Acorn 8.6.1

Flying Meat has released Acorn 8.6 with new Cropping and Brush functionality, as well as new automation capabilities. The image editor’s Crop palette receives a new “Keep aspect ratio” option, and the brushing engine has been rewritten to use Metal shaders for faster smudging, cloning, burning, and dodging. The update also enhances its JavaScript support, trims the size of the Acorn app by making the various ML models optional (such as Super Resolution and Remove Background/Mask Subject), improves SVG import, enhances fuzzy matching when searching the filters via the filters panel, and fixes a bug where you couldn’t drag filters from one window to another from the filters list. A quick 8.6.1 update fixes a few issues with the new brush engine. ($29.99 new from Flying Meat and the Mac App Store, 20% discount for TidBITS members, free update, 36.9 MB, release notes, macOS 14+)