We want to share the exciting news that we are working on Exposure X7, the next version of our creative photo editor. It will be available sometime this fall. We don’t have a firm release date yet, but are working hard to bring it to you as soon as possible.
One of the biggest new features is a revolutionary new mask tool. You’ll make a rough selection and then Exposure will intelligently refine it. Our innovative approach will make it a snap to separate a subject from the background.
Stay tuned to the newsletter and blog in the coming weeks. We’ll have more details about this new mask tool, in addition to the other new features leading up to the release.
Additionally, starting today we are introducing a new promotion. If you purchase Exposure X6, you’ll receive Exposure X7 for free when we release it.
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A question: for those who have already taken Exposure X 6 Bundle some time ago, can they fall into the category of those who are entitled to have Exposure 7 for free? Thank you
Thanks for asking, Loris. Purchases made before this announcement post are not eligible for a free upgrade. However, because you own Exposure, you are eligible to use the discounted upgrade price to buy Exposure X7 when it is released.
Hi Jimmy,
This is unfortunate, as many of us heard & were getting excited at this news of a free upgrade having spent a lot (for some of us) investing in X6 ….
Would this decision for only new post announcement X6 owners to upgrade for free to X7 be revised to include all X6?
Hi Graham, thanks for commenting. You can continue to use Exposure X6 with all its bells and whistles, including technical support for any issues you have, for as long as you use the software. We aren’t going to force you to upgrade. If you think the features in the new version are worth the investment, you can get the upgrade whenever you choose. Or, you can choose skip the next version if the new features aren’t your cup of tea.
Are there also changes on the DAM?
There are none planned for this release, Ralf.
that is unfortunate. i had hoped for catalog functions like in lightroom.
Which catalog functions are you looking for, Ralf?
Noooooooo, One of the great things about Exposure is no catalogues.
Mark, I totally agree with you. One of the reasons I moved from LR is to get away from catalogues. Have not looked back.
So agree. No catalog or make it optional for users. I dont want it baked in.
Will Exposure X7 work as a plug in for Affinity?
Thanks for asking, Jos. No, Affinity isn’t on our list of supported host programs. I will make a few notes for our development team about your interest in that.
Jimmy, apparently Serif made a change in Affinity Photo some time ago that enabled Exposure X6 to work as a plugin. I have been running it successfully in Affinity Photo Beta for months.
My system: iMac on macOS 11.5.
Thanks for the comments, Bob. That’s great news for Affinity users. They’re not officially supported, but there are other programs that will work with Exposure. We just can’t guarantee it’ll always work like with the officially supported software.
So no good for me, but thanks for the response.
We have heard that the new Affinity Photo beta will work with Exposure, but it’s not an officially supported host program, so we can’t guarantee it. You could try it out yourself, if you’d like.
A question…
Is there going to be any improvement to the operation Shadow and Highlight sliders.???
Hi Hans, thanks for the comment. There aren’t changes planned for the operation of those controls for Exposure X7. What do you mean by ‘improvement’ with regard to them? I’m happy to bring your suggestions to the design team.
Hi; I own Exposure X5 and am very happy with it. I’m interested in X7 and notice you are offering a free upgrade for people who purchase X6.
Is it possible for me to purchase X6 at the upgrade price and then be eligible for the free upgrade to X7?
Regards and keep up the great work on Exposure!
Hi Chris. Yes, that is exactly how it works! Just use your X5 license code when prompted in the store and you’ll be able to purchase Exposure X6 with the upgrade price. When Exposure X7 is released, you’ll get that version free.
Hey, Jimmy!
Speaking of requirements, I would welcome an improvement in the photo filtering. Example: I get a list of image names from a client and I would need to filter this list of numbers from a given folder. Lightroom can do it, Capture One can do it, but I just can’t do it in Exposure – only individually. Is the process different in Exposure, or is it just really not possible (which is quite a pain)?
Thank you!
Hey Biscuit — thanks for the comments. That’s a good suggestion. Currently, there is not a way that you can filter with a comma-separated list of filenames in Exposure. We have heard requests for that feature before, so I’ll add a few notes about your interest for the developers.
Thank you, Jimmy ;-)
Looking forward to seeing what this has to offer. Have there been any colour profile improvements or the ability to add in camera profiles a little like Lightroom that has Nikon portrait, landscape etc profiles albeit not perfectly matching Nikons profiles.
Also are they any plans to add the ability for multiple image stacking? Pans, focus stacking etc?
Thanks
Hi Mark, thanks for the comments. You can already use camera profiles in Exposure X6. Some users take camera profiles straight out of adobe and import them to Exposure.
Focus stacking, panoramas, stitching, and layering multiple images together are on our radar, but they’re not planned for this release.
Thanks for your reply Jimmy, does exposure have DCPs already included though? I thought you had to create your own using a colour checker? Lightrooms profiles are not perfect, but they do include estimations of the NIkon profiles out of the box – i.e. portrait, landscape etc.
Thanks
Ah, I see what you mean. Exposure has a standard DCP profile for each supported camera, but not any more than that. If you want more profiles, you can create your own or get them from other sources. A more robust DCP library would be a nice addition, but it’s not in our plans for this release.
I hesitated to by x6 due to the lack of 4K monitor support. Is this fixed in x7?
Hi Felix, thanks for the interest. High DPI monitors have been supported for a while, but that can cause scaling issues when the screens are small. I haven’t heard of it effecting Mac users at all. Windows users can use the OS display zoom factor to increase the font size. Usually 150% works great. Other than that, the UI will likely change here and there, just like with every new version, so it would probably be worth checking out the demo when it’s available.
I’m using a 32inch 4K Monitor, and didn’t find a usable setting to work with. Either the fonts are to large or blurry, following the suggestions in the FAQ didn’t help. Looks like there is no significant improvement on that aspect in X7?
It’s not that cut and dry. Let’s discuss in a bit more detail, Felix. I’ll send you an email.
No soft proofing feature yet?
Not in this release, Rob. I’ll add a note to the design logs about your interest in this feature.
This is good news! A masking tool will be a huge improvement. So there are just two things on my personal wishlist :-) – an option for automatic noise removal (I know, presets can be saved, but as I shoot mainly sports with fixed shutter speed und aperture but auto-iso that would make life a bit easier) and an improvement perspective correction tool (e.g. forced parallel lines like I know from DxO or C1.
I’m excited for X7!
Thanks for commenting, Lukas. The profile-based noise reduction system in Exposure X6 was developed to give good results without user interaction, so it already filters noise from images automatically. Are you making noise reduction adjustments by hand on every image you shoot?
The perspective correction tools you mentioned are a good suggestion. I’ll make sure the design team hears about your interest in that.
Yes, above iso 1000 color noise is visible (disappears at 0.3 on the color noise slider, also at higher iso values), still the images look more or less grainy and need manual interaction.
Thanks again, Lukas. I see what you mean. That’s a reasonable request for a future version of Exposure. I’ll bring it up to the design team.
With the current tools in Exposure, you can save a few noise reduction presets based on the ISO of the particular image. Something that might help is to sort images in the folder by ISO value so you can select multiple images at once to apply noise reduction.
Hi. I couldn’t find an option but will I be able to re-download Exposure 7 to use with my new (used) Mac with OS 10.15 on it, or am I forced to upgrade to Exposure X?
You can download the installers for older versions of our software in our support website. Our license codes are version-specific, so you can use the same license code and you should be all set. If you have any troubles, our support team is happy to help. Here is a link to open a ticket.
I don’t know if you are familiar with the Affinity program, but it has an option called Liquify. This gives the possibility to adjust shapes in the photo. Will this feature also come in Exposure X7?
Sincerely, jos
Hi Jos. Liquify is something we have on our radar, but it’s not planned for this release. I’ll add a note to the design logs about your interest in this feature.
We will be sharing more information about what to expect in Exposure X7 on the blog, so stay tuned.
Hi Guys, does X7 support writing XMP files: Keywords, Crop (Rotation)?
Hi Michael. Good question. You can export from Exposure X6 using the original format to write XMP files.
It would be useful to have the color values displayed when using white balance tool, thanking you.
Thanks for commenting. I agree that it’s useful to see the color values at a given point in the image. Exposure displays the RBG output at the bottom of the histogram panel when you move the cursor over the photo.
Hi Jimmy, sorry to ask again: I am work on a raw file in X7. What content will the xmp have?
Keywords, crop and rotation?
Background: Since years I am working with Lightroom. I had tested X5 and I liked it. If I would switch to Exposure and want to switch to another software in some years, I see the xmp file as an industrial standard. Colors or others are not the big issue, but the keywords, crop and rotation are done and will be done for ten thousands of photos and if I cannot save it to xmp in future I will not change from Lightroom. As example: Photo Mechanic and Lightroom are working well together: with xmp
No problem, Michael. Yes, all of that information will be retained. The only limitation Exposure will have is that there’s no way to export just the metadata. Exporting would involve creating a new copy of the original file and also writing a new XMP.
Will X7 be more stable? I stopped using X6 after a couple of weeks, because I lost too many edits due to the out of memory error (with 16GB RAM). The software simply lost connection to multiple images within a folder and only resetting everything brought them back. Changing memory/speed settings did not help…. i really don’t want to invest that much money and time again if this is still going to happen.
Thanks for the comments, Alex. I looked back through our tech support correspondence with you. I do want to encourage you to update to the latest build, which has the most up-to-date enhancements to stability. You can check for updates directly from Exposure’s Help menu.
Regarding Exposure X7, the team is making changes on the back end of the software that will help Exposure be even more stable.
Any improvement on color grading? The current advance color editor in X6 is not easy to use
Hi Wilfredo. Thanks for the comment. Color selection isn’t changing much but the new masking tools will help refine where your edits are applied to your images. In fact, the new masking tools will make creating detailed selections a snap. We will share more about them and what else to expect in Exposure X7 here on the blog, so stay tuned.
Video support is absolutely critical, even simply showing thumbnails of video clips will be a huge improvement in organizing phtoshoots, and i will upgrade immediately
Thanks for letting us know, Aurin. Adding support for video files is certainly on our radar, but we don’t have it planned for this release.
I was hoping for improvements to the DAM, including support for video thumbnails. Looking forward to a future release.
Thanks for the comments. We will make a note of your interest in those features.
Jimmy. I just downloaded X6 trial then the X7 trial. i am a bit surprised that there is zero video support. Like Hisa.H said above just showing a tumbnail of the file would be great. being able to apply tagging features to that file would be stellar. I so badly want to get away from Adobe. Exposure X7 is sooooooooo close. Please put my vote in for X8 having video support.
Exposure already supports metadata tagging and filtering of video files. We’d like to add video thumbnails and are doing some design planning in this area. I’ll add your request for this feature to our notes.
Please use this opportunity fix my favorite bug: the keyword metadata editor won’t parse comma-delimted keywords. If it did, I could use Exposure to manage my metadata on all my existing photos. Every other metadata tool I know of uses (or at least accepts and preserves) commas.
Thanks for the comments, Jim. That bug has been handled already, I believe. The current installer for Exposure X6 should correct that issue if you have it installed. You can update to the latest from the Help menu in Exposure, then select ‘Check for Updates.’ You can also go here.
Hi Jimmy,
Before updating to X7 I have a few quetions:
– will it be possible in “Auto Enhance” to directly see the effects of resetting settings instead of using the “Auto Enhance button each time;
– will it be possible to export to CMYK files in case of special printing or an other way to use CMYK
Hi there, thanks for the comments.
You can preview auto adjustments in X6. All you need to do is save a custom preset only containing auto adjustments. Then, you can hover your cursor over the preset in the Presets panel to quickly see what the edits will look like. Is that what you’re after?
CMYK isn’t something we have on our list for Exposure X7. It is on our radar for a future version of Exposure. I’ll add a note about your interest in that feature for the design team.
i used exposure 4,5,6 and its can rely can be the best software but the first thing that i think needs to upgrade is the image quality, the highlights and shadows are really not good..
Thanks for being an Exposure user! There aren’t any changes that will effect the behavior of the highlights and shadows sliders in Exposure X7. Let’s start a conversation about how we can make them better. I’ll send you an email.
Exposure stacking?
I’d love to have the ability to set the tripod up and take multiple shots of the same scene and then selectively mask/merge them. For instance at a crowded tourist location where people are constantly moving, I’d like to take multiple exposures and stack them and then selectively mask/merge areas to generate a clean image without people.
The same goes for stacking HDR and/or stitching panoramas. In my view this is the only thing keeping many users from moving from LR/PS.
Thanks,
Hud
Thanks for commenting, Hudson. Photo stacking and merging isn’t going to make it into this release. It is on our radar for a future release of Exposure. I’ll make a note about your interest and bring it to the design team’s attention.
Hi Jimmy–great news about the update! I’ve used Exposure since v. 3. I’m primarily an amateur nature and wildlife photographer. I’m hoping the new masking tools might be even more refined than the current set for isolating / masking birds (fine feather detail), wildlife (think deer with antlers), trees, shrubs (fine twigs and leaves), etc. I’m using v. 5 now so maybe I’m missing refinements that came with 6. That is not at all to take away from those in 5–which are very helpful compared to earlier versions. Still, I hope for easier masking of irregular-shaped / non-uniformly toned or colored features that I typically work with.
Also a shout-out to your tech support. I had a great interaction with Nate last year. He was really helpful in helping me troubleshoot and resolve a glitch I was having.
Thanks for being an Exposure user, Kim. Yes, the new masking tools in Exposure X7 will definitely come in handy for your workflow based on your description. Exposure X6 introduced a bunch of helpful features. The Advanced Color Editor may interest you. It enables you to selectively edit tones in your images, so you can replace a blue with a red tone, or you can make specific orange tones more saturated and more yellow. That also might be a tool your workflow can benefit from. You can always download the trial of Exposure X6 if you’d like to test it out yourself.
Wonderful–thanks for the responses!
And also, I totally agree. Our tech support is A+. :)
One more comment–I’ve never seen real noticeable results using noise reduction. It could very well be my technique, even though I’ve tried to use the tips given in the tutorials. My subjects are often in low light so enhanced performance of noise reduction would be greatly appreciated. Or maybe just a more detailed tutorial of how to use the controls. Thanks for giving this consideration!
We have a video that covers how to use the noise reduction tools in Exposure. Here is a link to that. Noise reduction is something you apply to correct issues in the image. Because of that, I suggest you to apply it before other effects. Also make sure to put the noise reduction on the bottom layer.
Thanks Jimmy. I’ll take another look at the video and heed your sequencing advice. Maybe those things will get me better results. Thanks again!
yay
Hi there, I just downloaded the free trial of Exposure X6. It appears to be a limited and smaller version of the entire plug in. For example under Bokeh there is just an option to choose ‘Lens-Petzval’. I want to be sure that after buying the product I’ll have muck more option to choose. Grazie
That’s not the correct behavior. It sounds like something may be going wrong on your computer. Let’s get you in contact with our support team about it. Here is a link to open a ticket.
1. Any modification to use facial recognition in X7?
2. Any improvements being made to raw processing in X7?
Thanks.
Thanks for the comments, Gary. There are not any facial recognition features making planned for Exposure X7. There are a few adjustments being made behind the scenes that will change the processing. Mainly the changes will be noticeable in color fidelity. There are also new tools to retain fine texture and fix hot pixels, which are delicate processes but can still change how images appear.
Will this version finally support Sony ZV-1? :D
I bought the Exposure X6 because it has organising features linked to import but it’s a joke that I have to use Imaging Edge from Sony to be able to see those files.
Thanks for commenting. We are actively working on adding support for the Sony ZV-1, but it’s not ready just yet. For the time being, you can convert the images to DNG so Exposure can read those files. You can include the DNG conversion process as part of ingesting images while they copy from your camera card.
Hi. I’d like to request a feature to be added to your Vignette tool please. If we could draw our own unique vignette shape, rather than hope the software will chance upon the right look. It would then take a second or three to get the look I want, rather than a minute or so with fingers crossed. The ability to locate the centre is a welcome improvement but user defined control would be fantastic.
That’s an interesting idea. I’ll pass this feature request to our design team.