dmstraker
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Posts posted by dmstraker
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18 minutes ago, haakoo said:
That's why Serif doesn't have a roadmap anymore and why they don't reply in feature requests.
When working in strategy, our planning horizon went from ten years to five to two to one... In a dynamic, hypercompetitive marketplace, strength can be beaten by speed and we worked on such as 'inertialessness' to sustain our ability to respond to the pressures of all stakeholders, including customers, competitors, partners and shareholders. This meant getting closer to all of them and developing competencies to up our game on all fronts.
I understand not publishing a roadmap, yet there surely must be plans of some kind, even if the longer term is simply the directionality of intent or vision. In such schemes focus, flexibility and speed are essential.
The current Covid context has caused many rethinks, especially in lean value chains where single supplier limitations can break the whole operation. Words like resilience and robustness are making a comeback.
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55 minutes ago, Jowday said:
In short our own products improved significantly after we got our own user experience designers - not just hiring consultants. They OWN the user interface and a they carry lot of product knowledge and user knowledge that they use in their work. The will invite users to tests and workshops when needed. They work on this full time. Because this is how it is done in 2020.
And.. it is not a new idea...
Interesting story, including that it was psychologists who found the usability defect. In the quality field, there's an approach called 'Poka yoke', which means 'mistake-proofing', plus a whole psychology of error, eg in Reasons' work. It's impressive that you've hired UX pros and shows a true appreciation of its importance.
In my career I drifted from tech to psychology, partly because that's where most problems happen and partly because it appealed to my engineer's determination to get to the root of things. It's a field which has developed hugely over the past half century, going from such as rats in a maze to a business essential.
The marketing equivalent of UX-led design is branding, where how your customers think and feel about you, both in experience and recall, drives plans and actions. Again, it is often misunderstood and underestimated. This is a bridge where tech and marketing people can meet. I worked on both sides of the chasm and sometimes wonder how wide the gap remains.
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21 hours ago, haakoo said:
Serif stated that it is not a democracy and of course they are not open source developers.
Who get's to decide and what?
The hard screamers that are in the front row?
The nerdies that like to have every tool in the book?
Focussing on what? vector? image manipulation? layout? dtp?
It depends on everyone's individual needs.
Therefor a trial within beta testing is a bad idea.Good questions, though non sequitur.
The same question faces all product developers, software and otherwise. In Fred Brooks' famous Mythical Man Month, he talks about the Chief Surgeon approach, perhaps now called Chief Architect or somesuch. One person who holds together the vision, structure and method. This is often needs a loose-tight balancing approach, where integrity and progress is maintained alongside the ability to listen, experiment and explore.
The successful Chief could be a dictatorial manager, but is more effective as a servant leader, with a key attribute in wisdom, being able to hear all options and making sound choices for both the short and long term. Photo editing is a highly competitive space and Serif have been very successful in carving out a niche against such as the Adobe gorilla, the Luminar marketing machine and the open source Gimp. I have invested heavily in Affinity, contribute as I can, and have great hopes for their future.
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23 hours ago, Joachim_L said:
Wouldn't this be a possible waste of time? This codeline
<?php echo "Hello World!"; ?>
I made in a few seconds. Code for the Affinities takes a bit longer I guess. What if the devs programmed for weeks and the audience is not applauding or even disliking the new function? I still think the best approach would be hearing what users are saying / demanding and on top doing their own vision how the Affinities should work?
Of course. I suspect the good Serif folk do engage with UX/customers/users before/during/after but I don't know how other than what we see here on the Forum (which I think is really great). I love APh as an integral part of my photographic passion and adopted it after a deep analysis of editing software three years ago. Nothing else comes close, still, (other than Photoshop, where I detest their subscription strategy). I have made suggestions in the forum which Serif have considered and sometimes adopted. Can't see that happening with Adobe.
Trying out new features does have a cost and I'd guess Serif already do something internally. Having lived at the code face I can't imagine engineers who don't now and then pull an all-nighter just to say 'Hey, look at this, what do you think?'
Perhaps Serif would consider a pre-Beta Alpha programme, where a panel of keen users try out quick hacks to support a rapid feedback and development cycle.
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23 hours ago, Jowday said:
Interesting lifecycle. Thanks!
ps. I totally agree with the importance of UX. Back in the 20th century (in 1980s HP), we had a usability lab with cameras trained on people using our software. It was called things like 'Human Factors' then. Quality was defined as 'FLURPS+', or Functionality, Learnability, Usability, Reliability, Performance, Supportability, plus whatever else made sense. We also consulted with Barry Boehm and used variants of his spiral development model. I got to present papers at several of the global software development conferences where such luminaries appeared. I'm still friendly with Tom Gilb and go to his annual private conference.
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17 hours ago, walt.farrell said:
According to the CSS4 page you referenced, it is still only a working draft. If true, that means it is still only proposed, and subject to many changes before it becomes a standard (if it ever does).
Darn. He noticed. Still good reasons to offer it, particularly that it's easy to implement and use. Start with HSL option and extend when CSS4 adopts it.
Here's another proposal: Implement 'trial' features in Betas. Ring-fence the code and flag as 'what do you think'. Then listen to opinion and decide.
- Move Along People, Jowday and Max P
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Proposal: Implement the HWB colour model
Why:
- It's easier to understand than HSL or HSV
- It is simple and intuitive in use (see CSS4 page below)
- It has less problems, such as 'extrema' issues (see Alvy paper below, and black issue here)
- It is easy to calculate
- It is a standard in CSS4
How:
- Preferred: as parallel to other colour models, HSL, CMYK, etc
- Alternative: just as extra option in HSL control, similar to HSV (probably easier to implement)
- Perhaps: Start with alternative and assess reaction
- Do not remove HSL or HSV as these are familiar to many
References:
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4 minutes ago, BofG said:
I think I've got my head around the HSL scheme, I'm not quite sure though what part of it you are referring to as the issue. Can you dumb it down for me?
The calculation of saturation, and that at just off-black, saturation varies significantly. Hence if you are investigating a dark part of the image, the saturation values are unhelpful.
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24 minutes ago, BofG said:
The values here for min & max in HSL are defined as [0,1]. Having max as 2 in your example is out of range.
I've not read fully through the rest yet, interesting topic though.
Fair comment. Maybe I was mixing 8 bit with 0..1 or it was just too early (insert appropriate excuse here).
But then it's ratios, so rescaling to 0..1 and still S=(max-min)/(max+min):
min=0, max=0.01, S=0.01/0.01=1
min=0.01,max=0.02, S=0.01/0.03=0.33
Mmm. Issue remains.
For interest I did a spreadsheet map of max vs min with saturation calc, 0.01 steps, and conditional formatting as attached, with red=1, yellow=0.5 and green=0 (also as jpg for visual). You can see the issue discussed down and near the left hand axis.
Practically, it causes problems when you create a saturation map from an image in order to mask other effects.
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Thanks @thomaso.
I suspect it's in the L<.5, S=(max-min)/(max+min) formula, if AP is using this, so:
min=0, max=1, S=1/1=1
yet a rapid change in S happens with small changes in values
min=1,max=2, S=1/3=0.3
The underlying issue seems to occur any time when min=0, as
min=0, max=n, S=max/max=1
In other words, what defines a 'saturated' colour in this case is not the colour range but whether the minimum is 0.
The defining algorithm at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSL_and_HSV#From_RGB catches the case where max=0 to prevent a div0 error, but does not address the issue where min=0.
To catch this, presumably some threshold needs to be defined, which may then also need some kind gradient to cloak sudden transition effects.
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Set up a shape or fill layer you can change easily with RGB sliders. Get up the Info panel and set to show HSL.
Now:
- RGB=0,0,0, Saturation = 0%
- RGB=1,0,0, Saturation = 100%
- RGB=1,2,0, Saturation = 100%
- RGB=1,2,1, Saturation = 25%
In other words, a tiny change in RGB makes saturation go all over the place, which can be something of a pain. So if saturation is a measure of distance from grey, it seems it should have the same effect on alternative inter-RGB distances, yet the same gaps here give more expected results:
- RGB=50,50,50, Saturation = 0%
- RGB=51,50,50, Saturation = 1%
- RGB=51,52,50, Saturation = 2%
- RGB=51,52,51, Saturation = 1%
Which raises the question of where all the dark confusion starts. So trying just above zero
- RGB=10,10,10, Saturation = 0%
- RGB=11,10,10, Saturation = 4%
- RGB=11,12,10, Saturation = 9%
- RGB=11,12,11, Saturation = 5%
This makes sense, so it seems the chaos only happens very close to black.
I suspect this is an algorithmic thing. I am hence wondering:
- Wwhat algorithm is used
- Whether the same effect is seen in PS
- What alternatives there might be (such as in the Wikipedia page on colourfulness)
- What arguments there are for the various alternatives.
Thanks!
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19 hours ago, walt.farrell said:
How is that substantially different from the current method of collapsing a panel group? Just double-click on any tab in the group to collapse it, single-click to expand it again.
Good grief. I didn't know that. Thanks, Walt!
You learn something new every day.
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Real estate (if you'll pardon the American term) on a screen is at a premium, and being able to say 'make this smaller for now' is useful. This can be particularly applied in the right-hand panel groups where, for example, you can easily run out of visual space for layer.
A simple solution to this is to allow panel groups to be collapsed with a single click. The top left corner of panels currently doesn't seem to be in use. This would be an ideal place for a little triangle. Collapse the group but still show the panel tabs so clicking any one will open it up again. You could even have it so that when you open a collapsed group by clicking the tab (rather than the top left corner) and then click away or on another panel group, the temporarily opened group collapses again. Or even do this with a hover.
Thanks!
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New image. Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V. No problems, copy made. Works fine in other situations too.
New image, Live Procedural Texture layer. Select original pixel layer. Crash.
Note: Needs PT layer as child. Tried it with other filters which worked ok. Tried adding content to PT, still crashed.
Affinity Photo 1.8.5.703. Also happens in 1.9.0.820.
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On 10/19/2020 at 3:26 AM, Phil Vetra said:
PS. You need to put this in book form!
Thanks for the thought, Phil and I would love to do this, but... I've written a few books in the past and know how much work it is. There just aren't the hours in the day. While retired from office jobs, I live on a smallholding where we try to grow as much of our own food as possible. And then there's all the other stuff, from family to local voluntary work to web stuff. And photography, of course.
I do still occasionally write -- I agreed to write a book for a publisher friend a couple of years ago, and it's just about done, which means I can now hopefully return to a couple of other books I have half-written.
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It would be great if the Customise Toolbar allowed the creation of buttons to do things buttons don't currently do, like access menu items. Offer a basic set of button designs and/or allow the user to load their own bitmap.
Even better, let custom buttons kick off macros. So much easier than getting the library up (which occupies significant screen real estate) and searching for the specific macro.
And even allow adding of new toolbars...
Thanks!
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I've spend the Summer indexing all 550+ YouTube videos on Affinity Photo I've done via my InAffinity channel. This includes web pages (in my ChangingMinds website) for...
- ...every video, including brief notes and links to categories (effectively 'tags') in which it is included
- ...each category, with links to every video in that category
- ...a list of every video, by date of publication
The online InAffinity index is here:
http://changingminds.org/disciplines/photography/affinity_photo/inaffinity_video_index.htmThe video describing the index is here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7L7ZciRiO3M
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<tiptoes away>
I did claim confusion.
However, I have confidence the good Serif folks will fix what needs fixing.
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7 hours ago, Chris J said:
Hi there. You are correct. That's wrong. I will fix that asap.
Thanks for letting us know.
Chris
Cheers, though a bit confused now as @Jowday said origin top left is as used by PS. Happy with whatever is 'right'.
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6 hours ago, walt.farrell said:
Thanks for mentioning that enhancement. Was that in the Release Notes somewhere? I don't see it.
How would one use the new information?
(And, though it's not the normal mathematical x and y directions, it matches the Affinity Ruler orientation
(And perhaps it matches the rotation angles in the Transform panel?))
For my YouTube InAffinity channel, it's more accurate to say 'enter x and y' than 'move shadows up a bit' (though the latter is also appropriate when communicating this intent). Also useful when I'm making personal notes about 'recipes'.
I didn't see it in the release notes. I just noticed it, perhaps because it was already on my wish list.
Good point about the ruler.
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Curves x and y point values are much appreciated. Thanks.
A query: The y-value origin seems to be top left, so increasing y goes downwards. Not the normal mathematical x and y. I wondered why it is done this way. Is this how PS does it?
- Chris J and PaulAffinity
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Hi folks - well done! Great set of improvements.
An odd thing happened: Marquee lines were thicker and Ctrl-0 didn't fully restore full size. Later, it worked just fine (without restarting). Shrug.
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On 10/2/2020 at 2:18 PM, Chris B said:
Hi Dave,
For me, if I open that file up on retail, I see the issue. If I open it in the beta with OpenCL, I do not see the issue. If I open the file again without OpenCL in the beta, I see it.
Cheers, Chris. Confirmed here. So is that a fix or a workaround? Depends I guess if OpenCL is going to be the standard. But then if you can turn it off for whatever reason, the bug is still there.
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Thanks, @smadell and great job! Really good demo examples, too.
I had a tinker and came up with a couple of thoughts for the 'EdgesLayer' layer development. I don't know how you used the the Black & White conversion after Detect Edges and Invert, but if you turn down the colours in this, the edges get blacker. I tried replacing the Median Blur with a Bilateral Blur, which seemed a slight improvement. It could also be useful to apply a Posterise at some point to reduce the number of colours.
(And perhaps it matches the rotation angles in the Transform panel?))
A Surprising Proposal: HWB
in Feedback for Affinity Photo V1 on Desktop
Posted
Yes. Curiosity. And attendant tenacity. The HP inkjet came out of the curiosity of an engineer that noticed a pipette of ink leaning on a soldering iron had spattered the ink across the bench.
Common sense is a strange misnomer that is often used to mean 'I am right but am unable to prove this'. It also has the double-bind implication that 'If you do not agree you have no sense and are hence stupid'. Many people desperately want to appear to be right, which is often based in status needs.
This could be a long conversation...