CH Trippe

Thank you!

If we do receive a suspicious email purporting to be from Affinity (I haven't, yet) --- to what email address should we report it? Should we forward the suspicious email? Thanks.

A belated thank you --- I just saw your answer to my original post.

Anyway, thanks for trying. I was hoping someone from Affinity could weigh in, in case this is a difference in V2.

I am using a MacBook Pro, M1 chip, OS Ventura. I don't know what "reacting linear" vs "scaling logarithmic' means. I don't think I've changed any preferences, but I'll have a look. None of the other brushes are behaving this way --- only the selection brush.

For the most part I am having no problems with V2, just getting used to some of the differences, but I have noticed that the selection brush tool, which I use all the time, is extremely sensitive -- much more so than I remember it being in V1. In V2, you move it only slightly to the right, it gets HUGE immediately --- kind of like a car going 0 to 60. I can work with this, but it's a bit tricky to get the brush down to a usable size, at least for my purposes, as most of my selections require only a small to medium size brush. I'm just wondering if this is a "bug," or an intentional feature. In other words the range for getting a small to medium size brush is very small indeed. Has anyone else noticed this?

The simplest solution is often the best. Letting color management do its magic --- that's exactly what I want, basically, since I devote a lot of time to getting the images to look right on the screen. But I wanted to be sure I was doing as much as I could to achieve the best appearance for my book images. I've noticed that it's usually in the dark areas of an image that they're apparently "out of gamut," but as I said, they print to my satisfaction. Only if there's a marked color shift would I think I had a bigger issue. I don't use any Adobe apps --- just Affinity Photo, and it has worked very well for me. Finally, I understood how layers worked! You've been very informative and helpful. Thanks again!

Well, folks --- thanks again for all your input --- it has certainly helped me understand this issue better than I did (which was not at all) --- but after all that , I think I am just going to stick with using BookWright's built in soft proof option. Because when I added a soft proof layer in Affinity with the default, and also with Blurb's ICC, not only did the image appear far less saturated, the gamut check showed almost ALL the saturated colors out of gamut --- but they actually printed just fine. I thought it would be instructive to check out and compare some of my earlier illustrated books --- I hadn't even heard about soft proofing yet --- in which I was using photographs of paintings, mostly oil or acrylic on paper, and even some of those colors showed up as out of gamut, but looked fine in print --- the tonal range, because it was in actual pigment, was narrower than in the composites I have been making recently --- and the color accuracy has always been excellent. So the soft proofing in Affinity may be misleading, at least for me, and I'm afraid if I start making adjustments to compensate for what the soft proof is telling me ....well, you know the old saying, If it ain't' broke don't fix it. Some of the images in my most recent books have very saturated darks. Like photographs, my composites actually don't exist outside of the computer or in the printed books, as original paintings or drawings do -- they are temporary constructions, so the only comparable image is the fully adjusted one on my computer screen. I'm thinking that with some of the areas that aren't as bright in the print, I could make additional slight curves or levels adjustments, and not try to yank the entire image and end up with who knows what.

Wow, that is a lot of good information! You know more about the Blurb ICC and how it functions than some of the customer service folks at Blurb, although they always try to be helpful. So thank you! Well, I have installed the Blurb ICC profile --- it was very easy after all --- and now it appears at the top of the soft proof list in V2. I did notice that when I add a soft proof layer, that US Web Coated SWOP profile is always the one highlighted --- but I actually had no idea what that meant. And when I added a soft proof layer with the default highlighted, the images looked less saturated --grayer overall. (This was with Absolute Colormetric checked) But they didn't print as gray. Blurb uses both sRGB and CMYK, but recommends the RGB and that's the mode my images are in. I looked at one image with the Blurb ICC profile highlighted, and the darks also looked grayer in that, similar to the way they appeared with the default profile. But before I was soft proofing anything, making no further adjustments to my images, and using only BookWright's soft proof option, the darks were plenty dark enough, and to my eye, in the printed images. In other words, a little more contrast. But the colors were plenty saturated. BookWright offers an auto-correct for images, but I never use it because it unvariably overexposures them, and I lose the subtle gradations in tone that I work pretty hard to achieve. I've watched some tutorials, so I know I should have the soft proof adjustment layer at the top of the stack, and to turn off the adjustment layer before exporting the image. As my images are multilayered, not every layer needs adjustment. It's the background layers that influence the darkness/brightness of the composite image. For my background layer I now start with a new file and flood fill that layer to a chosen color that will influence some of the other transparent layers. If it needs changing I'll do that with the HSL adjustment. All other layers are pngs, some of which are also constructed out of multiple parts as a new file on a transparent ground. Anyway, thanks again for all that information! All good to know, especially when you're totally in the dark about terminology and such. I might just experiment a bit with some of your suggestions. But then, I don't want to fool around too much and end up worse than before, since it's pricey to get a proof printed, and Ido spend a lot of time and a fair amount of $ getting things right.

Thanks to both of you, Richard MH and PrintMonkey. I have the 2021 14" MacBook Pro with an M1 chip, so yes, I have retina display. The monitor is fine. Don't know if screen is calibrated, but I'm not quite tech-y enough to get into that. The color in my printed BookWright books is actually almost always spot-on. If I didn't compare them with the screen images I probably wouldn't notice a difference, as it is slight. I do use Blurb's soft proof option-- it's just that the printed images are a little less brilliant, as compared with the screen images, and I am aware that some dulling down can occur with images on paper. I always order a "proof" copy of a new book. Over the years I've been using Blurb/BookWright, I have been satisfied with the results. But I'm always seeking to learn and improve my technique, even though I'm not a professional. Now that I use and enjoy Affinity pretty much every day I, I try to expand my knowledge of its capabilities little by little. Again, thanks to both of your for sharing your knowledge. I think I'll just try to download that ICC profile and see what happens.

Actually I did find the ICC color profile they use on their website. It's GRACol200. It's not in Affinity's soft proof list even on V2. Blurb has a video that shows how to install it on a Mac, but I had been told in an earlier request that Affinity doesn't support this profile, although Photoshop does. BookWright, their software, does have a soft proof option, and it works quite well --- colors in my books are accurate, but even though I make careful adjustments to my images (which are not actually photographs but multi- layered composites incorporating painted cutouts, fabric & various other objects with digital effects) I find that the printed images are slightly less brilliant than they appear on the screen. On a Mac you have to install the Blurb ICC color profile manually. I'm not sure how it then gets into Affinity, or if it will work. Thanks for your response. I didn't see it earlier! Caroline

I've just watched (twice) a video tutorial on soft proofing in Affinity, and it's quite thorough, but one thing isn't clear to me . in the Proof Profile list I see the profile of my image from the workspace menu bar, and it appears that's the profile I'm supposed to select to do a soft proof, but the instructor in the video is also talking about choosing a paper type from that list, but in that case, I don't know what I should select. For some time I have been publishing books with Blurb (BookWright), using their standard (classic) smooth semi-matte paper, and for the most part I am pleased with the results, but thought I should know a little more about soft proofing and checking for out-of-gamut colors. Can anyone clarify this for me? Thank you!

👍 It worked! Thanks again, Murfee!

. I usually just put it to sleep at night, so I haven't actually restarted it since installing V2. (I have the 2021 model with M1 chip). Thanks Murfee! ! I'll try that.

When I saved an Affinity Photo in V1 in af format to my desktop, where I keep the af photos in labelled folders so that I can go back and edit the layers, it appeared in image form, so I could tell which file was which without necessarily having to name or rename it. The af Photos saved from V2 to my desktop show up only with the Affinity logo, so if I haven't named a file I can't tell what it is until I open it again. This is of course only a problem if I have more than one of these on the desktop, and I usually do. This is a minor inconvenience, but I actually preferred the "old" way, as I don't always name my files until later. The jpg and png images, unless the pngs are also saved as pf files, which I sometimes do for editing purposes, still appear as images. (These are the ones I eventually save to Photos on my Mac). This is one of the main differences I'm noticing between V1 and V2. So far I don't have any other issues with V2, although I am keeping V1 for the time being.

I have been using Affinity Photo pretty much since its inception, but only in the last couple years have I used it for more complex, layers compositions, so that I've gradually gotten to understand more of what it can do, and I love it. I now use it nearly every day, so I have switched to V2, not because V1 didn't work very well for me, but because I don't want to miss out on future upgrades. I will probably keep V1 just in case there are problems. I do understand that V2 documents won't open in V1, but if I were to create future documents in V1, I could work on them later in V2. It seems like a pretty good compromise. I don't yet know how much better V2 will be than V1, for my purposes, but after using it for only a day or two, since V2 JUST came out, it would be difficult for me to complain. I do know that major upgrades sometimes change the appearance of things, which can be a bit disconcerting, and that's something you have to get used to.Some things do look different in V2 --- they are placed a bit differently, the icons are different, etc .A little patience is required, and if you are really a dedicated user, you can figure it out. Or ask a question on the forum, or watch one of the many tutorials. And real glitches do get fixed. I have been using Affinity long enough (I don't consider myself an expert -- I'm somewhere in the "intermediate" category of user probably) to be aware of how much better it has gotten over the years. So I am really looking forwarding to marching onwards with V2.

Now that I have installed and begun using V2, how do I remove V1? Apparently I can't just drag it to the Trash ? I'm running MAC OS Ventura.

Thank you Old Bruce. I pulled it out of the dock, then I was able to move it from the finder into the trash and delete it. Probably could have done that first. I just wasn't sure. Caroline

Now that I no longer need Affinity Photo Beta, (on Mac OS ), and it's no longer operable, how do I get rid of it? Its icon does not appear anywhere in my applications folder. The download icon is still in the Finder. I put that icon into the trash, but it still showed up in the dock. Double clicking on the AF Beta icon doesn't show any option for moving it to the trash or to uninstall it. Anyone?

Thank you, Walt! I think at one point I was receiving notifications, but maybe not since I changed my email address over a year ago. Glad you reminded me. 👍

Thank you, RC-R. Good to know. I am back to using the "default" version of Affinity which is fine --- but of course I hadn't realized there was an update which resolved certain issues, so I was continuing to use the Beta. Now I don't need it anyway!

Apparently I can't use the Beta release at all anymore --- it won't even open -- when I tried it asked for a product code which I don't have, even though my account shows I was registered for the Beta. Paul, on this forum, said the Beta has probably expired ? ( I didn't know., because I was using it regularly up until this morning). Of course if the "issues" with Affinity have been fixed, then there's not really a problem. I did try to import one of the brushes into Affinity, but Affinity Beta didn't even show up as an option. At least I didn't see it. Anyway, it's not a huge deal. There were only a few "new" brushes, and I've already re-created one of them. I'm very happy to say that the affected features in Affinity Photo seem to be working smoothly now --- at least the selection brush tool is working the way it's supposed to, quickly and cleanly, so I'm assuming that issue has been resolved. Haven't tried the gradient color selection or the overlay color choices yet.

In fact, I do indeed have the original retail version of Affinity, which I purchased, heaven knows how long ago, from the Mac App Store, which allowed me to install Affinity Beta. I wasn't aware that the original version had updated --- I am currently running 1.10.5 --- but I did notice that it seemed to open more quickly this time --- slow opening was one of the issues. Hope everything else works well. I did create a few new image brushes in Affinity Beta, so I'm not sure if I will be able to import them, but in any case, I still have the PNGS from which I made them, so I can re-create them.

Thanks Paul. I didn't realize that was the case. Has Affinity Photo (the current version) been updated to improve its performance with Mac OS ? The Beta version was working very well with some of the features that had slowed down because of "coding problems.' These issues have been discussed on this forum. The selection brush (for removing an object from its background) was one of the tools that had become very slow to use. Also the gradient tool -- color selection was slow.