Erstwhile

I have had this exact problem as well multiple times. Nikon D750 / 2012 iMac 2.7GHz i5/16GB RAM and AMD Radeon HD 6770M. I like Affinity's power as an editor (and especially after the Beta fixed some of the performance issues) but for RAW adjustments I'm reduced to Nikon's offerings.

Hi, this is probably a noob thing. I re-watched the masking tutorials but I still am a bit confused by some aspects of layer masks. I want to figure this out because it's pretty obvious how powerful they are. Maybe somebody who knows these better can explain how exactly I'm supposed to be using them. There are two kinds of masks. One is basically painting directly on an adjustment layer, like they do in the tutorial. I get that the layer only applies where it's not black, and that it's partially applied where it's grey. You can't drag this kind around. Then a second, more overt kind of mask that you get if you go to the layers and hit "mask layer" or if you go to the layers menu and hit "new mask layer." This is the kind you can drag around. If you put it as a child to an adjustment layer it does the same thing as painting on the layer itself. I like the second kind because I can copy and paste it into another adjustment if I want to mask the same area out for multiple adjustments. I also like that you can right click on it and edit the mask. But in the tutorial they use the first kind of mask for adjustment or live filter layers. So I assume it's the best type. Thing is, once you paint the mask on this layer like the tutorial, there doesn't seem to be a way to easily go in and edit your mask. You can paint black or white or grey, sure, but you essentially do that blind. And the only way I can see to delete this mask once it's made is to go into channels and clear the alpha channel for the adjustment. If I hit "toggle quick mask" at the top of the screen, I get only a way to select. There is the "refine mask" available on the layer menu, and when I click it it brings up something like what I'm looking for, a quickmasked version of my mask. But when I click it, the mask is not the one I made originally, it's altered. So what I want is a way to edit the mask I've made while seeing it on the screen. Ideally this would be a quick mask so I can see the photo underneath for reference. I can do it with child layer masks, but once I paint something on an adjustment layer like in the tutorial it's lost to me. Am I doing it wrong? What is the right way to accomplish this? Thanks for any advice. Erstwhile

I think the problem here may be expectations as to what the shadows & highlights sliders do in develop. Moving these sliders has an effect in a different range than I personally would expect - bringing highlights down for instance I would expect to recover clouds etc., but it really affects a range that is darker. Likewise the shadows slider affects a range that isn't the deepest shadows, but (for instance) I've seen it affect a shadowed side of a face in direct sunlight while leaving much darker parts of the scene unaffected.

I purchased and really like Affinity Photo, but one thing I've noted is that it is considerably less efficient in terms of time spent. To be adopted by more pros and prosumers, the ability to do multiple things at once would be helpful. Yes, I understand from the roadmap that some sort of automation is coming: great! But in the meantime I think two easy (? I'm not a coder...) items that fit right in to the philosophy of AP would help a lot. I'll note that when watching the tutorials of AP, everything is instantaneous. Impressive. But it is surely a modern monster of a machine being used. My machine is not old by any stretch (2012 i5 iMac, 16 GB, SSD+HDD, etc...) but performance is slower, while acceptable. And development should take into account reasonably older machines when it comes to performance. I like to work on multiple similar photos at a time, so I end up with the following: Open, click on basic preset, click on detail preset, click on next photo, click on presets, click on next photo...down the line. Then I go back to make individual adjustments to photos if needed. I might develop each individual one here, or wait until RAW edits are done for all, and then develop. Either way, there's a 5-30 second pause while it develops, averaging around 15 seconds. I as user have to sit and wait* for the develop operation, then click the next photo and develop. Same when it comes to exporting to .jpg, something that I'd guess the vast majority of photographers do. I don't change settings between exports, but here again is an operation that takes a bit of time and is simply repetitive. A button to "develop all" and a button to "export all" (using the same settings, obviously) would greatly lower the number of clicks necessary to accomplish the same thing, and would allow me to read these forums while I'm waiting for the operation to complete. And I'm guessing it would be a bit simpler to do than to implement an entire automation/scripting framework. I'm a big supporter as I detest Adobe's subscription model and I really like where you are going with the software. Maybe this would help it be a quicker, more useful tool? *Ironically, if I click on the next photo fast enough, I can continue working. The progress bar stops you from working once it appears, but if you go fast enough you can continue to work. I've learned not to do this though as it can crash the program, in which case it stops being helpful timewise. Same thing for exporting, too. Edited: I hadn't paid much attention to the delay when developing before writing this, but it is more than I had estimated. Changed to reflect.

Hi, new user here. Played a bit with the beta but stopped because the RAW conversion was really out of whack with my camera (D750). But I liked the software overall and bought it when it came out. Glad to report that RAW conversion is much improved. But still in many cases a good bit different than the camera version. I tried turning off the assistant above and got something equivalent to the Flat profile in my camera - it's even farther away from the original. Is there a way to edit the curve applied by the assistant?