hifred

Our case for using variable fonts is simple. The fonts we use are licensed from a font foundry and are used in all proper documents: On our website and in printed documents. Exceptions are emails and newsletters, where we must use system fonts. Affinity products do not support variable fonts, which means that we have to stick to InDesign.

Our case for using variable fonts is simple. The fonts we use are licensed from a font foundry and are used in all proper documents: On our website and in printed documents. Exceptions are emails and newsletters, where we must use system fonts. Affinity products do not support variable fonts, which means that we have to stick to InDesign.

Version 1.8 of OpenType was released in 2016, it included Variable fonts. The feature is mature and widely used nowadays. 
It would be great to have support for variable fonts. 

Hi all. Thanks for your patience over the weekend when our offices were closed.
We've had a meeting this morning and decided to ALSO offer MSI installers, to those people who would like them. I can't tell you when this will happen, as there is engineering work that will be required to allow this to happen, but we hope it won't be long.
Thanks for your feedback!

The scheme Photoshop uses to control flow works perfectly and should be very easy to learn by Affinity users: It's the same numerical entry as for brush opacity, but with Shift held down while typing numbers.

I also support the wish to drop copies in the layer stack with Alt+Drag. Using Ctrl+J isn't equally powerful as this only spits out a silly duplicate.
Alt+Drag combines duplicating and placing the copy exactly where needed. Using that method inside Photoshop one can quickly create any number of copies of layers,
masks, adjustment layers as well as layer-fx and place them all in one go.

If one has a layer in Photo which has three layer-fx (say colour overlay, drop shadow and outline) – is there currently at all a way to only copy the drop shadow of that layer
to another element?

As Photoshop shows assigned fx in a stack one can grab each of them like any other element – that's very useful. I have no idea how to do the same thing inside Photo.

Hi Developers,
Today installed Affinity Photo 1.10.4 on Windows, but my currently my main Editor is Photoshop CC. Minutes later I discovered, that Affinity Photo has assigned itself as the default Editor for a great variety of file-formats, including Photoshop native PSD.
Simply taking over the native file extension should never happen and could get avoided with a simple check. But also with non-proprietary formats and a popular alternative image editor already one should assume that users have some preferences and workflows established. These are worth being respected. A new roommate shouldn't mess everything up on the first day...
There's no potentially positive outcome of such rude manners.
Not a single user will appreciate that PSDs now open with another Editor and feel invited to edit PSDs with APhoto from now on. Every single user who runs into this will curse – and is forced to waste time to re-establish the previous assignments.

I (paying customer) took the shortcut and uninstalled APhoto. That's certainly not at all what you want – but the quickest option.
 

Hi Developers,
Today installed Affinity Photo 1.10.4 on Windows, but my currently my main Editor is Photoshop CC. Minutes later I discovered, that Affinity Photo has assigned itself as the default Editor for a great variety of file-formats, including Photoshop native PSD.
Simply taking over the native file extension should never happen and could get avoided with a simple check. But also with non-proprietary formats and a popular alternative image editor already one should assume that users have some preferences and workflows established. These are worth being respected. A new roommate shouldn't mess everything up on the first day...
There's no potentially positive outcome of such rude manners.
Not a single user will appreciate that PSDs now open with another Editor and feel invited to edit PSDs with APhoto from now on. Every single user who runs into this will curse – and is forced to waste time to re-establish the previous assignments.

I (paying customer) took the shortcut and uninstalled APhoto. That's certainly not at all what you want – but the quickest option.
 

There's countless threads in this forum where people ask for a DAM. Serif confirms that there's some plans, but so far they didn't reveal what they are working on. Reading the requests brought up by users I see that they ask for very different things: Some want a straightforward viewer app, others even request complex database driven software with nifty filtering options to handle huge asset collections. The term DAM unfortunately isn't very clearly defined. Hence my question:

 Do you need a DAM-program by Serif? And what should it be like?
[Edit: Unfortunately I can not do anything about the terrible Poll formatting. Maybe staff can add an empty line between the questions?]

Did you also tried with quoting the tilde (aka:  Tags:"~"Hintergu...)?
See related search stuff Q&As on the net ...
Wat is the syntax of search strings in File Explorer's search box?
Searching for files with a tilde in the extension
How to Search in File Explorer in Windows 10
MS Advanced Query Syntax

That's really kind of funny... 
This thread brought to my attention that Serif already uses a system to toggle between two tools – generally a super helpful feature – I even opened a feature request for this.
Serif just happened to implement that tool-toggle a way that it either gets terribly in the way or doesn't get discovered at all. I dare calling the current implementation plain wrong – it doesn't do anything good and can not even get turned off – it really should get fixed asap.

What I am used to from  quite a variety of programs (including Photoshop) is that one may temporarily call another tool by pressing and holding down a letter key. That way one may lay down a couple of brush-strokes while actually drawing a path: Press (and release) P to call the path tool and click to lay down anchor points. In order to access to the brush tool one would press (and hold!) the letter B. As soon as you let go the B-key one reverts to the Pen tool exactly in the position where one had left off – one may continue laying down points in that path.
The greatest advantage of this implementation is that it can not get called by accident. There's simply no other reason to press and keep holding a (Non Modifier-Key) right now = it can not get in the way. The second great advantage is that this sort of toogle is broadly known and expected behaviour. Hooking this up should not conflict with anything, as you don't use this event yet (normal keys held down).

 

In my opinion it alone in terms of marketing is silly not to support basic animated GIFs from Layers and from File history. Knitting a few frames together should be trivial to hook up and would spark tons of cool user generated content.
Programs like Zbrush even let you film your entire 3D modelling session and YouTube is full of such clips. Also Support would profit when users were able to export the editing sequence - here one obviously also needed dialogue boxes showing in history snapshots.
I have created countless quick animated GIFs directly in Photoshop and not a single one in those often proposed 3rd party tools.

Workaround suggestions like these don't make sense in the feature request section...
How is that of equal value or even better than having Nudge inside the Crop tool? Using the rectangle tool to crop...
isn't obvious to the user one needs to configure the tool each time (remove fill, set line width)  there's no access to preset aspect ratios there's no crop overlays (golden ratio, rule of thirds...) From Photoshop I also miss modifier keys to lock the current aspect ratio in unconstrained mode (shift) and for scaling the crop rectangle from the selection
center (alt). Both modifiers may get combined. When working with shapes or editing selections I miss these modifier options as well.
 
@ developers: While writing I noticed how incredibly slow the Crop tool is on Windows 10 – compared to my six years old Photoshop CS6.  When using the rotate handle I get very jittery updates even on simple jpgs. Doing the same on much larger RAW files in PS works smooth as butter, without the slightest delay. In my old Photoshop I may freely spin the image in circles at interactive framerate – there's no way to do the same in APhoto. I have recorded two samples, the Photoshop sample even looks way too slow, recorded at 30 frames/second...

Crop Tool performance APhoto
Crop Tool performance Photoshop CS6
Please work on performance on Windows.
At this point my more than half a decade old Photoshop runs in circles around Affinity Photo in all areas I have checked.
Machine specs: Win10, i76850K, 32GB RAM, GTX1070

Here's a thread where someone posted a sample-file.
I'd be impressed when your machine switched over to to Tone Mapping within reasonable time.
 
What I want to do regularly doesn't currently work in APhoto – I want to have 20 or more files with embedded RAWs open – what causes no hickups in Photoshop (CS6).

When testing Aphoto I encounter a lot of latency, redraw issues, effects visibly rendering one chunk of the image after the other, many tools which need a noticeable
delay before they start doing something, Layer and Mask thumbnails not refreshing in realtime. Until recently also the Crop tool was extremely slow and could even get stuck and overtaken by the cursor– but it has been improved in the 1.7 Beta.

There's countless threads in this forum where people ask for a DAM. Serif confirms that there's some plans, but so far they didn't reveal what they are working on. Reading the requests brought up by users I see that they ask for very different things: Some want a straightforward viewer app, others even request complex database driven software with nifty filtering options to handle huge asset collections. The term DAM unfortunately isn't very clearly defined. Hence my question:

 Do you need a DAM-program by Serif? And what should it be like?
[Edit: Unfortunately I can not do anything about the terrible Poll formatting. Maybe staff can add an empty line between the questions?]

This is just silly and de-railing the discussion. I'm out.

Here is what I disliked about your post. I criticized repeated, demonstrably wrong marketing promises by Serif. You keep talking these false announcements down and ridicule the criticism ('he he, actually not too bad with brand-new hardware – just imagine how the software would fly with Hardware Acceleration'). And you are also bold enough to start criticizing me and my judgement. You effectively try turning things around and to totally side-track the discussion. That's a discourse method I generally don't accept.

And yes – your statement, that  intimate code insight is required to judge whether Affinity can fully support Smart Objects remains nonsensical. I won't start explaining – but you might read my first post again and ask yourself why I picked these two samples.

[Edit: Now I see that you even draw (here utterly irrelevant) Adobe marketing in. You might consider a career as a political advisor – you're good at this.]

Oh oh, such bad marketing by Serif. Lets see the real PRO marketing by Adobe, shall we?
Some examples:
Over the years I have seen tons of official videos made to promote new release, in which they were listing literally ALL new features, but person in video was calling them "MY 11 FAVORITE NEW FEATURES". These  happened to be ALL 11 new features. Very pro! No cheap manipulation for "ordinary people" there - simply all new features became his favorites, thats all...
At the end of the video they say something like "These - and many more - new features..." even if there was nothing else in the release. So pro, really impressive marketing. No one will ever notice.
Comments under the video? Turned off. A coincidence for sure.

I checked now their latest big release to see what revolutionary, new features they have added and how they are promoting it.
Still same (VERY PRO!!!) tactics - listing bloody EVERYTHING as a NEW FEATURE so it looks like they added lot of stuff. I especially like these new, revolutionary features in Photoshop:
- "Preference setting to auto-show the home screen" - Mind blowing. this will change how PRO's are working!
- "New Shortcuts" - WOW! I might be going back to Adobe for that revolutionary "feature"
- "Animated GIF support" - for all you TRUE PROs out there who are making... animated GIFs frame by frame in 2020... Not some amateurs - as we all know Photoshop is targeting PRO folks! "What are you working on, mate?" "Animated GIF's for Sony... Serious business". Happens all the time in the industry! (btw - funniest part is that Photoshop had Animated GIF support ages ago, then they get rid of it and now bringing it back as "new feature").
- "Improved New Document dialog performance". - That is the killer! Now you click "New Document" and... New Document dialog shows up. Quote: "almost instantaneously". Respect Adobe.

I dont want to go one by one, but let me list just the last fantastic, new, revolutionary and extremely PRO FEATURE added to the latest Photoshop. Ladies and Gentleman, Adobe gives you:

"What's new screen within the app"

I wonder if they listed "What's new screen within the app" on that screen too... Adobe inception.

Ow, and @Jowday - you said
 
Literally in the latest Illustrator they added "Path simplification. Easy and quick editing of complex paths by reducing the number of anchor points". Which is almost the same thing
BTW, that was one of THREE new features in Illustrator... THREE features in new release. You want to know two others? In that PRO software by industry leading developers? "Auto spell-check" and "Background save and export". Another groundbreaking release by Adobe. How did they listed it? OF COURSE using their (so much better then Serif!) marketing skills as "Top new features". Once again ALL (three...) features made to the top of the list. Bravo!

OK, enough of that PRO stuff, time to make some money with my amateur package. If only I had PRO Photoshop again, I could use some new feature.. like a shortcut or "whats new" screen... Eh...

@walt.farrellJust to confirm: I have read the announcement and clicked the Smart Object tickbox in Settings. I have also read the more cautious statement near the checkbox.
I imported two sample files with Smart Objects 1.8 could not handle altogether and there will likely be more. I also figured out that a simple Fill Layer from PS got rasterized...
For me as a customer who has bought all three products but doesn't use them it happened for the second time in relative short sequence that widely published marketing announcements were made, which simply aren't accurate.
Version 1.7x should bring a  performance breakthrough on Windows, but in reality the program still doesn't use the Video card and a lot of long standing performance-bottlenecks I experienced (and reported) remained in place. Now I got a victim of a clickbait again (I read the 'universal Smart Objects support' announcement in a German magazine) and I found out equally quickly, that statements made aren't accurate.
I am not criticizing the programmers, but rather the marketing department. On should be very cautious with announcements that don't hold water. It's just silly. The suite is a great success, one should not endanger the project with invalid promises.

Come on man, this sounds like people who AFTER something happened say "I knew it all the time" Photoshop background has absolutely nothing to do with it - programming does. I got 20+ years of Photoshop under my belt, yet I have no clue if it is actually possible to reverse engineer that smart objects and to what extent. You don't know either unless you are a programmer. I agree that announcing it now as major, fully fleshed feature is misleading if it works like you said.

To be completely honest I would put resources in making native alternative to smart objects instead of trying to figured out how Adobe did it.
 
I just upgraded my PC so it indeed vastly improved . Imagine that performance we have now is all without even using GPU acceleration. I dont do big format using Photo, but on the very same computer, 2 years ago, performance of Designer was so much better from Illustrator that I could do things in Designer that were basically impossible on illustrator. That is partly why I switched. Plus - for years updates of Illustrator are basically a bad joke.
 
OK then, so they went little overboard with advertisement but hey, its a good start. I would use words like "partial" or "experimental". It does not sound as good, but certainly is better to be accurate to avoid misdirection.

@walt.farrellJust to confirm: I have read the announcement and clicked the Smart Object tickbox in Settings. I have also read the more cautious statement near the checkbox.
I imported two sample files with Smart Objects 1.8 could not handle altogether and there will likely be more. I also figured out that a simple Fill Layer from PS got rasterized...
For me as a customer who has bought all three products but doesn't use them it happened for the second time in relative short sequence that widely published marketing announcements were made, which simply aren't accurate.
Version 1.7x should bring a  performance breakthrough on Windows, but in reality the program still doesn't use the Video card and a lot of long standing performance-bottlenecks I experienced (and reported) remained in place. Now I got a victim of a clickbait again (I read the 'universal Smart Objects support' announcement in a German magazine) and I found out equally quickly, that statements made aren't accurate.
I am not criticizing the programmers, but rather the marketing department. On should be very cautious with announcements that don't hold water. It's just silly. The suite is a great success, one should not endanger the project with invalid promises.

It was only because the rest of the replies made more sense if your post was at the top. The rest did not belong there. 
The problem comes when people post in the announcement thread about what the software cannot do that the thread gets sidetracked. It's not a rebuke at all, just a bit of house keeping.

I do not consider my comment a bug report. I reported two completely unsupported forms of Smart Objects. Supporting embedded RAW in Smart Objects in my understanding is fundamentally incompatible with the way Affinity Photo works right now.

Also editing RAWs with Photoshop / ACR in conjunction with Bridge is actually very elegant and slim...
The whole prodedure of editing RAW inside Affinity Photo is totally geared towards editing one file at a time. All operations are performed on an embedded file, which as soon as you press the "Develop" button loses its RAW characteristics. There no way to sync editing operations on  20 or 30 RAW files at once with Affinity Photo – a daily demand for many photographers. What works instantly elsewhere would take forever and very likely make your system unresponsive. Even if your machine could handle this load –  as there's no sidecars and no database there no way to transfer settings from one image to the next. 

So what could Serif do within the current system?
They could make the RAW workspace non-destructive. As the RAW gets embedded inside the .afphoto one still couldn't exchange RAW file with settings with anyone else.
They could give us batch processing inside the Develop workspace. That still would be prohibitively slow in comparison to programs which write settings into sidecar or database. Affinity first has to open up the RAW and turn it into a.afphoto, a process which even in 1.7 takes many seconds for just a single image. Synchronizing basic corrections therefore would take minutes of batch processing, while one may update common settings for whole folder of RAWs updates within a second elsewhere.

There's countless threads in this forum where people ask for a DAM. Serif confirms that there's some plans, but so far they didn't reveal what they are working on. Reading the requests brought up by users I see that they ask for very different things: Some want a straightforward viewer app, others even request complex database driven software with nifty filtering options to handle huge asset collections. The term DAM unfortunately isn't very clearly defined. Hence my question:

 Do you need a DAM-program by Serif? And what should it be like?
[Edit: Unfortunately I can not do anything about the terrible Poll formatting. Maybe staff can add an empty line between the questions?]