ChopperNova

I agree.
I don't believe for a minute they have any disinterested professional consultants on staff, either that, or they ignore them. I haven't seen much evidence that they even listen to their users unless there's a firestorm that could affect their bottom line. Perhaps some consider taking bug reports and feature requests on V1 software that's long been out of development (in favor of V2) "listening"?
I actually prefer working in Affinity programs to anything else, and I'm not a DTP guy, but the lack of footnotes, et al. until this year is literally incomprehensible to me. It speaks volumes to the "professional" consultants they have on staff -- I mean, they couldn't even write a their own Shareholders' Report without completely unacceptable "workarounds"😮. Footnotes have been a core feature in even simple word-processors for home computers since the 1970s. I honestly don't understand Serif's thinking here, as this feature should have been in it before even the first line of code was written.
And now we have footnotes, but since they're a new feature, the user will have to babysit them to make sure they work properly -- although forcing customers to be beta testers is pretty standard in the software industry today these days.
 

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.

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.

Affinity keeps working forever, whereas CS6 stops when Adobe shuts down the activation server.  Does that count as a "feature"? (JK, they'd never do that.🤫)
 More to the point, in a head-to-head "feature" list, CS6 destroys Affinity Photo. In a real-world use scenarios, not so much, even current Photoshop CC.
Affinity Photo V2 doesn't have Content Aware Scale as in CS6. It also lacks 3D and Video, so no animated .gifs.  Liquify is non-destructive in Affinity, but CS5 had the best version of Liquify in any program, anywhere. Adobe New & Improved it in CS6 by removing core functionality to make it faster in demos and give them another feature bulletpoint.
CS6 can import directly from a scanner.
CS6's native file format can't handle > 4GB and makes you save in a different format. No, really.
CS6 can't save image editing history, whereas Affinity can in it's native file format. Although it makes for gargantuan files, it's extremely useful in certain circumstances.
There's some plugins that won't work with Affinity that work in Photoshop. The one to export for Skyrim files, and Topaz Gigapixel don't work, however Topaz Sharpen and DeNoise work Perfectly. I was actually kinda shocked the last version (CC Trial a year or so ago) had a ton more "features", but virtually zero improvements from my perspective as a photographer. Much of the the vaunted built-in AI stuff was unusably slow and hardly worked better than their non-AI counterparts that have been around for ages like Unsharp Mask, a technique once used in darkrooms, on*gasp*film.
CC has a motion blur sharpen thing which seems like it might be useful for some people, although my results were poor.
For RAW files, I prefer neither, although I haven't worked with V2 much yet.
I VASTLY prefer Affinity's masking, and Refine... to any Photoshop product. Although CC has a new Refine... interface with AI🙄, it's really only effective on images that are already easy to mask, so it's kinda pointless. The hair/fur thing only works if everything is in perfect focus, so I guess if you make cat memes you're in heaven. If you photograph animals with a shallow DoF, Affinity works better just running the Refine... matte brush around the perimeter.
The border of the InPainting brush repair is less obvious than the over the Adobe equivalent (in my work). However, CS6 allows you to change Blend Modes. Here's why that's important: Say you've got a closeup of a dog with short white fur and it has lots of specks of dirt (or fleas), and you want to clean that up quickly . Using either program's InPainting brush works OK, but if you set CS6's brush Blend Mode to Lighten, it will only alter the dark dirt pixels -- so it's effectively self-masking. In Affinity, you either InPaint on a blank layer with its Blend Mode mode set to lighten, or bathe your dog.
Affinity's Stack Mode is simple and intuitive, whereas CS6 is clunky and takes more menu surfing to change modes, or edit a stacked image. Affinity's Stack More is almost instantaneous when Photoshop sometimes takes actual minutes to update. Same feature, better in Affinity.
I found nothing -- in either program -- that will turn what I consider an unacceptable photo into an acceptable one. From a photographer's perspective, if I could only choose one, I'd choose Affinity Photo as I find it more productive to work in overall. This is not to say that Photoshop doesn't have certain real advantages over Affinity Photo for other people, so, as always, YMMV.
In conclusion, it's really a trade-off on how the features work, rather than some bullet-list of features made by some corporate marketing guy who doesn't actually use the software.
If you need video editing, go get the free version of DaVinci Resolve, it's better than anything Adobe, anyway.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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'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.

Please see my first post, quoted above...
I didn't do a screenshot before/after my purchase, but it was there in the Full Feature List for everyone to see. I guess they (Serif team) deleted that claim when they freshened up their web page for V2.
So, guess since I can't give you proof that you will choose not to believe my word and call me a RANTer? Well, thank you and you too have a nice day 🙂
 
 
 
 
 
Too bad that Internet remembers.
The best I could find is a screenshot from Sept 24, 2022. The hopes are slim, but maybe someone has even more recent screenshot.
As I said earlier - I made a purchase solely relying on the underlined claim in the screenshot provided, since Affinity Photo is not my essential tool.

When style is prioritised over usability, users needs, are put second place, and aesthetics that are deeply connected to the egos of the stylists and graphics designers are put first. Designers who consider themselves artists feel entitled to flout usability guidelines and heuristics in order to pursue their personal preferences. The presumption of artistic integrity by designers is a common pitfall for them to meeting users' needs for clear screen design and intuitive interface navigation.
Redesigning a highly usable interface due to fashion concerns is a sure path to repeated degradation. A "new", "clean", "sleek" or "modern" look will soon look old fashioned no matter what it looks like, but its usability will not be diminished just because fashion is fickel. Marketing people probably also have a hand in insisting that interfaces need to be kept fashionable, but what do they know about interface design? Developers' time should not be wasted on fashion concerns, especially when the resulting interface ends up with lower usability than could otherwise easily be achieved with a stronger colour palette and better contrast. The Gestalt Theorists work explored in great detail the basis of how we perceive graphics. Perhaps that too has been ditched because it isn't fashionable. Human cognition isn't a fashion commodity. Please don't treat it as one. 

Is this preemptive complaining about impending whining, or premature whining about potential complaining?

Why should a new customer for a first generation product from a company that went quiet for a year (to the extent that one of the most popular threads on this forum wondered about the future of the company) be attempting to read tea leaves in pricing signals?

I had no idea that wording existed, we tried in Tech to say there was no announced date. Not that it makes any real difference but the actual date we went on sale was not decided till quite late and did move a number of times during development. Furthermore I expect that copy was 100% true when initially written. You could not possibly be expected to know any of that and your post was obviously made in good faith.
Given the date of your purchase and the date on that wayback page, please accept my apologies for not knowing that wording had been used and thus it's existence only months before the release of V2. I think your posts here have been more than fair and would like to apologize for the tone of the replies that were directed towards you by some here.

Since you disparaged my claim and I gave you proof, I expect your apology. Thank you.

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.

When I said "Saying it's impossible to correlate users with V1 purchases is dishonest." I wasn't referring to some literal, absolute, universal, fast-than-light, physical impossibility, nor was I quoting anyone. I was referring to multiple statements made in this forum, which generate the cumulative impression of impossibility. So I was summarizing/ characterizing/paraphrasing, and if taken in context with my previous paragraph, it should be clear I was referring to those who bought V1 very shortly before V2. These people are being positively vilified here, when they're simply loyal customers expecting Serif to act in good faith. But it's Serif's giant finger, they can give it to anyone they want. We already know where both their thumbs are.
And it's kind of pedantic to take issue with my use of impossible and paraphrasing, while ignoring the actual point I was making, but whateves.

Sigh. I thought it would be obvious that this wasn’t a new ‘feature request’. It was a one-off review off the first major upgrade to Affinity‘s ‘pro’ apps, pulling together a bunch of missing features that I happen to think are most important. 
Yes, these features have been requested more than once already, over many years. (I’ve linked to some of those discussions). That’s kind of the point—they were things we might have expected to be in V2, and their omission is a signal to me that Affinity’s software designers don’t rate the importance of these things highly.
If this isn’t the place for an overall review and discussion of V2 and its most glaring missing features, how about being a little constructive and telling me where the right place is? I did look at all the options, and the ‘Feedback for the Affinity V2 suite of products’ certainly seemed like the best fit.

No argument here, just saddens me that this feature is likely the most requested at this point on the forum and the devs have simply ignored us for years at this point. I absolutely love AP otherwise.

What a joke V2 is from my perspective.
Complete disinterest in allowing to edit channels and alpha separately for these game dev workflows. 
There's not event square power of two textures presets by default.
 
 

This is kind of a joke that this feature doesn't exist in an image editing software. Forget about the field you use your images, image files have channel information and that's all, in fact, we are editing. The fact that you can edit all the channels but Alpha makes no sense. There are countless uses of this in many different fields.
 
I've been trying to deliver my diploma project and really needed this feature. Despite having recommended to many people over around 2-3 years I'm using AP, I started considering quitting it altogether. It has too many down sides at this point. The excuses here are always like "Hey I never said this is a car, it just looks like a car but you can't drive it. Our audience is not drivers."

Assuming Windows, did you install it as an MSIX, or did you use the "unzip" hack?
If it's the unzip hack, this should work, but no guarantees if it FUBARs anything. It will certainly overwrite your custom brushes, etc., in all the apps. If you've never done this type of stuff before, consider creating a restore point.
Close all Affinity apps. Go to where you unzipped, and locate the folder "affinity-photo-2.0.0\App\Resources\Affinity%20Photo". (Yes, it actually has a %20 in it😖). It should be full of files like "assets.propcol", etc. Locate folder "C:\Users\<usernamehere>\.affinity\Common\2.0\user" (note the dot in .affinity, and it may be hidden). COPY the contents of folder from Step 2 into the folder from Step 3, overwriting existing files. Next time you start a V2 app, default stuff should be there for all the apps, not just Photo.
NB: While this might work with an MSIX install, you should first try uninstalling/reinstalling.