Steve Bishop

Yeah, I think part of my confusion was the fact that some standard macOS interface keyboard shortcuts have been repurposed. In every single macOS program, Command-` cycles between open windows. And Command-Tab is used by the OS to change between open programs. Fortunately, Affinity allows me to change most of the shortcuts to restore expected behavior, and reassign the conflicting shortcuts. I wonder if this is a case of Affinity trying to keep the shortcuts the same between operating systems. Microsoft does that, and it's a disaster. For some reason, software companies think it's more likely that someone is going to use their program on multiple computers than people would use more than one program on a single computer.

Ah, I see them: "Switch to Next View" and "Switch to Previous View." I've never seen a tab referred to as a "View." In the other programs I use, including the ones that come with macOS "View" has a different meaning. Must be a language thing. Thanks!

Almost all macOS programs have Next Tab/Previous Tab menu options. Affinity Photo seems to be missing this option. When working with multiple images at the same time, it is often useful to move from one tab to another to quickly view which items are open.

Thanks, everyone. The key was to select the layer. I've been used to Photoshop since the 90's, so it's taking me some time to adjust to a new way of doing things. (I bet you hear that a lot on this forum.) My recollection from Photoshop days is that it would automatically select the layer if there was only one. I think that supposition was the problem. Still doesn't solve the no-changes-on-load problem. When that happens again, I'll take another screen video and post a follow-up. Thanks again.

I'm having trouble making certain functions work in Affinity Photo. Sometimes they work. Sometimes they don't. I'm using an M1 MacBook Pro, and there are occasions when I'll invoke a command or a brush or try to do something, and the image is unaffected. For example, I can select the Stamp tool, and mark the stamp source with the crosshair. But then, sometimes the brush shows a preview and works fine; and sometimes I just get the outline of the brush with nothing inside. Same with the healing brush. Sometimes it works the way its described in the documentation, and sometimes I just get no response from the software. Or sometimes I'll open an ARW raw file, and while developing, changing the contrast or the brightness or whatever has no effect at all. Not at 0%, not at 100%. The solution there is to quit Affinity Photo and open the file again. That helps with that one file. But it's obnoxious to get through 15 different adjustments only to have the 16th fail to respond and I have to start all over again. I've attached a screen recording where you can see that I select the Stamp tool, place the source crosshair, but then all I get is an empty cursor. I suspect (hope) I'm just doing something wrong, and someone here can tell me that I'm just forgetting to push a certain button. But I've tried everything I can in the app, and all of the online help assumes that everything works as expected. There is no thought to "What if this doesn't happen?" Any thoughts? Untitled.mov