Boris FX releases Sapphire 2022.5
Originally posted on 19 November 2021. Scroll down for news of the Sapphire 2022.5 update.
Boris FX has updated Sapphire, its suite of effects plugins for compositing and editing software.
Sapphire 2022 introduces Photoshop as a new host application, adds a ColorFuse effect for combining LUTs to create custom colour grades, and updates the LensFlare Designer and UltraZap effect.
The software now supports GPU acceleration on Nvidia’s RTX Axxxx cards.
New Photoshop add-on is available free to all Sapphire users
The biggest change in Sapphire 2022 is that Photoshop is now one of its host applications.
The new Photoshop add-on – available free to both the Adobe/OFX and Avid editions – has the same filters and parameters as other Sapphire plugins, making it possible to share custom effects with other host apps.
As with the other host integrations, Sapphire for Photoshop is GPU-accelerated via CUDA on Windows and Metal on macOS, and supports Apple’s new M1 processors natively.
New Colorfuse effect for blending LUTs to create custom colour grades
New features include S_ColorFuse, a new tool for creating custom colour grades by blending up to three LUTs. The resulting look can then be transferred to other Sapphire host apps as a preset.
It comes with a starter pack of LUTs, or users can import their own LUTs in .cube format.
Updates to LensFlare Designer and UltraZap, new presets, and CUDA 11 support
Updates to existing features include support for OpenColorIO 2, the latest version of the colour management standard, inside the LensFlare Designer, along with workflow and performance improvements.
S_UltraZap, the reworked lightning bolt effect introduced in Sapphire 2021, can now generate ‘zaps’ along tracked splines generated by Sapphire’s integrated Mocha planar tracker.
The update also adds over 300 new effects presets.
In addition, Sapphire now supports CUDA 11, the latest version of Nvida’s GPU computing framework, meaning that it supports GPU acceleration on Nvidia’s current RTX Axxxx cards like the RTX A6000.
Updated 28 May 2022: Boris FX has released Sapphire 2022.5. The update adds 15 new LUTs to S_ColorFuse; and over 150 more presets, including presets for lens flares and light leaks.
In addition, the DaVinci Resolve integration gets support for multi-GPU systems, improving performance around 2x. The speed boosts are higher at higher image resolutions, and with multi-effects.
The Photoshop integration gets new interactive widgets and alpha support.
Pricing and system requirements
Sapphire 2022.5 is available for a range of compositing and editing software, including After Effects, DaVinci Resolve, Flame and Nuke, on Windows 10+, CentOS/RHEL Linux and/or macOS 10.14+.
New licences cost $1,695 for the Avid and Adobe/OFX editions, or $2,795 for a multi-host licence.
Read an overview of the new features in Sapphire on Boris FX’s website
Read a full list of new features in Sapphire in the online release notes