Pluscuamperfecto

I second this.
As the smudge tool is now, it's infuriating to work with. For whatever reason, areas that are smudged either lighten or darken the longer they're dragged, and the color is either completely lost or a random pixel is blown out of proportion and takes over completely.
I've completely moved from photoshop to affinity now and that's one of the things I realize I used all the time that I sincerely miss now. That and puppet warp. It's very frustrating and one of the few reasons I'm hesitant to fully recommend the program suite to anyone as a full replacement. 

When using Affinity photo, as a digital painter, I rely heavily on the smudge tool for blending.  
Could the AP developers improve/enhance  the smudge tool  to match  the blending functionality of the Paint mixer  brush when  the basic round light brush is selected?
You might say , just use the Paint mixer brush , but there are other properties of the paint mixer brush that  don't work for me. The paint mixer brush  offers a level of complexity which I don't need in my
workflow.     Right now I just apply the paint and the smudge/blend it.. is so simple!  
Just need a more robust blender/smudge tool...like the Procreate app has... superb blenders!
Thank you!

Please add option “Current & Below” or “All Layers” like in Photoshop for Smudge tool. I often need smudges on separate layer and now it's impossible in Affinity products.

Ok, sorry everyone for my delay in getting back here and in PMs.
I believe I finally will explain it directly here, I hope the team won't get slightly mad, as it involves a 3rd party tool (NOT in the list of incompatible  ones). But I've become more busy past days, and I can see at least there are 3 artists posting the same issue, surely way more (ehm, anyone painting...) reading or opening the thread as having same problems than I did, and others that will.

* SKIP Until you find /SKIP.    This chunk is a bit off topic about the advantages in using Photo as a painter. (Sorry, I think Inivision removed the "spoiler" tag)
And.. due to the real specialty/focus of the 2 Af. apps, I can see how it could very well not be a priority (but I ...kind of... disagree, I think all the brush system and related is a priority for them; they did put tons of work in this kind of matters. Probably because painting and alt-color-picking is also a huge priority in photo retouch! ).
But just to follow that line of reasoning,  these are not strictly digital painting apps (Designer is mostly vector illustration, imo, it's a very different animal compared to typical raster digital painting like art rage, etc). What I do is sort of trickery to use an app to ... other purpose than devs intended, surely. Can't ask for support for that! Not willing to generate a debate, it is just how I feel about it. More a " I will adapt the hammer" rather  than wait for the hammer to adapt itself .  As a photo retouch tool does not need such performance in the color picker, I'm afraid (it definitely needs it be fast and good, but I've not become too intense in magazines/portraits professional photo retouch to know till what degree they'd need it).  And vector illustration (Designer) does not use the glazing/build up painting techniques that require constant fast picking on the canvas. It is more about "planning" than insisting, in that regard. Maybe there's some exception out there.
About why Photo instead of...  I'm a painter since a kid (and am almost 50, now) and I started with oils, acrylics, pastels. What I do in digital painting is something pretty similar to what I would do with oils, for example. Not meaning mimicking fully oils or the like. As IMO we've (I am (was) guilty of that) gone too crazy with that (Rebelle, Art Rage, Expresii, etc). While, imo we all got it wrong... Digital painting is just another brush. You don't paint wit a watercolor brush trying it to look and behave like an oils one, either... It is a matter of adapting to the technique. Just the same as we adapt to gouache or oils limitations and its nature, digital painting is ok to have its own "footprint" and still be (IMO) full Painting. This is reason number one why I think Photo is more complete for most (painterly) illustrators doing real life projects with clients, requirements, etc, than many of those super fancy "specialized" apps.... and same with comic artists and game artists (I worked in those too). It's a better choice than those "painting apps" that lack crucial image related key features, good color management, enough bit depth, good selections, pro PDF export, (and etc, etc,etc). Unless one is only illustrating/painting as a light hobby.  But I am almost alone in that opinion, it seems, among artists (mostly those younger than me :D ).
Not in my old traditional painting (takes a lot more time/focus lost to pick from palette, but true  that "blending" is much better and faster in traditional, so, no need for constantly picking, as much), neither in current digital I do need as fast alt picking as shown in your video. The problem is actually when it doesn't pick at much slower pace. But imo that is mitigated (or fully vanished in practical real life use) when using the trick/tool. I don't notice it anymore.
Indeed, the alt-pick I think it is faster both in Photoshop and Clip Studio (not so much Krita, IMO is pretty similar (with my trick)). BUT... having mentioned my background, when I am using a glazing technique, to "build up" some gradation of tones, some "gradient" by brush strokes, which is almost always, yes, I am constantly picking tones in the middle, and that means... well, whenever I am painting, every x seconds. I feel your pain, but the way I have it configured now, very sincerely, it is more than fast enough to not notice (or I can't) if it's some 1/1000 of a second faster in PS. In a stress test like in that video, yep, I'm sure it is still faster, because I have always noticed that. But once I started doing the trick, I believe it is not missing to register any color pick/click. Or the overall experience disguise it so much that I don't notice it. I've been pointing out the alt picking issue much earlier (bunch of years) than this thread. Until I solved it for my use. Which IMO at the end is sth we all got a do it to some extent with... most everything. With PS and MAX, in every job, I have needed to invent workflows that were not supported neither documented in manuals or any ultra geek forum, even. And was that or not to release a demo the following day, lol.
The one thing I dream of, and is yet remaining, although not a show stopper enough to deter me from painting almost everything now with Photo, is that we don't  have a way to make Photo memorize (and many other settings to be remembered, this is a global petition from people; I suspect it requires a huuuge overhaul, and that is key) that the color sampler would work with a 3x3 pixels sample, or 5x5 instead of 1x1 (default). Which becomes important with large canvases and textured brushes where picking a dark textured dot would be much darker (due to an odd dark pixel) than the whole average of color of that "point". But at least is sth that you set once you start your Photo session and don't have to worry about it till next day session (next day I always forget, tho, hehe, until I'm after a while painting and wondering why I am picking colors definitely darker/lighter than I hoped....). But this thing happens in every app.
/SKIP
 
The trick, is in these forums explained (old thread) with a too large and almost unreadable tutorial. It's very simple, tho:  Using a free windows app (X-Mouse Button Control) that intercepts mouse clicks (can so indirectly act over your pen config and how it interacts with a specific app) and actions using ANY app in your desktop, allowing you to "translate" those to whatever is your preference in both pen and mouse. In practice, overriding in a way some apps' defaults.  And one would think that such thing should be slow , but in reality, I am not seeing any loss in performance (I try it on and off, to check), and I am very demanding in that, as I use huge canvases and need to paint very fast, the brush to be very snappy, etc. I believe it avoids the problem of the alt somehow because it avoids the "physical" clicking on "alt" key, fools the the bug, maybe. And somehow, setting simply the alt key in the Wacom side button (I do that in every app) is still too slow and unreliable with Photo for very fast painting, so I resorted to a more complex trick: With the freebie utility it seems I got it solved (just finished a very large realistic painting using solely Photo. Can't show). 
I  ... am not recommending to dig my old tutorials about X-Mouse Button in the forums. They are all too outdated, many of the lacks (ie, zoom with wheel) that the af. apps could have are now Photo's features, and I explained the thing too badly, in every single instance (sigh...). 
 
So ... this x-mouse tool (edit: url provided at the bottom of this post) lets you configure ("virtually") a mouse button that you surely don't have in your mouse (that's the idea, indeed), like the 4th or 5th mouse button. It intercepts those clicks.
Basically, in your main pen's panel (found at Control panel or Windows settings)  -ie, the Wacom panel-  after adding Photo as a customized app (as you don't want this behavior for other apps, I configure each app in the Wacom panel)   you set a 4th mouse (or 5th, the idea is you DON'T have such button in your actual mouse) to be assigned to one of your pen's side buttons (in Wacom it works, but depends on if a XP-Pen or Huion has that functionality in the pen's driver panel, hopefully yep, it's 2022). I suppose it could work as well setting the 4th mouse button assigned to a tablet button; but can't confirm as only tested in a pen's side button. You could just set directly "alt" in any of the two and avoid so X-mouse entirely, but again, that proved to me not responsive enough in Photo, for some reason (indeed, was faster with the pure keyboard key, but not enough).



Then in X-Mouse Button Control  (freeware, windows), you add Photo (WARNING, I have not tested with Designer, I am NOT recommending using it with it) as an app by clicking on "add" button under the list of apps. Then, like with Wacom's Windows panel, it shows a list of the apps running currently (didn't make a screenshot, but it's simple enough), and let's you choose one. Choose Photo. And then be sure that "Photo" is selected in the list as the profile to edit (see screen below).

 
Then you start to configure this X- mouse Button profile for Photo. Where it says "mouse button 4", set there "simulated keys".
 

 
A new window for editing the "simulated keys" settings will appear. Edit the settings of that one by typing exactly as shown in the capture :     {ALT}{LMB}     (which the software understands as clicking with left mouse button whilst alt is pressed) , you have there a scrolling legend on how to type other commands, but for this is not necessary. Be sure to select at the right of the screen  "  1 As mouse button is pressed " , and the 3 check boxes at the left, make sure only "Block original mouse input" is checked, the other two, blank.

 
I think it installs by default  to load (shows up in tray) with your Windows start, as is not comfy otherwise (if you don't get it enabled, can check in your Windows settings, then "Start". Or in your task manager (ctrl shift esc ), in the "start-up" tab. Or using MsConfig in Windows older than 8. So it is a "set once and forget". I use it with all of my apps, 2D and 3D. It seems very light.
Very importantly, one needs then to remember that with this trick you don't "click" with the pen tip, to pick the color. Just side click on the pen's side button. Again, as Wacom can operate "in air", click buttons without the tip touching the tablet, and the left mouse button (LMB) clicking is like already "happening in the command" .  But some alternative brands' tablets  do need to actually touch the tablet with the tip when any side button is pressed, to register a button press, I can only fully guarantee it works and with performance with ANY Wacom. Surely does with any tablet, though.
 
As I paint with any other app by selecting color with alt + pen tip click with the pen's tip (actually side button + clicking with the tip), it takes me like a minute to get comfy at the session  start. But I get used to it surprisingly fast. You could still click, it'll pick the color fine, but sometimes then could make that one color pick slower or paint some unwanted dots (it happens in that occasion because I forget I'm using Photo, it is not an issue, not for me).
I paint not only very fast and fluid with Photo now, but also on huge canvases (15000x12000 pixels ! In RGB 16 bits! And no lag, yay. NOT MANY APPS CAN DO THIS), by making modifications of the basic round brush (I get painterly results thanks to good use of the flow-pressure feature and just painting) I use large brushes (250 -300 in usual painting). And huge ones to block (by playing with big spacing setting, hard brushes, and making very few things dynamic). from 500px to 1000px. And all this in 16 bits mode, for smoother shades and gradients with the brush. And yet it goes fluid (machine specs below in the signature, I don't know if this would work this 100% smooth in a Pentium, Celeron or old PC).

It works great for me. I will be using CSP, SAI2 (this for gigantic canvases) and Krita for many projects, but many others (also illustration) need Photo's features, by all means. Probably the majority of what I paint, Photo seems will end up as main main painting app.
I was forgetting the url of the tool. BTW, I'm completely unrelated to this person, I gain nothing.   https://www.highrez.co.uk/downloads/XMouseButtonControl.htm
 

Quick and simple, we need a pressure opacity jitter option for brushes. Common wisdom is to suggest using flow jitter instead, but it's not the same. If you don't want a separate slider for it and want everyone to use flow jitter for this purpose, then add an option to not have flow change the color until you start a new stroke. This is something of a fundamental tool for digital illustration.
 
Thanks!

I know that it was discussed many times, and there is similar topic(-s) in iPad section, however, I would like to raise this question again because of its high importance. 
Affinity Photo is a great program and I'm using it for many years (together with Adobe tools just on different devices). Of course it could be better especially from stability prospective and in the subject masking area, and some tools are not such intuitive as in Photoshop, but one of the biggest absent features is Mixer brush with same capabilities as it has in Adobe Photoshop. 
I would not repeat explanation of cases where it is required (Fine Art Retouch, Digital Painting, Proper Color and Texture Mixing, etc.) since it was done couple of times before. I just want to reach development team (also btw as very old Serif customer) and ask to put it into implementation. I also know that the development team has a lot of approved previous priorities but they also should understand that contemporary professional photo editing and manipulation software is not complete without good Mixer Brush (which was requested long time before by many customers), and fact of absence of this feature keeps many potential customers from joining to Affinity Photo users.
Thank you for your understanding, I hope others can join to this request to make it finally fulfilled.

even better, we have 2022 and its still crap. Recently, i try to paint in photoshop, and this app going to be slower and slower over the years, even colorpicking have lag, so i try to import some of my brushes into affinity photo aaaaaaaaand... it was disaster, none of them look like they look at photoshop, it is useless. There a 1000+ brushes to photoshop in internet, and this is one of the reasons that people still painting there, not affinity photo, krita or clip studio. I think this is the time to focus more on painters needs.

I just want a decent airbrush. One with a soft defused edge. Not something that leaves  O's. The brushes that it comes with are kind of neat in some regards. Pencils really look like pencils without going into brush settings to make one like I did in my out of date photoshop. But the fact is I could make what I wanted. Needing a default  brush that looked like a pencil crayon is not exactly a universal need. So playing with some settings makes sense. However needing a soft airbrush or really a dry bristle brush, or a good set of liners is. And it's missing from Affinity. I am seriously hoping the next update focuses on painters. Improving brushes can't be that hard. But would go a long way. 
 

Hello, I reported the same problem back in 2020. It seems to happen a little less now, but it still happens often. This was the post
I've tried affinity photo again, which I bought at the time for digital painting, and I see that some problems have been fixed, but it's still a pain mainly for two basic reasons. The color picker and the color selector palette.
About the color selector, not much to say, the size is ridiculously small and ... can't you change the size? Please, I think it's the only existing application where you can't, it doesn't make sense. I know you can make another bigger window appear, but that would have value if it could be accessed with a shortcut as popup palett(which would be great but not a substitute at all) , but not even that. I have to have both selectors open and the largest one cannot be docked, so it takes up too much space.
Regarding the color picker, it is a bit more subtle, but if you change a lot of color, it is very frustrating to have to choose it again, and repaint where you did it with the wrong color, to verify that you had not selected the desired color. That it doesn't have a visual feedback, to know if it's active or not, it's a delay, I could pass it if it worked correctly, but it's inconsistent. I think the reason is that by sharing the function with the activation of the menu bar options these things interfere with each other. In fact, it sounds like a joke, but you press alt, select a color (in addition to activating the quick selection of the menu bar), select a color, release alt, and the pointer changes to the arrow because the file option is selected (which it shouldn't, and if it does do it before, to be able to select, not after), condition in which you cannot do practically anything (because you are with the file option selected) until you click on the canvas and the brush outline reappears (sometimes, few, although this should never do it, not even the arrow appears, something that makes it more inconsistent, because I was already getting used to using it as visual feedback and it doesn't even work for that. I think the reason for the latter is that if once with the arrow you don't touch the canvas, you press alt again, and with the arrow that is still there because you didn't touch the canvas, you touch the canvas and select a color, when you lift and release alt, the arrow does not appear, the brush outline stays as it should. But if you are with the brush outline and press alt, and release selecting a color the arrow will appear ).
As a quick fix, I would at least allow an option to mutually shift the straight line shift (which I use much less) by the color picker alt, so at least it wouldn't interfere with the menu bar, and maybe being a faster action makes the lines work better and the alt for the lines is not so inconvenient. Or simply that the activation of the menu bar is deactivated once the screen is touched to select and it does not activate until alt is pressed again, so that the file option is not selected(currently when lifting the pencil the file option is selected). And yes, I know I can use the tool, but having to double click to activate and switch to the brush when I do it hundreds of times in each session is absurd.
I've been trying to adapt for a week, ignoring all the other facilities that other programs provide for digital painting, because I would love to be able to use it and enjoy it, but, let's be honest, if not even these two basic things have been fixed, you can't think that affinity is thinking about painters at all . And that shows in the number of people who use it for digital painting compared to other programs. How many people have tried to use it, and have abandoned, can this be solved with two or three quick modifications? (compared to other more advanced themes that are not, put a shortcut, a shortcut option or extend a simple color selector). That yes, I also have to say that in the rest (except for the bug) the progress is incredible, and it is a pleasure to use affinity photo, maybe if at some point I become a photographer, I will use it more. At the moment, for painting I will continue to wait for at least a decent color selector and color picker, and enjoying painting in other programs. All the best.

Hi. Something strange happens to me with affinity photo, which doesn't happen to me in any other artistic program, or not. The problem is that the background, flickers or changes color, becoming a little darker or lighter with certain actions (it is possible that even the canvas does, but where it really shows is in the background), I would say that what does is darken for half a second and then regain normal lighting.It happens in two ways. The first is done randomly when I press the alt, control, or shift modifier keys. The other, always happens in the same way, and it is curious because it does so depending on the tool you have selected. It occurs in two cases when it does. The first, when you move the cursor from the canvas to the background or from the background to the canvas. This only happens with the following selected tools: brush tool, mix brush tool, rubber tool, overexposure brush, all blur tools, except the finger tool. The second case occurs when you go from the background to the toolbar but not when you go to the canvas. This occurs with the following tools. Gradient tool, pen tool, geometric shapes tool and text tool. The color variation is not much, I did not notice it on my external monitor, until I changed the configuration to one with high light (presentation on my Benq monitor), but with this configuration it is very remarkable. I also could not make a video for a curious reason. As soon as I open OBS studio (my recording program), this flickering stops happening. I don't even have to record, just by opening the program this problem stops happening. In this designer forum they talk about something that seems similar
. I have verified that changing to WARP as it is said there the problem stops happening, but unfortunately the brushes become unusable due to their slowness, since Intel UHD 620 is the option that my card should use. My computer. HP Notebook, 16g ram, I7, Intel UHD 620 integrated graphics card. I use windows 10. Hope this problem can be solved. Thank you very much for your attention and greetings.

Hi, yes, that's because I have a 2560 * 1440 screen but I have it set to 1920 * 1080 (I need it for the development of a video game). I have changed it to test and it looks better, but just because it has more pixels, the problem is still there.

Hello again. I have some new information in case you are interested. I have recorded a video with the mobile phone, because I cannot do it with the computer. I've noticed that flickering, with the canvas-background tools, only flickers when a pixel layer is on. When the tool is toolbar-background, it always happens. In the video it is less noticeable than on the monitor, because the quality of the recording of the mobile phone is poor, but on the monitor it is much more noticeable. These are the steps I perform in the video: I use a Tool that gives problems when moving the toolbar_background (text tool in this case). Flickering occurs. Use Tool that gives problems in moving canvas_background (brush tool in this case), but without pixel layer. Flicker does not occur. I paint, and the assistant creates a new layer. Flickering occurs. I close the pixel layer, and repeat this last step. After, with one pixel layer , i Active OBS Studio, no flickering occurs. I close Obs Studio, flickering occurs (obs studio, prevents flickering with the two types of tools, those of the toolbar and those of the canvas, not only on the canvas tools, I forgot to record it). I hope it can be useful for you. Thank you very much for your attention and greetings. 
flikering_affinity.zip

We are making Windows Ink a toggle option in Preferences. Please keep an eye out for the next beta build. 

Hi, I have a couple of problems in version 1.8.0.555. My computer is an HP Notebook - 15-dw0015ns, i7, 16g ram and integrated gpu intel UHD graphics 620.
I use the program mainly for painting and for this, I use a wacom pen and touch tablet. Both problems occur when I activate windows ink, but only in 1.8, in 1.7 these particular problems do not exist. The first one is that I can't change the size of the brush by dragging.When i press the right mouse button (in my pen tablet) , a white circle appears around the cursor and nothing happens. The white circle appears whenever I press right mouse button (pen button), it doesn't matter if I press alt or not. A sign also appears on which is written "alt", every time I press that button. Although that does not block the color picker (however the poster appears in the middle of the magnifier of the color picker and is also increased, preventing you from seeing the colors of the canvas correctly). 
The other problem is that it seems that the touch of the pencil takes about half a second to process. When you paint, at the beginning of the stroke the cursor stays frozen for half a second and then the stroke appears suddenly. The exact same thing also happens with the color picker. If you put the brush in the colour selector, it takes the same time, about half a second to place the color at the indicated point. Also the brush very often stops working, the cursor disappears (even so you can see the white circle if pulse right buton) or appear a mouse arrow instead of  the preview of the size brush, and the tool picker color does not work. As I said this does not happen in 1.7 (in this version there is only a small delay in detecting the movement of the brush when changing the size of the brush, something that still appens in 1.8 but  fortunately is less noticeable with the change in the drag system to change the size in this beta version ).
Windows ink unfortunately always gave me many problems, on my old desktop computer and my old surface pro 6 there were programs that I couldn't even use (on the surface 6 you can't disable windows ink). I have not found an option to not have to use windows ink and I'm afraid there isn't, right ?. I hope it is possible to fix these problems, because I would not like not to be able to use affinity, I love this program. Since I am also I would like to comment, although I think that there is already an open topic, that from time to time, in 1.7 with win ink, the brush stops working and only draws straight lines.
Thank you very much for your attention and greetings.

Hello again, I have discovered that by pressing the right button but from a button on the tablet instead of the pen, the white circle does not appear and you can change the size of the brush (is it not strange?). My pencil has two buttons and neither works to change the size in affinity. This white circle also appears on the windows desktop, and only with the pen buttons, not with the tablet buttons, but as I said, the circle does not appear in Krita, Blender or any other program that I use. Thanks again.