justinpbrown71

Hi @justinpbrown71,
There are likely a few things at play here:
As mentioned above, the SerifLABs RAW engine (and by extension LibRAW) does not currently support the Fuji X-T5 - therefore the RAW file may not be accurately displayed within Affinity. We will need to wait for LibRAW to support your camera, before we can implement support for this in Affinity. 
  Although your Lens is supported for Lens Correction, due to the above this may cause inaccuracies when corrected with an unsupported RAW format - such as the 'black bar' shown in your screenshots.
  Unfortunately Affinity does not currently support the Fuji Film Simulations - as far as I'm aware these are only compatible with Lightroom / Capture One / Fuji  currently as Fuji work directly with these applications to add support. I hope this clears things up!

I can confirm that this is a bug with the current version of Affinity Photo, which is logged with our development team to be resolved.
I'll be sure to 'bump' these with the team, to bring it to their attention once again.
I hope this helps!

You could probably create a macro to apply a set of live filters and their respective settings. The filter settings should be adjustable within the macro.
Dex Macros.afmacros

These emu images are terrible, though you can use them if you want. They were taken by a friend on a mobile phone. Next time I'm at the field (within the next few days), and there's a blue sky as a background, I'll take some better photos of the emu and post them here for you to use. Or alternatively, I have some images here that might suit your purpose:

https://postimg.cc/gallery/mgBbcFG

You can see the darkening effect of color decontamination if you choose „new layer with mask“, and then deactivate the mask. The edge pixels got almost black.
While mask active:

Mask deactive:
 

Thinking again: this might be a bug of color decontamination going too far, or missing brightness compensation.
I never liked how this feature worked, and avoid it.
My alternative solution is to always use „mask“ as output method, or „selection“ and the converting selection to mask as described above.
If i need color decontamination, i simply add an HSL or vibrance adjustment, fully de-saturate, and then invert mask and brush in again whith white brush the edge area where i really need decontamination. Depending on the new background color, you may need additional adjustments to blend this composition. 
 
https://affinity.help/photo2/en-US.lproj/pages/Selections/selections_refine.html
 
 

I would like to explain my method  how to perfectly blend cutouts with background replacements  in more depth, and need an example file. 
Would you allow me to use your excellent images for a tutorial ?

Maybe there is a doubling effect, so if you have two layers the same but one is masked the one below will make the one above darker because you are overlaying one on top of another.

2023-01-12_23-32-50.mp4    

Can you please provide a screen recording or set of screenshots of all steps you to to select and create the layer based on the selection?
 
This behavior is not „mandatory“, but depending on your workflow it might be a side-effect of chosen parameters for „refine mask“
Option 1: using pure mask
Have only the original image as sigle layer within photo open create a selection by brush. If using refine: use output „selection“!!!!!! convert to mask (by creating a mask while the selection is active) important: deactivate selection!!!!! (Otherwise you might create the darkening effect) merge visible ceactivate mask layer Now you have 2 layers: the source bottom, the cut-out on top you can toggle the top layer visibility: no darkening effect Option 2:  Using refine and output „new layer“ 
same process as above, but choose „new layer“ as output for refine This will change colors ad edge pixels to remove color contamination, and may impact brightness  If you toggle visibility, you may see the darkening effect  

Thanks for all your assessing and troubleshooting. I really appreciate it. I haven't yet had the opportunity to review all your points, but will do so over the ensuing days. Again, many thanks for your thoroughness and testing.

You have to add to the Plugin Search Folder list the parent folder where the NIK plugins are stored on your computer. Note that this may not be the same folder where the stand alone versions are stored. The plugins have a *.plugin extension while the stand alone apps have a *.app extension.
On my Mac, this is the Applications/Nik Collection folder. For you it may be different.

Hi everyone,
 
I'm facing this issue in previous AP Version (1.10.5) and now also in the V2.
Since a few days/weeks even after clicking on i.e. ColorEfex nothing happen, only it is in the Protocol.
Tested it with formerly edited Photos and new ones.
 
Attached the Settings for the Plugins.
 
cheers
 
Michael
 
 

I can confirm that Google version of Nik is compatible and operable with APV2. I have both versions of AP and it works with both. I'm running W10 Pro.
Geoff

jpgs are 8 bit. Windows reports it as 24 which is 3X8 for the 3 channels.
do you want to post a jpg so we can see if its a file problem?

You can do that now but LR may be faster as regards the RAW processing part
 

I agree. The picture icons are unnecessary when the layers are already named. They ought to be optional. I use long names for many of my layers, which are sometimes repeated over several layers, but with different suffixes. There won't be enough space for these names anymore, because of the size of the icon informing me that I have a vibrancy layer, which I already know. I also agree about the columns for collapsing groups. A good idea for sure, but I prefer a clear visual aspect to the panel, and am happy to move the mouse cursor up to select collapse, as in V 1. Again, it needs to be optional.

I am trialling V2 at the moment, but so far I haven't seen anything that makes me want to buy it.

The thing I want most is batch processing RAW images from a shoot, (for camera calibration, lens corrections, file renaming, etc), which I do in LR before importing them individually into AP for the main work processes.

Thanks for the link. I'll be following the feedback responses in due course.

Thanks @MEB
That does make some sense; I just don't need it and suggest you make it optional. I need a clear interface much more. My layer hierarchy is often rather deep so I'll be looking at a confusing busy interface mess all the time. I can just decode and handle the interface faster without. I simply navigate up and down in my layers panel lightning fast with my scroll wheel so I never had issues locating, opening or closing groups. The way I use the panel with my mouse, the functionality is superfluous.
I need a search option more. 🙂 Actually finding something deep down the layers panel (I name every layer and group) is still impossible without without clicking your way to it. I simply don't understand why you have drowned the interface with elements to solve this small problem, when the big one of actually finding something easily without lots of clicks is not solved.
In any case, the graphical interface is too cluttered and contrasty. Indeed, I can also imagine that it greatly reduces accessibility for seniors and people with visual impairments. I hope you can come up with a less obtrusive solution.
Best regards

Thanks David. An obvious solution I overlooked. It does the job

Ok, plan b
If you add a sort letter to the folder names then it presents in that order, is this what you're after?
I've only added a z to Analog Efex as a trial but it all works ok

You can add ! or - or space instead of a letter.

Great, thanks for the file  
I'm running this past our QA team to see what is happening here.  I do notice in the Merged layer it appears some Inpainting might of been done as the line across the floor is missing, which might account for some the difference in file size, as its technically adding pixels to the image.  As soon as i know more, i'll update here  

Be aware that if you start to load too many things in then it will use more memory all the time. The biggest cause is storing many large raster files.

Great!!! Thanks for the insight, David. I appreciate being introduced to Assets. I never new this facility existed. Thanks very much for your help.

Yes, we all do, it's a pain. Try this