Phocus 4.x for Mac: Release Notes vs What Actually Shipped

The Phocus manual is dated September 2024 and covers "versions from 2.7.1 or earlier and up to version 3.8". Every 4.x release came after it. That makes the read-me PDFs that ship with each release the only official record of what Phocus 4.x can do, and this page keeps score on how complete that record is.

Call it a ledger. One side holds what each read-me says shipped, quoted from the PDFs on Hasselblad's own CDN. The other side holds what testing, support cases, and binary analysis show actually shipped. The page updates when Phocus does.

Key finding: Eight Mac releases in the Phocus 4.x line, 4.0 through 4.2.2, and every one shipped more than its read-me discloses: silently fixed bugs, a deliberate RAW-metadata change that breaks DxO PureRaw, a rebuilt lens-correction model, an entire caching subsystem, and features that appear in no Hasselblad document at all.

How this page works

Each release below gets two entries. The read-me says condenses the official notes, item for item, from the version-specific PDFs on Hasselblad's CDN (they are cumulative, so the current one carries all of 4.x). What the read-me doesn't say lists changes that verifiably shipped in that release with no mention: features, fixes, and regressions whose introduction version is established by testing or binary comparison of the installers.

Bugs that were merely discovered while a version was current belong on the Known Issues tracker, not here. This page is about the gap between the paper trail and the software. Where a claim rests on my own measurements, the linked post carries the method and evidence.

Phocus 4.0: the biggest release, documented in bullet points

The read-me says:

• HNCS Dynamic Range Compression (DRC) for the X2D II, with an "As Shot" automatic mode
• HDR processing for all Hasselblad RAW images: Exposure Tool V4, an HDR checkbox, highlight limiting, Ultra HDR JPEG export
• Hasselblad Natural Noise Reduction (HNNR), an AI model running locally, for 3FR files from five camera models, in two modes (Prioritise Purity, Prioritise Detail)
• Direct editing of 3FR files from all X, CFV, and H6D cameras; adjustments in a sidecar; imports no longer convert to FFF
• Support for the X2D II 100C and the XCD 35-100E
• Quality of life: tethered camera white balance separated from image white balance, EV range widened to plus or minus 4 stops, import tool improvements (import all or selection, skip duplicates, path and count display), persistent color readouts, one-click zoom controls, a larger resizable Curves tool with background histogram, updated UI styling, viewer background options, empty-state hints, and "Open With" plus drag and drop from Finder

What the read-me doesn't say:

How any of it works. The bullet list above is the deepest documentation this release ever received, and it covers a new processing pipeline, a new editing model for the native RAW format, and a new flagship camera. The manual was not revised for this release, and it still has not been. Several features that testing later surfaced as undocumented (the 400-megapixel mode and the Live Video focus tools, covered below) may date from this release; the read-mes never mention them at any version, so there is no way to tell from the record.

Phocus 4.0.1 (September 12, 2025): a question to the editor, shipped to the world

The read-me says:

• The Exposure Tool's EV input field now accepts values from -4.00 to +4.00
• Reduced memory consumption when opening folders with many JPEGs
• Fixed compare mode for 3FR files
• Corrected the XCD 35-100E vignette adjustment, which could leave overly bright corners after export
• Resolved a stability issue with "Export as Previous"
• Fixed some JPEGs failing to display or export
• Fast Preview export for 3FR files now applies image settings

It also says this, verbatim, in the middle of that list:

This was already fixed in Phocus 4.0???

An internal editorial query, three question marks and all, shipped in the official release notes and never caught. Later cumulative read-mes removed the line without comment. It is a small thing, but it says something: at least this one shipped without anyone reading it first.

This release also introduced a Known Issues section: the Reproduction tool does not work with Exposure Tool V4, and direct 3FR editing has three limitations (thumbnails may not update after edits, the low-resolution preview may differ from full resolution, no Color Calibration tool). Credit where due, that is real disclosure. What happened to the section later is covered below.

What the read-me doesn't say:

Nothing on the ledger's other side for this release. As far as testing and binary evidence go, 4.0.1 is the one honest entry in the line.

Phocus 4.1 (December 19, 2025): HNNR for FFF, and a crash the notes don't mention

The read-me says:

• HNNR extended to FFF files
• Full HDR support in the Reproduction tool: L* wide gamut, color calibration, curve adjustment
• Improved viewer quality for direct 3FR editing at low zoom ratios
• Better processing and export performance; macOS Tahoe support
• Fixes: automatic DRC for X2D II HDR HEIF and HDR JPG, color readouts in HDR mode, the moire mask progress slider, highlight recovery at extreme white balance, black artifacts in 6-shot exports, an H4D tethering issue, and a viewer luminance mismatch between Hasselblad RGB and L*RGB

What the read-me doesn't say:

• Within days of release, testing surfaced an Ultra HDR export memory leak severe enough to take down the whole system. Whether the leak was new in 4.1 is not established. But the read-me promotes new HDR features, the flagship HDR export path could exhaust system memory, and no read-me before or since mentions it.
• My first 24 hours with 4.1 found one fix, one regression, and one crash. The read-me records only the first.

Phocus 4.1.1 (January 30, 2026): the privacy fixes that aren't in the notes

The read-me says:

• Improved performance when accessing image files on disk
• Corrected dark shadow rendering under certain HDR settings
• H6D live view now displays correctly in portrait orientation
• Fixed a crash capturing multishot images with the H4D-200MS
• Fixed a crash related to the Navigator and Zoom tools

What the read-me doesn't say:

• This release fixed the telemetry behavior I had reported to Hasselblad (case 9698009). After 4.1.1, opting out of the Experience Improvement Program stops the application's outbound connections to Google services (Firebase, Crashlytics, Google App Measurement), which I verified with network monitoring; the full history is on the Known Issues tracker. This is the kind of fix privacy-conscious users actively look for, it went in their favor, and Hasselblad chose not to mention it.

Phocus 4.1.2 (March 30, 2026): eleven changelog lines in, two regressions out

The read-me says:

• AF-C for the X2D II during tethered shooting, plus switching of all shooting modes and crop modes
• Optimized entry and exit logic for tethered live view
• The RAW import format can be set to FFF or 3FR at import
• Fixes: incorrect brightness switching edited 3FR HDR to SDR, CFexpress images showing twice in backup mode, tethering failure over USB 2.0, multi-layer image loading speed, inconsistent shadows between SDR and HDR, and a wrong output color profile when exporting HDR with "Source"

What the read-me doesn't say, because nobody knew yet:

• This release introduced two significant regressions. The default color preview rendered flat and desaturated on every 3FR (case 9991365, traced in a binary-diff investigation), and every JPEG, TIFF, and HEIF export was silently capped at 7000x5250 pixels regardless of the preset. Hasselblad confirmed both as bugs on support cases. Neither was ever acknowledged in any read-me, including the one for the release that fixed them.
• This is also the version whose tethering I tested end to end, which is how the undocumented features below came to light.

Phocus 4.2 (June 2, 2026): four features on paper, a different release in the binary

The read-me says:

• Improved Export Experience: redesigned Output Presets dialog, automatic SDR and HDR color profiles per format, separate SDR and HDR profiles for custom presets
• Upgraded Brush Mask: an eraser tool and mask inversion
• Refined Exposure Adjustment: Highlight Recovery and Shadow Fill accept negative values
• Update Notification when a new Phocus version is available
• Other improvements: better highlights in exported HDR HEIF and Ultra HDR images

What the read-me doesn't say (binary comparison of the 4.1.2 and 4.2 installers, plus testing):

• Both 4.1.2 regression fixes. The flat-preview bug and the export cap were both fixed in 4.2. The export-cap fix rode inside "Improved Export Experience" with no acknowledgment that anything had been broken, even though Hasselblad had confirmed the bug on a support case and committed to the fix.
• A rebuilt lens-correction model for the XCD 135. The correction tables for the existing 135mm f/2.8 were re-derived with a much finer model that adds aperture and color-temperature dimensions. Good engineering for owners of older glass. It never got a release-note line.
• A new GPU path for white balance filtering, performance work the notes don't cover.
• A deliberate change to your RAW files on import. 4.2 began rewriting the EXIF Model tag inside imported 3FRs ("X2D II 100C" becomes "Hasselblad X2D II 100C"), which breaks camera recognition in DxO PureRaw. Hasselblad engineering confirmed on case 10227174 that the rewrite is intentional, to align 3FR imports with FFF imports, and closed the case as won't-fix. It appears in no read-me and no manual.
• A change to import-preset bookkeeping that looked like a fix and measured as one only on labels, not pixels.
• The Known Issues section is gone. The section that had run unchanged since 4.0.1 disappeared from the read-me in this release. Not resolved and updated: removed.

Phocus 4.2.1 (July 15, 2026): eleven words

The read-me says, in full:

Optimize thumbnail loading speed and rendering quality Fix other known issues

What the read-me doesn't say (binary comparison of the two installers):

• An entirely new persistent thumbnail cache: a two-tier design with a disk store in Application Support, a versioned manifest, a 5 GiB default budget, and two preference keys (PersistentCacheMaxBytes and PersistentCacheL1Count) that are documented nowhere.
• Which known issues got fixed. "Fix other known issues" covers at least one fix users had waited on since late 2025: color labels on 3FR files finally persist across restarts (case 9686749; persistence confirmed by re-test, export behavior not re-tested). The reporter was never told, and no read-me ever listed it.
• Further internal changes, detailed in the release post.

Phocus 4.2.2 (August 20, 2026): seven lines, two of them HEIF

The read-me says, in full:

Support in-app language switching Support smooth zoom with Ctrl + mouse scroll wheel Support full editing for re-imported exported HEIF files Optimized experience for batch import and batch modification Improved image switching smoothness when browsing thumbnails only Optimized image adjustment performance for Exposure V1 gears Fixed issue causing failure on second HEIF export Fixed other known issues

What the read-me doesn't say:

• The read-me is the 4.2.1 read-me plus the date and that block: 1,488 to 1,546 words. Full breakdown in the 4.2.2 release post.
• An in-app update downloader: the update dialog's string table grew from 7 to 19 entries (download progress, retry, "download verification failed"). Not in the changelog.
• A third neural denoise bundle (PBNeuralNetworkDeNoise_MLDenoise.bundle) next to the two that already shipped; the existing two are unchanged.
• The 59 lens correction maps and 26 sensor colour tables, readable XML through 4.1.1 and opaque since 4.1.2, lost their filenames too: all 85 are now random twenty-character .dat files, and the loading frameworks gained the strings "white-box decrypted" and "plaintext fallback".
• Thumbnail browsing is dramatically faster in first use (unmeasured as of publish day); the changelog gives it six words.
• None of the four open tracked issues (EXIF Model rewrite on import, import preset not applied, HNNR filename suffix, SMB import blocking the main thread) is named; retests pending.

Which Phocus features appear in no Hasselblad document?

These exist in the shipping application today. They appear in no read-me at any version, and not in the manual.

• The X2D II's 400-megapixel multi-shot mode. Available only through tethered Phocus; it is not on the camera's drive-mode menu. Verified in 4.1.2 testing; when it first shipped is not established.
• The Live Video focus tools. Focus peaking, a live focus-quality waveform, remote depth-of-field preview, and a one-click exposure meter, all reachable only by clicking on the tethered live feed. No menu entry, no shortcut.
• The Capture Sequencer's behavior. Exposure bracketing, focus bracketing, and interval shooting ship with presets whose behavior, and whose relationship to the main Capture button, is described nowhere.
• The Import dialog's "Use embedded if available" checkbox. Checked (the default), the preset you select in the Import dialog is not applied; the file's embedded configuration takes precedence, and the pixel-level difference is the vignetting correction amount. Hasselblad engineering confirmed in writing in August 2026 (case 10344904) that both this and the checkbox re-arming itself at every restart are intended behavior. The checkbox predates 4.x entirely: its label ships in Phocus 3.8's import dialog resources, the version the manual covers. It remains undocumented.
• The 4.2.1 cache preference keys, as above.

What do eight releases of read-mes add up to?

The read-mes are worth reading, and to Hasselblad's credit they are cumulative, dated, and publicly downloadable. But features ship without documentation, fixes ship without acknowledgment, one intentional change to user files shipped without any notice at all, and the one self-correcting habit the documents had (a Known Issues section) lasted four releases before it was deleted rather than maintained.

This page updates when Phocus does. When the next release lands, three checks run against it: the read-me text against the previous one, the installer against the previous installer, and the Known Issues section against reality, starting with whether it comes back at all.

References

1. Phocus 4.2.1 Mac read-me (PDF)
2. Phocus 4.2 Mac read-me (PDF)
3. Phocus 4.1.2 Mac read-me (PDF)
4. Phocus 4.1.1 Mac read-me (PDF)
5. Phocus 4.1 Mac read-me (PDF)
6. Phocus 4.0.1 Mac read-me (PDF)