Julian23

I don't like the MSIX installer either - but with security in mind it is the future. This way it is possible to install a large program with lots of libraries on a secured system. I suggest that Serif make their Icons public domain and release them in a ZIP file to make it possible to create short cuts. If you install the image presentation/managemant system fotoARRAY (www.fotoarray.com) this will also install a free executable called Start_fotoARRAY.exe. This executable can be renamed and will then use its own set of properties. By clicking on the executable you can configurate what it should do with files passed to it, i.e. when called by another program. It can execute the commandline "AffinityPhoto2" and send the file there. That works really nicely and is useful to add additional startup parameters or call two programs with the same set of files. BTW: You can do something similar with a small patch file, but some applications refuse to call a BAT instead of an EXE.

I agree - I would really like to switch off the preview since it is not only too big but also pretty slow. But I miss gerneral naming templates, both for directory and file name. Having to go to the "Save As" dialog to export is just to time consuming. There could be a pathname field which is used unless empty - with placeholders such as NAME (the filename) DIR (directory of source) DIRRAW (directory of first linked RAW image) DATE TIME WIDTH HEIGHT So export can be done with just one click and I do not think this is too difficult to implement. Without Preview, I prefer the new export dialog over the old.

DOCX and other modern XML based formats come to my mind. Even RTF was created in a way to be backwards compatible. You can use the oldest RTF reader and still open a RTF produced by the most modern MS Word. This works if extensions are marked so they are ignored. I assume Affinity V1 has something like this internally, otherwise the step from V1 to V1.9 would also have caused problems.

This is really terrible and I don't know another program which does this. Files without the new features should be compatible to V1, at the very least there should be a possibility to "save as V1". I like Affinity and purchased V2 right away, but I see that there are some problems (i.e. I had crash in Photo with healing brush or the luminace mask). Please also post some details about the file structure to make it possible to read a reasonable preview (PNG/JPG) from it. Apparently there is one embedded.

Photoline (www.pl32.com) also has conversion to vector for at least 22 years. It also has RAW embedding since many years. It is also just one application with photo/publishing and vector capabilities - for 59€

-Designer- In Export persona I miss possibility to duplicate slices by ALT+DRAG or Copyx&Paste -Publisher- I use the software fotoarray to manage my collection of images. It can create PDF files with images which are embedded completely (the whole JPEG) but cropped in the way I selected, i.e. squares. I can open the PDF in Affinity Publisher but it is not 100% striagtforward to modify the crop/zoom of the images. Each image was created with a cropping mask as child, this makes it impossible to move or scale the image behind the mask. I can drag both layers around and make the image the child of the mask, that works- but it would be nice if that would be easier. Here is a sample for such a PDF. https://www.fotoarray.com/export_square.pdf The command "Convert to Pictureframe" does something unexpected. It actually applies the mask and crops the image. So I cannot fully manipulate the zomm/crop after using this which contradicts the use of this command. -Photo- When I launch Phot (under Windows) with several images in the command line I get a dialog box "You eem to want to delete settings". I don't understand why this happens. -Universal Installer- Since I use all 3 programs on Windows I miss an installer which installs all 3 at once. Since the applications share much code and librariers and also resources I would expect such an installer would be smaller than the summ of the size of the 3 single installers. Thanks!

I really miss the ability to be able to drag any corner of a rectangular layer freely with the effect that the contents (bitmap or layer) being stretched accordingly. This feature is needed very often, to adjust an overlay bitmap to match the background, for perspective correction, to vary the appearance of cloned layers - vector and bitmaps. Yes, I can convert the bounding rectangle to curves and then drag the nodes, but this just changes the cropping of the children. AP has the grid and perspective tool - but (a) this works destructively and (b) this works in AP only.

The problem I see with the separation that in both applications features are missing from the GUI which are sometimes required. Yes, I can switch between the applications and work on the same data and switch back, but still, it would be nice to have live filters and the bitmap crop tool in Designer. My suggestion: Designer shows some of the "Photo" GUI elements if the other application is installed.

Sorry - I cannot reproduce the desired behavior - with I can paint any color and with [E] I can erase - but I cannot "unerase" with the brush. This means I cannot use the brush to restore image content which was removed by the eraser. Other programs, such as Photoline can do this. There you can use the eraser to remove bits from the alpha channel and the brush to add it - without changing the R-G-B channel.

Sorry, I was also looking for this, since I am really used to this functionality. with (E) - Eraser I can select an eraser and change its size - but I cannot select a Brush style. with (B) - Brush I can select a brush tool and I can paint, but it does not paint into the Alpha channel but simply paints the current color. So using this technique the above "painting into Alpha" cannot be done. The only possibility is to NOT use the the eraser and create a masking layer. With the brush I can paint transparency which way and I can also remove it by toggle foreground/background. (Surprisingly the eraser is ignoring the mask and erases the bitmap, logically it should unerase while the mask is the active canvas.) But the mask not really a replacement for the eraser, because a) extra layer is required b) switching of color to erase/unerase is cumbersome (hotkey available?) c) most important: that tool is incompatible to the automatic eraser tools, such as the background eraser. It would be good to be able to paint into the alpha channel - to unerase! At least a short while after the erasing/automatic erasing as long as the non-alpha pixel are still intact. (they are probably lost after load/save) I would favor this behavior with the eraser a) I can select a brush as well b) use a hotkey (Alt?) to unerase (=restore the alpha channel)

I can create a symbol from an artboard. For me it is unexpected that I cannot assign layer attributes to the symbol - it won't take shading and such. I cannot change the transparency either, unless I change all of the instances. I would expect that such a symbol is a container with its own transparency and FX attributes and the contents comes from the original copy with synchronizing still working. Can you implement that symbols made from artboxes behave like such containers? Thanks, Julian

Thank you - yes, I was aware of this possibility and also the manual recommends it. But I am actually looking for a destructive cropping of the layer - simply select a rectangual part of it and remove the rest. In one competing product it is even possible to do create an uneven rectangle (a trapeze) and crop it to an even rectangle which is very useful for quick perspective correction.

I recommended a friend AP to do photo editing and printing. He wanted to crop a picture and print it on a DinA5 page. I told him - the best is to create a new DinA5 document and drag the image on it. Yes, that worked, but how should it be cropped? The cropping tool which offers cropping unter Affinity Designer always crops the complete document, not the current layer. To crop a layer according to the manual I am supposed to create a new layer and move the image layer into it. Well, it is good that this work - but it is more complicated for somebody who does not use this program very often. Why does the layer cropping tool available in Designer does not work like this in Photo?

In case anybody is interested - In this list the product "PhotoLine" is missing. PhotoLine is a like Draw/Photo and Publisher integrated in one application. With one license you get OSX and Windows support. Flood Fills No, it cannot fill vectors Artboard Tool No Nested Layers Yes, it supports groups also with clipping Pencil Path Continuation Not that I know of Fast Loading Effects It has presets for the effects Image Tracer Yes Rounding Single Corners No Transparency Tool Yes Fill/Stroke Switcher Yes Pixel Tools and Layers Yes Pasting Inside Yes Replicate Tool No (copy&Paste works) Customizable Vector Patterns Yes B-Splines Yes, I think so Smooth Gradients Yes Smooth Type on Path Yes Over 1,000,000% Zoom "Only" 25600% Pixel Preview Yes Realistic Brush Presets It has some of the required technology but no presets. Lots of Shape Tools Not many Redraw Paths probably No Indicators Yes Eyedropper on Select Yes. Objects can also be copied as brush Vector Eraser Tools No 3D Extrusion Yes In contrast to Affinity it is possible in Photoline to skew any bitmap layer. This makes it easy to correct perspective lossless.

I know, with MacOS ist is common that the programs stay open when the "red" dot is pressed. Only the current window is closed. But this is not mandatory, it is possible that a program also closes and some programs do. With Affinity I find it disturbing that any new document is added as a new tab, but when I close the last document, the window becomes empty. If I now close the the window the program is still open - with the effect that if I press the program symbol in the Dock nothing really happens. I have to select "New" from the menu. So I suggest to close the program when closing all documents, just like the Windows version using "applicationShouldTerminateAfterLastWindowClosed" Safari -btw- is not closed, however it creates a new window when you click on the symbol and no window is displayed. This is also an alternative.