[We need to talk about artificial intelligence.]

Some people can not see or do not want to accept that AI is the future.
@Johannes I really hope affinity will take advantage of the opportunity - better late than never. In my opinion, time is really running out.
I don't know how it will turn out for a software company of this type that won't rely on AI. If it persists, I think it will become a niche product without AI.

If there are no features coming in this regard in the next few months, I expect to leave Affinity Suite as it simply takes me more time to get something done.
I will get hate again for this view on AI here, but that's just my view.

[Extended AI features]

18 minutes ago, Terribel said:

Well...Adobe Firefly is here https://www.adobe.com/sensei/generative-ai/firefly.html

If they can pull this off as shown in the showcase, this will be a huge game changer imho...

Yes, perhaps some here now realize that AI integration is inevitable.

[Let the user minimize Affinity software while updating]

Dear Affinity team,

while updating one of your applications, there is this window floating on top: 

I think it is a very big mistake in terms of user experience that the user can't minimize or resize the application while this update-window is active.

Please allow the user to have control over that, don't make the update window block all input.

 

Running on Windows 11.

 

Greetings

Luke

[Extended AI features]

22 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

I recommend following the context of the posts - that is, what the post to which you are responding responds.

What are you even talking about? I read everything and stated my opinion on that.

 

53 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

I have no doubt that one day these applications will disappear completely

53 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

this functionality will be taken over directly by the camera

So again for you: No, in my opinion there always will be human made techniques and art and that's why these application will never disappear and can't be automatically done by a camera.

[Extended AI features]

8 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

I have no doubt that one day these applications will disappear completely - because this functionality will be taken over directly by the camera. He decides what and how the user wanted to take a picture 🙂

No, there always will be human made techniques and art.

[Extended AI features]

13 minutes ago, PaulEC said:

I don't doubt that one day photo apps will have just one big button. You load any old  image and the app will do everything for you to produce a masterpiece: one that looks just like thousands of others, because you have had no input yourself in processing or editing it.

I'm sure this would be a dream come true for many people; no need to learn any skills or for any artistic input, just press a button and let the AI do it for you! – For me, it would be a nightmare! 

There are certainly advantages to having some automation and computer aided effects/functions etc. Yes, it's great to be able to do things in seconds with a digital image, that would have taken hours (if they were possible at all!) in a traditional darkroom. The problem is getting the balance right! I think Affinity have it about right now, without dumbing down to suit people who don't want to have to learn anything, or do anything for themselves. There are apps out there, where you have little or no control and everything is decided for you, with no adjustments or fine tuning possible; the software decides for you what your picture should look like! If that's what you want, by all means use those apps. I really don't want APhoto to become one of them!

 

You got something COMPLETELY wrong here - AI support doens't mean clicking one big button or no need to learn any skills.

Machine Learning + AI lets you achieve better, faster and even more complex results while supporting the skill you have - not replace the needed skill. 

Y'all need to refresh your knowledge on the topic. AI/machine learning is needed for collaboration in affinity.

I don't know your mindset, but AI isn't taking over the world some day and is not replacing all humans. The AI dystopia mindset is far from reality.

[Extended AI features]

12 minutes ago, Stun Damage said:

Please don't. What you seem to be requesting here is the kind of toyish one-click solution nonsense that almost killed Paintshop Pro a few years ago. You'd probably be surprised to learn that most working professionals and dedicated hobbyists are against this. Serious work involves control and precision; pixel-peeping, really. It's not about relying on some mythical algorithm to swap some faces or skies so your aunt can pat you on the head and exclaim that you sure know them computers. There are already quick and powerful ways to do selections in Affinity Photo and I'm sure that you're more than capable to learn them. And even if you just can't be bothered, there will always be apps like Luminar Neo or whatever. No need to request that higher-end software become something it was never meant to be.

Now, about so-called "AI"... Machine learning is not really AI, at least not in a meaningful sense. This is pure marketing speak, please don't fall for it. And look, machine learning has proven itself useful in some areas, most of them having something to do with reconstruction - denoising, upscale, temporal reconstruction in 3d rendering (DLSS, FSR 2). However, these are all things humans have never excelled at, stuff we've always been doing with algorithms. Computers are just better at pattern recognition, no question about that. What they can't replace, though, is the actual creative work people are doing with Photoshop or Affinity Photo. 

Now, should Serif develop some sophisticated machine-learned denoise algorithm? Well, they could, but why would they? There are already at least three great to amazing perpetual license options for that (DxO DeepPrime, Topaz Denoise, On1 NoNoise) and people in need of denoising already have one of these (hell, I have both DeepPrime and NoNoise. And Topaz is far from unaffordable, if I want to go for the overkill). And you see, none of these options are direct competitors to Serif. They can't replace a bitmap editor and two of them are actually available as plug-ins that people run directly from Affinity Photo. So, why enter late into a useless competition with DxO and Topaz and waste resources that you can put into developing your core product instead?

Wow, your hate against AI/machine learning is real here in this topic.

Look at Photoshop and its very useful (!) machine learning features – it can save so much time and also let you achieve better results than you could ever do with 20 times the expenditure of time.

It has nothing to do with 'toyish' things – its a must have for professional workflows in some areas.

 

[Lots of errors and bugs with Affinity Photo]

38 minutes ago, Dan C said:

Hi @Miratek,

Sorry to hear you're having trouble!

Can you please open Affinity Photo and navigate to Edit > Preferences > Performance and provide a screenshot of your settings here for me?

Many thanks in advance

Hi, of course! Thank you for your answer. I use the default settings.

 

(Interesting to see that dithering is already enabled for gradients but that's not so important for this topic I think.)

[1.10.5 Causing crashes (again)]

Just now, multis said:

... and after an hour of actually something productive, the next file. And surprise: It crashes the Publisher. Now, after 10+ crashes at launch, this is becoming desperate. And again, this is a file that worked FLAWLESSLY before 1.10.5 was released.

Sad to hear you also got a big problem now. I also have so many crashes and errors since a few weeks it's so frustrating. Not at launch but in the middle of the workflow...

[Lots of errors and bugs with Affinity Photo]

Hey together!

Since a few weeks (1.10.4 and 1.10.5 also) Affinity Photo has lots of problems.

Lots of different functions lead to the software not responding anymore and crashing.
E.g. using websafe dithering on a gradient, using the live filter "Perspective" on a bigger image a few times, using some other live filters etc.

I once used a filter and while applying, Affinity used over 15 GB (!) of disk storage resulting in the application to crash. The composition wasn't even that big, under 5 MB of file size.

Further, duplicating complex layers (which have a live filter "Perspective") results in a completely shifted new layer not matching the original layer.

Creating snapshots and going back to them does not rewind all the actions, filters don't get undone. So the snapshot feature is often useless for me.

Importing raw files often results in having a big black square in the bottom left corner of the image (just a visual bug, not part of the image). Also when editing photos I often get these visual bugs (black squares on image).

I don't know what's going on with the software now but I lost lots of time and work with these bugs.
Does anyone else have these problems lately? It frustrates me.

Greetings

 

[The used system is not weak or anything like that. CPU: i7-9750H, 16 GB DDR4-2666 SDRAM, GTX 1660 Ti, M.2 SSD]

[EDIT: graphics drivers are up to date!]

 

 

[Extended AI features]

36 minutes ago, wonderings said:

Does photoshop add hair and age to peoples faces with a click? All these things sound like you just want a mobile app like FaceApp. The change of the sky feature I can see, and have used a few times but it is hardly a must have app and I would have lived ok without it. Not sure any of these would be considered necessary, unless the market they are going after is like the countless apps that do these types of things already. I guess I am just not the market for this type of thing. I make my living with Adobe and outside of the sky change function in photoshop I have never wanted to age a face or change the season of a picture. When using stock images, like most people do, there are HUGE amounts of photos for every season that are amazing and readily available without photo manipulation. 

I just wrote down some single examples, there are MANY more.

Didn't know a mobile app like FaceApp can be used by professionals on a computer for retouche...

If you know Adobe software so well you do know the automated subject recognition. That function has so many benefits. And if you don't see this I don't know what you're even using the software for.

IMHO, there is no question about whether but when these functions come to affinity. Welcome to 2022.

[Extended AI features]

Hello,

time goes on and the topics artificial intelligence and machine learning are bigger than ever. 

As I've seen what competitors of Affinity software can achieve with these techniques I think these are a must-have in the future, otherwise people using software without these have to waste a significant amount of time on unnecessary tasks or simply can not achieve similar results.

Especially Affinity Photo could need functions for manipulating photo data.
Machine-Learning supported tools like auto-crop subjects of a picture, changing the auto-recognized sky, next-level face manipulation like for facial hair or human age, ...

What impressed me the most is a tool that can change the season or time of day of a picture of the nature "in 10 seconds" by using so-called "Neural filters".

IMHO, I do not only see these tools as a nice-to-have for myself but I think it is essentially necessary to remain marketworthy in the future. And I can only imagine what effort in development needs to be done for such a thing. But I think it's worth releasing such features as software version 2.0 - so I can pay for the work of Affinity again. "2.0 - The big neural update"?

 

Whats your opinion on that?

Greetings

 

[Automatic Synchronization of assets and color palette between all programs]

This! I would really appreciate such a feature, would make things a lot easier!

Exporting and reimporting color palettes after each change is a time waster.

(Actually, I just googled if there is such a feature yet. But I found this thread posted 16 hours ago instead. Nice!)

[Unlimited or limited updates - where's the information?]

Just now, Patrick Connor said:

Well that is not great, is that on the link I gave or somewhere else? link please

Yes, it's mentioned on https://affinity.serif.com/de/photo/full-feature-list/
 

[Unlimited or limited updates - where's the information?]

15 minutes ago, Patrick Connor said:

That is unhelpful phrasing. Where have you seen this please? It is confusing and needs changing.

I can only see this (and this and this)

which does not mention new versions, and is true for our current 1.x policy. Patches is not a sufficient word to describe the new features we have been adding and updates does them more justice.

Thanks for your reply!

On the german site, it says:

"Updates werden automatisch verfügbar, wenn wir neue Features hinzufügen oder bestehende Features erweitern."

which means "Updates are automatically available when we add new features or extend existing features."

That confused me cause there's no limitation mentioned for the future. If I read that I suppose that there's no limit, ever.
(Also in combination with the headline "No Subscription—Free to Try, One Price to Buy" or translated from the german site: "buy only once")

[Unlimited or limited updates - where's the information?]

8 minutes ago, MEB said:

Hi Miratek,
Welcome to Affinity Forums
All "minor" updates (1.8, 1.9 etc) are free until the next major upgrade (2.0, 3.0 etc) which is/are paid.

Thanks! But where does it say that? I mean it must be contractually written down somewhere. 🙂

 

[Unlimited or limited updates - where's the information?]

Hey guys,

I'm thinking about buying all three affinity softwares but I can't get any more details about what I exactly buy.

In the internet it sometimes says that I'm only going to get updates until the next major release (e.g. 2.0) but I can't find any information on that on the website!

In the product description it only says that updates are going to get automatically released for you when there's a new version and that I only have to pay once.

So if I buy the software now I would have legal claim for lifetime updates cause it's not further explained there, right?

I think that has to be shown better to make it more clear.

 

Greetings!