Medical Officer Bones

Hi,
I am pleased to report that we have been working through some of the items mentioned here:
 
- In Photo 1.8.3, the [ and ] keys will step the Pixel Brush in exact, single pixel sizes.
- Brush rotation is already available using the left / right arrow keys.
- We have added the ability to create brushes from the current selection in Photo 1.9 - which will become available in beta in a few weeks.
- Circle selection can be set to "from centre" in Photo 1.9.
 
We will continue adding / fixing the things reported
 
Thanks,
Andy.

@haakoo If you don't me asking: do you understand that this conversation is not about proving whether the effect can be replicated in Photo or not, but rather about the underlying workflow deficiencies?

Thanks for getting back to me Zypher69, like you I have found a soft white / black brush to be best.
 
Haakoo, here's an example I have made:

I want this final result made from two images:

 
Big wave surfer by Duncan Rawlinson available from Flickr under Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC 2.0)
Playing a fish on the Boat Pool, Kinermony by Des Colhoun available from geograph.org.uk under Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0)
 
In Photoshop, you would import both images and add a mask to the wave. You can blend the images together using a variety of tools - Brush / gradient / Fill.
The tools are destructive to the mask - it's just a mask, it doesn't have any important data on it.
The finished mask looks something like this:

As you can see the mask is complicated, its not a simple gradient.
In my workflow in Photoshop, I primarily use the gradient tool due to its speed. The ability to change radius by clicking and dragging means I don't need to keep changing brush size.
 
In AP, I am restricted to using the paint brush, and whilst I can get a similar result, its not as quick.

 
If I try and use the gradient tool on the mask, it wipes what I have already made using the paint brush.
If I use the gradient tool again on top of the first gradient, it wipes the previous gradient.
 
No one is saying the gradient tool is hard to use, we are saying a single gradient per layers slows down or restricts development.
 

@haakoo This is not a question of HOW to use the gradient tool, or how to accomplish blending of multiple image layers.
Rather, the issue with the gradient tool in Affinity Photo is two-fold:
it is currently not possible to use the gradient tool in an additive manner in a (bitmap) mask: Photo will replace the mask's existing content and replace it with the new gradient, and; the gradient tool lacks the option to set the blend mode: if the user could change the gradient's blend mode to (for example) multiply it would be very simple to create multiple gradients to simplify blending via a bitmap layer mask. If you've ever worked in alternatives like PhotoLine, Photoshop, GIMP, Krita, you will immediately miss this option when doing basic compositing work.
There are other issues with the gradient tool, but this is quite frustrating. In my experience, Affinity Photo is riddled with such small paper cuts throughout its basic tools.
The accepted solution would be to integrate a blend mode option in the gradient tool. Why it wasn't added in the first place defies comprehension, because every single other bitmap gradient tool on the planet includes it.
 

@haakoo This is not a question of HOW to use the gradient tool, or how to accomplish blending of multiple image layers.
Rather, the issue with the gradient tool in Affinity Photo is two-fold:
it is currently not possible to use the gradient tool in an additive manner in a (bitmap) mask: Photo will replace the mask's existing content and replace it with the new gradient, and; the gradient tool lacks the option to set the blend mode: if the user could change the gradient's blend mode to (for example) multiply it would be very simple to create multiple gradients to simplify blending via a bitmap layer mask. If you've ever worked in alternatives like PhotoLine, Photoshop, GIMP, Krita, you will immediately miss this option when doing basic compositing work.
There are other issues with the gradient tool, but this is quite frustrating. In my experience, Affinity Photo is riddled with such small paper cuts throughout its basic tools.
The accepted solution would be to integrate a blend mode option in the gradient tool. Why it wasn't added in the first place defies comprehension, because every single other bitmap gradient tool on the planet includes it.
 

@haakoo This is not a question of HOW to use the gradient tool, or how to accomplish blending of multiple image layers.
Rather, the issue with the gradient tool in Affinity Photo is two-fold:
it is currently not possible to use the gradient tool in an additive manner in a (bitmap) mask: Photo will replace the mask's existing content and replace it with the new gradient, and; the gradient tool lacks the option to set the blend mode: if the user could change the gradient's blend mode to (for example) multiply it would be very simple to create multiple gradients to simplify blending via a bitmap layer mask. If you've ever worked in alternatives like PhotoLine, Photoshop, GIMP, Krita, you will immediately miss this option when doing basic compositing work.
There are other issues with the gradient tool, but this is quite frustrating. In my experience, Affinity Photo is riddled with such small paper cuts throughout its basic tools.
The accepted solution would be to integrate a blend mode option in the gradient tool. Why it wasn't added in the first place defies comprehension, because every single other bitmap gradient tool on the planet includes it.
 

@haakoo This is not a question of HOW to use the gradient tool, or how to accomplish blending of multiple image layers.
Rather, the issue with the gradient tool in Affinity Photo is two-fold:
it is currently not possible to use the gradient tool in an additive manner in a (bitmap) mask: Photo will replace the mask's existing content and replace it with the new gradient, and; the gradient tool lacks the option to set the blend mode: if the user could change the gradient's blend mode to (for example) multiply it would be very simple to create multiple gradients to simplify blending via a bitmap layer mask. If you've ever worked in alternatives like PhotoLine, Photoshop, GIMP, Krita, you will immediately miss this option when doing basic compositing work.
There are other issues with the gradient tool, but this is quite frustrating. In my experience, Affinity Photo is riddled with such small paper cuts throughout its basic tools.
The accepted solution would be to integrate a blend mode option in the gradient tool. Why it wasn't added in the first place defies comprehension, because every single other bitmap gradient tool on the planet includes it.
 

@haakoo This is not a question of HOW to use the gradient tool, or how to accomplish blending of multiple image layers.
Rather, the issue with the gradient tool in Affinity Photo is two-fold:
it is currently not possible to use the gradient tool in an additive manner in a (bitmap) mask: Photo will replace the mask's existing content and replace it with the new gradient, and; the gradient tool lacks the option to set the blend mode: if the user could change the gradient's blend mode to (for example) multiply it would be very simple to create multiple gradients to simplify blending via a bitmap layer mask. If you've ever worked in alternatives like PhotoLine, Photoshop, GIMP, Krita, you will immediately miss this option when doing basic compositing work.
There are other issues with the gradient tool, but this is quite frustrating. In my experience, Affinity Photo is riddled with such small paper cuts throughout its basic tools.
The accepted solution would be to integrate a blend mode option in the gradient tool. Why it wasn't added in the first place defies comprehension, because every single other bitmap gradient tool on the planet includes it.
 

First, 300ppi is completely irrelevant. It means nothing for screen work. Only the actual resolution counts, which is 1920x1080.
Your gradient blends from a dark grey (56,56,56) to black. That means only 56 shades of grey, and there just aren't enough values in 8bit and on most screens to create a smooth blend at that 1920x1080 resolution. That is a hard technical limitation. The second problem is JPG, since it may worsen the issue due to artefacting.
Anyway, the solution is to add some noise, and then export the result. I tested this with your gradient, and introduced a 4% noise, and the visual banding disappears when saved as PNG file (which is lossless). A jpg version needs to be saved at quite a high quality, otherwise the lossy compression will still cause apparent visual issues.
I recreated your gradient in Photo, and applied a live Gaussian noise of 4%. Then exported it.
It is extremely frustrating in cases like these that Affinity Photo does not provide us with a preview of the exported result, because it results in trial and error, forcing the user to depend on saving, checking, saving again, checking, and so on. Let's hope the developers will soon add a preview option to the export persona. It took me four tries before I arrived at an acceptable JPG compression quality, while in PhotoLine I just adjust the quality slider until satisfied.
PS the reason it looks okay in Photo is because Photo adds dithering/noise when the gradient is displayed.

I did a quick test, and even scaling down to 50% results in mush. I turned on all the pixel snapping options, and switched to Nearest Neighor.
This is what I would expect (not attainable in Affinity - I had to resort to other alternatives):

This is Affinity Photo:

The top one is scaled layer (non-destructive). It is bad. This is a reduction of the original by 50%  - and any image / pixel editor should pass this test with flying colours in my opinion: it is a simple reduction of the larger character to half pixels. Affinity fails badly here.
I tested this for fun in a number of image editors. The results are interesting:
- Photoshop (CS2), Gimp, and Affinity Photo produce similar 50% scale down results: all a mess.
- Irfanview and ProMotion NG deal a little better with this move. (not shown here)
- Krita and PhotoLine generate a good result (identical to the first one shown above).
The third one is the rasterized layer version in Affinity Photo, and it is completely unacceptable.. Not only is the transparency automatically trimmed (even when Rasterize without the trim function is selected), for some inexplicable reason Affinity Photo decides to resample the graphic, and the result is an anti-aliased mess.
Anyway, definitely room for improvement as far as Affinity Photo is concerned.

...Invision, Lunacy, Axure, Justinmind, and many more are operating in this market segment. Way too much competition, with free tiers and some completely free (Lunacy: free Sketch alternative for Windows). Still, Affinity could add Sketch import/export for improved interoperability between apps.
Would like to see Sketch import and export.

I'd be very interested in the original scanned files. Looking at the exported PDF, it seems to me that the original scan was 1bit, and if that is the case, Affinity Photo converts these images to 8bit greyscale ones. As a result, when the OP exported the edited version as a PDF from Affinity Photo,  the export setting seems to be set to JPG, further wreaking havoc with the clean 1bit scanned images.
@Ricardas Could you tell us how you scanned in the original sheets? Could you provide a sample (without opening it in Affinity Photo)?
I ask, because Affinity Photo does not support 1bit images, and will always convert these to 8bit ones - without user intervention possible.
Scanning of sheet music is typically a job done by scanning the originals at a very high PPI resolution (1200ppi) and at 1bit bit depth. It makes no sense to scan black-and-white sheet music in greyscale 8bit bit depth, unless it is to be used for screen display (in which case scaling down a high res 1bit image to a screen res greyscale image would also be preferable and result in better quality) .

Hi Ricardas.
I checked the file, and imported it first in PhotoLine, because that image editor does support 1bit bit depth images and to check for the original resolution: it is indeed a 1bit image scanned at 300dpi.
That means the moment it is imported into Affinity Photo, it will convert it to a 8bit greyscale image. It also means that visually in Affinity Photo the result is anti-aliased a bit due to it being placed at non-decimal values. When editing, this may introduce extra anti-aliasing.
Exporting as a PDF, it is important to turn off JPG compression, because that results in visual artifacting due to JPG being JPG. JPG is wholly unsuitable for this type of image as a compression algorithm.
[When exporting as PDF/X-1, turn off jpeg compression]
As you discovered for yourself, turning off that compression will solve the issue, because Photo is no longer reducing the quality and introducing rogue grey pixels.
But this comes at a cost: since the bit depth of the scan is automatically converted to 8bit, it results in an 8x image file size increase. Which is something utterly unnecessary, and one of my pet peeves with Affinity Photo: it does not support 1bit images. Which in certain use cases causes issues, such as in this case. Luckily Affinity Photo's PDF export is smart enough to reduce the file size to ~80kb versus the ~30kb 1bit version. So it's not too bad.
Still, it is REALLY frustrating: 1bit images are THE answer in cases like these. And file sizes blow up dramatically with higher resolutions. Just imagine if this sheet music had been scanned in at 1200ppi, and the pdf had 50 scanned sheets. 1bit images would keep the file very manageable.
No-one in their right mind wants to send 1200ppi greyscale images to an image setter - and in practice those images are then downsampled automatically to 300ppi before printing, resulting in a drastic reduction of resolution and quality. Only 1bit images maintain the wanted resolution when printing.
And unfortunately 1bit support may never be added to Photo: the developers have unequivocally stated that 1bit image support will not be worked on in Photo. Frustrating.
 

Saving files (fx a group photo or a portrait with a blurred background) as JPG for a website without a preview is crippling. Not slowing, but crippling. You have to see the actual output and compression artifacts.
In the case of Affinity even more important. The algorithms are vastly inferior to those used in Photoshop and file sizes also different. You have to see what you will GET. Feedback. A cornerstone in usability.
In Photoshop I have NEVER saved a photo for website use without inspecting the preview and resulting file size. Never!

It's fundamentally a linear rainbow gradient with a swirl effect applied to it and a radial zoom/vortex type effect with some masking to dilute the last effect here and there.
The swirl effect can be easily achieved with the twirl effect in Affinity Photo, but unfortunately the max value is limited to 720 degrees, I believe. This is easily solved by re-applying the same effect. You may want to use a circular mask to limit the effect of the second twirl effect to the center for a better looking result and more control.
Another option is to use the liquify filter twirl function on the linear gradient with varying brush diameters, which works well in Photoshop and PhotoLine, but I discovered today that Affinity Photo's liquify twirl does not work as expected, and it seems impossible to create that same swirl effect in it. The underlying algorithm seems very different compared to either PS and PL.
It just refuses to work, and Photo is quite crash-prone when using the liquify option this way, btw.
The trick for that zoom/vortex effect is to use the displacement filter with a good vortex map. Then duplicate the displacement and move it at the top, and use some blending/adjustment layers to add the white streaks.
I've created a quick example for you. Not quite identical, but that really is dependent on the displacement map. Replace with your own. And the gradient is non-destructive, and can be adjusted as well. Play around with it. It's slow, though.
Linkie:
https://gofile.io/?c=G91vZO
Warning: Affinity runs very, very slow for me with this file.

 
 

It's fundamentally a linear rainbow gradient with a swirl effect applied to it and a radial zoom/vortex type effect with some masking to dilute the last effect here and there.
The swirl effect can be easily achieved with the twirl effect in Affinity Photo, but unfortunately the max value is limited to 720 degrees, I believe. This is easily solved by re-applying the same effect. You may want to use a circular mask to limit the effect of the second twirl effect to the center for a better looking result and more control.
Another option is to use the liquify filter twirl function on the linear gradient with varying brush diameters, which works well in Photoshop and PhotoLine, but I discovered today that Affinity Photo's liquify twirl does not work as expected, and it seems impossible to create that same swirl effect in it. The underlying algorithm seems very different compared to either PS and PL.
It just refuses to work, and Photo is quite crash-prone when using the liquify option this way, btw.
The trick for that zoom/vortex effect is to use the displacement filter with a good vortex map. Then duplicate the displacement and move it at the top, and use some blending/adjustment layers to add the white streaks.
I've created a quick example for you. Not quite identical, but that really is dependent on the displacement map. Replace with your own. And the gradient is non-destructive, and can be adjusted as well. Play around with it. It's slow, though.
Linkie:
https://gofile.io/?c=G91vZO
Warning: Affinity runs very, very slow for me with this file.

 
 

Scale up your art by a decimal factor and use nearest neighbour as the resampling algorithm.

It's fundamentally a linear rainbow gradient with a swirl effect applied to it and a radial zoom/vortex type effect with some masking to dilute the last effect here and there.
The swirl effect can be easily achieved with the twirl effect in Affinity Photo, but unfortunately the max value is limited to 720 degrees, I believe. This is easily solved by re-applying the same effect. You may want to use a circular mask to limit the effect of the second twirl effect to the center for a better looking result and more control.
Another option is to use the liquify filter twirl function on the linear gradient with varying brush diameters, which works well in Photoshop and PhotoLine, but I discovered today that Affinity Photo's liquify twirl does not work as expected, and it seems impossible to create that same swirl effect in it. The underlying algorithm seems very different compared to either PS and PL.
It just refuses to work, and Photo is quite crash-prone when using the liquify option this way, btw.
The trick for that zoom/vortex effect is to use the displacement filter with a good vortex map. Then duplicate the displacement and move it at the top, and use some blending/adjustment layers to add the white streaks.
I've created a quick example for you. Not quite identical, but that really is dependent on the displacement map. Replace with your own. And the gradient is non-destructive, and can be adjusted as well. Play around with it. It's slow, though.
Linkie:
https://gofile.io/?c=G91vZO
Warning: Affinity runs very, very slow for me with this file.

 
 

Jutoh doesn't support fixed epub and only a tiny subset of epub 3. Instead of Jutoh, Sigil is comparable and completely free for flowing epub ebooks.
https://sigil-ebook.com/
Although I understand the technical reasons why the Publisher developers decided to forego html and epub export, the fact remains that without this option Publisher will be unable to compete with the current crop of DTP layout software.
Which is why I hope scripting and a decent plugin API/GUI will be at the top of the list: this will empower users to build their own solutions. Because export to a fixed html page (which fixed epub 3 basically is) isn't that hard to develop, to be honest. Pretty much direct conversion from frame containers to absolutely positioned div elements, with content converted to bitmap and svg files.

Krita is not a general purpose image editor, and aimed at digital painting. It wipes the floor with Affinity Photo in this respect (even Photoshop cannot keep up with painting in Krita), and Krita is widely in use by many professional digital illustrators.
Apples and oranges.

Agreed with the OP on all counts. Here are some of my observations.
The keyboard shortcuts preference screen cannot be resized. This leads to unnecessary scrolling and extra effort to locate an option in the list. Other preference screens, such as Abbreviations and Auto-Correct in Publisher also cannot be resized, leading to similar user frustrations. The search option is almost useless in practice. Entering "Use" highlights four categories, but the actual preference options remain unexposed. A much more usable method would be to include a simple dropdown list that lists the found properties, and when clicked immediately opens the intended preference screen, as well as highlighting it. Allow the user to use the up and down cursor keys to navigate the found entries in this dropdown list. Hitting the Enter key in the search field should not close the Preferences window. Hitting the Enter key at any time closes the Preferences dialog. Frustrating to the user, because the user may not have noticed that they mis-clicked an input field, still continue typing and hit Enter. Result: dialog closes. Besides, Escape already closes the dialog. The Escape and Enter keys have very different usability connotations in a dialog. In the beginning I kept clicking the "Next" and "Previous" buttons to attempt to paginate through the main option screens. But instead these act like browser buttons, making it frustratingly hard to quickly browse the main preference screens.
Click a preference category. Can't find the option? Go back to the main preferences entries. Click another. Still not found? Go back, and try again. A chore, in particular when it is unclear where a specific option can be found. If the Next and Previous buttons would allow the user to quickly page between preference categories a lot of wasted time clicking around could be avoided.
In short allow the user to quickly browse/paginate the main preference screens.
(And yes, I am aware of how Apple abuses these as well.) Page up and down keys could be used to effectively paginate from one preference category to the next. And/or right and left cursor keys. Miscellaneous screen's top content is center aligned, which is inconsistent with all the other screens. Check boxes should be left aligned instead. Instead of a slow, cumbersome and hidden dropdown list to browse to a specific preference category, list all main preference categories in a list on the left of the main preference dialog. Highlight the one currently browsed. 1) far easier and efficient to navigate, 2) far better indication which settings the user is currently viewing.
(The currently used category word is hardly noticed due to visual hierarchy problems. Some preference screens are "uber"-filled with options, without proper visual grouping or even adequate vertical space used. The General options is particularly busy with no apparent logical grouping, but other screens are problematic in this respect too. The lack of visual subgrouping of options leads to cognitive overload and confusion on many preference screens.
For example, the Performance screen puts four distinct subcategories of settings in one densely populated screen, with no visual grouping.  All in all, the preferences dialog in Affinity is among the worst that I have encountered so far in regards to usability.
I am used to both Mac and Windows in my work.
Rely foremost on active user testing rather than anything else. What works in one situation, may backfire in another. Avoid blatantly copying GUIs. Besides, the Mac Preferences dialog is far more configurable and evolved user experience than the one in Affinity, which is a shadow of the former.

True, true. InDesign, Quark, (even the old Freehand, I recall) and PhotoLine all support this.
As I said, Affinity remains crippled for a wide range of print work if the developers maintain their stance. Bit of a shame, really.

As long as Publisher and Photo cannot deal with 1bit bitmaps, it is useless to me for most of my print work. The latest 1.7 still converts a 1bit 1200ppi image to 8bit when exported to pdf, irregardless of the settings.
Good 1bit support is absolutely required for a variety of print jobs.
When imported, a 1200ppi 1bit image looks fine in Publisher. Switching to Photo results in the image being down-sampled to a 300ppi anti-aliased version in the view. Any edit in Photo will return a 300ppi greyscale image to Publisher!!!
Imagine that: import a 1bit print resolution tiff in Publisher. Then the user decides to remove a scan stain, or something in Photo. Result: the image is reduced, without asking, to a 300ppi greyscale version, which will print at low resolution and with fuzzy edges. And because the user worked zoomed out, they did not notice and generate a pdf for printing.
Now imagine the client's reaction.
It staggers the mind to realize that the Affinity devs have stated they will never support 1bit images in Photo. As for Publisher support: it is all up in the air. I have not yet tested the 1.8 beta. Will do this today.

True, true. InDesign, Quark, (even the old Freehand, I recall) and PhotoLine all support this.
As I said, Affinity remains crippled for a wide range of print work if the developers maintain their stance. Bit of a shame, really.

True, true. InDesign, Quark, (even the old Freehand, I recall) and PhotoLine all support this.
As I said, Affinity remains crippled for a wide range of print work if the developers maintain their stance. Bit of a shame, really.