Roland Rick

Hi @Roland Rick,
The preserve alpha checkbox disappearing issue is now with dev to be looked at.
Regarding the preserve alpha not working, this is by design due to the presence of transparence pixels / areas within the pixel layer (because it was painted with a textured brush which didn't fully filled the layer leaving the aforementioned semi-transparent area within the layer. This can be clearly seen from the thumbnail of the pixel layer in your video where the checkerboard pattern is also present/over the painted areas. If you add a new layer below, filled with a solid white or light grey color and merge the two layers to fill in those semi transparent areas in the original layer, the Gaussian Blur - Preserve alpha option will work as you are expecting.
If you want/need to keep the original layer without merging, you can do as NotMyFault explained above clipping the painted/textured layer to the solid colour layer and applying the FX or Live filter to the solid colour layer (parent).

The issue "[macOS] Preserve Alpha box and label vanishes after calling dialog a 2nd time" (REF: AF-61) has been fixed by the developers in internal build &quot2.3.0.2083&quot.
This fix should soon be available as a customer beta and is planned for inclusion in the next customer release.
Customer beta builds are announced here and you can participate by following these instructions.
If you still experience this problem once you are using that build version (or later) please reply to this thread including @Serif Info Bot to notify us.

+100

I one realises the image sent to Tone Map Persona, it is not possible to stop the process. Please make it interruptible, not only Tone Mapping, everything, thanks.
 

I one realises the image sent to Tone Map Persona, it is not possible to stop the process. Please make it interruptible, not only Tone Mapping, everything, thanks.
 

2.2 Features and Improvements
This post is the list of all new features and improvements included in the 2.2.0 release, and just below it is a list of the main bug fixes.
Features and improvements affecting all platforms
OCIO v2 support added in Photo OpenColorIOSetup and usage tutorial:  Custom text variables in Publisher Additional keyboard shortcuts for pixel brush tools Alt-click new layer automatically adds selection to that new layer Cross-references added in Publisher Cross References tutorial  ‘Hide effects’ and ‘greyscale’ view mode options in Publisher and Designer Change guide colour Long press tool shortcuts Custom date formats available in Publisher All supported image files now available from File -> Open in Publisher ‘Find and Replace’ now includes scope and result count in Publisher Go to previously viewed spread in Publisher ‘Create symbol’ option added to Layer menu in Designer Additional options when creating indexes in Publisher Update table format from selection in Publisher Improved resistance to data loss when network connectivity is lost. Files are locked while they are being edited to avoid simultaneous edits by 2 users. In addition to those features on all platforms above, these are the Windows and macOS features and improvements
MacOS Sonoma Support Object creation data entry Data Entry tutorial:  Move data entry ‘Delete Node’ added to right-click menu ‘Select All on Current Layer’ option now available Grid presets and favourite fonts now sync between apps on device Data merge in Publisher now allows fields to set URLs, file locations, emails and anchors In addition to those features on all platforms above, these are the iPad features and improvements
Decimal place accuracy preferences added ‘Prefer to keep selection’ preference added Localised versions of the changes in 2.2 (and those in earlier releases) can be found here
Affinity Designer Feature List Affinity Photo Feature List Affinity Publisher Feature List As well as all these improvements over 2.1.1 listed above, listed below are the most important bugs that have been fixed in 2.2

OK, that's interesting, I'm using it since 1.34 (or so, can't remember exactly) and never was aware of that. However, thanks for the hint.
Besides: as I see it, dpi and ppi (pixels per inch) are a whole different thing and to me it makes no sense, dpi affects ppi.
IMPORTANT: for all others reading this thread, uncheck Resample prior to chance dpi settings.

Not a bug.
It's because you have a DPI of 144.
Please see this Help page: https://affinity.help/photo2/en-US.lproj/pages/ExportPersona/exportPersona.html

Hi @Roland Rick,
I've raised this with the dev team to learn if there's some technical limitation or if it can be improved. Meanwhile if you use a destructive Gaussian Blur filter (from the filters menu) it should work as you are expecting which I believe is the equivalent of what Photoshop is doing.

There is no blur if Preserve Alpha is activated.
The live filter is also not non-destructive. If the filter gets reopened by double click, the checkbox for Preserve alpha is no longer there.
FYC: The YT video link is set to hidden.
The video explains it all:
 

Hi Affinity Developers 
How can I connect Affinity Photo 2 with e.g. Bridge as external editor?
This is a mega serious issue on Windows 10 Home. On a Mac no problem, I tried to help a friend being on Windows 10 Home.
For normal users having no clue of %ProgramData% etc. it's literally impossible go find the Exe File.
Even I had serious problem until I found it, but I could not connect it to any other softwere, there were always strange error messages.
Even the solution provided in 
does not help. It just does not work.
The local windows user is a Standard user and has no admin right. And this is good like so. %ProgramData% has some hardcore access restrictions and that is also good like so. Changing here anything may ugly mess up the Windows 10 system.
The provided solutions also expect Windows system admin skills and admin rights of the user, please forget solutions like that. It is a total design flaw in Affinity Photo 2. Please change that immediately, thanks.
Q: Is it really necessary to mess with customers like so? Why the heck is the exe not located on the same place like Affinity Photo 1 is?
That's really bad.
Best regards,
Roland

Unfortunately, we've had reports that the above locations are not working for certain apps. It's an issue our developers are aware of and is discussed here but they have also provided a workaround below:
 

@Roland RickIt's not something I've been able to reproduce on my Intel macOS system running Monterey or on my M1 Mac Mini. Have you tried using a different cloud storage to see if it narrows down the issue, it may also relate to syncing files, which isn't something we have control over.
We are aware of a few things that may still effect the apps, see this FAQ article, as it relates to caching our apps do on their first boot that relate to Metal acceleration. Some have been resolved in recent macOS updates.
To answer your other questions, we don't confirm when or if new features will be added to the apps. If you haven't already post your requests in the dedicated section as our developers do review them.

Hi @NotMyFault, thanks for the hint. It works. FYC, there is a "but": the result doesn't look identical as if applied to the text directly.

Select the text frame, go to the Text Frame tab and untick "Ignore text wraps". (If this tab isn't showing, go to View - Studio and enable it.)

Hey Roland Rick,
I have logged a report with the developers (a while ago now) to be able to Esc out of certain tasks, such as this, which is possible on the Windows versions.
I will add your feedback to the report - I'm sorry we don't currently have a solution for this  

I am working on a huge 360º pano. Using "Edit/Inpait" for closing the drone hole, something went wrong and the task is now running for over half an hour, doing kinda nothing (no fan noise fully equipped MBP16/2019). It is not possible to [Esc] this without kill -9 (Force quit) Affinity Photo. Unfortunately always doing like so, you never know if some GB of cache or whatever used on SSD will remain forever als garbage on the disk, wasting valuable disk space.
Where is the [Esc] or [Cancel] button??? To me, this is a bug, at least an ugly design flaw:

Cheers,
Roland

Hi guys, title explains already everything, however, please have here a video (unlisted) explaining what I mean. What I forgot to mention in the video: please enable Metadata export to slices, thanks.
 

Hi Rick, thanks for that workaround - got some pretty good informations out of it. Once working for 15 yrs as Unix sysadmin, I could follow. Most probably starting "Terminal", for 95% of users the workaround is over, not complaining, just saying, I personally love it of course.
However, Designer as well as Photo and Publisher must become Emojis enabled. If macOS TestEdit can do it, the Affinity suite should also be able to do it.
Cheers,
Roland

I have an author made a book Emojis all over. Way too much by utilising image versions of that. Emojis are today omnipotent and everywhere and a must have in flow text.

macOS, TextEdit vs. Affinity Publisher concerning Emojis in Artistic or Frame Text Tool, TextEdit wins. Come on guys, a DTP software not able to handle Unicode Emojis in flow text???? This is kinda ridiculous. Dito Affinity Photo and Designer.

@Roland Rick
try File/new Stack or new HDR-Stack, there'll be an option to auto-align your images.

The work around for emojis in Affinity - December 2020 - is:
1/ Go to https://emojipedia.org/
2/ Choose your emojis
3/ scroll down to the brand/version selections 
4/ Drag across the emoji to the open Affinity document 
Note: Outside hacking, other methods don't seem to work easily enough.
Editorial comment regarding emojis: Emojis Copyright should be no more relevant than Font Copyright, so it shouldn't be part of the conversation. What should be part of the conversation is why emojis are closed for public creativity, additions and insertions - and usuable - in OUR phones, etc. 
Essentially, it's another conversation about censorship.🥳

I was afraid of this
I thought of another solution, like having a blank Master Page on which you add the guides, and to apply it to the other Master Pages.
It's perfect once applied to the other Master Pages, but the guides disappear once applied to pages. I'll report it as a bug.

Will there be an option to bring all the images you'll be using in a publication to Assets, as one can do in PagePlus?  That features saves a lot of time as one can just drag the image  to the page. In PP  you could just go to the folder and bring all the images into it. Thank you.