Welcome back! This monthly ‘zine is curated for you by the @Krita-promo team.
Jump to:
- Development report
- Community report
- Featured artwork
- Noteworthy Plugin
- Tutorial of the month
- Ways to help Krita
- Notable changes in code
Development report
2023 in review
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The text tool received a ton of attention from @wolthera. In essence, Krita’s text layout engine was completely rewritten to introduce text-on-path, vertical text, wrapped text and text in shape. The work will continue into 2024 and will be built upon in Krita 5.3. Read @wolthera’s text tool thread here.
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Krita welcomed a new corporate sponsor: Broken Rules.
“I’ve been using Krita on a regular basis for the past two years and I would love to see it become as ubiquitous as its corporate competitors.”
~Clemens Scott, Co-Founder and Creative Director, Broken Rules
- Google Summer of Code student, @Srirupa_Datta, worked on improving and expanding Krita’s resources bundling (specifically, a redesign of the bundle creator and editor).
2023 Releases
We saw four releases in 2023 ending with 5.2.2 in December.
5.1.5 January 15, 2023 Krita 5.1.5 Released | Krita
5.2.0 October 11, 2023 Krita 5.2 released! | Krita
5.2.1 November 2, 2023 Krita 5.2.1 Released | Krita
5.2.2 December 7, 2023 Krita 5.2.2 Released! | Krita
To see all the 5.2 changes, enjoy the newest Krita video created by @RamonM.
Community report
What happened in 2023
We can’t end 2023 without acknowledging @RamonM’s contributions. He created two new brush packs: Sketch 2 and Ink Brushes for Inktober and added seven tutorial videos on Krita’s YouTube channel.
- How to Draw Dynamic Figures with new brushpack https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlDNC1P0We0&t=23s
- Discover the Power of Masked Brushes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpRSIYf4KFU&t=894s
- Amazing Gradient Brushes with Krita 5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6lOYEGgz5k&t=214s
- Texturing with Patterns and Blending Modes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEbf7WKPGm4
- Flamenca in Krita 5 - Paint This With Me https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BwPe0gq8vM&t=5s
- 41 Ink Brushes – Real Ink https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nI_DFuSftK4&t=3s
- Advanced Texturing Effects – Pattern Tricks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPwVdOJo-28&t=8s
The Krita-Artists community designed and participated in 12 monthly art challenges – most recently, the December challenge (paint the Krita-Artists logo) which was won by @YRH with this submission:
Featured artwork
Enjoy some favourites that were featured throughout 2023.
February: Asian royalty by @indzdraws
March: Dog and Butterfly by @Elixiah
October: Peppi (Lil fox skater) by @ChocoSpecks
December: Colorful Bird by @Nadege_Box
Noteworthy plugin
keKit for Krita was updated and expanded in December by @Kjell. Among other things, it centers the active layer and contains a batch exporter.
keBatch
For a complete description and update activity see here.
Tutorial of the month
Digital Gold Leaf by Camellia Rosa demonstrates how to import gold texture using images from Unsplash (a copyright-free resource for artists) and Krita’s alpha inheritance feature.
Ways to help Krita
Krita is a Free and Open Source application, mainly developed by an international team of enthusiastic volunteers. Donations from Krita users to support maintenance and development is appreciated.
Join the Development Fund with a monthly donation. Or make a one-time donation here.
Notable changes in code
This section has been compiled by @freyalupen.
(Dec 7 - Dec 31, 2023)
Stable branch (5.2.2+):
Bugfixes:
- [General] Fix 5.2’s new menu items not showing up if the user customized toolbars in 5.1. (BUG:475698) (commit, Dmitry Kazakov)
- [Layer Menu] Add missing New Layer options to Layer main menu (which were previously found only in the Layers Docker’s add menu). (BUG:453738) (merge request, Ken Lo)
- [File Formats: WebP] Fix saving of WebP with non-sRGB RGBA color profiles, and a crash when importing WebP with non-RGBA color model. (BUG:477219, BUG:478307) (merge request, Rasyuqa A H)
- [Dockers] Fix dockers that are shown on the welcome page being unaffected by toggling off of Show Dockers. (BUG:476683) (merge request, Freya Lupen)
- [Dockers] Fix error in Comic Manager when exporting with cropping. (commit, Freya Lupen)
- [Scripting] Fix Document.scaleImage() causing image resolution to be incorrect. (merge request, David Page)
Unstable branch (5.3.0-prealpha):
Features:
- [Recorder Docker] Add real-time capture mode to Recorder Docker. (merge request, Florian Reiser)
- [Text Tool] Make backspace delete only the last code point, which fixes backspacing things like conjuncts in Indic scripts and pieces of combined emojis. (merge request, Wolthera van Hövell)
- [Text Tool] Switch from Shapes Tool to Text Tool when double-clicking or hitting Enter on text, and make Text Tool select all text by default. (merge request, Alvin Wong)
- [Text Tool] Fix stylus double-click to be supported in the Text Tool. (merge request, Wolthera van Hövell)
- [Text] Make sure fonts without charmaps set, like Wingdings, work. Wolthera
- [Text Tool] Fix selecting text on other layer when said other layer already had a shape selection. (commit, Wolthera van Hövell)
- [Text Tool] Prevent ghost cursor positions. (commit, Wolthera van Hövell)
- [Text Tool] Prioritize current layer for both hovering and selecting text shapes. (commit, Wolthera van Hövell)
- [Tools] Increase Feather slider’s maximum value in selection/fill tool options. (merge request, Qw As)
Bugfixes:
- [Usability] Make tool decorations scale for HiDPI screens, so that things like the text cursor and transform tool handles are more easily visible. (merge request, Wolthera van Hövell)
- [File Formats] WEBP & JPEG-XL: Prevent crash/error when attempting to export a non-animated image as animated. (BUG:476761) (merge request, Rasyuqa A H)
- [General] Prevent a crash when attempting to paste a previous Krita session’s clipboard data which is invalid. (BUG:478846) (merge request, Simon Ra)
The latest changes are made available for testing daily in the following development builds: