John-B

This discussion has taken a pointless turn. What difference does it make how AP represents and arranges image data? I create and edit files in AP format, but save them out in TIFF, PNG, or JPG formats. It doesn't matter to me HOW AP saves the data internally, it's the data that AP saves that's important. Even more important for this discussion, a portion of those data have been made non-editable for some unknown and apparently arbitrary reason.

Affinity Photo HAS all the necessary functionality already, they just disable it for the alpha channel. You can currently select and edit (using all the existing editing tools) any channel EXCEPT the alpha channel. So it's not a matter of adding new functionality, which I could understand not being a high priority. Unless it really is some intellectual property issue, it would appear they are intentionally crippling their software. I'd like to hear an official response as to why they don't do something that's about as simple as changing the value of a Boolean variable.

Non-separated mode is very inconvenient for me, since I normally have many docs open at the same time. I turn off full-screen mode in any app that has it and lets me turn it off. Though now that I can only have a single doc open while editing text, I guess it doesn't make as much of a difference. The Open Recent menu started working again, not sure when as I've stopped checking it. FWIW, I save files to my Home folder.

Recent Items is set to 20 in my SysPrefs, and other programs remember docs. As I said, since the recent update, AP's Open Recent always has just one menu item pop up: Clear Menu. It used to remember, now it appears to have suffered some memory loss. BTW, I'm having even more problems with text. Yesterday I was not able to edit text AT ALL with any other window open. Every time I tried to change the font size, or style, or anything, it would jump to another open window. I was never able to succeed in setting a single-character to bold or change its size. I eventually gave up and copied the text from another document (before I realized it would work if I closed all other windows).

Yes, something I set up the first time I opened AP and never thought about since. The "everything in one window that takes over the entire screen" scheme is not well-suited to my workflow, working with multiple documents and having quick access to Finder windows in the background. If I turn off separated mode, would I have to reopen and reposition all my palettes after I turn it back on? To summarize, so far I've found: • Frame Text tool - editing and everything else slows, apparently only when another document, or other documents, are open • Artistic Text tool does not allow entering more than 1 character • Color Picker palette sometimes, but not always, is dismissed after entering a single value • File -> Open Recent does not remember recently-opened documents

I'll try to take a look at this later today. What is "separated mode"? Is that a Prefs setting? I just tried closing all open windows and restarting AP, and the text tool seems to be working with just one, new, empty window. Previously, it didn't seem to matter what else was open. I was going to try opening some of the other docs I'd had open, to see if one of them might be the problem, but the Open Recent menu doesn't seem to be working any more (something I noticed recently as well), it's always empty now. I found one of the docs I'd had open when I was experiencing the problems, opened it, and slow text editing is back. With this other doc open, text editing slows to a crawl in a new, empty doc. Close that other doc, and editing text in the new doc goes back to normal speed.

Attached is the screen capture of my preferences, all defaults I believe, not changed since updating AP. It's the Frame Text tool that I normally use that I'm seeing problems with. I just tried the Artistic Text tool, and it doesn't seem to work at all. As soon as I type the first character, it suddenly brings another open AP window to the front. Just tried it a few times with the same result. I'm not sure how to find bad fonts in Font Book, but I haven't installed any new fonts recently, and this problems started after the AP update. I've seen other odd behavior too, not sure if it's related. The color picker popup now dismisses itself after I enter a single number (RGB, HSL). Tabbing or clicking a different field causes the dialog to go away. If I want to set an RGB value, I have to open the color picker three times now.

Ever since the most recent update, 1.8.3, text editing has become so slow as to be almost unusable for me. It doesn't matter the document, or how many documents are open. There's a pause after every character I type, and if I type several characters quickly, the beach ball spins for several seconds (20-30) while it catches up. It's not just editing text, but anything involving the text, such as the font size popup menu that takes several seconds just to appear, and several more seconds to disappear after a size is selected. Same for setting text color, everything related to text is SLOW. I've run into a few other annoying problems since the update, but this is by far the worst. I'm using MacOS 10.14.6.

It looks like Krita is Windows only.

I guess I touched a nerve with this post. I recently discovered another problem associated with the way alpha channels are handled. If you let AF create the alpha (e.g., drawing a circle on an otherwise empty canvas with a transparent background), the empty space remains empty in AF, but not necessarily when you save as TIFF and open in another app. I noticed this when I was making light-colored buttons with rounded edges. When I placed the light-colored buttons on a light-colored background the buttons had a black border. They were not antialiasing correctly with their background, and I've not been able to eliminate that dark edge completely. In Photoshop this was never an issue because I always made the edges of the button graphic match the background the buttons would be on, so they always had nice-looking edges and blended seamlessly.

It's not just textures. Transparent textures are expensive in 3D games, and I use them very sparingly. For me, it's creating the 2D interface where control of the alpha channel is most important, something I do all the time, where it's not just making cutouts. For example, a button with an alpha drop shadow can be created in AP, as I eventually learned, it's just a different workflow. The same is true for other alpha effects I used to do in PS. I've been able to get AP to do what I've needed to do with the alpha channel, it's just not always as direct or obvious as doing it in PS. However, regardless of AP's target audience, there doesn't appear to be any reason NOT to make the alpha channel accessible. All they have to do is make the little icon that indicates that a layer is editable work for the alpha channel (currently it's a button that does nothing). The editing tools are already there, they're just blocked from working in the alpha channel. It seems like they're going out of their way to treat the alpha channel as a special, non-editable layer.

If I try to close a document that has not been saved, I get the prompt to save the file. If I do a save, the document doesn't close. I have to close it again. This is not normal behavior for a Mac application. The file should close after saving without me having to close it again.

By arbitrary position, I mean any location within the document, NOT any rotation. I'm talking about horizontal and vertical lines. By selection, I mean a selection made with a marquee tool in a pixel layer. (There is more than one way to draw a line.) In the attached image, I made a selection with the Column Marquee Tool, and filled it with white on a black background (left line). Then I made another column selection, filled it, then dragged it a few pixels to the right (other line). You can see in the screen capture that the second line is still selected, but it's gotten wider and darker, the filled area now extends past the "selected" pixels. So it looks like it's not possible to be precise with either vector or pixel objects. I understand why this is the case with vector objects, but a pixel is a pixel. A selected area of pixels should NOT change its appearance or size as it's dragged around the document.

So it's not possible to draw a precise, single-pixel line in an arbitrary position? What about filling a one-pixel wide selection? Why does that also depend on position? Shouldn't a filled selection include all the pixels within the selection, and none outside, with the same color/transparency? It looks like it's doing antialiasing whether I want it to or not. Is it not possible to do precision, pixel-perfect drawing?

Thanks, that'll be good to know if I ever get Affinity Designer. What about the Rectangular to Polar filter, seems like that should do the trick, but it just turns the text upside down and tilts it.