altae

t's a known bug.. 
 

Yes, please. Use layers and masks where appropriate (e.g. focus stacking) and where it's not possible to use layers give us other means of returning to the previous step in order to fix errors and improve the result (e.g. HDR and the panorama tool).

The file recovery is absolutely unreliable. In my experience the option to recover a document is only offered for 1 out of 10 crashes (or even worse). Don't count on it! The only thing that actually keeps you safe is ctrl + s. By the way, why is it so hard to press such a simple combination every few minutes? Nevertheless I'd also welcome a real autosave feature.

altae...
Have a look, if you like, at a set of Luminosity Masks for Adjustments & Filters (link below). This may solve your problem. Instead of creating a Preset for each specific Blend Options curve, record it as a 1-step macro. Use the "Underlying Layer" side of the Blend Options graphs, and this takes its cues from the layers underneath the adjustment/filter that need masking. Of course, these are luminosity masks – you obviously have other, more personal and specific curves that you use. I offer the macros below as an example.
Luminosity Blend Options for Adjustments.afmacros.zip
- smadell

Please add customizable presets to blend ranges. I use them a lot, e.g. to protect highlights while sharpening the image or in order to restrict noise reduction to dark areas of the image. This means I have to set the same "curve" for blend ranges over and over again with no way to save my settings for further use with other layers and in other images.

Please add customizable presets to blend ranges. I use them a lot, e.g. to protect highlights while sharpening the image or in order to restrict noise reduction to dark areas of the image. This means I have to set the same "curve" for blend ranges over and over again with no way to save my settings for further use with other layers and in other images.

Non destructive everything:  Focus merge (with masked layers and possibility to go back "merge persona"), HDR merge (back to "hdr persona"),  Focus Stack (already non destructive),  Panorama (with masked layers and back to "panorama persona"), Tone Mapping persona etc.

I think this not what the OP meant. In the Panorama case it's not the question that the original files used for that stay untouched. This is a matter of course.
To me it becomes clear what the OP could mean if I take a look how Panorama works in Affinity Photo compared to Photoshop Elements Photomerge.
In Photo you choose some files for your Panorama and the output of this tool just a new Pixel layer.
If you use the the PS Photomerge tooling the output is a bunch of layers. Each image stays the way it was, but it's layer is automaticly transformed and the relevant part of it to the whole Panorama is visible trough a generated mask. This is where I would see that you can argue that the original input is applied non-destructive. I could imagine that this is meant by a "Panorama Persona" the OP mentioned.
For Panoramas both, PS and Photo, are pretty bad. In my case the result of Photo contains a lot of errors and Photoshop takes an enternity to calculate the Panorama and also has errors. So I won't bother for Panoramas as I would recommend everybody to stick to Microsoft ICE for that matter.
I did not try Focus Merging or HDR. So I don't know how they are destructive and could be changed.
I just wanted to support the OPs case: "Make everything you can non-destructive, always".
Live filters somehow tell me, that Serif is already underway here.

Click here to download the latest beta
 
Status: Customer Beta
Purpose: Features, Improvements, Fixes
Requirements: A valid product key (for Affinity Store purchases), or an installation of the full retail version from the Microsoft Store

As this is a beta it is considered to be not suitable for production use. This means that you should not attempt to use it for commercial purposes or for any other activity that may be adversely affected by the application failing, including the total loss of any documents. 

We hope you enjoy the latest build, and as always, if you've got any problems, please don't hesitate to post a new thread in this forum and we'll get back to you as soon as we can. Thanks once again for your continued feedback.

If you have a general question about the software, please head over to the Questions Forum, or if you have any suggestions, please head over to the Feature Requests forum.
Fixes
Fixed drag drop from Explorer to floating Document Windows Fixed Combine Identical remaining enabled for text styles Fixed Punctuation stops Capitalise first word of sentence from working  Fixed Tools toolbar leaving monitor viewport when undocking Fixed failure to save if HEIC file is used in document  Fixed drag/drop text from Explorer  Fixed snapping to guides and page edges Fixed importing of user items in correct order Fixed Drop Caps misaligned when using Baseline grid  Fixed incorrect curve printing Fixed incorrect codepage mapping for code page 950  Fixed crash loading corrupt BMP files Allow right mouse button to be pressed when capturing numeric input for tools (currently for use with Flow in brush tools) Fixed Pen Tool not snapping to grid unless you zoom in/out first  Fixed scrolling history with mouse wheel removes highlight  Fixed print copies limited to 99  Changed TIFF export to use Adobe deflate instead, as it's more common Fixed sporadic PSD export crash  Fixed Brush preview not updating immediately when adding/modifying sub-brushes  Fixed Basic Grid failing to show 'Spacing' and 'Divisions' entry boxes on Grid and Axis Manager  Fixed being unable to select a crop preset  Fixed sub-brush 'Sync' checkboxes not remembering state correctly Added missing Duplicate Brush from Brush panel context menu Fixed creation of CMYK tint colour chord creating RGB swatches Fixed changing of document DPI to no longer resize the document Allow linear profiles for all RGB formats on import (but still try to dissuade incorrect use by not offering them in the convert dialog) Prevent dragging of locked layers Fixed Edit in Photo/Designer preventing the application from closing  Fixed Greek uppercase to not have tonas Fixed hang after exporting to external drive then removing drive Fixed letterspacing to apply to spaces as well as other characters  Fixed embedded documents not exporting masks to PDF correctly  Fixed PDF export of documents containing palettised PNG  Added Hide/Show to Photo main menu Fixed Panorama orientation resulting in upside down images Improved selection refinement Fixed macro recording of document properties, and mixer brush  Fixed incorrect treatment of filter effects when resizing a document containing pixel layers  Fixed smoothing to curve tangent to take into account coincidental curve points (can now smooth to 'cusp' to allow for points with incidental handle points) Fixed auto-committing error in Liquify  Fixed SoftLight blend mode on negative values Fixed levels alerts not appearing  Fixed Flood Fill tool to allow transparent colours Fixed Voronoi alpha transform Fixed adjustment LUT export Fixed Red Eye Removal tool in Develop persona removing image Fixed Develop preview doing noise reduction twice  Fixed Adjustment panels not closing when adding a filter from the menus Fixed crash opening a document with 32-bit preview tab open  Fixed Gaussian blur crash when changing the blue value using the mouse wheel  Fixed some lens identification issues  Fixed adding a macro not adding to the default category Fixed sub-brush tab missing 'Edit' button  Fixed orientation of HDR merge of portrait RAW images  Fixed scale, rotate and translate not working when stacking  Reduced memory usage when multiple RAW files are open at once  Improved Develop performance by not performing chromatic aberration correction twice Changed Threshold histogram to show intensity Added Rasterise & Trim menu option, to trim rasterised item to spread boundary Improved Selective Colour's handling of CMYK images Show focused and selected Auto-Focus regions (in yellow and green, respectively) Fixed Auto-Focus rects to always draw in the right location Fixed LUT export of RGB cubes being interpretted in wrong channel order

And why don't you simply enter the e-mail address you used to purchase the software and the product key you received after your purchase? As others have already mentioned this should fix the issue.

And why don't you simply enter the e-mail address you used to purchase the software and the product key you received after your purchase? As others have already mentioned this should fix the issue.

Yes this does appear to be a regression  It is working fine in 1.6.
It would seem a lot of the filters are behaving very differently in 1.7. I've already started on a list.

You are right. It does nothing whatsoever in LAB mode (Windows).
BUG! It works in 1.6.5 - so it is a regression.

Apparently the denoise filter does nothing in LAB mode. A working denoise filter is important for the LAB denoise technique. There is no preview and if I'm not mistaken the effect is also not applied to the image after clicking "apply".

I'm not talking about the live filter (haven't tested that one). And the behavior you describe is definitely not normal. In RGB mode even a strength of 50 % has a very strong effect.

I can confirm that the filter works again in the latest Beta. Now it's possible to darken or brighten the shadows/ highlights.

Click here to download the latest beta
 
Status: Customer Beta
Purpose: Features, Improvements, Fixes
Requirements: A valid product key (for Affinity Store purchases), or an installation of the full retail version from the Microsoft Store

As this is a beta it is considered to be not suitable for production use. This means that you should not attempt to use it for commercial purposes or for any other activity that may be adversely affected by the application failing, including the total loss of any documents. 

We hope you enjoy the latest build, and as always, if you've got any problems, please don't hesitate to post here and we'll get back to you as soon as we can. Thanks once again for your continued feedback.

If you have a general question about the software, please head over to the Questions Forum, or if you have any suggestions, please head over to the Feature Requests forum.
Fixes
Fixed tool not drawing Allow raster brush size / rotation keys while dragging Fixed Batch dialog not parsing literal expressions properly Fixed render artifacts in split screen views Fixed Isometric panel 'Edit in plane' not working  Fixed New shadows and highlights slider ranges Fixed Procedural Texture light UI icons not loading Fixed missing tool icons for Clarity, Shadows and Noise Reduction  Fixed tool flicker during edits Fixed switching Personas does not retain current zoom settings when using non pixel units  Fixed loading of huge JPEG files Fixed sporadic crash on shutdown  Fixed crash loading old workspace files Fixed rendering of live filters  Fixed Procedural Texture missing tooltips for the buttons Fixed Procedural Texture real number input delete button Changed TIFF compression to be slightly more efficient The 1.7.0 feature list is in the first 1.7 download announcement here

I am talking about the shadows/highlights "live filter". This starts at zero on the left for both shadows and highlights.  And it definitely increase both when you move the sliders to the right.
Maybe they are trying to dumb it down for the masses. Anyway. It is broken.
The shadows/highlights "adjustment layer" starts in the middle. 

Same for me, both shadows and highlights increase brightness.

The new shadows/highlights filter is now useless for me. The old one was great. Very adjustable. One of the best. I really hope the removal of the radius slider is not by design.
Any chance of some clarification on this one please?

No, it's just a bug. This is a beta, after all.

My apologies I forgot that it hadn't actually fully been implemented in Windows yet, but it is a known issue. Once implemented it should work as I described

The new HSL control is nice. Though you could give us more colour slots. Also when rotating the colour range the movement is quite jittery.
Now you need to take this colour selection code from the HSL and create a new colour select panel where we can use this to select a colour range for editing. And also add a luminance range too. 
I don't know what the new live shadows/highlights filter is supposed to do but it seems to raise the shadows and raise the highlights too. Pretty useless.The old one was very useful. Please put it back.

The Highlights Strength slider has no effect in the 'normal' Shadows /Highlights filter and in the live filter. In the live filter there is a strange preview (see attached image). My system is Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit.
 
 
 
 

Dear Affinity Photo - This is a 3 year old thread filled with paying customers who buy your program to "replace" Photoshop. If I have to open Photoshop just to draw straight lines, then reopen a file in Affinity Photo, it's an accessory, not a replacement.

Thank you for the product, but please address this.