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Anyway, I made clear that I have no issues with the fact of reporting a bug (how could I), not even pointing out a better UI or workflow approach (as we all win from better ways built into the apps). But the fact is that those users are neither going by the book, neither solely reporting the bug, (which is reported enough!) but using a certain tone (with some very extreme cases), and repeating something largely detected and about what the devs are clearly very aware of. So, that'd be neither the place for that (but a subreddit of that nature, too). Reporting a bug or questionable workflow is the right thing to do, I've said it since the beginning. I've done so with a bunch of matters for Affinity apps, since years. In the other side, If the speech is open, as it seems, and one is not breaking any rule, provided the complainers aren't going by the book, in any way, then randomly determining who can post and in what direction, I will not say is an attempt for censorship (but dangerously close), but when everyone and their dog has gone far from limiting to reporting a bug once, and the devs being aware of it... it is then more of a wish to silence other views, while the fact is that everybody is just chatting, not strictly reporting bugs in the way they should. In other way to view it, I have contributed with the mentioned workarounds in other threads (not in this one, I only mentioned that there tend to be workarounds for each issue), and been clearly rewarded with a big and sometimes effusive "thank you", as often what really counts is what saves the day of the professional or advanced hobbyist. So, besides that I probably do give more value to workarounds, as is the abc of professional activity (nothing is ever perfect, neither will be, in evolving markets/fields) and that these threads end up with everyone going off topic -the complainers and those who aren't- , there is the fact that in other occasions, suggesting a certain workaround has been loved by the complaining user, even if no matter what, will be still requesting at the end the feature or fix with the same intensity (but with the current prob solved). Those temporary solutions would never neglect the need of fixing something that is incorrect, when it is. But will help in getting the work done, and in keeping the absolutely essential versatility or flexibility of using this suite as an option to Adobe's or Corel's. It might also give a better motivation to devs to actually fix whatever it is (for positive association), than the dead horse beating, IMO.

Your machine is really good. Yet... I don't have the lag....I have wacom, a classic, no screen, but other users with XPs don't have a lag, it seems. Something going on. I have noticed (but my machine is very low, in the extreme lower limit, in yours it might not count, at all) that brushes (besides, due to my machine, never working well with larger brushes than 300 / 400px) with (double click on a brush to change these settings) too low value of spacing, or hardness set to zero or low value (that is, max smoothness on contours) , or, heavy brush textures (in my crapPC... any textured brush diminishes performance), I've noticed all that can affect lag. A so called "round basic" (for some reason it best works starting from that one) brush, no texture, generous dots-spacing value, higher hardness value, is *way* more performing than the fancy brushes. Of course, it shouldn't be so (but one shouldn't be running Photo with a 11 year old machine) . Not being right now able to visualize how would be a 2ms lag ...I have never measured that. Then, leave it ON...seems is way more accurate with it, for brushes and lasso selection tool. Is it me, or this was in another thread, with more posts and a video?...or maybe is from another user....

You might have a point there. I dunno, I'm quite nerdy with apps, I tend to research a lot (not really for the purchase being the issue, but the actual addition as another tool more in my apps arsenal, to use in my projects. Much more important than the 50 bucks. Not talking about testing for curiosity, but integrating it with my workflows). I do the same with hardware. But I really can't extend that as the best habit for everyone. Even more, I wasn't implying that I'd know every bug with anticipation. Who could know that, not even the devs. I see in almost every complaint asking for a refund, tho, that I did look deeper, quite more, before deciding, than a lot of the complainers. I'm used to find workarounds for any workflow issue, certain jobs required it. Is funny, but is not like Adobe apps haven't been full of bugs, issues, and super counter intuitive and even slow workflows, and lacking essential features. And we handled all those, I just believe we're not being so aware of that now, as we are about finding the issues in the new apps . Which itself is amazingly positive, btw. I'm only against the attitude/tone towards Serif, and also considering the only solution possible to wait for the devs fixing (or adding) x or y, while at every place I've worked at, in IT, it's about oneself saving the day (as in u need the stuff at 15:00, not for even the next week), no time for waiting for the cavalry. But I am definitely in favor of the detection of the bugs and/or kindly pointing out (once) sub optimal workflows, when it's really really the case. I found issues in XSI 4 Foundation after putting the 500 bucks for it, issues in Deep Paint 3D (due to crazy shipping costs, it ended as expensive as 1200 euros, if I remember well)..Handled all the issues in my own, within the apps, or I/O to get the function in companion tools. My main issue is both companies did sink (and happened to a bunch of other applications), company closed, or acquired to be sunk. This of Affinity is a very rare case of a set of apps with a very low price still counting on deep, high end functionality. That then you get unpolished corners that become smoother with the free updates (often after a long time as there's really few coding hands) that's imo expected due to the company's size and the price paid (the 'you got what you paid for' thing). A lot in going beyond that is imo beating a dead horse, as clearly they can't go faster neither re-structure things or code base that easily.

My gosh

One note: It's a bit irrelevant for the topic, but to clarify what I meant a bit, 12.000 x 12000 px is not enough for several of my paintings, but the limit is my hardware to paint fluidly (not Affinity Photo). I indeed needed larger resolution in a pair of projects, where I used other apps that are extremely optimized for painting (specially large canvases), but I of course did not hit any Photo's software limit in pixel dimensions. ( Ehm....also not too relevant, but I would never enlarge any of my paintings, for certain solid reasons, although that goes with each one's personal taste (indeed I usually paint at 2x of the pretended printed output size in pixel dimensions, or even 5x, then reduce. The print almost always in 300 dpi; very large canvases or posters, in some cases 200 dpi. Some cloth printing could go till 150 dpi. Of course the dpi requested does affect the size in pixels, obviously). ) I don't use the iPad for anything, sorry if I derailed out of the iOS matter, thinking mostly in desktop PCs. It was tricky, but I just found one of the threads about this. Not sure if there's one more recent, but I totally remember a much more detailed one, I just seem not able to find it in some minutes, sorry. I think Matt or Mark gave a much more detailed explanation about it, but I'm terrible with the forum's search tool... Also, unsure if this is the current situation... several updates have happened since January 2018, so, no idea if these limits are yet current. They could be as is surely quite a structural thing, but who knows other than the devs. But I am not totally sure if I understand fully which is the information you are after. In the below more than one year old thread, is asked for both iPad and Mac size limits, but is answered with a single number. Not sure if is the same for both desktop and iOS, or the answer was actually for the Mac and Windows, so, desktop versions. Anyway, would an iPad, with 8 gb RAM only, handle that kind of size? https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/53041-image-file-size-and-resolution-limit/ At least it gives you a minimum (if really applies to iOS). It could be that now is larger, but I doubt it'd get to become a lower number.

You had ten days to taste the cake.... Which BTW, it's a minimal part of what any pro does before deciding to purchase a tool or, more importantly (as said, 50 bucks go nowhere), decide to move the workflows to said tool : Research on forums, feedback from other pros, etc. And definitely, do at least your main workflows (and seems this particular feature was crucial to a bunch of you) with the trial, previous to purchasing.

Some of us illustrate by actually doing digital painting. This is faster and less cumbersome to do in raster programs (like Photoshop, Corel Painter, Clip Studio Paint, Photo, Rebelle 3, etc). Digital painting is easier, faster and more flexible in raster apps. Some illustrators are more vectors oriented, and then would use Designer. Photo is fine for digital painting, tho would quite need certain basic improvements (improving the core stuff, not adding features, and nothing fancy). The illustrators, digital painters, comic artists, and a huge etc that have always used Photoshop (raster, very similar to Photo)... " we are legion", you know... , obviously will prefer Photo for this. Seriously, in all companies I worked at, game concept artists (extremely similar to illustration) would be using PS, 9 out of 10. Tons of other illustrators I know do use Photoshop. And those who don't, it's Corel Painter, which is also raster. And well, the vector oriented... yup, they are attached to Illustrator or Corel Draw. But yeah, it's quite 'usable' for it, too, not just for Photography. Simple as that.

I'm not into the Apple's world (tho made some research about mac minis as my sister insisted in getting a Mac instead of a PC -until I convinced her- ) but an intel processor from 2012 or 2011 is quite an old processor. Still, tons faster than a core2duo. The OS is very different, but the intel chips are the ones we know from the PC world. Yep, you should notice quite a difference. I think there were issues to run Mojave and Catalina with non metal gpus, but it seems there's an unofficial patch or something. Officially at least, seems one should get the mac mini supporting metal (2012 or +). In Apple's site seems not easy to get further info about the specific intel models used. It seems you can opt for more expensive configs -paying crazy differences, I guess, as usual- , and I see that while 2011 uses 2nd gen of the intel core series (core i5, i7 etc), and those series where way more powerful than a core2duo, a lot of the default configs are only dual cores. You may be able to opt for a quad core, in the 2012. For the other one, the optional i7-2620M is actually a dual core. 2011 is sandy bridge, the second gen, the 2012 is 3rd gen. Not that there was a lot of difference in performance, not as much as between Sandy bridge and the first generation (my cpu). I'd definitely not pick the 2.3 GHz option, but the 2.6 one in the 2012, if possible. I'd try to put a ssd but surely also upgrade (there's an upgrade option that gives you both) the HD to be 7200 rpm, is much faster than a 5400 rpm HDD. And is cheap storage. Dunno, maybe then the price gets crazy. Is a matter fo checking. Unless someone actually knowing about macs (not me, LOL) tells you other things, at least on paper, about the hardware and due to that OS thing, I'd go for the 2012, but would try to put the max options possible, unless it reaches so a price that then you'd better get you just a current mac mini, which, judging only the hardware specs, seems a ton better (the 2018 one could get even an i7 8700 - "ish" optional, which is quite a beast in comparison). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_Mini#Specifications_3 Also, again, dunno a freaking cr4p about Mac, but seems to me that (the "better" card in the 2011) 256 MB of video memory to be quite limited (ie, for GPU 3D rendering or even basic video rendering, if GPU based) They're telling you that 4 cores and around 3.5 ghz would be recommended. If it is possible for you to get the 2012 one with the option of 2.6 GHz (3.6 GHz) with the i7-3720QM cpu, instead of the default, and does not get too crazy in price, that's perhaps the best path. As is a 4 cores / 8 threads model, runs at 2.6 Ghz base, 3.6 turbo. Definitely quite much faster than your current core2duo. Faster and more cores, (also, the model I just detailed, has 6mb of cache L3, all the others have 3) , that should be better for Affinity. Also is more modern cpu tech, always while all of this is pretty arcane. But the mac mini is a good offer, the only kind of thing I'd buy in Apple's world, as for its ratio of hardware/price. In PC you get quite better deals and way more variety/freedom, but the mac minis ones are closer to those deals.

The problem is more, IMO, in the iPad than in Photo. Metal and 8 gb RAM only can't get you quite far. Indeed, if anything, Photo allows larger res than for example, Procreate. The trick to allow this, Serif will know. But surely hitting the limit of what Metal and the 8Gb allow will possibly mean, even in Photo, to work slowly... In the desktop, I have been handling a pretty large canvas... I didn't reach more because... well, look at my machine in my sig, lol, is 11 years old. I believe my limit (I'm a painter / illustrator) of ok performance, as, painting with no lags, was around 12000 - 17000 pixels wide (in a typical rectangular canvas, sorry, can't remember the heights) with Photo in the desktop (PC, Windows 7). But that's also as I really can't stand a non fluid or laggy brush, and as my machine is surely lower than a lowest performance "U" series laptop of today, so, utter crap of a machine. At 12k px wide canvas, I can paint fine, and that's not bad at all. I do most of my paintings on other tools that allow me to handle around 20k x20k px, but have heard quite some cases around of people using 25x25k pixels images and larger, for photo editing. In iOS, no idea. But from what I have heard, it can at least load larger images than Procreate. So, can't answer properly, somebody else will. But my bet is on the first limit to encounter is not in the Photo app, but on iOS's software limitation (in Metal, I guess), conditioned indeed for the ram available on an iPad pro (not sure how it handles the memory for GPU, what it takes from the main ram and all that. I only know the limits in iOS and Procreate where around 16k x 8k (or combinations of the kind) or something like that, and read from several people that Photo can go beyond that limit (I don't have an iPad), somehow, but till some point, as the prob is the hardware, there. In the desktop... I don't see the max limit by software being small. PS has maybe a larger size limit, currently. I say it because I believe this has been answered already, by the devs and If I remember well, they specified in that thread the software limit in Photo, and I believe it was below PS's (they also provided with that detail) but still darn large. I believe I have made tests in my crappy machine with 20x20k px images, not for painting, but for editing, and I was able to handle it... somehow (again, I blame my pc). As I said, someone might answer more accurately.

It sounds like a matter of properly handling the color profiles. Similar cases/threads ended in resolved by digging on that. Like, which profile do you have as work profile in PS, and which are you having in Affinity, etc. For example, you could be using Adobe RGB in settings in PS, but sRGB (I think it's actually the default) in Photo.

He (probably) means that for a professional, confronting the world is actually using the tool that really solves your problem. If it is not Affinity, and/or if the staff and company resources are too small to do things like you wish they would (the real problem here, besides considering the value of your own money is worth *1000 of what it really is in our economy), then, Adobe it is, or should be. Full stop. Unless the tiny money (for a super high end professional of unlimited skills and experience) per month is not actually that ...tiny. The "on the run" thing... Is not more valiant he who complains more often. Just more noisy. The "because I am a customer I have the extra rights for this or that", given the ridiculous quantity (single payment, too, and you had your trial to realize if u wanted the product or not, AS IS (as was)) of money we're talking about (indeed a little more than an actual dinner in a cheapo place), would make actually some sense if you were paying 50 bucks a month. Not a single payment for a perpetual license. So, there's no base for claiming extra rights over a closed (no perpetual support service) , super cheap product, neither a base for claiming to be more professional staying around the forums of a set of tools that -according to what is said- do not accomplish what you professionally need, and definitely, neither to claim to be someone who confronts more the world or reality than others (which you don't have a way to know for sure in any case), as doing exactly that would mean just realizing what really 50 bucks equals in value in our current (first) world, and as a consequence, being the only mature/practical/professional/smart decision to stick to the tools (Adobe, Corel, whatever) that really solve your professional needs at the moment. Lol, what tears... maybe what you heard was laughter....

Jim, your first paragraph are my exact thoughts and almost identical experience (yep, I do use the two colors+tolerance+etc trick in Inskcape a lot, when using its autotracer...better said, Potrace). About the plugins, I don't need it, but no idea when/if that would be added. It seems a quite heavy structural change, compared to adding a particular feature. I have mixed feelings with plugins. Sometimes add essential functionality (heck, Character Studio in Max was a plugin...CAT was another, quite later, thousands better, and the major reason for some (rare, mostly TV shows, at least in my area) animators not to leave Max, at certain time). Other times (specially among the not very experienced) a badly implemented plugin (happens often) gives bad name and instability to an entire app. I'm not against it, though. Here are threads around this of adding Astute, and was addressed/answered.

...or ... as If I'd have gone to a friend's birthday party, brought just one single beer to "contribute", had ate all the freaking cakes, drunk all the beverages, ruined the couch with wine (actually did that...twice.. in real life.. and still got forgiven...), dance until midnight, had tons of fun, and then get immensely mad because I wanted, just for closing and going home, "coconut milkshake", not "pineapple juice"... freaking bastards... unbearable.

In Windows works great, but one is not 100% safe on an eventual hang from time to time (it was way worse in the past). I can live with that, tho. At game companies I had to use pre-pre-alpha "things" as my everyday tools (in-house level editors, other utilities, etc)... The several crashes in Inkscape, though, I typically learn which are the triggers, only having those crashes when I forget to avoid the triggers.

To get an in-depth conclusion, I'd at least give it a full month of heavy training (at least 3 hours per day).