jimh12345

Interestingly, I re-enabled GPU acceleration in AP, and did a fair amount of editing yesterday without crashing. Maybe the current V2 build doesn't have the problem that caused me to disable GPU some time ago. But it didn't seem to make performance difference, and AP soon became unusable - Clone tool, for example, lagging the mouse by several seconds. Task Manager showed AP's CPU usage bobbing up and down from 40-100% with me sitting there doing nothing! Clearly, AP is trapped in something, but I have no clue. Disabling acceleration again didn't help. These situations are frustrating - when an application just won't run properly, and there are no answers, because the root cause can't be identified. I really hate to just throw money at this...

That obviously makes a lot of sense. I've used, and written code for, Windows systems since 3.0 - and I used to tell friends that if they just wanted things to work, they should buy Apple. I could conceivably buy a Mac, but I think that although that would eliminate all the analysis paralysis regarding hardware, it would also force me to spend a lot of time learning my way around Apple software, and finding Apple equivalents for all the software I use.

debraspicher, thanks for the detailed replies. I've bought, and built, numerous PCs for myself, starting in the 80s. Today I'm totally out of date and don't care - I just want to buy what I need for AP. So... does "gamer PC" capture the type of system you're all talking about?

I feel like I got burned on the last GPU. I bought an nVidia with pretty good specs for the time. But image editing applications that used it were never reliable. I always ended up having to disable hardware acceleration to avoid crashes. If I get a new GPU it had darn well better work reliably with AP. Do they have a list of officially supported cards?

Ha ha. Sorry I asked. I want to know what it takes to actually enjoy using the program on a serious project.

I'm getting into more complex processing with AP, and it's obvious my PC doesn't have the juice. With a bunch of layers going, I try some complex selections, the fan starts whining and everything...slows.....down..... Task Manager shows AP owning the system and still, the screen labors to update. Sometimes AP just dies. My PC is a few years old and it was never high performance - intel i5-8400, 2.8 gHz,6 cores, 15gb RAM. My video card has acceleration but I had to turn that off or AP crashed constantly. I could buy a new system - and I hate that process. What specs will be "good enough"? What makes the difference - more cores, faster clock speed, more RAM, a hot video card? I know I can get good input on this forum, but of course not everyone agrees and it's hard to get to a bottom line. So - anyone want to stick their neck out and tell me what I need to buy? Does Affinity maybe have official recommendations?

Thanks guys, I'm making some progress.

Ok I finally found the real Node tool - under the Pen tool. I'd found a video that (incorrectly?) said to use the Node tool, but showed the Move tool being selected. Pretty confused at that point.... but now, with the Node tool, I'm able to bend the polygon sides. Then I found that if I go back to the Pen tool, there's a Selection button that converts the polygon into a selection. Now I'm getting somewhere.

I create a triangle polygon with the Pen tool. Then I select the Node tool, and get a box with handles around the triangle. But I can't find any way to curve one of the lines. Pulling on anything just resizes the triangle.

I draw a polygon with the Pen tool. I go to the Layer menu - but Convert to Curves is greyed out and disabled.

I want to create a selection bounded in part by a smooth curve. I don't need to precisely match something in the image; I'd just like to be able to draw out an area bounded by smooth curves, then make it a selection. If I google on "make selection from curve" etc. I'm inundated in various ways to do this. Most however are overkill for what I need to do, and involve the pen tool, shape tool, and/or selection brush. In my mind I'd like to do this: draw a polygonal selection roughly covering the area I need, then grab a side of that polygon and "pull" it out into a smooth curve - essentially bowing out a side of the polygon. Suggestions on a way to do something like this?

Ouch. I keep right-clicking on adjustments, expecting to find "Add Mask", and it's not there. There are several drawbacks to the built-in masks. For example, you can't copy them to use with other adjustments, and you can never get rid of them once they're created. They're just not as useful.

Sort of embarassing to admit that in 10 minutes of Googling I couldn't find the answer to this simple question. 😞 When create an adjustment layer, like Curves, I usually want to mask it, so I add a mask layer to it (I don't like using the "built-in" mask). To do that I click the Mask icon at the bottom of the layers panel, then "Mask" - duh. But even though my new adjustment layer is selected, the new mask isn't created as a child layer - I have to explicitly drag it down onto the adjustment layer. A small annoyance but it becomes one of those "every single time" things. Is there a way to create a mask as a child of an adjustment layer?

I counted 5 clicks plus a scroll-down, but you're right it's not too terrible. What I don't get is the "path". In the export preset I've entered the path where I want exports to go. But it isn't used; when I click the "export" icon, output defaults t o the source image folder, not the path I entered. Can't I set an export path?

Thanks OB. "Export Persona" seems to be where I should be looking, and I got this all to work. Gven the number of clicks required to choose and use an Export Preset, it may be easier to just keep pounding in the numbers as I have been. But I'll no doubt find other uses for Export Persona and presets.

I don't see a way to save Export settings. After I edit a photo, I always export a small version for the web. My dimensions for this are always the same (1600 on long side). And with AP this becomes one of those irritating "every... single... time..." things. I'm still new to AP - is there a way, within its labyrinthine forest of capabilities, to set up some sort of templates for common exports?

debraspicher, thanks, some good stuff there. I think the problem for me is that I want a way to separate edges from dust specks. Maybe that's not really possible since they're both high frequency.

I want to understand band pass masking. I know it somehow selects edges but that doesn't explain what's going on - I want to understand the concepts, not just play with sliders. The AP Help has text like "Low Band—sets the lower limit of the frequency band". Um, thanks... Yes, I watched Affinity's tutorial video. It was an example of using it, but not an explanation. Unfortunately it left me confused. Can anyone point me to an explanation of the concept of band pass masking?

I think because everyone (card makers and software vendors) treats hardware acceleration as optional, no one ever fixes all their bugs. It's easier and cheaper to just "suggest" turning it off. Or if you're a card maker, tell your customers their 2-year-old card is now unsupported and they should buy the latest model.

I had to disable the graphics hardware acceleration in AP - it was crashing constantly. And I think I've had to disable it for every other photo editing program I've ever used. IMHO, graphics acceleration is a technology that never delivered on its promise - probably because the card makers cared only about gamers and crypto miners. How many times have we been blown off by software vendors, when we reported problems, with "have you updated your video drivers?" or "try a newer video card". That's not how it was supposed to work.

Thanks Walt.

No doubt this has been asked before, but threads get long and tedious to search... I want to switch from MSIX to MSI - what's the order to follow? Uninstall the MSIX first, or after installing the MSI version?

I'll try that, thanks. Have never used Macros so this workaround seems a bit tedious but maybe it won't seem so bad once I've tried it.

I was excited to try the new non-destructive raw edition in Develop Persona. I edited a raw file, got good results, hunted around for the way to copy/paste all my adjustments to the other files from that shoot - and found there's apparently no way to do this! Is this still true in the latest release or am I missing something obvious?

Seriously, this is not possible? I was trying to do that just now, and hunting around for the Copy/Paste of adjustments which I assumed was possible. So I went to Google and found this thread. If I can't copy raw adjustments from one image to a bunch of others, AP Develop Persona is of little use to me. I was all excited about the new non-destructive raw editing but it looks like this is over before it even started. What a bummer!