rumo

Hi @MEB, thanks again. I figured it out by myself in the moment you replied, but your profound answer, especially on live filters, relates to all questions that I might have come up soon. I also understand that some of the workflow differences come from the different "logic" between PS and Photo. Maybe there could be shortcuts that automatically generate those masks, like alt-clicking between to layers or something like that. Especially since Photo has an eye on astrophotographers who would further benefit from convenient masking. Keep up the good work!

@MEB Thank you so much! That was really helpful. I think I must have messed up something with the alpha channel, but now I was able to reproduce it. One more question, and I hope it is not too off-topic: How do I can insert grayscale images into a mask? Is that possible after all? Edit: Nevermind, I figured it out by myself. This was helpful.

Sorry for warming this up once again. But I am not sure what mistake I am making, though I am a very skilled Photoshop-User (15+ years). I investigated your demo file @MEB. But I just can’t make it happen that my curves layer nests (and applies) to the mask instead of the parent layer. When I drag and drop the adjustment layer onto to mask layer, so that the vertical bar appears, the layer snaps to the parent layer (thus every adjustments apply to that instead of to the mask). I can’t make it open a second child (nested) layer like in the demo file. Neither with a pixel layer nor with with a folder. I appreciate the non-destructive manner, but editing mask trough curves etc. is pretty basic editing stuff and this approach causes some strain, to be honest. Case study: I have a filled pixel layer (night sky with stars) on top of another one. All I want is the upper layer to only show the bright stars. In PS, I would duplicate the upper pixel layer, turn it into b&w and copy it into the original layer’s mask. Then I would invert the mask and tweak it further through curves, maybe finished with a slight gaussian blur. In PS, this was a matter of a minute. In Photo, I already spent an hour to figure out how to do the most basic step. I am puzzled. Edit: Okay, I finally managed to nest the layers properly, but only for a top level mask layer (not with a mask nested to a pixel layer). But since it is all non destructive, I still can’t paste a b&w layer into a mask layer. What am I doing wrong?

Hi guys, since v1.9 it happens now and then that layers/folders are not visible in the layer palette. In detail, there are visible when clicked, but there is zero information shown, like names, the arrow to unfold a folder etc. The only solution by now is to restart Photo. Best, Johannes

Hi folks, Photo keeps crashing when I load 16bit Tiff images into the new astro staple function of v1.9 (the app just closes itself). 8bit Tiffs seem to work fine. System is a MPBr 13 2014 running macOS 10.13. Anyone else experiencing this? Best, Johannes

Any updates on this topic? Currently searching for an Acrobat Pro replacement for preflight etc. Or am I missing something already baked into Affinity?

Hi, I know that this is not something related to support and troubleshooting. But 2020 comes to an end and has been rough for most of us professional designers, photographers, artists…and I just wanted to say thank you to the Affinity staff. When the corona crisis hit us, you gave a generous discount of 50% for the complete Affinity software suite. Even more, you literally gave it away for free for students and to many more due to the three months test period. This is nothing I take for granted and made me finally quit my Adobe CC subscription. It is not only about software, it is the way we treat people, the way we treat each other in this crazy time. Thanks, Johannes

No need for shouting. I am asking for this as well. It is just way more convenient to have this kind of generators baked into AFpub. Especially since Indesign has it for years, and that’s what Serif competes with.

I found a missing RGB value for one of the HKS spot colours, so here’s the updated file. HKS-N.afpalette

Dominic, I apologize. It just struck me that I was too harsh earlier, even before I read your post. You’re completely right to correct me here and I thank you for that. I rewrote my lines above. It is okay to be somewhat emotional here, but it’s of no use when you’re not helpful at the same time.

+1 You’re not overwhelmed. I think the swatches panel doesn‘t work properly, or at least it isn’t as well thought-out as the rest of the Suite. So in my professional workflow often it is difficult to use. Don’t get me wrong: There are some really useful features like creating complimentary colours from a single swatch. But overall I consider the swatches panel to be the weakest part of the Affinity Suite.

I agree, layers are basically useless in the Publisher. The amount of unnecessary sub-layers that each object creates leads to a complete visual mess. I'm also not sure if a checkbox is the appropriate UI element to toggle visibility, or if this causes further confusion. Indesign uses an eye symbol here, which (for me) is much more self-explanatory. Might be somewhat over-the-top, but UX design is a big part of the workflow. Swatches may work up to a certain point, but not in a professional workflow. I am glad Serif has already acknowledged this because it really bothers me.

Hello! Okay, now that’s good to know. Thanks for your effort @thomaso. But when layer effects are rasterised by default this export setting is working properly as Indesign does the same here when you deactivate rasterization.

I already thought myself that I made a mistake for sure. Which was the case. I applied the gradient through the effects register not with the gradient tool itself. Thank you for pointing me out, I apologize for that. I tried it and it works like a charm (much better then in InDesign). I changed the initial post respectively. But still, the effects register’s gradient overlay causes the text to be rendered as pixels (see attachment). And I am not sure why this has to be.

No problem. Affinity is more than sufficient for here-and-there-tasks. But because it is especially aimed at Indesign users tired of subscription models like me it still needs some polishing. Glad we are already two here! I already spotted that paste style feature, which (for me) is rather useless as it won’t work with long copy of applying styles to single words or paragraphs.