stuck

@Patrick Connor Except it was that address that did not help me when I emailed them after my first two attempts failed. I've already told them what my card provider told me, that the fault is with the way Serif are trying to process my purchase. They simply pointed me at the failed orders page on the website and did not reply when I told them that didn't help. What makes you think they will help if I try again?

@Patrick Connor Yes, it was a very disappointing, irritating even, customer experience. Sadly though your bland answer does nothing to change my poor experience does it? Is someone who can correct the problem at your end, i.e. the problem that that is making your system try to process my transaction as a recurring transaction instead of as a one off purchase, actually going to reach out to me and tell me that they've fixed things and so I am OK to try again AND that, because this problem started before the launch offer ended, I'll still get Photo 2 at the launch price? I suspect not.

@Patrick Connor I'm afraid this is release is too late for me. I did try to buy Photo 2 but the Serif systems repeatedly declined my card and no one at Serif seemed interested in resolving this. All I got were standard text replies to my emails that showed no one had read my messages. Similarly, I only got one standard text response from Serif here: Oh and when I tried to call Serif, I was cut off after an automatic voice told me, "The office is closed." Hey ho, I can't buy what Serif won't sell.

OK so I did as that page says: Except, there are no saved card details that I can find in my account details. I won't buy from the MS Store either and when I phoned Serif at 09:57 UK time and pressed one for sales I was cut off because, "Unfortunately our offices are closed". Nor will I try another browser, if Serif's system can't cope with Firefox that's a pretty poor affair so I guess I'll pass on Photo 2. Thank you and good night, have a safe journey!

I have just tried to buy Photo 2 but my card was declined, twice. I immediately contacted my credit card provider and they said it fault was not a mistake I had made when I entered my card details, it was because the Serif website was trying to put the transaction through as a recurring payment, not a one off transaction. That's more than an irritation because by the time I can try and speak to a human being at Serif to sort this out, the launch offer discount will have expired. 😞

My Windows PC is quite old, a Dell 9010 with a 3rd gen core i5 CPU and only on-board Intel HD graphics. Even so, the Photo 2 application installed with out error. When I launch Photo 2 from the desktop icon created by the installer it presented an activation box. I can't test beyond that point though as I've yet to buy Photo 2. However, presumably if my machine did not meet the minimum requirements it would not have got this far so this is probably a good sign. I understand that without a dedicated graphics card Photo 2 might be a bit pedestrian but my machine has no speed / lag problems with Photo 1. Or will Photo 2 really grind and be unusable without GPU acceleration?

See this topic: and this very long topic:

Affinity Photo already has an alternative to Adobe Camera Raw, it's called the Develop Persona. This tutorial is three years old:

If you want to be at least partially up to date, you can run CS2 on Win 10.

I assume you actually mean, "when viewing the jpegs in Windows File Explorer..." Curious, I've had Win 10 for many years and been using Canon .CR3 files since 2020. In all that time I've never seen any sort of pop-up inviting me to download a viewer from the Windows Store. However, there is an official MS Raw Image Extension available via the Windows Store: https://apps.microsoft.com/store/detail/raw-image-extension/9NCTDW2W1BH8?hl=en-us&gl=us that enables File Explorer to display .CR3 files as image icons. It's been available since 2019 but I do not have it installed. The fact this extension predates my first use of .CR3 files coupled with me never seeing any unsolicited invites to download it (or indeed anything else) from the Windows Store would make me immediately suspect malware and I'd avoid the invite. Meanwhile, back at your problems. You mean now: when you Right Click on a .CR3 file in File Explorer there is no option for 'Properties'? even if you open Affinity (Photo?) and in there you click File | Open and find a . CR3 file, nothing happens when you click OK to actually open the file? How about you uninstall whatever it was that you installed: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uninstall-or-remove-apps-and-programs-in-windows-4b55f974-2cc6-2d2b-d092-5905080eaf98 Does that get you back to where you were? If so, you could then try again by starting from the page above for MS Raw Image Extension and clicking on the 'Get in Store app' button.

See here, together with the rest of that topic.

I don't have folders on my QL but I've just tried to add one by dragging a folder from Explorer and dropping it on the toolbar and it let me do that.

I don't know about Win 11 but Win 10 still includes the old Win 7 Quick Launch Toolbar. It takes a few clicks to set it up but it's not rocket science: https://www.lifewire.com/add-quick-launch-toolbar-in-windows-10-5115231 It's also less money than a third party app like Stardock 😀

A good question since, unless I've missed it, as there's no word on the MSI installers being available yet and it was said they would be out when the first patch was released.

This topic is about an update to AP:

See here, together with the rest of the topic:

Isn't it to be expected that when going from a wide gamut to a narrower one there will be a colour shift? Since colours that are in the wide gamut but out of the narrower one must be 'moved' in order to fit into the narrower gamut. If these 'moves' are done using relative colorimetric rendering intent that will change all the colours out of gamut to the nearest colour in gamut, so many colours change to the same one but it does not change colours that are already in gamut. However, perceptual colorimetric rendering intent changes ALL the colours in the image in a proportional way so that they all lie in gamut.

In this topic @Patrick Connor said the launch offer would not be extended: but, today, 14 Dec 2022, the Affinity home page says the launch offer runs until 25 January 2023.

I'm not the original poster. I was just stuck my oar to this topic in because I was surprised that someone would seriously advocate using a credit card across a public network.

I know you said you're serious but seriously? You'd willingly enter your card details while connected to a public network?

Except today, 14th Dec 2022, the Affinity home page says: Launch offer: 40% off until 25 January 2023

It depends how you define 'bad'. It's probably better to say that it is 'mixed'. What follows is my opinion, you must do your own research. Their first release was no more than a few bug fixes, to do with 64 bit compatibility. Except they didn't fix one glaring bug in Viveza. Since then they have released a 'new' version of the collection, every year around July. However only some of the individual apps in the collection have been updated each time. Nik Collection 4 was a particularly low point, it was not well received, it was barely a beta product. The current version is Nik Collection 5 and still not all of the apps in the collection have been updated. If DxO follow the same pattern for V6 of the collection as they've followed for their previous versions then V6 will be out next summer and the price at launch will be discounted. Even so, expect to pay over £130 because the price includes a 'free' copy of DxO Photolab Essential version. If you wait until Black Friday before you buy then not only are you likely to get the best price, they are likely to have released at least one, maybe two patches by then so the product might feel less like a beta version. I bought the first Nik Collection (because, for reasons too complicated to explain here, I got it very cheap) but I've never updated as I've always felt the update price, even on Black Friday, was not cost effective for me. One last thing. DxO only give an, extra, 'current customer' discount on top of any other offers if you are updating from no more than two versions back. For example, because I didn't update from 1 to 3, when 4 came out I was no longer considered to be a 'current customer'. As I said, these are only my opinions, others may disagree with me.

Are you sure? If so, I urge you to read the DxO forums to learn about other peoples current experiences with Nik Collection are like and, above all else, take advantage of the 30 day fully functional free trial to ensure the latest Nik Collection is what you want.

AFAIK the latest news, that they are likely to release the MSI installers with the first patch, was given on 23 Nov. which is less than 3 weeks ago:

Indeed but more succinctly stated as 'Murphy's Law' 🙂