Color Management, Sketch Cloud updates and Symbol Scaling in Sketch 48

Sketch 48 has arrived and with the latest release we’ve added support for color management, improved Symbol scaling and introduced an exciting, new feature to Sketch Cloud. Here’s an overview of the headline features in the latest update:

• You can now view and export Sketch documents in two color profiles, sRGB and Display P3.
• We’ve added Find and Replace color to Sketch.
• Documents can now be downloaded from Sketch Cloud.
• Symbol instances can now be scaled, independently from the Symbol master.
• Almost 50 other enhancements and bug fixes, including improvements to Symbol overrides and the way Sketch handles Library Symbols.

Take control of your colors

For a long time sRGB was the only color space digital designers really needed to worry about. But with the introduction of Wide Gamut displays, that can render more vibrant colors, times have changed.

We know you’re designing for all kinds of devices and displays so in version 48, Sketch now supports working in, and exporting documents in sRGB and Display P3 color profiles.

By default, Sketch uses an Unmanaged color profile so if you don’t want to worry about Color Management, you don’t have to — you can just leave the preferences as they are. You’ll see better performance in the app but remember that when you export files the colors may look different from what you see on screen in Sketch.

If you do want more control over how Sketch renders your colors, you can now easily change your default color profile to Display P3 or sRGB, in Preferences > General > Color Profile.

Already working on something? If you need to change the profile of an existing document, don’t worry, you can do that too. Just choose File > Change Color Profile… in the menu and select the color profile you want to use.

To find out more about color management you can check out our documentation or this excellent article by Marc Edwards. For a more in-depth look, we suggest picking up a copy of Craig Hockenberry’s brilliant e-book “Making Sense of Color Management”. We’re even offering 15% Off when you use the discount code SKETCH at checkout.

Downloading documents from Sketch Cloud

While we’ve been hard at work making improvements to Sketch itself, this update also brings a welcome new feature to Sketch Cloud. Now, when you share with Sketch Cloud, your entire document and all its contents will be uploaded, rather than just a preview.

This means that anyone you share your designs with can now download and open your document in Sketch — perfect for making iterations or collaborating remotely.

If you want to make your document available for download you can choose to do so after it’s been uploaded to Sketch Cloud by checking the box that says Allow this document to be downloaded.

We’ll be adding some more big features to Sketch Cloud in our next release so keep an eye out for future updates.

Find and Replace Color

This is one of our most requested features and we totally understand why — there’s nothing more frustrating than getting to the end of a project, sitting back and looking at your vast collection of Artboards and realising a color you’ve used across the whole document just isn’t quite right.

Having to manually change colors throughout your project will be a thing of the past with our new Find and Replace Color options.

You can now find a color you’re using in your document and replace it with another color throughout your entire document. We’ve even taken opacity into consideration and allow you to both find and replace colors with full sRGB values.

Scaling Symbols

You’ll probably be as excited as we are to hear that in Sketch 48 Symbol instances can now be scaled, independently from the Symbol master, using the Scale command.

Most Sketch users will know that simply resizing a Symbol, like resizing a group or layer, doesn’t affect properties such as corner radius and border thickness. This is normally fine but not so hot if you’ve got an icon or component you’d like to use at varying sizes across your document while retaining its stylistic properties. Previously you had to detach your Symbol, scale it to the appropriate size and create a whole new Symbol.

In Sketch 48 you can now use the Scale command to scale Symbol instances — just as you can with any other layer or group — and any properties such as borders will increase or decrease in size, in proportion with the Symbol itself, without affecting the master.

So instead of having a bunch of Symbols for the same icon at different sizes, you can now have just one Symbol in your Library and scale it to fit anywhere, while ensuring a consistent style across your project. This feature is especially useful if you’re using Libraries as it ensures your Symbols will stay up-to-date, no matter where or at what size they’re being used.

To resize a Symbol and all of its properties (corner radius, border thickness, shadow size, etc.) choose Layer > Transform > Scale… from the menu (or press Command-K).

Almost 50 other improvements and bug fixes

As always we’ve taken your feedback and suggestions on board and made some smaller improvements and bug fixes since the last update. Here are some of the highlights:

• Copying Library Symbols between documents now keeps them linked to the Library.
• Library previews can now be added by creating an Artboard titled “Library Preview” in the Library document.
• Improved performance for documents featuring many Symbol overrides.

You can find a full list of bug fixes and improvements on our updates page.

Sketch 48 is a free update for everyone with an active license. If you need to renew your license, you’ll get Sketch 48 and a whole year’s worth of updates after that.

We’d love to hear what you think of this update so please let us know. If you’ve got questions or feedback, you can get in touch with us via our support page or join in the conversation on Twitter.

We’re working hard on Sketch 49 right now. Keep your eyes peeled for more news on it soon.