revisited

You can manage it from the Brush manager with Drag&Drop into Favorites > Slot N or directly into the QuickParamBar. Moreover, while holding the Favorite shortcut ( like Num 1, Num 2, .. ), you can now assign more than one brush by Slot and then select them quickly. . more..

Toolbar

New toolbar for standardized access like other drawing software. more..

Quick Settings

This new bar appears when selecting a tool and provides quick access to its most commonly used settings.

For example if a brush is selected:

Here if it is the zoom:

more..

Global color panel

Now, with the global color choice as "foreground" or "background," the color selection becomes more generic. The global color complements the existing choices of solid color, gradient, or image-based color. Additionally, it is now possible to define color presets for favorite colors or to have the color history as swatches. more..

Color popup

A quick shortcut J when you draw to bring up the color palette. more..

Magic Wand

With the magic wand, quickly select an area based on color, luminance, or alpha channel. more..

Paint Bucket

With the bucket fill tool, pick the area you want to paint, apply the replacement color, or modify it directly in its settings. more..

Tiling operator

The tiling operator allows you to duplicate a drawing as a pattern and define a spacing between each repetition. more..

Pass Through blending

Pass-through color blending now available for layer stacks. Sub-layer stack blending effects will apply to upper layer stack for seamless and efficient color blending.

Tool parameters

With the tools parameter panel, you now have the freedom to position it wherever you want. more..

PSD import

Layers, mask for the moment. Missing : FX, groups, etc..

Main menu

The main menu has been redesigned for better integration. more..

Brush Preview in the OS Explorer

Brushes can be viewed from the operating system's file explorer. more..

Drag&Drop of brushes directly from the OS Explorer

more..

Global Pressure Adjustment

Highly recommended for better pressure dynamic. more..

Windows Ink API supported for the stylus / tablet management

more..

Cursor preferences

Choose the cursors for your tools in the preferences. more..

Display of helpers

Selection, transformation, or cropping – customize their display in the preference panel for a better experience.

You can now edit the gradient color of brushes

Texture parameter for brushes

Eraser Favorite shortcut Num 6. This shortcut if hold display a gizmo which chooses from brushes tagged with Eraser from the Brush Manager.

the Brush shortcut B if hold can display an historic of previously selected brushes. Also if pressed a second time select the previously used brush.

When doing a File->Save As.. the name of the document is preserved if it’s not a BKD ( when doing an export ).

Improved overall rendering performance of Black Ink

The default shortcut for the command Duplicate as layer is now Ctrl+Alt+D in the Layer Editor ( instead of Ctrl+D which can cause confusion with the command Deselect ).

Crash when certain types of tooltips were to be shown.

Enabling the angle snap tool forces the straight line mode, but pressing it again does not disable it. The straight line tool neither enables nor disables the straight line mode.

Operators created in the Layer Editor have empty names.

Custom colors added in BSL are now correctly displayed in the Brush Parameters.

Brush Parameters now correctly reflect the data exposed by the BSL when modifying the BSL.

We can switch to the eraser with the E shortcut, but we can't switch back to the pen.

Troubles when we want to change the a shortcut setting ( often shortcut setted ) in Preferences > Keyboard

Random crash when Black Ink compute some brushes preview

Random Crash when Autorecover process is running

Random Crash when transforming a selection part of a layer that is connected to another operator.

Crashes when using smudge brushes on big canvas

A lot of random crashes de to multithreading

Visual bug when the UI isn’t at 100% scale on some effect and controls.

Windows Flicks Gesture is now automatically disabled when using a Tablet.

Crash when opening a File Dialog in Black Ink on a computer with Google Drive Desktop installed.

Wacom Ctrl+Z shortcut doesn't work.

Crash when entering a big text in the crash report comment dialog

---

Credits Kobe Sek Paul Geraldine Ricart

25 Oct 2023

Black Ink 2020

In progress ➟ New version Nodel Layer editor, New Brushes, Bative 64bit, Blur operator, ..

2020.3 - HOTFIX

Black Ink doesn’t start with CPU that have more than 32 CORE detected

Crash at startup if the GPU provides several device

Crash when using the command/shortcut “Fill eyedropper”

When using the command “Duplicate as layer”, the content of this layer was still influenced by modifications made by its original operators.

Random crash after using the CropTool

Rendering problem with brushes: Canvas Fill, Free Fill and Polygonal Fill

Brush with dual primitive (like Charcoal) can miss the secondary texture when rendered

Crash when pasting in a Grayscale layer

When a RGBA image is dragged and dropped into a grayscale layer the layer is transformed into a RGBA layer.

11 Jan 2021

2020.3

Blur Operator

Directional Blur Operator

Gradient Map Operator

Gradient editor (Only available in the Gradient Map operator for now )

Color Overlay Operator

Color Mode Channel Operator

Color Posterization Operator

Color Select Operator

Drag & Drop of Images in the Layer editor create multiple layer

Create Layer From Image.. Command in the layer editor

User Interface preference where you can Save / Load different UI Layout

Better performance when brushing with Black Ink

If you only save a PNG/JPG the document in Black Ink isn’t considered saved anymore. So you will not lose all your work if you try to close Black Ink by mistake.

No more glitch when brushing with texture on a zoomed canvas

The operator is now created at the same position as displayed by the preview

The eyedropper can now pick color anywhere in the Black Ink user interface & can pick into OS child windows

The Mask operator selects the alpha channel by default.

Layer operator isn’t expanded by default

Color wheel is now left aligned

Startup crash on some AMD GPU

Multithread random crash

Random crash sometimes when merging layers in the Layer editor

Random freeze sometimes when merging image layers

Big slowdown in Black Ink when auto-saving a document is triggered

Crash sometimes when selecting "Background default Image" in brush preview.

Crash when using invalid parameters in an array in BSL

Random Crash when previewing brush eraser

Crash when using a grayscale image as a brush preview background

Keyboard states sometimes are irrelevant when the focus of the main window of Black Ink changed

Sometimes the "erase with current brush" shortcut gets stuck on the eraser, the cursor will still be red and the brush will still erase even though it is not holding the shortcut for it.

Freeze when typing in the search box of the Log panel

Sometimes Eyedropper return null color ( alpha at 0 )

The "overlay" node is creating liserets with the edges in some case

Sometimes the “Center on selection” command in the Layer Editor doesn't work as expected

Shortcuts “Save”, “Open”, “Save As..” works only when a CanvasView has the focus

---

Credits A huge thanks for all our beta testers, patrons and all artists with your drawings or pictures illustrating this update!
D. Alex. Nixon
Ahi
Cristina Cόrdova
Taran Fiddler
Claudine Ricart
Perceval Schopp

15 Dec 2020

2020.2

New version of Black Ink with several bug fixes and enhancements

Now Black Ink is operating in native 64-bit

Brightness/Contrast Operator in the layer editor

Windows Explorer .bkd file preview

Blending Type Multiply Preserve Alpha

Black Ink About

Set the Vram in the GPU Preferences options

Shortcut “FreezeReportDialog” (Ctrl+Shift+Alt+F4) that will make Black Ink Crash. Useful if you think Black Ink is in a Frozen state when saving or loading.

Some random crashes

Crash when using other than D3D11 rendering API (Other D3D9,D3D10 and OpenDL API has been removed and aren’t supported anymore)

Crash when loading 16bits grayscale PNG

Duplicating layer stack with external reference create artifact in the duplicated stack

Sometimes when using the transform tool, the content disappears

After clicking on the rotate tool it’s impossible to disable it.

Mouse / Stylus problem when Zooming, Drawing, changing the brush size with gizmo ( like these links: Steam or Youtube)

Freeze at startup if a brush with multiple textures was created by the user.

Rendering problem with the brush “Watercolor pen”

Crash when clicking on the output of the first layer see

After a Windows Explorer drag and drop Black Ink windows has directly the keyboard focus

Now the crash report upload data directly on our server without the need of an Email client

No more destruction of operators embedded in Input of operators when dragging new operator on it. The old element is now placed near the input on the layer editor.

---

Credits Special thanks for your drawings illustrating this update
Adam Phillips
Ahi
Perceval Schopp

20 Aug 2020

2020.1

New version of Black Ink with several bug fixes and enhancements

2 new commands in the Layer Editor

Merge Visible layers Merge Layers / Merge Down

Crash sometimes when using the Straight line tool

Crash at startup when your tablet isn’t plugged in to your computer

Crash when searching in Preference Shortcut on a system using non latin character

Crash when double clicking on the Create Mask Icon of the Layer stack operator

The toggle Layer Editor button does nothing in the Main toolbar

Overlay, HardLight, SoftLight blending doesn’t behave like in Photoshop

Tooltip for the first 2 icons of the Layer stack has been added

16 Jan 2020

First Release

Changes in motion :

Layer editor panel We replaced the previous fixed 8 layers with a nodal editor where you can truly compose your drawing Important > You have the walkthrough

Layers number is now unlimited and they can go up to 64K pixels in size

Layer properties panel You have all your node details and parameters on a dedicated panel

Search in preferences

Display Monitor color Management

Possibility to hide layer content outside of the current canvas ( Shortcut V )

Off For example you can keep a color palette or a model

On You have only your final canvas

“Handle eraser state of stylus” Option. Help Huion’s users to fix this problem

Brush - Calligraphy gel ink

Brush - Hair trail

Brush - Blurry Watercolor

Brush - Wet Watercolor

Brush - Watercolor

Brush - Watercolor pen

Brush - Dotted dissolve 24px

Brush - Stencil brush

Brush - Hair Dissolve 24 px

Brush - Pencil 2px

Rotation bug when using the Hold R shortcut in a Black Ink window with a scale different of 100%

randomly the Clear button in search box is visible but can’t be clicked

Halo with the Simple Round pen ( see )

Using brushes with readback on canvas view can generate weird colors on view borders

Sometimes it was difficult to Drop a Panel into a Docking pane header.

Sometimes the stroke shows invalid touches at the beginning or end of the stroke

Multiply Blending : Now when the alpha’s Backdrop is null the content of the foreground is preserved

JPG & PNG exported image doesn’t embedded an ICC color profile

Incorrect transparent color picking with eyedropper

If the user interface is resized,when using crop,transformation or selection tool there is a rendering offset in the preview area.

Incorrect mask zone of the crop in drawing viewport

Brush using Dual Primitive drawn with the “View Constant Brush Size” disabled was buggy

A lot of different crashes..

Zoom is now performed according to the location of the cursor

Better performance when using the quick transform tool

Better performance with undo and redo

Better performance when drawing and moving the canvas

Improved blending quality when using low opacity brushes

More compact UI for Child Floating Windows

17 Dec 2019

Beta 4

In progress ➟ New version Brush shader language, readback, GPU perf...

The BETA 4 allows you to customize the shortcuts and change the interface size for more efficiency. But above all shaders can be created and modified to give effects to brushes such as smudge, patterns, material effects, 3D...

0.357.2643 - Hot fix

Rotation bug when using the Hold R shortcut in a Black Ink window with a scale different of 100%

When using the Hold+ S or Hold+ D to change the size or opacity of my current brush, the command releases after 1 seconds ( issue )

06 Oct 2017

0.356.2642 - Release

Native High DPI Screen display support, UI customizable size...

Changes in motion also covering previous update

Native High DPI Screen display support

Black Ink now automatically scale the user interface according to the OS settings.The user can modify this scaling by clicking the the BI Logo on the top left of each window.The customised scaling will be saved by each individual Black Ink’s window. The Ctrl+Wheel and the Ctrl+Q shortcuts are introduced to set the scaling

Some shortcuts have been moved from the Global context to the Canvas View Context (Flip Vertical, Flip Horizontal and DrawsInCanvasView)

Better Eraser effect when using smudge brushes

You can now use the keyword “key” and “hold” in the Preference shortcut search bar.

When using the “Zoom in and out” command ( Hold Q ) the zoom is made from the cursor position instead of the centre of the View. Moreover when moving the cursor outside of the window the movement doesn’t stop.

Darker background for the BrushPreview editor to avoid confusion with the normal or secondary viewport

You can use Wheel to zoom on top of the rendering indicator.

BSL | it’s now possible to use input modifier for BSL function like in this example

BSL | the function matrix3FromRaw is now really available

Some crash when saving a BKD

Some crash/Freeze when loading a lot of textures when opening the Brush Manager

Some crash when Changing a Shortcut after moving the focus to another panel of control.

Sometimes Black Ink suffers a severe hang/freeze when opening the Brush Manager.

The Elastic Gizmo (visible with some smoothness is set) was not displayed.

Some layout problem when the Preference Keyboard Tab when stacked.

Can’t DragDrop color from the Brush Preview color selector into preference.

The command “Copy Merged” wrongly took invisible layers into the operation.

01 Aug 2017

0.346.2604 - Hot fix

"Activate Black Ink" command sometime is missing

23 Jun 2017

0.345.2599 - Release

Shortcut customization, rendering indicator...

Shortcut Customization
![][Non]The user can now customize Black Ink shortcuts in the Preferences Panel > Keyboard

Default Brushes

• Charcoal dual Texture
• Charcoal dual texture lines 62px
• Charcoal background pattern 40px
• Ink droplet bicolor canvas fill
• One Edge textured 24px
• Felt pen textured 16px
• Airbrush texture pattern 12px
• Random color shift textured
• Smudge Charcoal background pattern 40px
• Smudge noise colored
• Smudge expand colored 50px
• Scribble Circles 20px

A rendering indicator shows if the canvas isn't 100% accurate due to a background rendering process

Texture resources are automatically reloaded if modified on disk

The Step brush exposes now parameters to generate the position of a second primitive

BSL with custom blending can now be used as an Eraser when using the idatas.eraser parameter

Autorecover files are now deleted only after 2 weeks ( see issue )

Performance problems when using ReadBack brushes on big canvas

Black Ink window wasn't displayed on Windows 10 Creator Update ( see issue )

Crash when inverting the current selection

Crash when using the Merge All function

Crash when tried to crop with an active selection

Crash when trying to reload a corrupted BKD

ctrl+z(undo) doesn't respond immediately after selecting color, different brush

some crashes when editing the source code of a BSL

some crashes due to a RAM usage overflow

entering a hexadecimal value in the color picker displayed the wrong corresponding color

Saving in wrong path when the target path contained a '.'

Black Ink main or Child window sometimes doesn't resize/maximize correctly on multi-monitor system.

21 Jun 2017

0.301.2448 - Release

Shaders on brushes, Brush Shader Language editor, Large brush preview panel, brush manager, smudge, brush with texture, Float parameter, Brush vector 2 parameter, color wheel, autopicking color, raw color...

Changes in motion :

List of changes :

Use shaders on brushes:
You can now select a Shader effect for a Brush

BSL Editor

Brush Preview Panel

Brush Manager in an independent panel with search and filter options

Brush Float parameter has been redesigned

Brush Vector 2 parameter has been redesigned

Brush Color parameter has been redesigned :

• Solid color type now can be embedded in the Brush Parameter bar
• You can now choose between 2 types of color picking interface (Normal or Wheel palette)
• Gradient editor has been redesigned
• New Auto Picking color type is introduced. In this mode the color above the cursor when starting a Stroke is automatically returned ( like an eyedropper )
• New Raw color type was introduced. Here a color created entirely with the controller editor is returned.

Brush texture parameter

Brush gradient parameter

Some default controllers have been added

Some default Brushes have been added

• Shape step

• Smudge blur

• Canvas fill

If an invalid stylus calibration is detected the error message will only be displayed one time per application launch.

The size of the drawing cursor is now clamped and can't exceed 96 pixels

The fade in/out of the cursor when drawing has been changed.

The trial time for the demo version is now 4 hours.

Pink flashes on the User Interface on Intel GPU ( see issue, issue, issue )

Image saving issue on AMD GPU ( see issue, issue )

Flickering in the Brush Preview windows when moving Brush Parameters

Crash when using the transform tool on tiny canvas resolution ( see issue )

Crash when tried to crop with an active selection

Popup on child window transparency issue ( see issue, issue )

If a crash occurs, the file is recovered with its original filename and directory ( see issue )

Incorrect Hue color in color picker ( see issue and issue )

Fill bug from the layer menu ( see issue )

Invalid Azimuth interpolation along a stroke

31 Jan 2017

Beta 3

In progress ➟ New version LAYERS (basic version), Essential revisited tools (straight line, selection, crop…)

The BETA 3 integrates standard tools for drawing software, such as selection and straight lines and crop with a special touch to improve them.

0.249.2089 - Update

Straight Line mode, Crop Tool, Snap angle, Auto-recover, Resize image, ...

Changes in motion :

Download the video here

List of changes :

Straight Line Draw mode / toggle K

Pressing the Shift key when drawing now displays a Snap Angle Wheel. The angles can be edited in the Straight Line Parameters

New default brushes

• Simple line
• Pencil
• Free Fill
• Polygonal Fill
• Pond Plant Fill
• Angle line Fill
• Ruins

Angle snap parameters on the main Toolbar

Crop Tool / Shift+C

Image - Resize Dialog

Auto Recover - Autorecovery option can be accessed through the Preference Panel in the General Tab section

The New.. Dialog has been redesigned. It has default and user presets and the ability to define a starting background color.

The Fill layer tool is now directly accessible in the Main toolbar. It comes with these associated shortcuts:

• G - Fill the current layer or selection with the current fill color
• Ctrl+G - Fill the current layer alpha with the current fill color
• Ctrl+Alt+G - Fill the empty areas of the current layer with the fill color.
• Alt+G - Switch the Eyedropper between the current brush color and the fill color

Felt pen default brush has been updated (It now uses the tilt and the pressure of the stylus to adjust opacity).

Better Image sampling after a transformation ( less blur after a simple Transform -> Move operation ).

The shortcut for Flip Vertical has been changed, previously G, now Shift+F

Be careful if using the Tilt stroke parameter in controller because now return a value between 0 and Half PI (previously 0 to 1)

The time parameter was not reinitialized between strokes ( issue )

When cancelling the transform operation of a selection the selected area was erased ( issue )

Using the Del shortcut when using the transformation tool clears the canvas instead of the currently transformed object

Problem occurred when using the stylus button when drawing ( issue )

Grayscale JPG can now be opened

Random crashes

Activation now possible for email addresses with a '+' in the username.

04 Sep 2015

0.225.1990 - Update

Secondary Viewport, Flip view, preferences, log view panel...

Changes in motion:

Download the video here

List of changes :

Secondary Viewport

This panel displays another view of the canvas with the same drawing features and live editing

• U toggle Secondary Viewport
• Drawing view can be flipped horizontally F or vertically G
• The brush size can be made constant in view space or in canvas space ( toggle with: Y )

Preferences Panel can be accessed from > Main Menu > Edit or Main Menu > Window

Stylus section

User can now monitor some parameters of their stylus.

• A calibration process is accessible now if Black Ink doesn't retrieve correct stylus position.
• The Reset button sets the calibration values back to the driver's default.
• The Precise stylus calibration check box discards the tablet driver's stylus position and relies on the system's mouse position (less accurate)

GPU Section: User can choose a rendering API, a specific adapter and whether Black Ink should wait for the VSync of the monitor when rendering the user interface.

Log View panel displays logged information of Black Ink activity : I

Notification Bar: Warning and error messages are displayed on this bar if the Log panel isn't visible.

Color palette is now interpolated in gamma space instead of linear space for easier color picking.

The maximum zoom limit is now 6400% instead of 1600%

TestPanel 1 and TestPanel 2 have been removed.

Rendering artifacts on some brushes

Random crash when changing color after clicking the color button in parameter editor.

Crash when using the Transform tool on little canvas.

Crash when opening a grayscale JPEG image.

Using the second button on a stylus stops the stroke and the user can't draw until he uses another tool

An error in color mode blending equation.

The lasso informations are now in canvas space. This enables the user to transform the view while retaining all lasso data.

Tool icons and brush favorites overlaps after a Black Ink Window resize

13 May 2015

0.205.1923 - Release

Stroke smoothness, Panel layout...

Change in motion

Download the video here

List of changes :

DirectX11 renderer when available

Hold Z set the drawing smoothness

Panel layout customizable

The Controller Editor can now be dragged out of Black Ink's main window. More panels will have this behavior in future versions. This feature shows the new Stacking capacity for such windows in Black Ink. However, some controls/editors are fixed to their place to keep a consistent UI.

New UI shortcuts

• Ctrl+Left toggle Black Ink main window left panel
• Ctrl+Down toggle Black Ink main window bottom panel
• Ctrl+Right toggle Black Ink main window right panel
• M toggle Brush Manager panel ( for the moment this panel is fixed and can't be dragged out )

Ctrl+T transform current selection

Improved Framerate when drawing.

Black Ink window can be resized by the dragging the top border

In the transform tool, after clicking a command button (like "flip horizontally") the focus is not tied to this button anymore, so that pressing Enter validates the current transform.

You can now click on the brush and eraser icon in the top right part of Black Ink to directly select the last brush or the eraser (same as B and E shortcuts )

An option have been added in the Zoom tool to enable/disable zooming at more than 100%.

When using the Save command on a document which isn't a BKD, the program automatically transforms the command into a Save As.

Sometimes when doing Ctrl+A , Ctrl+C , Ctrl+V on big images, the copied content isn't polluted with some invalids squares anymore.

The Color Blending mode doesn't output blocky results when using dark color

Crash in trial version when saving when the trial time has expired ( issue )

Random crash after loading a BKD

Crash when importing a grayscale JPG

Several random crashes when using the program

If the Selection or Transform properties are opened in the sidebar panel, clicking the "Show Brush manager" has effect ( issue )

When hovering the Selection and Transform tools, the popups can disappear under the cursor, and you can only get them back by moving the cursor out of the panel and back into it. ( issue )

With multiple monitor, the Black Ink Window is moved to another monitor when activating the application.

28 Jan 2015

0.173.1770 - Update

Selection tools V2 ( polygonal lasso, freehand lasso, layer transparency + adjustment)...

Change in motion :

Download the video here

List of changes :

Selection tools:

• Create Polygonal Lasso | When you adjust a polygonal lasso primitive use Shift+Left Button to add a new control point and Alt+Left Button to remove a control point or an edge
• Create Lasso | + to zoom step in and - to zoom step Out

We can now zoom more than 100%

Some random crash when using a Tablet and when a wrong auto calibration is computed ( issue)

Crash when loading an image when the Select & Transform toolbar is collapsed.

Some brush Shape type was not affected by the current selection ( issue )

Fill Layer was not affected by the current selection.

Crash when loading a grayscale PNG ( issue )

Sometimes brush preview is incorrect ( displaying the preview of another brush )

21 Aug 2014

0.168.1749 - Release

Selection tools V1 (rectangle and ellipse) and Selected edition...

List of changes :

Selection tools:

Create rectangle primitive
Create ellipse primitive.

When you create a new primitive you can use shortcuts to choose an operation :

• Use Shift+Left Button to add a primitive to the selection
• Use Alt+Left Button to subtract a primitive to the selection.
• Use Shift+Alt+Left Button to keep only the intersection of the primitive with the selection.

Adjust last selection

Allows you to adjust the latest selection primitive to refine your selection instead of canceling and starting over.

Selection tool in action

New Shortcuts

• Ctrl+C / copy selection from the current layer
• Ctrl+Shift+C / copy selection from all visible layers
• Ctrl+V / paste content of the Black Ink clipboard on the current layer
• Ctrl+X / cut the current selection
• Ctrl+Shift+A / select current layer's opacity
• Ctrl+A /select all
• Ctrl+I /invert selection
• Ctrl+D /deselect all
• Ctrl+F4 / Exit Black Ink

The brush cursor is thinner and uses an inverse color technique for better visualisation

Transformation Editor

• It's now possible to undo/redo with the transformation tool active (useful to compare original state and current transformation without exiting the mode).
• You can now configure (in options) the alpha and the visibility of the handles and the frame of the transformation gizmo.
• You can define a snap angle in the transformation parameters.
• When transforming a layer the gizmo now surrounds only meaningful content and not necessarily the entire layer

Before

After

It's now possible to open .BKD directly from the windows explorer if you assign Black Ink to this file format.

Losing Dynamic Textures on the canvas when resizing the Black Ink window in Direct3D 9.

Edition of double slider sometimes buggy when a value is entered in a numeric box (watch this video).

The Eraser side of stylus didn't work.

Crash when saving with the transform tool active.

Wrong window size when windows taskbar is not positioned at the bottom of the screen (issue).

Overwrite message displayed in all situation when using the Save As command (issue).

11 Jun 2014

Beta 2

In progress ➟ New version LAYERS (basic version), BLENDING, EXPORT PNG & JPG...

The Beta 2 includes standard tools for non-destructive creation such as layers and blending but also allows exporting and importing formats in png and jpg.

0.161.1686 - Update

Layer tools, Import / export image, Jpeg, Transform editor (rotate, move, scale, flip, tile) ...

List of changes :

User can now use the .JPG image format in Black Ink for saving and loading

There are Commands Menu for each layer (in the upper left of the layer thumbnail)

• Duplicate Layer
• Fill - Fill the layer with the given solid color
• Transform - Transform the whole layer
• Merge Down - Merge down the layer
• Merge Visible - Merge all visible layers
• Merge All - Merge All layers into a flattened image
• Export Image - Export the layer as an image
• Import Image - Import an image in the layer

The new layer menu

You can Drop an image file from the Window Explorer to open it. If it's a .BKD it will open the document but if it's another file format( .JPG, .PNG ) it will import it in the current selected layer.

The Transform editor (invoked when user starts a Transform operation)

• T / Transform the current selected layer
• Transform section added in the Toolbar
• You can set the opacity of the current transformed object before applying the transformation
• Center the transformed object
• Tile the transformed object thought the entire canvas
• Fit the transformed object thought the entire canvas
• Fill the canvas with transformed object content
• Flip the Transformed object Horizontally or vertically
• Reset the Transformed aspect ratio back to its original size

New Transform gizmo

The General Shortcuts section added in the Toolbar.

Black Ink installer now support 32-bit Windows 8.1 x86

An Empty= Layer is created above the default white Background when the New command is invoked (request)

The Esc that sometimes close Black Ink has been removed.

The Eraser function of stylus is not recognised on new Intuos PRO ( issue )

Problem when resizing the application window with the controller panel opened ( issue )

Crash when using the stylus Eraser when brushing with the mouse.

Crash when switching to the stylus Eraser when editing some Controller parameter

Crash when selecting the Crepe Default Brush, editing the 2^nd color and drag&dropping one of the color-markers away (to remove it)

Brush Preview flooding when Dragging out controller block from a slot without destroying it. A Preview was created each time the user start to draw while it was unnecessary.

Black Ink Window is correctly placed when Maximized with a Task bar pinned on the left, right or top of the desktop ( issue )

20 Feb 2014

0.151.1634 - Update

Scatter parameter, 2D vector operators for controllers...

List of changes :

Scatter parameter for brush parameters (even old default brushes have a scatter effect now)

2D vector operators for controllers

New default brushes

• Swarm Brush
  

• Follow Bubbles Brush
  

• Hard Fur Brush
  

• Nasca Fan Brush
  

• Garland Brush
  

• Dots Aligned Brush
  

• Rake Brush
  

Black Ink try to recover now corrupted .BKD files at opening and not simply skip the loading of it.

When saving a .BKD Black Ink use now a temporary file and overwriting the current one after the creation is complete (issue)

Coma is now a valid decimal mark for numeric input (see)

Brush Default Stroke for preview has been updated to reflect new speed compute behavior.

All default brushes has been updated with a default Scatter behavior.

Glitch & Artefacts on AMD HD video of class 68xx, 79xx (issue)

13 Nov 2013

0.144.1161 - Hot fix

Stylus position, stroke improvement...

List of changes :

Main Menu > Edit > Disable Precise Stylus position. This option is useful If you still encounter stroke offsets after using Reset Stylus Calibration. This will read position from the mouse pointer and only take the pressure from the tablet's pen.

Crash when press on the Num 9 ( more infos )

Precision issue when sketching. Now Black Ink is more accurate with the stroke input and should fidelity follow what you do with your tablet (if you have not Disabled Precise Stylus position see above). ( more infos )

The way the Speed is computed from stroking has changed. It's now more accurate and reflect better the dynamic. Warning if you have created some of which use speed, their look could have changed.

The way are handled Mouse positions has been changed : a smoothing is applied which induce a little latency but a smoother stroke result and a better Pressure simulation.

The old Menu in front of the current brush name has been removed ( it will be replaced by a new one in a future version ).

The skin of the Black Ink installer has been updated. The packages doesn't include anymore DirectX & Visual Studio redist and rely on network download if not present on the installed computer. The Installer EXE size has been reduced to 13Mb instead of 19Mb.

07 oct 2013

0.140.1596 - Update

Straight line drawing constraint...

List of changes :

Straight Line constraint through 2 directions. Hold Shift Key while drawing to activate the Straight Line drawing constraint.

The default tracking cursor is more opaque.

Hold Shift+R while rotating the Canvas active the snapping.

Random Crash ( occurred frequently when saving a PNG ).

The preview of Image reference wasn't updated correctly when panning & zooming in the control.

Crash when resizing the Black Ink window ( crash occurred when there was no more area for the Canvas ).

Crash when Black Ink open an invalid .png file

Crash when Black Ink open an corrupted .bkd file

Ctrl+O shortcut now works

19 Sep 2013

0.135.1579 - Update

Trial version (unlimited during 2h), brush shortcuts...

List of changes :

Trial system now offer 2 hours of Black Ink without any limitations. You can test Black Ink ( or future update of Black Ink ) during 2 hours without any restrictions or limitations. After the 2 Hours of effective use of Black Ink will regress into the previous limited Trial system.

New drawing shortcuts

• Hold S to set the size of the current brush

• Hold D to set the opacity of the current brush

• Hold E the current Brush is transformed temporarily into an Eraser

• E Switch between the Eraser and the previous Brush

Improved framerate when Stroking large brush on big canvas ( fixed the problem discussed here )

21 Aug 2013

0.128.1572 - Hot fix

List of changes :

The canvas display a checker background instead of the default color if there’s NULL alpha.

There’s no more default background color when saving in PNG.

Note

Due to the difference between Black Ink’s linear color space and Photoshop’s gamma color space, differences in transparency display can be seen at places where a layer with a transparent stroke covers another layer with varying opacities. In this case, try to import layers separately for better results.

9 Aug 2013

0.119.1563 - Release

Layers, 12 different layer blendings, more undo/redo...

List of changes :

Layers !!! ( better late than never ) - Up to 8 layers in a document for best GPU compatibility - Preserve transparency option - 12 different layers blending modes with real time preview

Brush cursor when drawing on the canvas now displays the size of the brush (instead of the previous default windows mouse pointer)

Ctrl+R to reset the canvas rotation

Drastically Improved Rendering performance on mid range GPU( like Intel HD4000 )

The behavior of the Ctrl+1 has been improved, the zoom animation is less chunky and if you trigger this shortcut twice you will return to your previous Zoom position.

The number of Undo is now setted to 50 (you must edit the C:\Users\"UserName"\AppData\Roaming\Bleank\BlackInk\AppParams.xml if you want to modify this parameter).

Default Brushes have been updated:

• Additional brushes ➟ Hay,Simple flat pen,Ruffle,

• Updated brushes ➟ Dotted Line,Paintbrush,Tail,Sticks

• Brushes removed ➟ Felt Pen 2,Calligraphic Pen 2

Crash when loading a PNG without alpha channel.

Crash when loading a 16bit png as an Image-based color

Random crash when using the Crepe Brush

Color shifting not working

Canvas Rendering problem on intel HD4000

11 Jul 2013

Alpha

In progress ➟ New version Black ink conceptualisation

The alpha version makes it possible to lay the foundations of Black Ink and test its concepts concretely

0.81.1290 - Update

Some improvements and patches before the next release

More tooltips infos has been added

Double Click on tool icon in the ToolBar reset the default value

The free rotation tool is smoother when moving at the center of the canvas

Click effect has been added when selecting a brush in the historic

Some parameter icons has been added

The Buy popup is displayed less frequently in trial version

Crash when opening the New.. dialog.

Crash when opening the Activate dialog.

Licence agreement not visibile in the installer in some region.

26 Sep 2012

0.80.1284 - Update

Tooltip system added. buttons now display their meaning. Another usefull use is the possibility to view a big version of each brush preview.

Tooltip displayed from the Fit on screen command

Tooltips in action

19 Sep 2012

0.78.1279 - Update

Navigation tools, Smooth canvas transformation...

New Navigation tool bar in action

Navigation Tools to transform the view of the Canvas

Smooth Canvas transformation

H shortcut to hide the UI

The Main ToolBar has been redesigned

All Brush preview has a default Grey background

Brush Preview has wrong background color

Eyedropper picking old canvas color

Navigation shortcut are now working even if the mouse is outside of Black ink Window

Rendering glitches when Dialog box Appear/Disappear under Windows 7

Rendering glitches when changing Brush Parameters in the BrushPreview

Removed the black Borders of BlackInk if the window is maximized under Windows 7

Crash when DblClick on Gradient stops

12 Sep 2012

0.77.1274 - Update

Brush parameters blending type, shape type, boolean, system menu

List of changes:

New Brush parameters:

• Blending type
• Shape type
• Boolean

System menu for Black Ink ( Right Button on the TaskBar )

Brush Parameters design has been updated

Invalid BlackInk window positioning if the desktop has changed monitors position

Invalid BlackInk window maximizing in multi monitor configuration

Image Reference rotation bug more infos

Invalid Clipping region for expanded parameters of the Gradient Editor & the Image Reference editor

4 Sep 2012

0.76.1267 - Update

Show / hide entire UI...

Auto selection of the Eraser when flipping the stylus

You can now hide the entire UI when drawing

Main Menu has been re-designed

Now Shaders are pre-compiled and delivered in the installation package ➟ Loading time of BlackInk significantly decreased after re-installation/update.

The default canvas size after a first installation is greater ( 5Kx3K pixels )

24 Aug 2012

0.74.1265 - Hot fix

Crash when Dragging a SolidColor

20 Aug 2012

0.73.1264 - Hot fix

Application DeadLocked when using the Crepe Brush

Rendering bug around the Eraser preview

Random crash report when closing the application

No UI element animation in random case

Special latin character bug for image Favorite

20 Aug 2012

0.72.1262 - Update

You can load now JPG file for the ImageBased color

Brush 1 ... 5 ) and Eraser E keyboard shortcuts

Improved performance of the application when modifying Brush Parameters

The rendering of Brush Thumbnail was sometimes not correct

15 Aug 2012

0.71.1257 - Update

Eraser Brush is now available

Trial Borders are more restrictive now only a safe zone of 1024x768 is available

Tablet detection bug when multitple ones are installed on a computer.

8 Aug 2012

0.69.1254 - Update

Debug session accessibility by password

Better main canvas rendering after Undo/Redo

Documentation is in .chm and now reflect last change of BlackInk

The Opacity parameter is now always visible in the Shape section of the brush

Some crash related to gradient editor

7 Aug 2012

0.67.1248 - Update

Canvas rendering has been greatly revisited. This management now can handle efficiently Brush which need a lot of rendering power and still give feedback to user with progressive adaptation of the rendering. This feature then Fixed the crash of the Volute brush on some PC. Unfortunately we need to fix some rendering glitches on the canvas when we do Undo/Redo actions.

Veil Brush has been renamed to Volute

7 Aug 2012

0.65.1227 - Hot fix

Veil Brush

A lot of improvement in this area, so try it as you like but keep in mind that controllers are not accessible for now (all parameters are initialized with some default controllers not visible for the moment)

All float number parameters for each brush are back!!

0.64.1222 - Update

Color picker has now a Eye Dropper functionnality

Color favorites

Color Parameters controls fully redesigned for better usability

Brush Parameters bar redesigned

Regression - Controller of parameters not available

Regression - Size parameters not available

0.58.1167 - Hot Fix

In Trial Version you can only save a 640x480 pictures with a little Black Ink Watermark

Updated the design of the Border of the application

Window obscuring the TaskBar when the application is Maximized

0.56.1164 - Update

Funky Splashscreen

Borderless window for the application for Windows Vista / 7 or later

0.50.1153 - Update

The Trial Version Runtime watermark has been redesigned

Use the Keyboard shortcut Space instead of Shift for Canvas panning

Crash when manipulation Controller

0.46.1148 - Hot fix

False positive Malicious Detection on Chrome

Rendering bug on DirectX9 hardware for the main canvas & the preview

Freeze in the Image Reference control

Crash on startup or when loading the Activate window

Crash on loading image for Image Reference

0.45.1146 - Update

New Editable Brush Parameters:

• Opacity
• Size
• Scale x
• Scale y

0.44.1142 - Update

Documentation accessible in Main Menu > Help > BlackInk Documentation

Crash after saving in trial mode

0.42.1134 - Update

Toolbar for Brush Favorites

Brush Default Pencil

Brush Default Curve Crepe

0.39.1126 - Hot fix

The Image used by the current Color image is displayed on the canvas by default

Incorrect Brush Preview for Color image

Behavior of the current Brush historic

Correct support of the pressure on the main canvas

0.38.1124 - Update

Brush Preview

Selected Brush Historic

0.35.1082 - Update

Controller Editor

0.34.1069 - Hot fix

Drawing latency improved

Save Crash fixed

0.32.1062 - Update

Color Thumbnail Historic

Color Gradient Editor

Color Image Editor

0.09.8340 - Release

First uploaded version!