ChopperNova

In this case, accessibility/usability seems a distinction without a difference. The word disability itself has its own various contextual meanings, but word definitions miss the point: V2 is less pleasant to view for reasons given above. It also uses some non-standard contrasting on buttons, as @Granddaddy detailed quite well elsewhere. Computer science is a science, part of which being how people perceive user interfaces; there's actual empirical data supporting what makes good design. The whole purpose of GUI visual design is to quickly provide information to the most different types of brains, through the most different types of eyes, in the most intuitive and efficient way possible. It's not to look cool in a YouTube video. And FFS, icons aren't decorations. Hence, a well-designed GUI will take into account imperfect vision by definition.

How I'd do it on Windows 10 Create a fill layer with the color you want. Layer-->New Fill Layer... Mask that layer to the overall area you want colorize. Don't waste time being precise. Set the fill layer's (NOT the mask layer) Blend Mode to Lighter Color. Click the little gear icon next to Lighter Color to display the Blend Options panel. Adjust the Underlying Composition Ranges curve to your satisfaction. Touch up your mask if needed, and you may need to do manual touch up as well. I'd repeat this step for each basic color needed. For the bamboo, I used a green Fill Layer and set the blend mode to Linear Burn. Note how "sloppy" the mask is, and shape of the blend curve I used: It's easy to experiment with Blend Modes, just hold your pointer over it and roll your mouse wheel. Once you create your mask, simply using a combination of Blend Modes and Blend Curves, you can quickly colorize files, and you'll be surprised how well it works on complex images. Be careful with skin tones! Tip: Sometimes it pays to scale up (resample) the picture about 4x, colorize, then back down for export. This tends to hide many flaws from manual detail painting.

You literally posted this as I started writing this... The issue for me isn't the lack of a roadmap, it's lack of direction or any apparent strategy. It's unclear who their target demo is. For example, when there were complaints regarding alpha channel editing for textures, the official response was something to the effect game/3d designers aren't our target at this time, meanwhile V2 has a new, non-destructive, filter for normals maps -- so who's that for and why? If they're going for these people, why not give them what they're clamoring for? It's not my specialty, but as I read it, fixing alpha channel editing would open Photo to an entirely new vista of users. The Normal Map filter seems like a boutique function by comparison. Sure, there's the new RAW, but so far as I can see, there's no non-destructive auto curves, levels, WB, etc. Is there an indicator on a layer to show blend curves have been changed? Is there a proper relax (not reconstruct) method in Liquify? Why are we still stuck with that goofy Lanzcos Separable/Non-Separable as the best in resampling? Do they actually think photographers work by sitting in an image editor and selecting File->Open... For Every Single File they edit? Does every dead obvious, simple feature, require a formal request, screaming users, and years and years to even merit consideration? Is the program going to become increasingly relevant to me as a tool for grown-ups, or are they going to continually do wildly counterproductive stuff like "redesigning the UI"? The only criteria I can find for whether a feature is added is how good it will look in a YouTube demo. Sadly, I'm not even joking. I just don't get it, it's as if they're targeting some sort of committee-spawned homunculus "creative". Kept Hermetically Sealed. In a mayonnaise Jar. On Funk & Wagnalls' porch. Since 1989. Further, responding isn't the same as communicating. With what V2 has and hasn't, it just makes the feedback forum look like an elaborate version of every other cynical "we care what you think" corporate suggestion box. Finally, as for the MSIX, there would have been lot less anger had the initial default response not been to blame their Paying Customers.

@loukash Just to clarify, XNViewMP is a relatively new program. It's much more flexible than the older XNView. https://www.xnview.com/en/xnviewmp/. It's quite impressive, but somehow I always get the feeling I'm fighting the UI Configuration rather than refining it.

I'm was really surprised that the V2 top tool bar has zero additional customizability over V1. Everything you can do in the menu that's feasible to do in a button should have its own icon allowed up there. I do think how customizing the tools bar on the left is much more intuitive than than Photoshop, although weirdly, there's a lot things there called "tools" that are really filters. This is the reason I stick to FastStone Image Viewer instead of XNViewMP. FastStone is hardly customizable at all, and yet somehow doesn't need to be, everything is very intuitive. XNViewMP has more configurabilty, yet I never can get it just right.

It's like they were working on new features for a V1 update, but decided to make it V2 so they haphazardly changed a bunch of colors and slapped together a new icon set so they could say V2 has a "completely redesigned UI that will optimize your workflow" to help justify it being a full version upgrade. Anyone remember when Visual Studio decided to make every letter in all the menus uppercase? That went over almost as well. As if they did beta testing.🤣🤣🤣

Products should work as advertised; evidently "we finally got it to run with no fatalities, let's sell it" is an acceptable standard here.

V2 is just disheartening. It's like coming from the great, original Star Wars Theatrical, being sold tickets to Empire Strikes Back, and forced to watch A New Hope: Special Edition -- the vast bulk of features are a hodge-podge of stuff the maker wanted, neither understanding nor caring what the audience wanted -- while being 99% the original. Serif could also learn from the various Death Stars down through the ages, it doesn't matter how numerous or fancy the features, if it keeps blowing up. It's not so much that V2 isn't an Adobe killer now, it's that at this rate, it's so amply clear that it will never even be a contender. There's just so much wasted potential and time, so much missed opportunity, I'll likely just go back to an old Photoshop when my V2 trial expires. And don't get me started on those of us with the MSIX bug being forced to watch Star Wars: Holiday Special, Clockwork Orange style.

I posted my tips here:

It's been a long while since I've done this, but I recall working in LAB color space (in Photoshop) and did whatever only on the lightness channel. Of course you need a color image, and you must remember to change back to your final colorspace before exporting. Sometimes the camera manufacturer's own terrible software will have moire reduction that helps with a specific camera. Topaz DeNoiseAI is a standalone/plugin than might work. You could try the trial.

@TheFlow At least now you know the status of your OpenCL as Affinity sees it. 3DSMax taking 2-3 minutes to start is abnormal. Maybe check 3DSMax startup log? The name of the file is Max.log and it should be located somewhere like: C:\Users\<yournamehere>\AppData\Local\Autodesk\3dsMax\<version>\ENU\Network I love the name, "Max.Log". It's like a Tom Cruise character... Tom Cruise as Secret Agent Max Log Fighting rain-forest drug cartels in Undercover Lumberjacking! But seriously folks, logs aren't just for lumberjacks anymore. If 3DSMax is encountering the same issue as Affinity Paint, that may hold the key. You should resolve this, if possible, because it's likely the cause of other performance issues, even if they're not obvious. Plus it may help others, which is a non-trivial bonus. Just generally, how do games load and perform, and do you think they're stable? Although it won't affect your problem, you should kill Steam when not in use as it's constantly causing all kinds of mischief.

Something like this? In Photo V2, I used Mesh Warp to wrap it, using the vertical lines of the pumpkin as guides, and just kinda eyeballing it. This was a quicky attempt, but you could "tuck" mesh point in the grooves, especially at the bottom. This would give it a more 3D effect. Then I set the blend mode of the Flag layer to Linear Light. The little gear to the right of Linear Light brings up the blending curves panel, so you tweak it until you get the desired effect. Hard Light also produces a nice effect. There's one issue in V1 and now V2 you must heed: The layer panel will give no indication the curve has been changed. If you have multiple layers and you forget you changed the blending curves on one, it'll drive you berserk trying to figure out why nothing's displaying correctly.. I've got bit by this in Photoshop, and it has an indicator, It just didn't register in my brain. If this does show an indication and I missed it, I'm happy to be corrected. Otherwise, you should change the indicator color of the layer in the layer panel (which I didn't).

@TheFlow OK, I have a simple potential solution. In the directory where your "Photo.exe" for V2 resides, there's a program called cltest.exe. It's a little utility that Photo executes internally shortly after it loads "fonts..." It checks the status of the machine's OpenCL capabilities. If I double click it, a window pops open and vanishes before I can read the text. If this file were to stall, it could cause your symptoms. I make no claim of the safety of this, but if you double-click cltest.exe and there's a delay, that might be the culprit. If you run it in CLI, it will display data relevant to your OpenCL configuration.

Perhaps you should be more concerned with your customers than your own individual personal feelings. You realize we are real people who pay Serif real money for a product, and have every right to demand that it be fit for purpose -- and in many cases it is completely unusable. Those users were initially told to suck it. Customers who bought V1 immediate before V2 are still being told Sucks to be you, and your rationale for how you're doing upgrades is flatly insulting -- and I'll repeat, this doesn't apply to me. Remember, everyone wanting upgrade comp, (and some were unreasonable), are your paying customers. They didn't deserve to be shamed as deadbeats in the forum, and while I appreciate the acceptance of widespread opinion here, I think mods could have a set a better tone, had they wished. I interrupted my photo schedule, excited with V2, but had install issues, and it all just spiraled down from there with: First it was Sucks to be you, then; we'll get around to it eventually, in the meantime, sucks to be you. If you burn through your trial before a proper install, sucks to be you, if you want to test MSI before you buy at the discount rate, sucks to be you. Any stand-up company would apologize profusely for this huge waste of time and money for their customers, and bend over backwards to try to keep them, if the gave a shit. All this seems this seems like a risky strategy from a company that relies heavily on word of mouth. Nothing's intended personally, but Serif is being PAID to do a JOB -- produce software. If my Uber drives through my garage door, costing me time and money -- then starts with a song an dance about how this is so better, 'cuz I don't have to walk as far to my kitchen, then it's just too damn bad if he gets butthurt when he doesn't get five stars and a tip. Some people actually rely on software, and when it's broken, it costs them real time, money and creative energy. Broken software has even been responsible for people losing jobs. Sucks to be them.

I don't want to hijack this thread, but perhaps the single most pressing technical issue would be a slight at best if the software was developed correctly initially. Likewise, there's actually these cheap little boxes you plug in to the wall that can compare tens of thousands of digital receipts in real-time as they arrive in email -- they operate using a system of ones and zeros... And the whole concept of beta-testing seems foreign to them. I'm not privy to insider information, but I do have insight when someone's blowing smoke.