jweitzel

I will be happy to send you a system report. Does my Mac have to be sober and also pass morning urine? Ha, ha, ha, haaa. But seriously, today I had to do a series of scans and retouching - and I noticed that the display of the high-pass filter for sharpening isn't running smoothly either: When I adjust the pixel slider there, the screen display is not usable, as it is always only updated with a very long delay, or, if I adjust further, the version from 3 seconds ago (or even nothing = smooth surface at all) is displayed. This massive occurrence of display errors now worries me a little. As a specialist, you're familiar with situations where you spend a long time looking around with the software manufacturer - but in the end it turns out that the graphics card simply broke at the same time. I'll keep an eye on it for a while. Perhaps other users will make similar observations? In general, I always tend to look for the problem in front of the screen or with the individual user. That is the most difficult, but also usually the most likely. Greetings and thanks, Nathan! Johannes

Hello Nathan, thanks again for your patience and persistent help! Of course, this staff-user interaction also characterizes Serif's user orientation! On the other hand, I am happy to help constructively to narrow down the occurrence of this issue, e.g. through any system logs or lists of active processes/kernel extensions etc. (would need help to dump them). Please understand, however, that I would rather not undertake a rollback to V 2.x of the suite! In fact, my workstation's system is "sacred" to me because I depend on it to run smoothly for my business. That's why I don't experiment with cheap software or even "gatches" taken from the Internet. Are there any opinions on the performance of OpenGL versus Metall? I still had this question. Greetings from Johannes

Hello to both! Yes, after deactivating "Metall", the popup for choosing "OpenGL" gets visible. And the best: Yes with that setup the screen rendering issue is solved! But now I want to ask (because I do not know): Am I driving into the future with this setting (metal deactivated - OpenGL activated) with the handbrake engaged, so to speak? That would of course be bad, first spending over 3.000€ on the Ferrari (Mac Studio M1 Max), but then gears 2 to 6 are blocked. 😢 Have a nice day! Johannes

Good morning (or whatever time of day it is where you are)! I don't see any "OpenGL". But from time to time I'm a bit slow on the uptake. Many thanks for your help! Johannes

Hello Nathan, thanks again for getting to the bottom of this error! I have sent you a movie according to your request, which shows 1) and 3). Thanks, I now know the workaround. The acute case was that I had to finish a job and stuck. That's always very annoying. I'm not considering reverting to the previous version. We all want to move forward (but just not too speedy ) I couldn't take your advice about "OpeneGL" to heart as I couldn't find where this parameter is set: In the preferences of Affinity or in the system preferences (Mac) -> screen setup? There is no mention of Open GL as far as I can see. As I said, such display issues are annoying for everyone and so difficult to reconstruct because everyone has a different setup (Windows probably even worse...). I'd be happy to help your developers to narrow things down further. But I have deadline work on the table here and only have limited time for R&D :-) The main thing is that I can continue with work! Thank you very much!

Now I am back – without success and with success: 1) I did according to your advice: de-activating Metall in the preferences. I did the editing, and it is only shown in the layer thumbnail not in the main window. 2) I did some further experiments with the parameters in the "Performance" preferences. No change of the problem. (I made 2 movies with and without success, but at last I saw, that the picture contained too many "private" aspects, so that I had to delete the already uploaded movies. so sorry.) 3) I happen to change the view of the file to "real size" (or the like) in the "View" menue. And the changes on the file got visible! That boils down the problem to something weird with the screen display in that combination of: original Mac Studio M1 (system 13.6.6), screen setup to 2560x1440 of an EIZO CS2740 (with original resolution: 3840×2160 pixel) 😞 I am using until now and since years some "unusual" screen resolution because of the too small representation in original resolution of the Eizo 2740 (icons and menu text are way to small). That problem with AFPhoto arose with last update. I know: those problems are really weird for the developing team but also for the user... Johannes

Thank you very much, Nathan! Also for answering so quickly and keeping an eye on the development of the many questions and complaints "up to the minute" in the forum. I will take your suggestion and then report back. That doesn't sound very "compatible" if I were to deactivate Metal computing ... thanks again! Johannes

(AFPh 2.4.2, Mac Studio M1, OS 13.6.6) ) Hello out there! I've the impression, it's been since the last update of AFPhoto that I open in particular screenshots (saved as JPG) and then the image doesn't seem to respond to any editing with the brush, eraser or selection tool. It is as if there is a pane of glass on the image that makes any editing impossible. This is reproducible, but not *always*: The more urgent I am to serve the customer, the more persistently this occurs. Grrr. What could also be the case is that AFPhoto has "start difficulties"? and only reacts as intended after quite a great while. Of course, I have paid for my license and it is legal, thinking of that Affinity also "is calling home". The remarkable thing is that you can see in the (usually: background-) layer thumbnail that I have drawn black over the image with a large brush, for example, - but you can't see the editing on the screen! I don't do any experiments with my workstation or Affinty, as I work as professional. So it must/may be due to some setting that has been affected by the update. Saving the screenshot as a PNG or Tiff and starting over doesn't help either. Furthermore I do not want to de-install the whole AF Suite to start over from scratch (and do not have any clue how, also I'm skilled in killing desktop computers ). In general, I would like to say about Affinity Suite (apart from the absolutely deplorable sale of the whole to Canva!) that there is a saying in German: "Das bessre ist der Feind des Guten". Which means: "After good comes sh*it". I'm gradually getting the impression that Affinity is being puffed up with more and more functions, automatisms, wizards and features - before all the errors, inconsistencies and completely confused distribution of functions in the menus and palettes in the basement have even been worked through. When I simply double-click to open an image, I'm confronted with so many clicks and options in the function/context bar alone that I never know what I've just twisted - and above all I don't even know *and don't want to know* how they are about to complicate my work. The Affinity team seems to be on the run from Adobe. You have to add more and more absurd features to be "better". The software in the meantime seems to me like a car repair shop that is so full of tools (!) that you can't get the car in. Perhaps someone has an idea what the problem described at the beginning is that files simply don't want to be edited or this work is not displayed/represented in the main window. Thank you! Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

For me it seems, either he didn't succeed in unmounting the .dmg or he has created an alias of the application which is on the .dmg. Every time he double clicks the alias, the .dmg is mounted again in order to start the App *on* the dmg!? The learning curve is still quite steep... Best wishes, Johannes

Try with a reboot. If then there is still a *superfluous* instalation file, draw it to the bin. Johannes

We are already at over 200 posts, and I can assume that hardly anyone reads my contribution. It's called: tl;dr When I read this info mail, I was not only completely shocked, but I also felt physically sick. I had thought that I had found a new, stable software "home" with the Serif suite, which I also supported to the best of my ability. And now this. In - as other participants have already said - this unspeakable "marketing-speak" that we older people know inside out: How great the company is now set up, that all employees benefit from it, what tremendous synergies lie in the background. Unspeakable. And the fact that the head of Serif did not question his own diction at this point does indeed give cause for concern. What do his own employees have to say about this? If only we could find out! I have spent my entire professional life in an owner-managed company. At the beginning we had almost 500 employees, but after 35 years we only had just over 100. The managing directors and external consultants have been coming and going over the decades, and together with the owner, they have always been praised for how well we are set up and prepared for the future. In any case, Mr. Hewson "failed" at this point in communication, and the most loyal and conspiratorial supporters to date were shaken to an unimaginable extent. And in the end, it is simply money that corrupts every idealism, every departure and every "start-up" (a term I can no longer hear). Because there is nothing better with a lot of money than even more money. Let's see what the future brings. Oh, before I forget! In future, before every harmless update, check the forums to see what the consequences of the update will be!!! I can only advise you to do so! The popular weather app "WheaterPro" has just been "stabilized" in its functions - but afterwards the community had to realize that it had been glued to the heaviest and is now hanging on the hook like a fish: without a subscription you can only look into the oven hatch. Over and out. Ver, very sad, Johannes

Hello, I am also in Germany, but I stick to the English language for everyone. So: I haven't looked at the files because I don't want to make a research object out of them. For me, the problem with your photos is that one can't see at what magnification they were taken. If you enlarge a print enough, you can always see the screen and the fine details. Printers - and the cheaper they are, the worse - generally have difficulties reproducing the finest tonal gradations. The "banding" can be caused by the resolution being turned down (a major problem with phototypesetters). Then incorrect or incorrectly converted profiles come into question. In general, I would agree with the comment that you have simply applied the shadows too heavily. They could really be softer and would look better. A basic problem with Affinity is, that the state of the art is that shadows are also possible/permitted as vector objects in PDF with the help of PDF/X-4 - but currently the Affinity Suite does not support this *to my knowledge*! All "shadows" are converted into more or less well resolved Tiff. I have already regretted this elsewhere. Back to the "shadows", the advice of an "old hand": We in the graphics department have a saying, "If I lost creativity, I'll make a shadow in it." ("Fällt mir nichts ein, mach' ich einen Schatten drein." ) Shadows appeared with Indesign - and have been flooding the entire globe in an inflationary fashion ever since. At least Johannes Gutenberg and to a large extent Andy Warhol still managed without shadows. But this is now "off topic", I admit! Best wishes! Johannes

Sorry, I *never* said and *never* wantedand never suggested to import presets from PSD! That wouldn't be the right way. No Adobe. No clones, no "same, same, but different". J.

Both of you and your contributions are welcome! Thank you very much. Of course I also work with workarounds from time to time. But doing so, it's an "emergency solution". And when Serif has integrated export and import in the next version of the Affinity Suite – then I'll start looking for all the workarounds and setting them up again from scratch. I remember that in (unfortunately) PSD there were buttons in all these settings dialogs to save and load adjustments as presets ... My issue is that I actually need to do black and white conversions (or to be more precise, I'm done with it by now, ha ha) . And since I want to be a bit "artistic", I thought: There are presets that I only need to search for on the net and download. But I was wildly mistaken. The programmers at Serif chose "the dead end" in this case. I think that's enough on this subject. Let's wait and see with patience. Johannes

As far as I can see that "case" can looked at to be "solved". I'ver learned, that at the moment AfPhoto does not support the export/import of presets in the adjustments panel – exept the LUT adjustments. For I think, that feature may be very usefull in many aspects (for own work, for coworking, for compynies to sell ...), I thinks that aspect may be a case for the "feature request" forum here. This may include a rearrange of the momentan solution i.e. storing all presets in a single file – further on per each in a separate file. Am I'm right? As has often been the case here in the past, I have the impression that the programmers are not necessarily practitioners who have to earn their money by working with these graphic softwares: working quickly, collaboratively and effectively. But I am confident that, update by update, the suite will develop into an increasingly powerful tool. I thank you very much for your help and hints! Johannes