Alberto

I've been using affinity for 2 years, the whole suite, and in general I was happy because these last two years didn't need much 2D work. It worked for me. These last months I have had to work more with this and I have to say that I am tired of the lack of usability design that the program has. 
It is not normal the headaches that the program gives me because it does not have implemented BASIC things. I don't know where these usability ideas for the program come from but they're terrible, and what used to be a passable problem is making it impossible for me to work decently. I'm going to talk specially about Affinity Photo but the problems are applicable to all programs.
Hotkeys, they're crap. I don't know who the hell thought that to change the size of the brush you have to do Ctrl+Alt+LeftClick+RightClick but for the love of God, kill him. Don't make more people suffer. The problem with this hotkey is that it is such an OBVIOUS problem that the fact that it has not been fixed and nobody says anything scares me. On top of that there's no way to change it because it's hardcoded. You can see that whoever designed it has never used a stylus. Because to ask that you have to do Ctrl+Alt+LeftClick+RightClick with a stylus is to torture the user.
It's just that it's misconfigured by default, as if you're trying to move between selection modes. That the shift+hotkey is not activated to move between them by default, or it wasn't. Then things like while you are making a selection box you can't move it while you are creating it. Please, do you know how much time I waste with this nonsense? You can't imagine.
Another example, the selection with loop is not 3 modes of selection, depending on the submode you are in you have some hotkeys or others. Or it is three tools or one that gives access to everything without having to click on the toolbar.
Then work with the alpha, who has designed this system? It is impossible to work comfortably with the alpha of an image. You have to be creating a layer, converting it to a mask,... I don't even know where to start.
Do I want to deform a piece of my layer? I CAN'T, it turns out that the perspective tool works only with the whole layer, not with the part I'm working on. Really? Not to mention that there are 4 separate tools that do the same thing.
- Transform
- Distort
- Perspective
- Select
It's the same tool in different places. If I want to modify a layer and at the same time the perspective I have to switch between tools. It's disastrous for the concept from any user perspective.
What pis**s me off most about all this and many others that I don't mention is that it's NONNESS, which can be easily fixed in a short time and nothing is done for years. There have been complaints about all this in the forums since the beginning. And they're still ignored. That's why I'm thinking about going back to adobe. Even if it's more expensive, with a lousy licensing system and a thousand telemetry services. I use affinity photo and get frustrated because it has basic errors. It has problems that make it seem like nobody uses it in QA.

I've been using affinity for 2 years, the whole suite, and in general I was happy because these last two years didn't need much 2D work. It worked for me. These last months I have had to work more with this and I have to say that I am tired of the lack of usability design that the program has. 
It is not normal the headaches that the program gives me because it does not have implemented BASIC things. I don't know where these usability ideas for the program come from but they're terrible, and what used to be a passable problem is making it impossible for me to work decently. I'm going to talk specially about Affinity Photo but the problems are applicable to all programs.
Hotkeys, they're crap. I don't know who the hell thought that to change the size of the brush you have to do Ctrl+Alt+LeftClick+RightClick but for the love of God, kill him. Don't make more people suffer. The problem with this hotkey is that it is such an OBVIOUS problem that the fact that it has not been fixed and nobody says anything scares me. On top of that there's no way to change it because it's hardcoded. You can see that whoever designed it has never used a stylus. Because to ask that you have to do Ctrl+Alt+LeftClick+RightClick with a stylus is to torture the user.
It's just that it's misconfigured by default, as if you're trying to move between selection modes. That the shift+hotkey is not activated to move between them by default, or it wasn't. Then things like while you are making a selection box you can't move it while you are creating it. Please, do you know how much time I waste with this nonsense? You can't imagine.
Another example, the selection with loop is not 3 modes of selection, depending on the submode you are in you have some hotkeys or others. Or it is three tools or one that gives access to everything without having to click on the toolbar.
Then work with the alpha, who has designed this system? It is impossible to work comfortably with the alpha of an image. You have to be creating a layer, converting it to a mask,... I don't even know where to start.
Do I want to deform a piece of my layer? I CAN'T, it turns out that the perspective tool works only with the whole layer, not with the part I'm working on. Really? Not to mention that there are 4 separate tools that do the same thing.
- Transform
- Distort
- Perspective
- Select
It's the same tool in different places. If I want to modify a layer and at the same time the perspective I have to switch between tools. It's disastrous for the concept from any user perspective.
What pis**s me off most about all this and many others that I don't mention is that it's NONNESS, which can be easily fixed in a short time and nothing is done for years. There have been complaints about all this in the forums since the beginning. And they're still ignored. That's why I'm thinking about going back to adobe. Even if it's more expensive, with a lousy licensing system and a thousand telemetry services. I use affinity photo and get frustrated because it has basic errors. It has problems that make it seem like nobody uses it in QA.

I don't think the problem is the size of the team. They have a suite that has 3 programs on 3 different platforms with so many different interfaces.
It's a problem of UX design, is that I'm asking for ease of use and decisions that are easy to implement in any software. There may be some more complicated ones, like unifying the transformation tool or changing the way of working with alpha, than if they are more deep changes. But the main problems are simply bad usability decisions that affect hotkeys. I can understand that giving the user the option to configure all the hotkeys is complicated to implement. But not that putting a single button and mouse movement as a hotkey is.

I have tested right now the beta... and they have change the LeftClick+RightClick+Ctrl+Alt by LeftClick+Ctrl+Alt
 
Why?
Why?
Why?
Why?
 
Seriously, why have changed a crappy hotkey for other crappy hotkey? Ctrl+leftclick is not used, for example, adn it where used, nothing is more important that brush size.

I've been using affinity for 2 years, the whole suite, and in general I was happy because these last two years didn't need much 2D work. It worked for me. These last months I have had to work more with this and I have to say that I am tired of the lack of usability design that the program has. 
It is not normal the headaches that the program gives me because it does not have implemented BASIC things. I don't know where these usability ideas for the program come from but they're terrible, and what used to be a passable problem is making it impossible for me to work decently. I'm going to talk specially about Affinity Photo but the problems are applicable to all programs.
Hotkeys, they're crap. I don't know who the hell thought that to change the size of the brush you have to do Ctrl+Alt+LeftClick+RightClick but for the love of God, kill him. Don't make more people suffer. The problem with this hotkey is that it is such an OBVIOUS problem that the fact that it has not been fixed and nobody says anything scares me. On top of that there's no way to change it because it's hardcoded. You can see that whoever designed it has never used a stylus. Because to ask that you have to do Ctrl+Alt+LeftClick+RightClick with a stylus is to torture the user.
It's just that it's misconfigured by default, as if you're trying to move between selection modes. That the shift+hotkey is not activated to move between them by default, or it wasn't. Then things like while you are making a selection box you can't move it while you are creating it. Please, do you know how much time I waste with this nonsense? You can't imagine.
Another example, the selection with loop is not 3 modes of selection, depending on the submode you are in you have some hotkeys or others. Or it is three tools or one that gives access to everything without having to click on the toolbar.
Then work with the alpha, who has designed this system? It is impossible to work comfortably with the alpha of an image. You have to be creating a layer, converting it to a mask,... I don't even know where to start.
Do I want to deform a piece of my layer? I CAN'T, it turns out that the perspective tool works only with the whole layer, not with the part I'm working on. Really? Not to mention that there are 4 separate tools that do the same thing.
- Transform
- Distort
- Perspective
- Select
It's the same tool in different places. If I want to modify a layer and at the same time the perspective I have to switch between tools. It's disastrous for the concept from any user perspective.
What pis**s me off most about all this and many others that I don't mention is that it's NONNESS, which can be easily fixed in a short time and nothing is done for years. There have been complaints about all this in the forums since the beginning. And they're still ignored. That's why I'm thinking about going back to adobe. Even if it's more expensive, with a lousy licensing system and a thousand telemetry services. I use affinity photo and get frustrated because it has basic errors. It has problems that make it seem like nobody uses it in QA.

I have tested right now the beta... and they have change the LeftClick+RightClick+Ctrl+Alt by LeftClick+Ctrl+Alt
 
Why?
Why?
Why?
Why?
 
Seriously, why have changed a crappy hotkey for other crappy hotkey? Ctrl+leftclick is not used, for example, adn it where used, nothing is more important that brush size.

I've been using affinity for 2 years, the whole suite, and in general I was happy because these last two years didn't need much 2D work. It worked for me. These last months I have had to work more with this and I have to say that I am tired of the lack of usability design that the program has. 
It is not normal the headaches that the program gives me because it does not have implemented BASIC things. I don't know where these usability ideas for the program come from but they're terrible, and what used to be a passable problem is making it impossible for me to work decently. I'm going to talk specially about Affinity Photo but the problems are applicable to all programs.
Hotkeys, they're crap. I don't know who the hell thought that to change the size of the brush you have to do Ctrl+Alt+LeftClick+RightClick but for the love of God, kill him. Don't make more people suffer. The problem with this hotkey is that it is such an OBVIOUS problem that the fact that it has not been fixed and nobody says anything scares me. On top of that there's no way to change it because it's hardcoded. You can see that whoever designed it has never used a stylus. Because to ask that you have to do Ctrl+Alt+LeftClick+RightClick with a stylus is to torture the user.
It's just that it's misconfigured by default, as if you're trying to move between selection modes. That the shift+hotkey is not activated to move between them by default, or it wasn't. Then things like while you are making a selection box you can't move it while you are creating it. Please, do you know how much time I waste with this nonsense? You can't imagine.
Another example, the selection with loop is not 3 modes of selection, depending on the submode you are in you have some hotkeys or others. Or it is three tools or one that gives access to everything without having to click on the toolbar.
Then work with the alpha, who has designed this system? It is impossible to work comfortably with the alpha of an image. You have to be creating a layer, converting it to a mask,... I don't even know where to start.
Do I want to deform a piece of my layer? I CAN'T, it turns out that the perspective tool works only with the whole layer, not with the part I'm working on. Really? Not to mention that there are 4 separate tools that do the same thing.
- Transform
- Distort
- Perspective
- Select
It's the same tool in different places. If I want to modify a layer and at the same time the perspective I have to switch between tools. It's disastrous for the concept from any user perspective.
What pis**s me off most about all this and many others that I don't mention is that it's NONNESS, which can be easily fixed in a short time and nothing is done for years. There have been complaints about all this in the forums since the beginning. And they're still ignored. That's why I'm thinking about going back to adobe. Even if it's more expensive, with a lousy licensing system and a thousand telemetry services. I use affinity photo and get frustrated because it has basic errors. It has problems that make it seem like nobody uses it in QA.

Pretty much. There is no way to apply a discount voucher to our standard Affinity shopping basket.
Our legacy range used to offer discounts but those codes never worked for Affinity software. Many of the websites are still shouting about codes that have not worked for years since that old basket system and the legacy Serif accounts were deprecated. We cannot stop them attracting SEO hits, but the dicsounts are all worthless now.
Affinity discount codes are occasionally handed out on physical cards, given to attendees of trade shows and the like where we have a stand, but those cards also have the URL printed on them to redeem the codes.
Also there are some Affinity vouchers included (bundled) with some new hardware to give discount or free software. Those also have a URL to claim the reduced price. If you don't have the new hardware you should not claim the software.
 
Affinity never had one, www.serif.com did in the basket system for our previous software, which is now legacy and permenantly discounted

It's a great software for so little people.

It's a great software for so little people.

It's a great software for so little people.

And the performance... it's far from how light it was in the CS2 - CS5 times.... (and I choose those as I recon 2.0 to 7 is going to the 90s, and a lot of people here were not at working ages back then)
I've been around for  a while, now. And I think it will be done, not as long as another 3 years. The reason why I think this : It seems to me that now they are more in a maturing the apps stage. Consider the amount of amazing challenges they have concentrated (for a small staff) in those years : Releasing the apps in the desktop for TWO different platforms (Windows and Mac), producing the apps for iOS, the iPad, ...Creating A. Publisher.... Just too much. I'd foresee (if aren't we already there) a stage now of consolidating the products, fixing bugs, adding market demanded features (like TGA) and so on. But is just my guess: I have ZERO internal info. Is only my guess after being here for some years.
It indeed solves what you wanted, no semi transparent pixels are generated inside or outside the line when scaling the 1px row, doing what I mentioned.   (but I'd toggle it off for other operations. Is at the tool bar, super fast to access)
Unstable ??   I really must have won the lottery of chips, back in the day in 2009. Not a single crash with Photo beta 1.7x, and I've used many beta versions. Of course, they recommend no to use a beta for production (is at your own responsibility). But I do.
True. I probably was starting from 100%. I don't know, I have my brain wired to just double click the amplifier (lupa) , since my many years with PS at companies. So much that don't ever try to get a 100% with the wheel.  One combination could be just do one double click in the lupa, then the mouse wheel will snap always to 100% when reaching that zoom level.
With the free external utility X-Mouse you can control the brush size with the tablet disc, the mouse wheel, or with whatever you prefer. Apart from PS (and that's only as is the tool I've used more in my life, is just habits...) rarely a tool have the keys I prefer. So, when found this tiny jewel, solved a ton of "comfort" problems for many applications, Afifnity not being an exception.
That's because you trigger the hand tool with space, then ctrl is a modifier for that tool, allowing to switch temporarily to zoom.
My point is, I was trying to substitute a tool like PS, years ago, with PSP or Gimp. None of them did (and till date, not great, to say the least) handle color managment well, specially with CMYK profiles. And in the case of Gimp, the UX issues are imo way, way bigger.  I've worked with those efficiently at companies. Looking for workarounds, simply 'cause the companies wouldn't buy PS.  For me the few stones in the road with AP are easy peasy, non show stoppers, when compared to what I lived with those two other apps (and counting on I could do all what was requested, for years, using extra apps, tricks, patience... )

Maybe is just for that, dunno. But AP serves my purposes, now....
 

GIMP has a horrid GUI, so, big +1 there. 

Imagine combining it with Scribus, Inkscape, and some open source tools to ensure CMYK files with correct profiles... for years, doing all the corporate image work for a  company, events, brochures, (tons of print stuff), UI for apps, video, web, etc. And my salary depending on it...   Affinity is paradise in comparison....

The Development Team is aroung a dozen of people.
Sorry that you have to go back to Adobe.
Best regards!

Lack of TGA is the biggest downside to Affinity Photo for me. And it's beyond me how they keep neglecting this request we've had for years. I don't know programming, but I can't imagine it will take so much time and effort that they don't see the value of it. It's a widely known and used format in many instances. Broadcast and games are the ones I can come up with right now, but these are potentially huge markets.

Hi SrPx
I'll answer you in English so other people can follow the conversation.
- I don't have a problem with photoshop, but I'm tired of adobe license model and that they install a lot of crap that I don't need.
- Will the TGA be fixed? I don't know when, because I have seen that it has been a petition for 3-4 years. And I don't think it's so complicated not to collapse the alpha in color channels when importing the TGA. I agree that the TGA is not a large format, but unfortunately is the one used and I can not decide not to use it.
- About the solution, the 1.7 beta is so unstable that I was hung up when I went to try what you said. But to be solved (which I don't think in principle) would be a positive thing.

- I don't see that behaviour in the zoom in latest 1.7 beta, It only do if you have the correct 100% zoom when begin with the wheel.
- I don't usually use hotkeys to change the size of the brush, it's not fast or it's not precise, in any case it's not functional. The mouse hotkey works very well, but it's a crazy hotkey that can't be edited.
I don't want a photoshop clone, although affinity still is. But I do believe that it has big errors in the UX that are easily solvable and I'm surprised that they are not after several years. What hurts me is not being able to do things that I consider basic and that the program even sometimes has but is completely obfuscated its use. Not being able to change the size of the brush with the stylus using the same hotkey as with the mouse is an example.
Things that very much to my regret break me trying to use the program, no matter how much I insist on using it.

I've tried to give affinity several tries, but I have to give it up. 
I don't know what the big development team is like, but after giving many attempts to affinity photo I have to quit and go back to photoshop. It's a pain to try to do anything in affinity that is not a simple photo retouching, even in simple jobs I find problems. Every now and then I encounter such basic usability problems that I don't understand why there are so many problems to implement them. Mainly when you want to do something precise and detailed with the program.
- Do I need to work with a TGA texture? ahhh, we don't support the TGA format correctly. Well, goodbye game industry... I can't wait here 3-4 years until I give you to implement it.
- I want to scale a row of one pixel... the program adds a gradient on the sides because potato ... And I don't have the option to change it.
- I want to zoom in? I don't know how I ended up with a 103% zoom and there's no way to go back to 100% without using a specific hotkey.
- I want to move the selection meanwhile I create it? I can't. I only can create, move to quick mask, edit the.....
- I want to enlarge the size of the brush, which should be the most basic thing in the world, because we put a hotkey that is Ctrl+Alt+RMB+LMB and is not editable ... Are you sure you don't want to add the computer reset button? (also... outside USA the [ ] hotkeys are not easy to find, you need AltGr to use it, take in consideration this)
I'm sorry, I've given him a dozen attempts to do something and I always end up doing the same thing. Losing 80% of the time searching in google "how to do X in affinity photo" to discover that it can not be done and that someone asked in 2015 and since then there are no changes. Well, sometimes some kind of "gimp does it" from the developers themselves. If I found solutions, well, that would be fine. But I've already wasted hours reading the forum and I never find solutions.
I like Affinity, it has very good ideas and it is a good program in general. Well, the "personas" is an incredible s**t and the topbar is completely superfluous. But it gives the impression that nobody has stopped using it in production because there are basic things that do not allow in any way that should be annoying for any user or any tester within 10 minutes of trying the program.
Maybe it's just a momentary pis***g off, but I've stopped doing my job a dozen times for the same reason since I bought the program and I never find solutions and I cant complete my work.

Please, make a little improvements in basic UX.

I've tried to give affinity several tries, but I have to give it up. 
I don't know what the big development team is like, but after giving many attempts to affinity photo I have to quit and go back to photoshop. It's a pain to try to do anything in affinity that is not a simple photo retouching, even in simple jobs I find problems. Every now and then I encounter such basic usability problems that I don't understand why there are so many problems to implement them. Mainly when you want to do something precise and detailed with the program.
- Do I need to work with a TGA texture? ahhh, we don't support the TGA format correctly. Well, goodbye game industry... I can't wait here 3-4 years until I give you to implement it.
- I want to scale a row of one pixel... the program adds a gradient on the sides because potato ... And I don't have the option to change it.
- I want to zoom in? I don't know how I ended up with a 103% zoom and there's no way to go back to 100% without using a specific hotkey.
- I want to move the selection meanwhile I create it? I can't. I only can create, move to quick mask, edit the.....
- I want to enlarge the size of the brush, which should be the most basic thing in the world, because we put a hotkey that is Ctrl+Alt+RMB+LMB and is not editable ... Are you sure you don't want to add the computer reset button? (also... outside USA the [ ] hotkeys are not easy to find, you need AltGr to use it, take in consideration this)
I'm sorry, I've given him a dozen attempts to do something and I always end up doing the same thing. Losing 80% of the time searching in google "how to do X in affinity photo" to discover that it can not be done and that someone asked in 2015 and since then there are no changes. Well, sometimes some kind of "gimp does it" from the developers themselves. If I found solutions, well, that would be fine. But I've already wasted hours reading the forum and I never find solutions.
I like Affinity, it has very good ideas and it is a good program in general. Well, the "personas" is an incredible s**t and the topbar is completely superfluous. But it gives the impression that nobody has stopped using it in production because there are basic things that do not allow in any way that should be annoying for any user or any tester within 10 minutes of trying the program.
Maybe it's just a momentary pis***g off, but I've stopped doing my job a dozen times for the same reason since I bought the program and I never find solutions and I cant complete my work.

Please, make a little improvements in basic UX.

Hi SrPx
I'll answer you in English so other people can follow the conversation.
- I don't have a problem with photoshop, but I'm tired of adobe license model and that they install a lot of crap that I don't need.
- Will the TGA be fixed? I don't know when, because I have seen that it has been a petition for 3-4 years. And I don't think it's so complicated not to collapse the alpha in color channels when importing the TGA. I agree that the TGA is not a large format, but unfortunately is the one used and I can not decide not to use it.
- About the solution, the 1.7 beta is so unstable that I was hung up when I went to try what you said. But to be solved (which I don't think in principle) would be a positive thing.

- I don't see that behaviour in the zoom in latest 1.7 beta, It only do if you have the correct 100% zoom when begin with the wheel.
- I don't usually use hotkeys to change the size of the brush, it's not fast or it's not precise, in any case it's not functional. The mouse hotkey works very well, but it's a crazy hotkey that can't be edited.
I don't want a photoshop clone, although affinity still is. But I do believe that it has big errors in the UX that are easily solvable and I'm surprised that they are not after several years. What hurts me is not being able to do things that I consider basic and that the program even sometimes has but is completely obfuscated its use. Not being able to change the size of the brush with the stylus using the same hotkey as with the mouse is an example.
Things that very much to my regret break me trying to use the program, no matter how much I insist on using it.

Hi SrPx
I'll answer you in English so other people can follow the conversation.
- I don't have a problem with photoshop, but I'm tired of adobe license model and that they install a lot of crap that I don't need.
- Will the TGA be fixed? I don't know when, because I have seen that it has been a petition for 3-4 years. And I don't think it's so complicated not to collapse the alpha in color channels when importing the TGA. I agree that the TGA is not a large format, but unfortunately is the one used and I can not decide not to use it.
- About the solution, the 1.7 beta is so unstable that I was hung up when I went to try what you said. But to be solved (which I don't think in principle) would be a positive thing.

- I don't see that behaviour in the zoom in latest 1.7 beta, It only do if you have the correct 100% zoom when begin with the wheel.
- I don't usually use hotkeys to change the size of the brush, it's not fast or it's not precise, in any case it's not functional. The mouse hotkey works very well, but it's a crazy hotkey that can't be edited.
I don't want a photoshop clone, although affinity still is. But I do believe that it has big errors in the UX that are easily solvable and I'm surprised that they are not after several years. What hurts me is not being able to do things that I consider basic and that the program even sometimes has but is completely obfuscated its use. Not being able to change the size of the brush with the stylus using the same hotkey as with the mouse is an example.
Things that very much to my regret break me trying to use the program, no matter how much I insist on using it.

I've tried to give affinity several tries, but I have to give it up. 
I don't know what the big development team is like, but after giving many attempts to affinity photo I have to quit and go back to photoshop. It's a pain to try to do anything in affinity that is not a simple photo retouching, even in simple jobs I find problems. Every now and then I encounter such basic usability problems that I don't understand why there are so many problems to implement them. Mainly when you want to do something precise and detailed with the program.
- Do I need to work with a TGA texture? ahhh, we don't support the TGA format correctly. Well, goodbye game industry... I can't wait here 3-4 years until I give you to implement it.
- I want to scale a row of one pixel... the program adds a gradient on the sides because potato ... And I don't have the option to change it.
- I want to zoom in? I don't know how I ended up with a 103% zoom and there's no way to go back to 100% without using a specific hotkey.
- I want to move the selection meanwhile I create it? I can't. I only can create, move to quick mask, edit the.....
- I want to enlarge the size of the brush, which should be the most basic thing in the world, because we put a hotkey that is Ctrl+Alt+RMB+LMB and is not editable ... Are you sure you don't want to add the computer reset button? (also... outside USA the [ ] hotkeys are not easy to find, you need AltGr to use it, take in consideration this)
I'm sorry, I've given him a dozen attempts to do something and I always end up doing the same thing. Losing 80% of the time searching in google "how to do X in affinity photo" to discover that it can not be done and that someone asked in 2015 and since then there are no changes. Well, sometimes some kind of "gimp does it" from the developers themselves. If I found solutions, well, that would be fine. But I've already wasted hours reading the forum and I never find solutions.
I like Affinity, it has very good ideas and it is a good program in general. Well, the "personas" is an incredible s**t and the topbar is completely superfluous. But it gives the impression that nobody has stopped using it in production because there are basic things that do not allow in any way that should be annoying for any user or any tester within 10 minutes of trying the program.
Maybe it's just a momentary pis***g off, but I've stopped doing my job a dozen times for the same reason since I bought the program and I never find solutions and I cant complete my work.

Please, make a little improvements in basic UX.

Hi Alberto thanks for the screenshot, i fully get what you are trying to do and from looking into this further Photoshop is doing something that we aren't.  I can get it to work in Affinity Photo BUT i have to link the width and height box using the link icon on the transform panel.  The downside to this, it also alters the width as well as the height, so you'd end up with a completely fill section of pixels but it would be too big width wise.  At this stage myself and the QA team are not sure if this is a bug or working as expected.  
On testing in Photoshop, i can see this method just works.  The only solution we know of for now is to use a rectangle shape to fill in the space shown in your screenshots.  Once i've got further information i'll update here

I'd like to add a vote for this.  I use GIMP for most of my editing currently, and I can assign the mousewheel just like a keystroke.  My setup:

Global brush size is CTRL-ALT-wheel, opacity is CTRL-SHIFT-wheel, ALT-wheel for layer selection, and then I can whip through a 7-layer frequency separation without ever taking my eyes off the work at hand.
Even with only three modifier keys on Windows, that's 7 things I can adjust speedily with the same three keys and mousewheel.

I've tried to give affinity several tries, but I have to give it up. 
I don't know what the big development team is like, but after giving many attempts to affinity photo I have to quit and go back to photoshop. It's a pain to try to do anything in affinity that is not a simple photo retouching, even in simple jobs I find problems. Every now and then I encounter such basic usability problems that I don't understand why there are so many problems to implement them. Mainly when you want to do something precise and detailed with the program.
- Do I need to work with a TGA texture? ahhh, we don't support the TGA format correctly. Well, goodbye game industry... I can't wait here 3-4 years until I give you to implement it.
- I want to scale a row of one pixel... the program adds a gradient on the sides because potato ... And I don't have the option to change it.
- I want to zoom in? I don't know how I ended up with a 103% zoom and there's no way to go back to 100% without using a specific hotkey.
- I want to move the selection meanwhile I create it? I can't. I only can create, move to quick mask, edit the.....
- I want to enlarge the size of the brush, which should be the most basic thing in the world, because we put a hotkey that is Ctrl+Alt+RMB+LMB and is not editable ... Are you sure you don't want to add the computer reset button? (also... outside USA the [ ] hotkeys are not easy to find, you need AltGr to use it, take in consideration this)
I'm sorry, I've given him a dozen attempts to do something and I always end up doing the same thing. Losing 80% of the time searching in google "how to do X in affinity photo" to discover that it can not be done and that someone asked in 2015 and since then there are no changes. Well, sometimes some kind of "gimp does it" from the developers themselves. If I found solutions, well, that would be fine. But I've already wasted hours reading the forum and I never find solutions.
I like Affinity, it has very good ideas and it is a good program in general. Well, the "personas" is an incredible s**t and the topbar is completely superfluous. But it gives the impression that nobody has stopped using it in production because there are basic things that do not allow in any way that should be annoying for any user or any tester within 10 minutes of trying the program.
Maybe it's just a momentary pis***g off, but I've stopped doing my job a dozen times for the same reason since I bought the program and I never find solutions and I cant complete my work.

Please, make a little improvements in basic UX.