jweitzel

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

Hey Bruce, happy to meet you again! Your answer I do not get: How can shops and customers offer "Affinity Photo adjustments presets" in the internet, even for money, if there are no means to export and afterwards import them (like very easy in PSD... :-( in Affinity Photo ? You showed a web site with tutorial for importing LUTs. And the LUT adjustment is the only one, which shows the cogwheel and the menue for import/export presets ... (I add two further screenshots). I had a look inside those downloaded preset .cube files with an ASCII editor. And as you can read they start with comment "#created by Affinity Photo" (a line later with typo!...) Where do they come from? Where they ought to go? I think, it is really *very* common, to save and export presets of a certain tool - and to import them at an other workspace. I do not understand that AfPhoto (resp. the whole suite) does not support that. Best wishes! Johannes

Oh dear... It is *not* the LUT adjustments, those I only cited as a positive example – I do mean the *black&white" adjustments. I did 2 screenshots: – the folder with a lot of downloaded presets (a part from PhotoWhoa) containing a lot of presets for all kinds of adjustments. There are .cube files and two .3dl files. – sceenshot of my adjustments panel (German) with "black&white" open and with 3 presets, *which come original with AfPhoto*. THERE I do want to add the further, downloaded presets. (But also I want to import the other presets in the file list for OTHER adjustments.) (I can't understand, how programmers can make such a common and "easy" job so complicated! I have some routine jobs to do with a software. I svae the adjustment as a preset. I import presets for adjustments from other users.) Many thanks for help. A happy (particularly peaceful ...) new year 2024 nevertheless! Johannes

Hello out there! As much as I welcome and support the whole Affinity Suite, I sometimes swear and shout at the search for a consistent user interface and logical connections in the menus and panels. I have an urgent job - and have now been searching for 1 1/2 hours for the point where I can import presets for black&white adjustment downloaded from the internet! This is unbelievable! If I *would* have LUT presets, I would have a cogwheel in the line of LUT presets in the "adjustments" panel to load additional presets. This cogwheel is missing in the "Black & White..." adjustment and I can't get these presets imported into Affinity Photo. Bruahhhhh. I would appreciate a hint and help! Johannes

Hello friends, I can't find the preferences to synchronize not only a specific *tool* between documents that I have already open at the same time, but also the *setting* of the tool. (For sure I found the preference item "synchronize tools between docs"[?], but it doesn't work). Let me give you an example: In AFPhoto I have 3 pictures open in order to paint something yellow in all 3 docs with the same brush tool, with 25 pixel brush diameter, colour etc. But when I'm done with one image and switch to the next, I have to re-setup everything: reselect the brush tool, then there's a wrong color, etc. Question: Where is the setting to switch between open documents, but with the same tool and its same settings available? (This also applies to AFPub, although I do *not* claim that the tools need to be synchronized between the *applications*!). Thanks for any help! and merry xmas to you! Johannes

I've abandoned Wacom a few years ago. No, I use only mouse on Mac M1 (M Studio). But never at the first click a macro starts. I think it would be a good idea to restart that aspect in general – even the UI approach... Thanks, Walt! Johannes

As always, thanks a lot, Walt! You seem to be "anywhere" in our forum ... : ) As far as macros are concerned, I think there still seems to be a lot of "room for improvement" in our beloved Photo application. To my regret, with "other photo software" I was used to immediately setting up an action if I had to make a hand stroke more than 3 times. Now I have a folder with almost 95 cell phone pictures that all have to be converted to aRGB, 300 dpi etc. - And besides the aspect that some things don't seem to work at all in AFPhoto, there is also the fact that the macros don't start at all when you click on their name in the library. Or hang, or then run 5 times. That's a bit awful. Thanks for your help! Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

Hello out there! Is there any new state about that aspect? I just ran into the same problem. Moreover it is sad, that one can't edit a macro under that detailed aspect. It's only a singel step within the step list - and you can only keep it or delete it... Thanks to you! Johannes

Thanks for your idea! – But I hope, this will not be the only solution. You can't deliver a PDF with, say 20mm bleed to a printing company, if they demand 3 mm. All automated prepress workflows interpret the information of the bleed, crop box, trapping etc. given within the PDF. Furthermore the automated placing of the crop marks by AFPub will be "wrong", because "way too far away". no no. It's more complicated, I think. Greeting from Johannes

Hello out there! In the past I have done graphic design with other softwares ;-). There was the possibility of not only using bleed area for correct printing of crop marks, but also a complete free definable area of a "mounting area": For example, if I had to set not only crop marks, but also fold marks or other marks, I have put these on a 15 mm wide "mounting area" in addition to the bleed. Then export all of those in prepress PDF. Question: How do I solve something like this in AFPub? Thanks alot! Johannes

Oh dear... I think, it will be a good advice in a professional environment to wait several month before upgrading to sonoma. There is going down whole an aera... I also recommend reading the already cited article and moreover the comments on it!: https://eclecticlight.co/2023/09/25/postscripts-sudden-death-in-sonoma/ Johannes

Thank you very much for your answers! In my opinion however, they sometimes miss the point, because it's not just a matter of creating .ps files and distilling them in any manner. You can get by without it. As I wrote, the combination of .ps file and Distiller gives you tools, for example to try to clean up files from any application, that cannot be printed, or to investigate the cause. Even PDFs that "bitch" on the imagesetter or printer can be transferred back to .ps and converted into PDF again using defined distiller settings. Finally, the example that in my last company we had a whole bunch of catalogs of different thicknesses and rich illustrations. The print PDFs were about 1.4 gigabytes in size. Then the final step is to turn those catalogues into a PDF, optimized for the website, which users can still download: between 7 and 14 megabytes. Something like this can only be done - with relatively optimal image quality or smoothness of the gradients - in a combination of .ps file and Distiller: I had a set of around 8 Distiller settings, which reduced the dpi number of the images in the file more and more (but not bitmaps, which Affinity can no longer process at all, for example!) until the maximum size of 14 MB was fallen below. Something like that may be setup within AfPub export dialogue... Finally, it has to be said that for my experience only Adobe products can write a "clean" Postscript (because they invented it, har, har); everything else are clones that are more or less lucky. I'm very unsure whether I would use GhostScript, for example, to write a catalog file that will then cost € 35,000 to print – or have an error on the Heidelberger. Johannes

I would like to bring up this old thread again to point out that the Postscript page description language is finally history at operating system level with the release of MacOS Sonoma. In this article in German, security reasons are – once again – mentioned. So it will no longer be possible, for example, to "clean" an output or reduce its size in a very targeted manner, to write a .ps and then convert it into a PDF according to different "rules of art". I'm hearing some "swashbucklers" again who harshly say that .ps is an outdated technology. However, those who have learned to work with .ps and optimize or even save files will have a feeling of helplessness. Here, too, proven and mature technologies are being “killed” without replacement – to the detriment of the experts. I don't yet have an overview of how our Affinity Suite copes with MacOS Sonoma. How stable and proven the applications work. (I read some not so good things...) As a professional, I cannot afford to suddenly find myself without a functioning production platform. Best wishes from Johannes

Hello "drgrigg", did you got aware of my answer in an other thread with analog topic?: It's not *soo* cumbesome, and logically "straight forward" ;-) Johannes

Hello Garry, I appreciate your answer, but unfortunately it reminds me of an intense experience: someone always gets up and finds exactly the opposite better. Affinity Suite doesn't "log in" all the time and doesn't pop up any messages. It's also not about dozens of messages all day long. This shows - sorry - that this answer was given by someone with no real practical experience. AFPub pops up 1 or 2 messages when opening a document - namely if fonts are missing or for example if it has changed the color profile of the currently opened document. So I'm not busy clicking away messages all day - I repeat: It's like when the car starts up and briefly shows the message: The brakes are broken. Unfortunately, I am running out of joy in discussing at length each of my practical experiences that I bring in here in the forums or - not always but more often - to have dilettantes question them. Elsewhere I have already commented that we are obviously dealing with programmers without *real* professional experience. And that means: A lot of work, responsible, very good, to be done in a short time, not to "fiddle around" a bit. And the rest of the users here in the forum are cavorting. It's like trying to defuse an unexploded bomb in a "grassroots-democratic" manner. There's always someone who gets up and knows better. I am very sorry. John

There had already been a lot of discussion about how AFPub deals with missing fonts and the dialoges for missing fonts. To show only for two seconds that fonts are missing, or - as also in my case - the colour profile has been changed to an other, that is in my opinion a bit "dangerous" and vital. Those messages should (if I remember right: like in "other" softwares) *stay* on the screen until commited by the user. These are not a dispensible/superfluous informations! The font substitution in AFPub is so "silent", that it may be only a question of time, that whole a document is finished and printed with substitution fonts or wrong color profile. Its like the message in our car – but only for two seconds while starting the engine –: "the breaks are about to fail". Therefore I think, those messages e.g. while opening a document should only vanish after the user has commited them. (Who of all of us doesn't turn on the workstation in the morning and open the first job of the day - and then go get coffee first? Those will never see assistant messages like "fonts are missing" or "colour profile is converted".) Johannes

Hello Bruce, You do not have to apologize! I believe that it is almost *always* an advantage - if you work professionally and not "tinker" - to create very structured and systematic layouts. Even with a 16-page document, I can "fall flat on my face" if it needs to be reorganized or the customer wants a different basic typeface. For example, the real paper format often depends on which (internet-) printing company I want to have ot printed afterwards. They specify different formats, not just for paperbacks (which depends on the machine, they use). So I have different geometries - depending on where I finally want to have it printed. And then even a 16-page can make a lot of work if I just "tinkered" everything. "Fly with the eagle or scratch with the chickens." In our days there seem a lot of poultry... Greetings from Johannes

Thank you for your informations! a) As usual for a "pro", I use to do other things while the software and file(s) are opened: Preparing papers, pictures, pencils on my desk. Later, when I'm looking at the screen, I just see "nothing" or just vanishing the messages. b) (For the case, you are belonging to the "staff"): There had already been a lot of discussion about how AFPub deals with missing fonts and the dialoges for missing fonts. To show only for two seconds that fonts are missing, or - as also in my case - the colour profile has been changed to an other, that is in my opinion a bit "dangerous" and vital. Those messages should (if I remember right: like in "other" softwares) *stay* on the screen until commited by the user. These are not a dispensible/superfluous informations! The font substitution in AFPub is so "silent", that it may be only a question of time, that whole a document is finished and printed with substitution fonts. Its like the message in our car – but only for two seconds while starting the engine –: "the breaks are about to fail". Best wishes Johannes

Hello Bruce! Thanks again for your helping me always...! Last question: What do you mean with "the worst way"? – Do you mean *my* way of working (working mainly with master pages and text frames), or do you mean the (wrong) advice that several tutorials give, namely to open the text frame on the first *layout page*? This advice is given so often (and I mean, even in Affinity's own tutorial for version 1.0.2!) that I never thought about to try any other way. That had been the cause of my despair. Johannes