Release notes

What changed in each version of Mandala Layers, newest first. The version you are using is at the foot of every page, and beside the name at the top on a larger screen; select either to come back here.

Version 1.2.2.09 - 17 October 2026

A bug-fix release.

• Windows app: a download says where it went. In the Windows app, every download - Download All (.zip), a layer's SVG, a photo's PNG - now says Saved to your Downloads folder, with the file's name, for a few seconds in the bottom right of the window. Before, the file arrived in the Downloads folder with nothing on screen to say so. A download that did not finish says so instead. Nothing changes on this website, where your browser shows its downloads as before.
• Back from paying, your account page says so at the top. After buying credits, the thank-you is now the first thing on your account page, where the payment page sends you back - it used to be at the foot of the page, under Change password, and could take the place of Send it again while your address was unconfirmed. After choosing Studio, the page now says your plan will appear in a moment, and shows it as soon as the payment is confirmed, where before it said nothing.
• Landscape: the scene list waits while a scene builds. While Build Scene runs, New scene and the other scenes in the list wait, and the list says why - as Stepped Layers' project list already did. Before, another scene could be opened or started mid-build. To work on another scene meanwhile, press Close scene first: the build carries on.
• A refund of a payment that bought the plan and credits together. Choosing Studio and a credit pack on the pricing page is one payment. If we refund part of it, the refund now counts against the part it matches: refunding the credits' price takes those credits back and leaves your plan running, and refunding the plan's price ends the plan and leaves your credits. A small goodwill refund takes no credits - before, it took some back, and a refund of either part could take half the credits and leave the plan to be charged again.

Version 1.2.2.08 - 16 October 2026

A bug-fix release.

• The confirmation link confirms your address, and signs nobody in. Opened in the browser you signed up in, the link in the email that confirms your address takes you on to the studio, as before. Opened anywhere else - on your phone, say - it now says the address is confirmed, with Sign in, where it used to sign that browser in; a browser already signed in to another account stays as it is, and says so. So a link somebody else sends you can never sign you into their account. See Getting started.
• Signing in, and the links we email, hold tighter. Changing your password on your account page now also cancels any password-reset link still waiting in your inbox. An invitation's link stops working once the invitation has been taken up, with the link or with Google. The page a sign-in sends you on to is always a page of this website. And a successful sign-in no longer wipes the count of failed ones from the same connection, so the limit on guessing a password holds.
• When support looks at your account, your billing is out of reach. Opening your account to see the studio as you see it - to look into a problem you wrote to us about - can no longer change your plan, open your billing details or change your OpenAI key, and that view ends by itself after eight hours at most. The privacy policy and What should I send you? say so.
• Confirmation links and the contact form have limits. Send it again on your account page sends up to five confirmation links a day, the one sent when you signed up included; the newest works for 24 hours, so look in your spam folder for it. None is sent to an address that has marked our email as spam. The contact form takes five messages in a quarter of an hour from one connection, and has a limit for the whole site each hour; past either it says so - email hello@mandalalayers.com directly instead, which reaches the same people.
• Credits paid by bank debit arrive when the bank confirms. A credit pack paid by bank debit rather than by card - on its own, or bought with Studio - now arrives when your bank confirms the payment, which can take a few working days; if the debit does not go through, none arrive and nothing is owed. The thank-you on your account page says so.
• One Studio subscription at a time. Choosing Studio on the pricing page while a subscription of yours is still open with the payment provider now says so under the button, instead of starting a second one charged beside it. After a declined card it points you to Update card & invoices on your account page, which is what settles it; just after paying, it says the plan can take a minute to appear.
• A declined card: your account page keeps the way out. Once the two weeks after a declined card are up, your account page now still shows the plan - Studio: closed - with the notice about the payment, Update card & invoices and Cancel. Before, it said you were on Pay as you go with the studio open, and showed neither button. Cancel then ends the plan that day rather than at the end of the period: the payment that failed is not tried again, and you carry on Pay as you go straight away, with the studio open on your credits. If the card is never settled and the payment provider stops trying, the plan ends the same way, and the email says so. A plan that has ended after a declined card is plain Pay as you go: your own OpenAI key, the credits you bought, uploads and the Windows app's pictures on credits all work again. See My card was declined.
• Renewals are read as renewals. A Studio renewal is now read as the renewal of the plan you have - also when it is at a price we have changed since you joined, or comes after a change of plan part-way through a period - so the studio stays open across it. Before, either could close a paying subscriber's studio for the whole period. And a plan opens once its first payment has gone through, not before.
• A part refund leaves your plan running. A refund of part of a Studio payment - a goodwill refund, say - no longer ends the plan. Only a refund of the whole payment for the period you are in does, and that now cancels the subscription with the payment provider as well, so the card is not charged again. A question from your bank about a payment, short of a dispute, no longer ends the plan either.
• Changing plan from a link asks first. Following a link to the pricing page that names a plan - from an email, say - while you have Studio or its trial now opens the same box as pressing the plan's button, saying what changes and when, and changes nothing until you confirm. Before, the plan changed as the page loaded. Choosing Studio yearly during its free trial now shows the trial's own words in that box - the yearly price, and the day of the first charge - where it could say that nothing would be charged.
• Deleting an account ends its plan and its work. When we delete an account at your request, a plan on it now ends that day with the payment provider too - the card is not charged again, and no refund is given for the rest of the period - and its projects, scenes, photos, 3D projects and assistant conversations are deleted with it. What is kept is the record of what was bought and spent, which tax rules require, a Windows app licence key, which goes on working, and any bug report the assistant filed, which is an email to us and is kept like one. See How do I change my email address or delete my account?.
• Credits that expire take only what is left of them. Whatever you spend now comes out of the credits that expire soonest - a trial's, or a month's allowance on one of the old plans - before a pack is touched, and when those expire, only what is left of them goes. Before, credits already spent could be taken a second time from your packs when an allowance or a trial expired. If that happened to you, your balance now reads what it should, which is higher than it did. The terms say the same.
• A build is of the picture you pressed it for. Generate Layers and Build Scene now build the picture - or depth map - that was there when you pressed the button, at that picture's price. Replace it before the build has finished, while it waits for the server too, and the build stops without making layers, says the picture changed, and is not charged: build again for the new one. Pressing again for the same picture while its first build is still waiting or running costs nothing more - the two share the one charge, which goes back only if neither makes layers. And two builds of one project now run one after the other, so you get the one you asked for last. See Credits and plans.
• A build cut off by a restart starts again. When our server restarts while your build is running - for an update, say - the build now starts again by itself once the server is back, where it used to fail with a message that the server had run out of memory.
• A project waits for its picture before it can be deleted. A project, scene or photo whose AI picture or redraw is still being made cannot be deleted until it arrives - the studio says This project cannot be deleted while its picture is being made. - because by then it has been paid for, and deleting it would only throw it away. The same goes for the Windows app.
• Pictures on the website: up to 16.8 megapixels. Upload image in Stepped Layers and Upload depth map in Landscape now take a picture of up to 16.8 megapixels - 4096 × 4096, or as many pixels in another shape - as well as up to 25 MB, and the line beside Upload image gives both. A picture with more is refused with its size, before anything is done with it: scale it down and upload it again. 4096 pixels across a 900 mm piece is already finer than a laser cuts. The same holds for the picture in a .zip opened with Open project or Open scene. A project or scene you already have with a larger picture cleans and builds as before. In Vectorize a Photo a PNG or WebP can be up to 50 megapixels, and a JPEG of any size a camera makes is fine. The Windows app has no such limit.
• Open project and Open scene: what they take. A .zip that carries a picture or a depth map now waits, like generating and uploading, until your email address is confirmed - a bare .json opens as before - and the box on your account page that asks you to confirm says so. Open project takes a .zip of up to 50 MB and a project.json of up to 64 MB - twice what a project with 2,700 openings saves - and Open scene a .zip of up to 50 MB, whose scene.json may be up to 1 MB; a file past those is refused with a message saying why. And opening a .zip of a project that is still in your account, but has been cleaned with other settings since the file was saved, now cleans the copy again from its picture - free - instead of taking the mask in the .zip, which is used only for a project that is gone; a mask painted by hand in such a file is not brought back.
• How much one account keeps, and how many builds it queues. An account now holds up to 500 Stepped Layers projects, 500 Landscape scenes and 100 photos in Vectorize a Photo - far past what anybody keeps. At the limit, making, opening or reopening another says so, and deleting one you no longer need makes room straight away. One account can have three builds waiting to start, Generate Layers and Build Scene together: a fourth is turned away, uncharged, until one of them starts, and asking again for a build that is already waiting queues no second one. If the whole line is ever full - a hundred builds waiting - a new one is turned away with a note to try again in a few minutes, and nothing is charged. See Is there a limit to how many projects I can keep?.
• Finished designs: opening one again takes you to your copy. Opening the same finished design again, before you have changed or built your copy, now takes you back to that copy instead of making another. An account can open twenty new copies an hour, sixty a day.
• Stepped Layers: what you change during a build stays. Settings you change while a build or a new picture is being made are now still set when it finishes, and the labels say the new stack was built without them; before, the finished build put its own settings back over yours. Reopening a project, or opening it in another tab, no longer clears stack is stale either: until you rebuild, layers built from settings other than the ones saved are shown as out of date.
• Stepped Layers: a busy project keeps its place. While a project is building, cleaning or getting a new picture, the project list, New project, deleting and Finished designs wait, and a line in the list says why; to open another project meanwhile, press Close project first - the work carries on without it. Before, work that finished after you had switched could land in the project you had moved to. Download All (.zip), the download arrows and combined wait for a build to finish, so every file you get is from the new build, and the mask brush waits too, so a stroke never lands while a build is cutting from the mask.
• Stepped Layers: Validate checks the layers you would cut. Validate never builds now. It checks the layers in your download, and if you have changed a setting since they were built, it says so - press Rebuild Layers to build and check them with the new settings, or put the setting back. Before, it could build the changed settings without saying so.
• Stepped Layers: moving a piece on Pay as you go. Moving a piece to another layer, or switching one off, in the Layer Editor rebuilds the stack, so on Pay as you go it now waits for the picture's first build: on a picture built during a trial or on Studio, it asks you to press Rebuild Layers, which shows the price, and is free from then on. Every move now builds with the settings saved - the stack Rebuild Layers would give you, plus the move.
• Stepped Layers: the mask is cleaned only on its own step. Reset to defaults at the foot of the left pane no longer resets the cleanup on the Clean Artwork step - Reset cleanup there does - and a template chosen for a project whose picture is already cleaned keeps that cleanup. Before, either could clean the mask again without saying so, throwing away the built layers, anything you had painted and a finished design's hand edits. The studio now cleans by itself only while the Clean Artwork step is on screen, and a clean the settings would refuse is not tried again until you move a control or press Re-clean.
• Number boxes keep what you type. The boxes for sheet thickness, kerf, margins and the other measurements, in Stepped Layers and Landscape, now leave what you type alone until you click away: typing 15 used to come out as 1.005, and 6.35 as 6.005. In Vectorize a Photo, Width and DPI take what you type when you press Enter or click away, and a number past either end is set to that end - Width from 20 to 1000 mm, DPI from 100 to 1200.
• Templates: Make it yours comes with a new project. On a template card, Start a new project with it - Start a new scene with it in Landscape - now opens the new project with the template picked and its Make it yours field ready to fill in; the field used to be lost on the way.
• Stepped Layers: strands too fine to cut are found at any size. The check now finds a strand of material far finer than Min bridge width - narrower than the laser's beam, even - however large the piece, and the build widens it like any other thin strand; on a large Finished size such a strand could pass with no error at all. One it cannot widen is a thin_bridge error. Rebuild a project to check it again, which is free.
• Stepped Layers: refusing a tab frees only its piece. Refusing a tab in the Layer Editor now cuts free only the piece it held, and anything standing inside that piece. Before, other tabs within a few millimetres went too, cutting loose pieces you never refused, and the check said you had asked for it. A piece that was held through the freed one now gets a tab of its own, and refusing the link between two loose pieces frees only the smaller one.
• Stepped Layers: Outline keeps every part of a scattered design. With the Outline border, a design whose parts stand far apart is cut round each part, and every part is now kept - before, any after the 25 largest were left off every sheet. What joins them follows Island policy: under Auto bridge, connecting tabs, made wider when they have far to reach, which now show in the Layer Editor and can be refused like any other tab; under Allow separate piece none, and the parts are cut separately; under Remove problem feature none either, and the space between the parts is left solid. Under Frame or Circle, such a design no longer has a thin slot cut through the panel between its parts.
• Stepped Layers: Make symmetry exact keeps what lies on its mirror lines. Make symmetry exact, in Build quality, now keeps every opening that lies across a mirror line and never splits a piece along one; before, an opening on a diagonal mirror line could be lost, or a thin slit left along the line. Where making the artwork exact would lose something, it is left as drawn.
• Phone pictures come in upright. A picture from a phone, uploaded with Upload image in Stepped Layers or Upload depth map in Landscape, is now read the way it is shown - upright - rather than the way the phone stored it, which can be on its side. A picture already in a project is read upright too, the next time it is cleaned or built.
• The whole prompt reaches the picture. The prompt box in Stepped Layers and Landscape takes up to 8,000 characters, and all of it now reaches the image model; before, a subject longer than 600 characters was cut short on the way.
• When pictures cannot be made on our side, it says so. If our own account with the image service refuses a picture - its balance has run out, say, or we have paused it - Generate now says Picture generation is not available right now., that nothing was charged and that we have been told. Before, it could read as the service being busy, or as something wrong with your settings. Your own OpenAI key, added on your account page, does not go through our account.
• Landscape Silhouette Layers: a design drawn whole is read as drawn. A scene with Fit on Whole design, nothing cut off is now always read white-nearest, as the brief asks. The rule that turns an edge-to-edge picture round when its bottom is darker than its top turned some of them back to front - the Nested hearts medallion template among them. Rebuild a scene to get it, which is free. For any build that still comes out back to front, the new Reverse the depth order, under the border and frame settings, reads the depth map the other way round, also a free rebuild; inverting the file before uploading it does not do the same, so use the switch. See Which way round the picture is read.
• Landscape Silhouette Layers: work stays with its own scene. A build or a new depth map that finishes after you have opened another scene now stays with its own scene, rather than taking the studio back to it over the one you had open, and its busy panel no longer vanishes when you open another scene. Settings you change while a depth map is being made are kept when it arrives. Finish colours are saved to the scene you chose them for, also when you open another scene straight away or leave the studio. And stack is stale, settings changed · rebuild and depth map made for other settings · regenerate are still there after a reload or when you open the scene again.
• Vectorize a Photo: engraving files one at a time. The dither and the PNG and SVG downloads are now made one at a time for each account. Ask for another while one of yours is waiting and the new one takes its place, and the one it replaces says You asked for another engraving file since, so this one was set aside. - so a slider dragged through many values makes the value you stopped on, not every value on the way. When too many people are waiting at once, the newest is told The studio is busy making other engraving files.: wait a moment and press it again. See From a photo to an engraving.
• The assistant: for confirmed addresses, with an allowance that holds. The assistant now answers once your email address is confirmed, as generating does; until then it says so, and so does the box on your account page that asks you to confirm. Deleting a conversation no longer gives its messages back, and only a question's first Retry is free - retrying it again counts as a message. Long diagnoses and questions with a screenshot use more of the month than quick ones, so somebody who asks almost nothing else can reach the month's limit before the count does: the footer now reads 0 left then, where it went on showing messages left, and the comparison on the pricing page says up to that many messages a month. See The assistant.
• The assistant stays on the project you asked about. Asked to switch to another of your projects by name, the assistant now stays on that one while you carry on, even though the studio still shows the first; Talk about it in the panel goes back. On a large project it now reads a shortened but whole account of it, and asks for the rest when it needs it, where what it read could be cut off part-way.
• The privacy policy says more. The privacy policy, dated 15 October 2026, has a new section on the assistant - what it keeps, and for how long - and names Anthropic, whose Claude models write its answers, and OpenAI, which turns the text of a question into what the assistant searches these pages with. Deleting a conversation now deletes the thumbs up or down given in it, as the policy says. It also says what deleting an account does, that support's view of your account cannot touch your billing, and that a file attached to the contact form is not kept: a large one waits in a temporary file only while the message is sent.
• The home page says what a build costs. It said only the picture costs money. That is so on Studio; on Pay as you go the first build of each picture is 250 credits, and every rebuild of it after that is free - which it now says too.
• Windows app: a certificate it cannot check is said as such. When the app reaches something that is not a mandalalayers.com it can trust - a Wi-Fi network that wants you to sign in first, a security program that inspects connections, or a PC whose date or time is wrong - activating a key, Check now, pictures on credits and signing in now say This PC could not check mandalalayers.com's security certificate., with what to do, where they used to say the site could not be reached. Nothing is charged, and nothing about the licence changes.
• Windows app: only its own window can use it. The studio inside the app now answers only the app's own window, with a key made afresh each time the app starts, so another program, or another Windows user on the same PC, cannot open your projects, generate on your credits or OpenAI key, or change your licence through it. Nothing about how the app looks or works changes.
• Windows app: the free trial is counted on any clock. On a PC whose clock reads earlier than the app's release, the trial's days are now counted by the time the app is open; once the clock is put right, only the time that really passed is counted.
• Windows app: a late picture never replaces work you carried on with. A picture on credits whose answer was lost, and that the app brings in later, now goes beside the one in the project - not over it - when you have since cleaned that one, painted its mask or built its layers or sheets, as it already did when you had made another picture.
• Windows app: the studio fixes are in it too. Everything above that changes how the studios work is in this version of the app as well. What belongs to an account - Pay as you go, finished designs, a confirmed address, and the limits on picture size, on how many projects an account keeps and on builds waiting - is the website's alone.

The other fixes in this release are to how the site is run - deploys and rollbacks, backups, the nightly jobs and the watch on our image service account - and to keeping it quick for everybody while one account is busy. None of them changes what you see.

Version 1.2.2.07 - 14 October 2026

A bug-fix release.

• Windows app: get it from the Microsoft Store. The Windows app now comes from the Microsoft Store, free to install, and the Store keeps it up to date by itself. The Windows app's card on the pricing page, your account page and the email a key comes in have Get it from the Microsoft Store in place of a download, and an old download link from this website opens the app's page in the Store instead. A key works in the Store's copy just the same: to use it on another PC, install the app from the Microsoft Store there and enter the same key. The download size in the app's system requirements is now the Store's, about 150 MB.
• Windows app: it checks in whenever you come back to it. The Windows app now checks in with this website every time it is brought to the front (at most once a minute) and every 15 minutes while it is open, as well as when it starts. So a PC freed with Free this PC on your account page, or a key withdrawn, stops the next time it is brought to the front, or within about 15 minutes if it is left open and online; offline, it keeps working until it is back online. The box that confirms Free this PC says so.
• Windows app: Check again. When a key is withdrawn, the Windows app now keeps the key it had, and once the key is restored, Check again in the app puts it back on that PC - with nothing to type. A withdrawn key's card on your account page says so. A PC freed with Free this PC keeps no key, as before: it asks for the key to be entered again.
• Windows app: without a key, the buttons say why. Once the Windows app's free trial has ended - or the PC was freed, or its key withdrawn - the buttons and settings that need a key are greyed out, and each says You need a licence key to do this. when you point at it, with a way to enter a key beside the main ones. Before, they looked as usual, and pressing one only made the screen flash. Opening, renaming, deleting and downloading what you made work as before. Nothing changes on this website.
• Windows app: a withdrawn key frees its PCs. When a key is withdrawn - usually because its payment was refunded - every PC it was on is now freed too, so your account page shows it on no PCs. Before, its PCs stayed listed. If the key is restored, Check again in the app puts it back on a PC and takes one of its 3 PCs again. A PC that was off the whole time takes one again by itself at its next check-in.
• The version number in what a key includes follows the app's version. The Windows app's card on the pricing page, its questions, the comparison beside it and your account page's offer say what a key bought now includes with the app's current major version - "every update to version 1" today - and "a future version 2" with the next one. Where they speak of a key you already have - your account page's key, its email and the app's Settings - they name the version that key covers, 1. Nothing reads differently today.
• Pricing: no second Studio card. The Studio card under the comparison on the pricing page is gone: Studio's buttons are on its card at the top of the page.
• Windows app: it checks this website's certificate against Windows' own list. When the Windows app talks to mandalalayers.com - to activate a key, check in, sign in for credits or hear about a new version - and when it talks to OpenAI on your own key, it now checks the site's security certificate against the list of trusted certificates that Windows itself keeps up to date, not only against the list built into the app on the day it was made. So a change to mandalalayers.com's certificate does not stop an older copy of the app from activating or checking in. Nothing about how the app looks or works changes.
• Windows app: What's new opens these release notes. In the Windows app's notice of a new version, What's new opened a page this website does not have. It now opens these release notes - in every copy of the app already installed, too, with nothing to update.
• Windows app: styles still being tried out stay on the website. A style that is open early on the website, to a few people while it is still being tried out, is not in the Windows app. It comes to the app in the version after it opens to everybody. None is being tried out today, so the app has the same styles as before.

Version 1.2.2.06 - 14 October 2026

A bug-fix release.

• The Windows app is $199, paid once, with every update to version 1 included. A key includes every update to version 1 of the app - new features and bug fixes alike - and there is nothing to renew. A future version 2 may be a paid upgrade, priced when it comes out; version 1 keeps working with your key either way. The Windows app's card on the pricing page and its questions, the comparison beside it, your account page, the email a key comes in and the Windows app section of the terms all say so now. Every purchase of the app is still final, and the 3-day free trial is still the way to try it first.
• Windows app: Report this image. Beside each picture made with AI in the Windows app - in Stepped Layers, Landscape Silhouette Layers and Vectorize a Photo - Report this image opens an email to us about a picture that should not have been made.
• Windows app: a PC without WebView2 is told so. The app's window is drawn by Microsoft Edge WebView2, which comes with Windows 11. On a PC where it is missing, the app now says so when it starts, with a way to Microsoft's download page, instead of failing to open its window.

Version 1.2.2.05 - 13 October 2026

A bug-fix release.

• A PC you free from your account page stops within about an hour, even with the app open. The Windows app now checks in with this website by itself about once an hour while it is open, as well as when it starts, so a PC freed with Free this PC on your account page - or a key withdrawn - stops being licensed within about an hour even if the app on it stays open; until now an open app carried on until it was next started. A PC that is offline keeps working, and stops within about an hour of being back online. The box that confirms Free this PC now says when the app on that PC stops.
• Buying the Windows app from the pricing page confirms itself. After paying for a key from the Windows app's card on the pricing page, your account page now says Bought. Your new key is below as soon as the key is listed. It could say instead that the key can take a minute to come through - even with the new key already shown below it.
• The terms now cover the Windows app. The terms have a section for the app: what a key includes, how updates work, and that every purchase of the app is final, activated or not - the free trial is the way to try it first. The pricing page, your account page and the payment page say the same before you pay.

Version 1.2.2.04 - 13 October 2026

A bug-fix release.

• The Windows app needs Windows 11. The Windows app's system requirements - on its card on the pricing page, and under What your PC needs in the app's own help - now give Windows 11, 64-bit, as the minimum, where they said Windows 10 (version 22H2) or Windows 11. Windows 10 is not supported. The line under the app's download, on that card and on your account page, now says for Windows 11 too, and the processor line reads any that Windows 11 supports. Installing the app on Windows 11 adds nothing beside it and needs no internet connection. Nothing else changes, and the website still works in a browser on any computer.

Version 1.2.2.03 - 13 October 2026

A bug-fix release.

• Download the Windows app. While the Windows app is on sale, its card on the pricing page has Download the free trial: the installer, with its version and size, for anybody to try, with no sign-up, no key and no card. The 3-day trial starts the first time the app opens, and a key bought later is entered in that same app. If you have a key, the Windows app section of your account page has Download the app above it, for putting the app on another PC, and the email your key comes in has a download link too. Before, none of them said where to get the app.

Version 1.2.2.02 - 13 October 2026

A bug-fix release. The Windows app now lists what a PC needs to run it - the minimum and the recommended - on the pricing page and in the app's own help. The other fixes are to pages only we use.

Version 1.2.2.01 - 12 October 2026

A bug-fix release: the fourth number counts fixes to 1.2.2.

• The steps across the top take you to their button. Pressing Generate Source in the row of steps across the top of Stepped Layers - or Depth Map in Landscape - only lit that step, while the button that makes the picture could be out of sight further down the panel on the left, so the press seemed to do nothing. It now brings that button into view, outlined and ready to press. Prompt does the same for the box you type the prompt in.
• Your account page says when a Windows app key is on another account. Arriving at the Windows app section of your account page for a key that belongs to a different account - from the Windows app's link to it, while this browser is signed in as someone else - the page now says the key is not on this account and offers Sign in as that account, instead of offering to sell you a second key. And Sign in on the account page, when you are signed out, now brings you back to the same place on it.
• Windows app: Settings keeps up. Settings, Generating pictures now shows a sign-in you finished in your browser, a sign-out from your account page and credits you have just bought, without being closed and opened again; it says when the account signed in there is not the one your licence key is on; and Settings, Licence shows how many PCs the key is on.

Version 1.2.2 - 11 October 2026

Your own OpenAI key

• Your credits stay in view. Saving your own key on your account page used to put Your own key where your balance was, as if the credits you had bought were gone. They never were, and now they stay on show - on your account page, in the menu at the top right, and in a Credit history that Pay as you go accounts now have too - with a line saying that AI pictures run on your key. On Pay as you go your credits still pay for builds; on Studio they wait for whenever you remove the key. The tooltips on Generate Source and Generate Depth Map say the picture is made on your key and uses no credits.
• Your key is checked when you save it. We ask OpenAI whether a key works before keeping it, so a mistyped or revoked key is turned away there and then rather than at your first Generate. A restricted key with Images and Responses set to Write is kept. If OpenAI cannot be reached just then, the key is saved and the page says it was not checked.
• When OpenAI refuses your key, the message says why. A key OpenAI no longer accepts, an OpenAI account with no quota left, and one at its billing limit each say so now, with what to do: replace the key on your account page, or add billing or raise the limit at OpenAI - or remove the key there to go back to your credits. Nothing is charged, your credits are never used in its place, and your Credit history marks the picture nothing charged.

Changed

• A picture cut off by a restart gets its credits back. When an update restarted the site while a picture was still being made, a picture that did not finish in time was lost, and its credits with it. Now the credits go back as the site starts again, the studio says so if you open that picture within the hour, and you can ask for it again straight away.
• One picture at a time, and a failed save keeps the one you had. Asking for a new picture with Generate Source or Generate Depth Map while that project's or scene's picture is still being made - from a second tab, say - now says it is already being generated, rather than starting a second call that could be charged as well when one of the two failed. And if a new picture - or a new drawing in Vectorize a Photo - cannot be saved, the one you had stays exactly as it was and the credits come back.
• A failed picture says its credits came back. When an AI picture fails, the message now ends with what was put back - Your 27 credits were put back. - in all three studios. A picture the image provider has still not answered after 9 minutes is stopped and refunded the same way.
• Two tabs no longer undo each other. With one project or scene open in two tabs, clicking away in the tab you were not using sent its older copy of the name, prompt and settings, undoing a rename or a change made in the other. Each tab now sends only what you changed in it.
• A regeneration that fails is refunded. Generate Source or Generate Depth Map on a project that already had a picture kept its credits when the call failed. It now puts them back, the same as a first picture that fails always has, and the picture you had stays as it was.
• Changing your password signs you out everywhere else. Changing it on your account page now signs you out in every other browser, as resetting it already did. The browser you changed it in stays signed in, and we email you to say so.
• An unexpected error gives you a reference. When something goes wrong on our side, the message now says so with a reference such as E-1a2b3c4d. Quote it when you write to us and we can find exactly what happened.
• Pricing on a phone. The table of what an AI picture costs at each quality now fits a phone screen, where it had to be slid sideways to see its last column.
• Privacy policy. It now says that our support can open your account to see what you see - to look into a problem you have written to us about, for instance - and that each time is recorded.

Version 1.2.1 - 11 October 2026

New: finished designs

Designs we built and perfected ourselves, in Stepped Layers and Landscape Silhouette Layers, ready for you to start from. See What are finished designs?.

• Where to find them: Finished designs in the bar at the top of either studio, and under New project or New scene when nothing is open, as cards showing each design built, with its number of layers or sheets and its size.
• Use this design makes it yours: it opens as a project (or scene) in your account, with the same picture, the same mask or depth map and every setting, material and canvas size included. Nothing is generated, so opening one costs nothing, and whatever you had open stays as it was.
• What it costs: building it - Generate Layers or Build Scene - costs 250 credits on Pay as you go, once per design however many times you open it, the same as building any picture. On Studio it is included. Its cut files, Download All (.zip) among them, come with the build; before that, Save project.json or Save scene.json saves only its settings.
• Our hand edits come with it. In Stepped Layers, the openings we moved to another layer or took out with Remove from all layers stay that way in your build, listed under Manual overrides in the Features tab like edits of your own, and Clear override undoes any of them. Re-cleaning or painting the mask clears them, as it clears yours.
• After that it is yours like any other project: change any setting, rebuild for free, and download the files.

Changed

• Stepped Layers: an opening you remove stays removed. An opening taken out with Remove from all layers was left out of the features its build recorded, so the next rebuild cut it again, and Manual overrides never listed it to put back. It now stays out through every rebuild and is listed there, marked removed, with Clear override to bring it back. One removed before this version has no record to keep, so your next rebuild - or moving or removing another opening, which rebuilds too - cuts it again; remove it once more and it stays removed.

Version 1.2 - 9 October 2026

Changed

• Clearer about pictures built during a trial. On Pay as you go, a picture you built during a free trial or while you had Studio costs one build (250 credits) the first time you build it there, because the trial and the plan included that build rather than charging for it; every rebuild after that is free. The pricing page, your account page, the terms and these docs now say so plainly - nothing about what is charged has changed.
• Landscape Silhouette Layers: a detailed depth map keeps its detail. With many small regions - a skull of sunflowers and leaves, say - a sheet could come out inside out, wood where its openings should be, and a dark gap drawn between two regions could be taken for a cast shadow and filled in. Either way a front sheet covered the detail behind it. Both are fixed, and every sheet is now checked against the depth it was traced from before it is drawn. A scene built before this keeps its old sheets until you build it again, which is free.
• Landscape Silhouette Layers: a design on a plain page gets an Outline that follows it. A picture drawn on a white or plain page - a skull of sunflowers, a logo - had the page read as the nearest depth: the front sheet became a board over everything, and an Outline border followed the page's rectangle instead of the design. The page is now the backdrop, so the Outline follows the design and the sheets stand in front of the page. Keep the page round the design, under Border & frame, keeps the old reading. Rebuild a scene to get it, which is free.
• Landscape Silhouette Layers: loose pieces can be cut away. Loose pieces, under Build quality, replaces the Add bridges switch with three choices: Cut loose, the default, cuts a piece attached to nothing free for you to glue in place; Add bridges holds it with a stem or a small tab, as before; and Cut away takes it out of its sheet, so every sheet comes off the laser in one piece. A piece cut away falls back to the first sheet behind where it is joined to the frame - often one sheet back, but for a design floating inside its border it can be several, even the backdrop - so the picture keeps its shapes and loses steps of depth. The build says how much moved back, and warns when a sheet is left as only its frame. Rebuild both ways, which is free, and compare.
• Longer prompts. The prompt box in Stepped Layers and Landscape Silhouette Layers takes up to 8,000 characters, up from 4,000.
• Frame width starts at 7 mm in both layer studios. A new Stepped Layers project or Landscape Silhouette Layers scene starts with a 7 mm Frame width, where it was 6 mm in Stepped Layers and 12 mm in Landscape. A project or scene you saved keeps the width it has and is built exactly as before, and a template keeps the width it was made with. In Landscape the frame is added round the picture, so at 7 mm the picture is a little larger than it was at 12; in Stepped Layers the design is placed as it was, and the extra millimetre of band meets it where it reaches the edge.
• Vectorize a Photo: three styles - Pen & ink, Line art and Dither. Pen & ink, a pen-and-ink portrait engraving drawn fresh with your photo as its reference, is where a new photo starts, and every redraw is one AI call. Line art + stipple and Stipple are retired: a photo set to one of them opens on Pen & ink, and the drawings made in them are no longer shown. The Shading slider went with Line art + stipple; Pen & ink is the style with stippled shading. Pen & ink and Line art have two views, Photo and AI redraw, and a photo with a drawing opens on its AI redraw - after a redraw, when you open it again, and when you switch back to its style. The PNG download is the AI redraw itself, looking exactly as it does on screen and only made Width wide at your DPI, rather than a black-and-white engraving made from it, which could look darker and different; in LightBurn, choose Threshold for crisp lines or a dither mode such as Stucki for shading. The Engraving view went, and with it Invert, Thinnest line, Remove specks under and Shading dots for those two styles - use Negative Image in LightBurn for dark materials. The Dither's view is called Dither and keeps all its settings. Line art's SVG is traced as the defaults were - lines thinner than 0.15 mm thickened, specks under 0.02 mm² left out - and is never inverted, whatever those settings were on a photo before.
• Vectorize a Photo on your own OpenAI key. Pen & ink has gpt-5 read your photo and gpt-image-2 draw it, through OpenAI's Responses API. On your own key it therefore needs access to gpt-5 as well as gpt-image-2, and a restricted key needs Images and Responses set to Write. Line art and every refinement still need only gpt-image-2. If OpenAI refuses your key, the message now says what to change in your OpenAI dashboard. The privacy policy now says that for Pen & ink your photo goes to that language model, with the request marked not to be stored.
• Downloads named in any alphabet. A download is named after what you called the thing, and a name in a script other than the Latin alphabet, such as Cyrillic, Greek, Chinese or Arabic, made Download fail with an error every time. That covered a photo uploaded as Фото.jpg and a project or scene renamed in that script, in Stepped Layers, Landscape Silhouette Layers and Vectorize a Photo. It now downloads, saved under the name as you wrote it. If a download failed this way, press Download again.

Version 1.1 - 7 October 2026

New: Vectorize a Photo

A third studio, beside Stepped Layers and Landscape Silhouette Layers. It turns a photograph of people into one black-and-white engraving for your laser to burn into wood, slate or tile. Nothing is cut out and nothing is stacked. It is open to every account - on Studio, on the free trial, or pay as you go with no plan at all - once you are signed in and your email address is confirmed. Start at From a photo to an engraving.

• Four styles. Line art + stipple, where a new photo starts; Line art, a clean colouring-book page; Stipple, every tone built from dots; and Dither, your photo itself turned into dots on our server, with no AI and free.
• Line art + stipple is made in two steps: a colouring-book line art first, kept as the photo's Line art, then fine stipple shading added to it, with your photo sent alongside to show where the dark goes.
• The button says what a press costs: how many AI calls it makes and what each one costs. On a tall or wide photo, when Line art + stipple has to draw the Line art first - on a new photo, or after you change Remove background - it says "2 AI calls × 36 credits = 72 credits"; a press that needs one call says "1 AI call · 36 credits". A square photo is 45 credits a call, and on your own OpenAI key it costs nothing here.
• Framing: People fill the page, with the empty space above and below them cropped away, or Keep my framing.
• Remove background: the AI draws the people only, on plain white, at no extra cost per call.
• Refine: change a drawing in your own words - "still a little dark, lighten the faces" - and the drawing it replaces is kept under Earlier versions, the last eight of each style, where Use this brings one back for free.
• Free settings that re-make the file from the same drawing, with no new AI call: Width and DPI; Invert, for slate and dark tile; Thinnest line and Remove specks under for line art; Shading (Line art + stipple only) and Shading dots for the stippled styles; and brightness, contrast, mid-tones and sharpening for the dither.
• Downloads: a 1-bit PNG that carries its DPI, so LightBurn and most laser software import it at size, for every style; and an SVG of filled shapes for Line art.
• Your photos stay in your account: reopen or delete them from the photo list at the top left, rename one by typing over its name beside the list, and use New photo and Close photo as in the other studios.
• Privacy: only a downsized copy of your photo is sent to the AI - turned upright, no more than 2048 pixels, and with its location and other EXIF data removed.

New: ask for a build's credits back

On Pay as you go, if the layers a build made are not what you wanted, you can ask for its 250 credits back within 14 days of the build, with Request a refund on the project or from your account page. We open the project, look at the layers and decide, and email you the answer either way. See Credits and plans.

Changed

• Stepped Layers: a solid back by default. The bottom layer of a new project now defaults to Solid silhouette, one whole backer for the stack to be glued onto. A project started from a template takes the template's own bottom layer, and projects you already have keep the bottom layer they were built with.
• Landscape Silhouette Layers: the front sheets stay as drawn. On a portrait, or any scene without a focal subject, the front sheets could be turned into solid boards that hid most of the scene behind them. They are now kept as drawn, with their loose pieces, so the depths behind them stay visible; only the sheet second from the back can still be read the other way round. A scene built before this keeps its old sheets until you build it again, which is free.
• The documentation and the assistant cover Vectorize a Photo: it has its own page, and the credits page and the pricing page's table of what things cost say what it costs.

Version 1.0 - 25 September 2026

The first release, with the updates made to it up to 2 October.

Stepped Layers

One design cut at several depths: every sheet is the same design with a little more cut away, so the finished piece steps down into itself and reads as carved.

• Artwork from a description or your own: describe the design and the AI draws it, or upload a logo, a line drawing or a client's design. A shelf of templates, sorted by category, fills in a worked prompt and its layer settings, and Make it yours swaps the subject.
• Cleaning: the artwork is turned into a clean black-and-white mask before anything is cut.
• Layers and depth: choose how many sheets, set how islands are held - bridged, left as loose pieces or removed - and add a border or a frame.
• A check before you cut: errors and warnings that name the exact problem and where it is, before you spend a sheet on it.

Landscape Silhouette Layers

A scene split by distance, one sheet per depth - grass in front, then a fence, the cabin, the tree line, the moon - for a shadow box or a lightbox.

• A depth map generated from your description, from a shelf of scene templates, or uploaded.
• Every sheet decided for you, with the reason shown: which way round it is cut, what is repaired and what is left loose. The settings behind the repairs are there to change, and rebuilding is free; which way round a sheet is cut follows the depth map.
• Colour, a stacked and an exploded preview, and scenes saved as you work.

Making and cutting

• Your material: sheet thickness, kerf and the smallest piece your cutter can manage, in millimetres or inches.
• SVG files, one per sheet, all the same size and lined up, each a single named group, plus a combined file - for LightBurn or whatever software drives your cutter.

Your account

• Pay as you go costs nothing a month: AI pictures and a picture's first build cost credits, and every rebuild is free. Studio includes every build, monthly or yearly, and starts with a 3-day free trial with no card.
• Credit packs that do not expire, or your own OpenAI key for AI pictures.
• Your projects listed on your account page, to reopen any time.
• The gallery of finished pieces, the documentation, and an assistant in the studio that answers from it.