Pauscorpi

Hi MEB,
nothing personal, but the versions were never differentiated in your ads nor on the site 🤔 However I understand completely the level of technical restrictions imposed by Apple MAS.
So as the versions aren't completely the same but their prices are, there should be a way to convert the licenses maybe?
Thank you anyway MEB  

I already mentioned this, but I am going to say it again:
Vendors of other software with persistent problems caused by restrictions imposed by Apple App Store sandboxing requirements are giving the option of a licence for non-sandboxed versions from their own store for those people suffering from Apple's requirements.
Unless Apple have some contractual language specifically forbidding this (and if so, it would be good to know, so that we can avoid using the Apple App store in future) it really should not be difficult to issue these licenses.

Hah, my bad. 😅 Ok, I see we're all on the same page… Yes, it's disheartening indeed, but we shouldn't let the foot off the pedal anyway.
And more than disheartening, it's frustrating just to think just how easy some of these would be to fix. Or maybe not exactly easy, but easier than creating entirely new features from scratch. And, at this point, with so many people complaining about absolutely basic stuff like this, that just looks to have been put out there in a rushed and incomplete fashion, it's high time the Serif management team rethinks their priorities.
Yes, competing with Adobe on features (either by upstaging them with innovative ones or just achieving some semblance of parity) is important and all, but come on… They really could and should do much better. It's just a matter of basic respect (or, in this case, lack thereof) for Apple's HIG or just established UX principles.

@JGD, try rereading my comment with your irony detector turned on!
 
My point exactly.
 
I was clearly too subtle for some readers, so here's my irony-free summary… I find it concerning that Affinity published that article. The title implies that Separated Mode works just fine, offering increased efficiency. The FAQ section titled 'Separated Mode window management tips' appears to be their response to user frustration, which doesn't address our concerns at all. It leads me to think that fixes to Separated Mode aren't coming soon, if ever, and that's disheartening.

A million times this.
There are a lot of shortcomings in Affinity apps that I let slide; it's only when I get into “it doesn't feel good” territory that I actually take the time to come here and create entire threads on those.
Just a heads up, in case you find any other shortcomings yourself and feel the need to point them out: you should either get a thousand reactions and replies to your thread, or produce a >100 word request in the first place; otherwise, the Serif team will outright ignore you, no matter how sound your argument is.
[Funnily enough, that reply was exactly 100 words long, ha. Guess my training here on the forums has paid off, after all.  ]

I also wanted to focus on this detail in particular and remind Serif devs of another essential UX trait:
Photoshop, while a bit cumbersome itself in its implementation, gets this right, because it gives us some choice. When zooming in and out with the keyboard shortcuts, Command+[+] and Command+[-], the document window automatically resizes, as if the Window>Zoom command was issued concomitantly, thus eschewing the need for that extra user action; when zooming in and out with the Zoom [magnifying glass] tool or with a multitouch gesture like pinch or a Option+two-finger scroll combo, the window maintains its size. That way, managing windows in Photoshop is extremely easy and quick, even if it may appear a bit convoluted to a bystander.
If we want to tile a few, we just have to hit Command+[-] a few times until they are small enough to fit; if we want to fill the screen with one image or even a few and still be able to select them with Application Mission Control (which isn't enabled by default in macOS, but should, and most self-respecting pros take care of that whenever they set up a new Mac), we can just zoom on the image with the trackpad, if it's small, and perform the Window>Zoom command to make it “maximize” (without going under the docked UI items as stated before, obviously).
Alternatively, when we wish to work in only one window at a time, pressing F does the trick without having to activate the Application frame. And this is crucial, for a very important reason: activating the equivalent in Affinity Photo automatically renders Application Exposé/Mission Control completely useless, and even though you could undock file tabs from Photoshop's main window, when toggling the Application frame Photoshop sucks all files into said window, thus resulting in the very same scenario.
If Affinity apps had a proper Separated mode, they would work nicely by default with Application Exposé/Mission Control. If they also offered a “Fullscreen without going fullscreen” mode, weird as that Adobe holdover from back when there wasn't a proper, OS-wide fullscreen mode may be, they would allow you to work on one document at a time and still work nicely with Application Exposé/Mission Control.
The advantage of this feature, especially on bigger screens – and in particular with Adobe's implementation, which resizes any inactive windows back to their original size (and here Serif could try and one-up them by resizing all windows to their original size while App Exposé was toggled, including the current one) –, over the regular fullscreen windows mixed with virtual desktops on Mission Control, is that document windows can be huge if you only have a few of them open, whereas the latter are tiny no matter how few you have open. For photographers working with many photos, even in “pseudo-fullscreen mode”, in Photoshop, this is extremely useful. I'm not even kidding, they are a four-finger swipe – or, in my case, active corner – away, whereas in Affinity Photo you have to go and pick at a tiny tab and can never see them tiled when in proper Single-window or Fullscreen mode. You just can't have your cake and eat it too, and must either keep your desktop über-tidy, or get some desktop-obscuring app (and you would still have to deal with all the other Separated mode shortcomings, of course).
This is one of those rare cases where I say: screw Apple and their official HIG implementation and current dictums. Yes, fullscreen/single-window apps and simple, all-windows-in-a-jumbled-mess-or-grouped-into-smaller-jumbled-messes Mission Control work great in small laptop screens, and should absolutely be embraced. But good old App Exposé and Adobe's arcane methods, for all their own quirkiness, are absolutely key for larger screens. They are holdovers from a nearly bygone era, yes, but there's a reason why they haven't killed them off yet, and probably never will (if anything, that Pro Display XDR beast is absolute proof that computer displays are still growing, not shrinking… 32'' 6K iMac Pro in 5 years' time when that panel – and maybe even that crazy backlighting system – drops a bit in price, anyone? And why wouldn't they add to the product range or fill its slot with a bigger, 8K Pro Display XDR? OLED-based? Who knows, really…). And, once again, Serif could add similar advanced UX tricks which might even be disabled by default so as not to confuse less demanding users. Make it a subset of Separated mode called “Concentration/Focus mode” (in a nod to Microsoft, ha), which is greyed out until the former is activated, or something.
Maybe one day (soon?), when Marzipan/Catalyst gets mature enough and macOS converges further with the other two touchscreen platforms, Apple will allow “intra-window Application Exposé” (“Window Exposé”? It's a sensible name, from a strictly hierarchical standpoint) for single-window applications with a proper, public and documented API; It's not much of a stretch to assume that, since Safari on iPadOS (it's weird calling it that, but I'm sure we'll all get used to it in no time) already does this with its tabs (in fact, that feature appeared at least in iOS 9, because I'm still running it on my iPad 3 and it does that), and Safari on macOS has also been doing this for a while (since… Sierra? High Sierra? Earlier still?). Maybe those who are working with a desktop and a mouse/el cheapo pen-digitiser-only tablet can get a system-wide keyboard shortcut (hopefully a better one than Safari's weird, right-hand-friendly Command+Shift+\) instead of the predictable pinch gesture (maybe adjusted with some extra fingers, 4 or 5 in total, to distinguish it from the two-finger pinch-to-zoom gesture, possibly a back-port to the Mac of the newfangled three-finger pinch-to-cut/copy gesture and definitely the pinch-to-open-Launchpad one) which may activate it, or whatever. But, until then (and I would strongly discourage Serif devs from rushing and trying to implement such a specific feature before Apple makes it available as a prepackaged solution; variable UI gamma does indeed offer more than Apple's own binary dark mode/light mode implementation and absolutely equals Adobe's own, which made it a smart move, but going crazy with aping Safari tabs because maybe it will become a new standard UX model would be just wasting resources, and it's been already long enough since it's been available on iOS/iPadOS for it to maybe not be a priority for them), their photographer users' needs will go unaddressed, and that's a shame. For now, they should take what macOS already offers and users are already accustomed to, and adapt accordingly. I.e., be a good macOS citizen.

It seems that an intuitive cropping tool is simply heresy for Serif. There's no logical reason for not having it and it seems to be merely dogma on their part for not implementing a standard solution. Adobe cracked this decades ago. Why re-invent an inferior wheel? Open image, drag the crop outline using the space bar to position accurately, hit return, save. Bosh. Hit Escape to cancel the outline and start again. Simples. By all means add clever features on top but that should be the basic starting implementation. I've just downloaded Photo because I finally had it with Designer not being usable in this regard but am staggered to find that Photo, a pixel-editing program doesn't offer this either. Not even as an option.
It's a massive stumbling block, Serif. Please get over yourselves and make it work!!!! You must be losing so many punters who try out the program and give up on it because they can't even make Crop work!
Thanks for the rasterize & trim tip, Walt!

This has been there from the beginning, has been raised with developers multiple time and has been dismissed as 'by design', like DM1 says. Why anyone would think that two render passes in an app that focuses so heavily on painting strokes, be it for drawing or masking,  is a good idea to boost performance is beyond me.  I have long stopped using Photo for drawing and painting, it's not possible to seriously work this way. Occasionally, I do some file print prep but even that I can now do elsewhere. For digital painting, I recommend Procreate (fantastic painting experience) and Clip Studio Paint (sophisticated image editing), both solid, reliable apps with superb painting capabilities.

Hi team. 

I hope you guys are safe and well during all of this COVID-19 chaos!
I have a quick question regarding Affinity Photo for iPad. 
When I draw, the screen seems to blur or lower in resolution as soon as my Apple Pencil touches the screen, and then it smooths out again when I lift it.
I did a screen recording to show what I mean, here's the link (be sure to watch in HD): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSQTuxV0E34 

Why does this happen? It's subtle, but it can be a bit disruptive when doing finer detailed line-art, as I can't always see the smaller areas in as much detail while drawing. 
An example is the finer hatched lines in the video, which become quite unclear as soon as I put the Apple Pencil down.
I seems to happen less when I'm quite zoomed in, but I tend to prefer working a bit more zoomed out so that I can see more of the content I'm drawing while I'm drawing, and not get lost in the details.

Thanks in advance!

@Pauscorpi I prefer to Save a Copy once. Then use 'Open from Cloud' to open this 'copy'. Now you will have a 'Save' option available in Document Menu and it updates the copy file on saving.

Someone pointed out where the blend ranges are on the iPad version, but they are missing numerical in/out. This is useful when you want to precisely replicate something across images or layers without doing a "duplicate". Please add to bring parity to desktop version.
 
 

This happens to me almost everyday. 
 
I would suggest for dev to replicate, try having a document with many layers and the following conditions:
 
For me at least... when I have around 15 - 20 layers, working about through each one, jumping out of one, into the other type of workflow, and accumulated hours (5-6 straight) this scenario, the OP expresses starts appearing for me.
 
It doesn’t not come alone. I also get the marching ant line starts to disappear while it’s up. I have exit the file, then re-enter, and then there goes my marching ant line. 
 
These two two occur together hand in hand with me, if one occurs before the other - it’s already established, the other will pop up, just a matter of time. 
 
Running iPad Pro 10.5 (2017 model)
latest public release iOS 11.2.6