Changelog

🇮🇩 Indonesian Language Support

Halftone Maker is now available in Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia). You can switch to Indonesian from the language switcher.

🌐 Language-Specific URLs

Each language now has its own URL (e.g. /id/ for Indonesian), enabling search engines to index and serve the correct language version of the page for each region.

📲 Fixed PWA Installation in Browser

Fixed a bug where installing Halftone Maker as an app from the browser (Add to Home Screen) was broken in Chrome.

📐 Stretch Angle Follow Grid Rotation

A new "Follow Grid Rotation" switch in Grid Settings (Advanced mode) links the stretch angle to the grid rotation. Enabled by default, the stretch direction automatically stays aligned with the grid as you rotate it — no need to adjust both values separately.

🔄 Wider Grid Rotation Range

The grid rotation range has been expanded from ±60° to ±90°, allowing for a full quarter-turn of rotation in either direction.

⚡ Automatic App Updates

The app now updates silently in the background. You'll always get the latest version on your next visit, without any "update available" prompt asking you to reload.

📋 Copy to Clipboard

You can now copy the rendered halftone image directly to your clipboard from the canvas and paste it straight into design tools like Affinity or Illustrator without saving a file. A Copy PNG / Copy SVG button appears in the top-right corner of the canvas — click it to copy without downloading. Use the settings icon next to it to choose the file format and PNG scale. SVG copy and PNG at scales above 1× require a Pro plan.

📋 Clipboard copy on Safari

Fixed an issue where copying to clipboard did not work on Safari.

🎚️ Three-level UI Mode

The Advanced Mode toggle has been replaced with a three-level UI Mode selector: Simple, Advanced, and Expert. Simple keeps the interface focused (Canvas & Adjustments, Grid, Sampling, Stippling, Dots, Colors). Advanced adds Displacement, Sampling Effects, and Quantization. Expert further unlocks Character, Region Merging, and Pixel Renderer. Previously saved Advanced Mode settings are automatically migrated to Expert.

🏷️ Section labels in parameter panel

The parameter panel now shows labeled dividers between feature groups — "Advanced Features" and "Expert Features" — making it easier to see which mode unlocks each section.

🔤 Switch Dot Style to Character button

The Character settings panel now includes a button to switch the active dot style to Character directly, without having to navigate to the Dot panel.

📵 SMS new account registration suspended

New account registration via SMS is temporarily suspended due to the potential for use in military operations. Existing users can still sign in with their phone number as before.

🔲 Region Merging

Adjacent cells at a uniform tone level can now be merged into a single larger dot. Available in Advanced Mode — enable Region Merging in the parameter panel and adjust Tolerance and Max Radius to control how aggressively cells are combined. Supported for square and hex grids.

🇹🇷 Turkish language support

The interface is now available in Turkish. You can switch languages from the language selector.

📱 Redesigned mobile editor layout

The mobile editor now uses a natural top-to-bottom layout — Navbar, Toolbar, Canvas, and Controls flow vertically instead of using fixed positioning. The canvas fills the available space more efficiently.

🎚️ Better sliders on mobile and tablet

Sliders on mobile and tablet now use a thumb-only drag interaction. While dragging, the current value is displayed above the thumb. The improvement now applies to tablet as well as mobile.

🐛 Scrolling no longer accidentally operates sliders

Scrolling the parameter panel on mobile could accidentally move a slider. Scrolling and slider dragging are now correctly distinguished.

⬛ Superellipse dot shape

A new Superellipse shape is now available in the Advanced Mode shapes section. Use the Exponent slider to smoothly morph the dot between a diamond, a circle, and a rounded rectangle — all within a single shape type. The visual size stays consistent as you adjust the exponent. The shape is rendered using a custom algorithm that achieves a precise Bézier curve approximation with a minimal number of segments.

🔷 Custom SVG dot shapes

You can now add your own SVG files and use them as dot shapes. Open the new SVG Assets dialog from the toolbar to manage your shapes, browse built-in shape presets, and apply any shape to the canvas with a single click. Assets are stored locally on your device. Drag-and-drop is supported.

🎨 SVG render modes: Silhouette and Use Source Colors

When using a custom SVG shape, choose how it is rendered: Silhouette fills the shape with the dot color for a clean, integrated look, while Use Source Colors preserves the original SVG colors.

🔗 Link Rotation to Grid toggle

A new toggle in the Dot settings lets you decouple dot rotation from grid rotation. When unlinked, the dot rotation value is applied independently rather than added to the grid angle, giving you finer control over the final orientation.

📝 Halftone Maker Blog is now open

The Halftone Maker Blog is now live. Release notes and changelog content have been migrated here, and the Changelog link in the app now points to this blog.

🎚️ Bands and BandsScale (Pixel Renderer)

When Pixel Renderer binarization is enabled, a Bands slider (1–15) divides the foreground area into alternating stripes to produce a contour/isoline effect. BandsScale (0.1–20) adjusts the spacing distribution curve, weighting stripes toward highlights or shadows.

🔍 Supersample in preview (Pixel Renderer)

A toggle in the Pixel panel enables supersampling during preview. Off by default — supersampling normally applies at export time only, keeping the preview fast. Turn it on to see the higher-quality result while editing.

💾 Export dialog persistence

Scale, format, and quality choices in the Export Settings dialog are now remembered between sessions.

🔵 Pixel Renderer rendering at low decay rates

Corrected the metaball rendering algorithm for low decay values. Default values updated to decayRate=8 and threshold=0.1.

🖥️ Subscription tab flicker

Fixed flickering caused by double data fetching on the subscription tab.

🖼️ Thumbnail generation

Fixed an issue where thumbnail generation could silently fail before the model was ready.

🤖 Background remover

Fixed image load errors from revoked object URLs during background removal.

📸 Snapshots

Fixed multiple stability issues affecting snapshot saving and loading.

🖋️ New logotype

A new SVG wordmark now appears in both the navbar and footer. It automatically inverts in dark mode for proper contrast in both light and dark themes.

✨ Animated logo spinner

Uses spring physics via anime.js for a smooth, natural-feeling entrance animation. A minimum loading duration ensures the animation completes before the studio appears.

🎨 Favicon and app icons

Updated to the new brand design.

🔢 Live dot count

A badge on the canvas displays the number of rendered dots and the canvas pixel dimensions, updating in real time as you adjust parameters.

✏️ Stippling renderer

A new rendering mode that places dots based on image luminance using a relaxation algorithm. Adjustable parameters include Spacing, Smoothing Iterations, and Collide Radius range. The result is an irregular, hand-engraved distribution distinct from grid-based renderers.

🔲 Floyd-Steinberg dithering

A new dithering option in the Quantization panel (square grid only). Propagates quantization error to neighboring pixels using error diffusion, producing smoother tonal transitions with less banding than Bayer matrix dithering.

📐 SVG direct mode

A toggle in the Export Settings dialog renders shapes with absolute coordinates instead of SVG defs and transforms. Improves compatibility with some tools at the cost of less efficient processing.

↩️ Undo/redo

Step back and forward through every parameter change with Cmd/Ctrl+Z and Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+Z.

🔍 Diff highlighting

Any parameter that differs from its default value is highlighted in the panel, making it easy to see at a glance what has been changed in each section.

🎨 Preview area background

Choose a solid color or a checkerboard transparency pattern for the canvas background.

🎚️ Quantization mix

A Mix slider in the Quantization panel blends between the original and quantized brightness values, allowing subtler tonal stepping.

🛒 Spot purchase

Pay once without a recurring subscription. Choose from 1-month or 1-year access. Available on the Pricing page alongside the subscription plans.

💸 AliPay & WeChat Pay

AliPay and WeChat Pay are accepted at checkout for spot purchases, in addition to card and Link.

↔️ Grid stretch

Independently scale the halftone grid on the horizontal and vertical axes for non-uniform patterns.

🌓 Contrast adjustment

A Contrast slider has been added to the Adjustments panel.

🔀 Image flip

Horizontal and vertical flip controls have been added to the cropper dialog.

⭐ Pro plan

Paid plans are now available via Stripe. Pro unlocks batch export, SVG export, and high-resolution PNG export (up to 6×). Subscribe monthly or annually from the Pricing page.

💳 Payment methods

Card and Link payment are supported at checkout.

🏷️ Promotion codes

Discount codes can be entered at the Stripe checkout page.

▶️ Checkout session resume

If you sign in during the checkout flow, you are automatically returned to where you left off.

⬆️ Upgrade prompts

Pro upgrade prompts are shown directly inside the batch export and export settings dialogs when a Pro feature is selected.

⚙️ Subscription management

Cancel and resume auto-renewal flows are available from the Account page.

🧾 Automatic tax

Tax is calculated and collected automatically at checkout via Stripe Tax.

⚡ WASM Gaussian blur

Blur is now computed in a WebAssembly module, providing a mathematically accurate Gaussian blur. The app auto-detects the best available method on your device: WASM Gaussian, CSS canvas filter, or StackBlur (always available as a fallback). You can override the selection manually via the Blur Method dialog in the Adjustments panel, and the choice persists between sessions.