chip2

Blender's gamma works the same way as Resolve btw. (left = darker, right = brighter): So 1.0 is normal, 1.3 is "slightly pale" and 0.7 is "darker than usual". So yes, I might be swimming against a strong tide (great way of putting it!), but sometimes I think it's healthy to revise one's own habits. Especially if they're causing confusion for people who don't yet have any habits at all. I'm also not here to dictate how things should be... I just wanted to bring up the topic in case it was not an intentional design.

I understand the math. This thread isn't about math. Obviously, gamma isn't the same as "brightness" or "contrast", but it does make the image brighter or darker. And this is where I think it makes sense to have it behave in a way that resembles a brightness control: That increasing means "brighter" and decreasing means "darker". I'm not talking what is correct or wrong, but what feels correct or wrong to normal non-technical people.

In Affinity Photo 2.3.0 in the Levels dialog, the "Gamma" slider feels inverted to me: Turning it up (right direction) makes the image darker. Somehow I feel it more intuitive that increasing it should result in a brighter image. I'm sure there's some mathematical reasoning behind it, but it feels odd to me. Does anyone else feel that it would be more logic if it were the other way around?

Personally I usually think of scripting and plugin API as two different things: 1) "Plugins" deal with calculation intensitive tasks like blur, sharpen, color manipulations and similar things that require pixel-by-pixel calculations. This is CPU intensitive and might even be able to utilize GPUs. Plugins are typically written in low level programming languages like C++ or GPU shader languages which are fairly difficult to learn. (Skill level: Expert) 2) "Scripting" means calling existing functionality from an easy-to-learn high level programming languages like javascript or LUA. Such scripts don't need to run very fast, as they're not doing heavy calculations. (Skill level: Mediocre) I think Affinity Photo should offer both. But am I right in assuming that this thread is about point 1 (plugins) rather than 2 (scripting)?