dmstraker

"Save failed because ownership of the file could not be verified." Plus the delightful "The document must now be closed" (with no chance of saving). Boom. Fortunately when I reopened it, it recovered where I was. Got me going for a moment there, chaps.

Well done and thank you to everyone at Serif for a momentous 2022. Please do have a splendid Christmas and New Year break, and try not to think about work too often (difficult, I know). As we say in Wales, Nadolig Llawen a Blwyddyn Newydd Dda (Merry Christmas and Happy New Year).

Looks like it's Windows-specific. Attached is what I saw after loading the Luminosity mask OK.afphoto file to 2.0.3. Thanks for checking on Mac.

Can't remember if I submitted these (also not found on search here, and beta database unavailable): As in attached and starting with gradient layer, black to white along x-axis. Add Luminosity Range Mask and adjust nodes as shown. When curve hits top or bottom edge of adjustment square, the effect is sudden, unexpected and presumably incorrect. Also when blur is increase, an edge effect around the periphery of the image is seen, much as would be found using a Gaussian Blur. It looks like a 'Preserve Alpha' checkbox is needed.

So I did a quick video for folks who might be confused (as I was).

No, but that doesn't stop it being a usability defect, as per notes above.

One last note, and perhaps something that Serif can address. In the Gradient colour panel, when you reduce opacity, the colour as displayed decreases to grey. But if the colour is still being used (as it is) in creating the gradient, then perhaps the colour should remain, hence giving some indication that you are going to still get the colour within the gradient. Image attached.

Understood and accepted. There's also the psychology of perception to consider. Looking at the red-with-zero-alpha node in the gradient panel or on screen, it appears to be transparent node. Yes, showing it as 'red with zero alpha' could be tricky. But cognition is often based on simple visual cues more than an examination of further panel data. And so (as with me), it is easy to assume that what is seen is all there is. This is what, in my development/QA/HF days we would have designated a 'usability defect'. There is clear logic in why it is what it is, but nevertheless it is experienced as a confusing difficulty. What the solution is here, I don't know. Nor is it a hill on which I plan to expire. I'll leave it to the good people in Serif to figure what to do about it.

This makes sense. And yet by setting the opacity to zero, you can also argue that the gradient is from black to no colour. Hmm.

Draw a rectangle shape. Draw a gradient, black to red, across it. Gradient colour, select red end and reduce opacity to zero. You can still see red in the gradient, even though the red opacity is zero. Fix is to change red node to black (or whatever the other node colour is.

Being able to increment values with the mouse wheel in number boxes (often next to sliders) is wonderful, and the use of Ctrl and Shift for smaller and larger change is brilliant! However, only the left Ctrl works for the small increment function. The right Ctrl does nothing. This may seem like small beer, and for right-handed people who hold the mouse in their right hand, using the left Ctrl is natural. However, for left handed people this necessitates an awkward, cross-body stretch to perform this maneuvre. Many of the increasing number of creative people who use Affinity are lefties, which adds further to the priority of implementing what seems likely to be a trivial fix. Thank you.

I added a layer states panel, then a couple of states, then a smart state. Scrolled down to change something, eg Layer Name. Clicking on the checkbox results in an immediate scroll of panel back to top. I have to re-scroll down to see that the checkbox is indeed checked, and that I can enter values.

There's been something of a gap since the last update was issued. To me, this suggests either that Serif are in financial difficulty (hope not!!) or are gearing up for the release of Version 2.0 (very much hope so!). I bought Affinity Photo in 2017 and have happily received updates since then, while trying to do my part in supporting the product through 800+ videos in the InAffinity YouTube channel. It does seem time for a whole-version update, though what new features might appear I can only guess. For me, it's already the best photo editing software out there. Whatever, thanks and good luck to you smart Serif folks!

It would be neat to have a Wiki for Affinity products. Start it off using current Help system, then let users extend it. As with Wikipedia, encourage a community of experts to sustain it

Don't know if it is the right place, but I posted a note about money as below. It seems an important topic, so I've dropped a link in here, if that's ok.