dotlyc

Once again, thanks for the detailed information. Since I wrote my last comment, I've had a chance to use Affinity to process images on my new M1 computer more intensively than I had before. I'm in awe of how fast everything is working compared to my 2014 computer. Topaz Denoise renders my images in a few seconds instead of several minutes. 😃

Hi, Dan: Thanks for answering my question in such detail. Almost everything was at the settings you recommended. I did reduce the RAM limit to 16384 MB, but I don't understand exactly what effect reducing the RAM limit like this has on performance. I presume it would improve it? I'm also not sure where to set the Disk Usage Warning. I've left it at 32768 MB for now, but I have 2 TB on my computer. Would it improve performance to increase or decrease that number? What would you recommend? Thanks, Lydia

I just purchased a Mac Mini M1 computer. I'd like to know if I should change the Affinity Photo performance settings in the preferences, specifically the RAM usage limit and the disk usage warning. I think they're set to the defaults -- 56320 MB for the RAM usage and 32768 MB for the disk usage warning. My ancient 2014 Mini struggled to keep up with AP so I'm looking forward to a much faster performance on the M1 but I'm wondering if adjusting these settings would make a difference. Thanks for any advice.

Thanks for responding to my question. Now I can stop trying to achieve the impossible. 🙂

I've been making some changes to my tools panel using Customize Tools but I've run into a couple of issues. I haven't been able to do the following things and haven't been able to find anything in the help files or the forums that addresses them. 1) Can I create my own customized group of tools with a drop-down menu? It seems that only the supplied groups can be moved onto the Tools panel. 2) Can I add or remove a tool from the supplied groups of tools? There are some frequently-used individual tools inside the groups that I prefer having out on the panel by themselves. I know I can drag the single tool onto the panel but I can't find a way to remove that same tool from the group it's in. 3) can tools that are not already in a given group be moved into that group? 4) can tools be moved up and down within the group? Based on my research and experimentation so far, I'm guessing that the answer to all these questions is no -- but I'd like to know if I'm missed some magic trick.

Ron: Thanks so much for this response. This solved my problem. I wasn't even aware of that function within the Account setting in the app.

I've been trying to install the four sets of Paper Farms overlays in the asset panel on Affinity Photo 1.9.3. but I've only been able to load the fog overlays. I did this by clicking on a file called "environmental overlays.afassets" that's in a folder on my computer. This file does not load the other three sets of overlays (rain, rainbow, snow) and I can't find any other .afassets files on my computer. Did I somehow miss downloading other files that I need and, if so, how do I get them? I'm using MacOS 10.14.6 Thanks for any assistance.

I'm not sure what version of the Nik plugins I have (I did pay for them before they were released free) but I'm getting the "fonts updating" bug too. I don't want to pay for a new batch of plugins when they work fine in AF 1.6.7, so I'm going back there.

I found an easy workaround. I found the macro file (My Macros.afmacros) that I saved in the finder and double clicked it. It opened in Affinity 1.7 and the macro library was reinstated. The same works for my custom brushes. However, I'm reverting to 1.6.7 because of the problem with Nik plugins. The above technique also worked to reinstate the brushes and macros in 1.6.7.

Thanks for reminding of this. I actually have the Topaz suite of plug-ins but when I first got Affinty Photo, there was a problem getting AP to recognize them and I forgot about them. I just tried installing all the plug-ins and most of them work, including Simplify. These provide more than enough options for my needs. You just saved me a lot of time and expense. :-)

toltec: Thanks for the references. I should have specified I'm working on a Mac. It looks like DAP is Windows only. I'll check out the online options but I'm leaning more toward something I can use on my own computer.

I'm interested in finding out if there are any digital art plug-ins that work with Affinity Photo. I don't need anything too fancy but I'd be interested in plug-ins with filters that can create and customize a variety of "painterly" looks from photos. If there's nothing that will do this as a plug-in, I'd be interested in recommendations for stand-alone programs that could be applied after an image is processed in Affinity and exported to a TIFF or PNG file.

I’m using the new Affinity Photo 1.5.1 on Mac OSX. I’ve been having some issues with the new macro feature and would appreciate some feedback. I created a macro to resize images to a standard format that I use on my web site. These are the steps: 1) Select Resize Document (opt-cmd I) 2) DPI: 150 3) Resample: Lanczos 3 (separable) 4) Size: 800 px (horizontal) 5) reduce the resulting image to view it at 100% on the screen (select Z on the keyboard, then Opt-click to reduce the size to 100%) Based on the results, I think the macro is not recording step 3 and is instead using the default setting “Bilinear” to resample the image. This produces a resized image that is not as sharp as one created using the "Lanczos 3 separable" setting. In the Export Persona, I have a preset that specifies Lanczos 3 (separable) as the resample method but, despite this, the images that were resampled in the Photo Persona using the macro are not as sharp as those resampled manually using Lanczos 3 separable. In addition, I found it impossible to get the macro to record Step 5 at all. Does it not record some keyboard commands or mouse clicks? On a related point, why does the resize box in the Photo Persona always default to Bilinear? I almost always use Lanczos 3 (separable) so it's tedious having to change this every time. That's why I created a macro in the first place (which, in fact, doesn't appear to make this change.) Is there any way to set Lanczos 3 separable as my default or at least have AP remember the last setting used? If not, adding either or both features to AP would be a big help. And one more macro puzzle: I created a macro to sharpen the resized images before exporting them to be saved as JPGs. The macro is designed to present the settings for Radius and Factor so they can be adjusted. However, the default number for the Radius is often not the one I entered into the macro -- it changes depending on the size of the image. For example, if I resize the image to the 800 px width, I get 0.4 px for the sharpening radius (the default number I entered). If I resize the image to 600 px width, I get 0.3 px for the radius. If I resize the image to 2000 px width, I get 1 px for the radius. There’s clearly some link between the radius setting offered by the macro and the width of the image in pixels, but I’m not sure why it would do this if I’ve given it a particular default radius while creating the macro. Is this the way it's supposed to work? The Unsharp Mask Filter doesn't do this (radius always defaults to 0). Any help with these issues would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for this information. Now that the App Store version is out, I plan to download it so I'll do what you suggested to preserve V. 1.4. I have another question -- once I download V. 1.5 will it "take over" all the AP preferences in the user preferences folder? I'm thinking I should make copies of those too and separate them from the user preferences folder so I can restore my ability to use V1.4 as before.

I'm going to wait until V1.5 is in Apple's app store. When I download this new version, will it overwrite/update my current app store 1.4 version? I'd prefer to keep the earlier version operational until I'm sure the new version is working for me. I know the beta versions can co-exist with the app store versions, but can/do the official app store updates do this as well? If not, how can I preserve my ability to use the earlier version until I'm sure about the new one?