Frozen Death Knight

I checked out a video preview by PiXimperfect. For once I can say that Adobe has done a good job with producing a significant content update. Pattern Preview I think is the best feature of that update and I think Affinity would greatly benefit from having this as well. The AI stuff really doesn't interest me much since I primarily am an artist more than a photo manipulator, but it's still cool nonetheless. I can see why some photographers and image editors would want AI aware features inside Affinity as well to speed up lengthy selection processes. That said, I did notice that they have taken some ideas from Affinity. I.e. search bars for assets, swatches, and more, the improved primitive shapes with booleans, and Version History which is pretty much a mixture of Snapshots and the branching history states. Some of them I still think Affinity does better (more specifically primitive shapes, branched history states, and Snapshots), but it's nice that Adobe are acknowledging good ideas as being just that, good ideas. As long as Serif also take the good ideas from Adobe, it's all fair game. As for the discussion in regards to Serif needing to up their game even more, I think people should have realistic expectations on what Serif are able to accomplish compared to Adobe. I don't think that Serif should be chasing Adobe's tail constantly, since that is a chase that is never going to end. They don't have the same resources or the manpower to push out all these features in one major update. Yes, they should absolutely take Adobe products into account when adding new features and improvements to Affinity, but they should also chart their own course so that they can carve out their own place in the market. It's more important that the devs add the right sort of features that will satisfy their customer base and benefit all three programs as a whole rather than trying to push out Adobe sized content patches. The one main strength Affinity has over Adobe products is how well connected all three softwares are with each other, so the devs will need to be resourceful when making changes that add to the overall value of the entire Suite. Affinity should not strive to be just like Adobe, but being Affinity.

Good idea. Not sure if this is helpful or not, but one workaround to this is to copy the objects and use expand stroke so they will recognise the outlines of each other and then finally delete the copies if you don't need them. Far from ideal, but it works somewhat. Alternatively you use guides to help assist the snapping process a bit more when you want to repeat the process on several objects at once with the same outline widths.

The new log-in system seems to work on my end. Got a message that asked me if I wanted to keep my downloads or uninstall. Thanks for listening to the feedback! Btw, I have a small request regarding logging in and out of your account. Right now I noticed that if you log out, you have to manually type in your e-mail info again from scratch to log back in. I know some log-in services that save your account name/e-mail info after having typed it in once as a small quality of life improvement, so would it be possible to get something like that for Affinity?

The devs have said that they want to fix it, but for whatever reason something is hindering them from fixing it. Either it's too complicated to get solved in a short time frame or they don't know how yet. I agree about it needing to be a high priority bug fix, though. They fixed some bugs with other booleans in 1.8, so not having Divide fixed yet feels pretty bad.

Great to see that you are taking our concerns seriously. Helps with building trust. Anyway, I wanted to expand my thought process regarding managing updates and installs from before. Here are some things I would like to see regarding the handling of Afffinity programs: 1) Divide up installs into two categories: Retail and Beta. 2) Each section will have a way to access the latest patch notes for each version. Would make things a little easier to keep track of changes. 3) A direct link to the bug forums. Been Alpha and Beta testing Blender and one change the devs did some versions ago that has been invaluable when writing bug reports has been a direct link to creating a bug report with basic info about my hardware, what build version I am using, and a basic structure for how to write a report. Would speed things up a bit when sending feedback. 4) When a new update happens (Retail or Beta), you are given the option to either update your current install or create a brand new one with a new install location. This would be extra helpful during Beta tests where some builds are more broken than others and you would want to switch from an older to a newer build to check for differences. This combined with point 3 with info of your current version would make writing reports a little bit clearer. 5) Allow you to move the location of your cache data to other hard drives other than your main hard drive, possibly even cloud storage, for all your owned Affinity programs. Right now there is no way to change cache data storage in Affinity, so one way this could be done is through this new system with a bigger overview of all programs and not just one at a time. Those are just some ideas on what I would like to see happen with the new system. If I have more, I will post them!

Would be great, yeah. I have the same problem when using brushes in Photo with some settings being tucked away in a mini menu. Would gladly trade some canvas space for a more readable context toolbar.

I agree about offline mode. I appreciate the thought behind the Resource Manager (tons of potential) and I am looking forward to trying it later tonight, but I too am concerned about the possibility of needing to be always online to use Affinity. In most cases I am always online so it will not affect my day to day use, but the times I am not I want to be sure that I am not locked out from the programs. Needing to be online to receive patch updates and the like I however do not mind and I hope that us users will be able to manage updates and installs of the Affinity Suite through the new Resource Manager down the line. Anyway, looking forward to trying it out!

Something can be more than just one thing. For instance, Photoshop is an image editor, a photo RAW editor, an art program, a 3D texturing program, an animation tool, and more at the same time. If you called Photoshop any of these things you would be correct in saying so. Calling Lightroom a DAM is a perfectly logical thing to call it if it has that capability. Sure, you can discuss which aspect is the core aspect of a software, but there is nothing illogical by calling something for what it actually is. I never claimed that the DAM part of Lightroom was the core aspect of the software and wasn't even the point in the first place. In fact, my entire point was that despite it being a DAM (and I will continue calling it for what it is), it still wasn't on par with the popularity of Photoshop, which lacks this capability pretty much completely. So this aspect of Lightroom clearly isn't strong enough to outshine the strengths of Photoshop for a lot of people. I think priortising the creation of Photo, Designer, and Publisher over a DAM at least makes some sense, since Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign are arguably Adobe's flagship softwares as well. Making a DAM after all three have been released on all major platforms seems a bit more reasonable when the devs can now take into account StudioLink which wasn't a introduced until Publisher. If they can deliver on a stronger share of assets between all Affinity softwares, I could see a DAM being a bit more interesting proposal.

So you admit it is also DAM, yet your starting argument says it is "NOT a DAM" at the same time. That's quite some doublethink if I ever saw it. I know perfectly well that it does more than just manage assets, but you are just moving the goalposts because it is inconvenient for you to admit that it is in fact, a DAM. By your logic, if Serif decided to make a program with DAM capability, it wouldn't be considered a DAM if the program did more than just that. I.e. adding DAM functionality to Photo would also not fulfill your criteria for what is DAM by how you just defined Lightroom right now. Your definition for what a DAM is really doesn't add up. Lightroom may be popular, but let's be real here, Photoshop is clearly the more popular one of the two and there are plenty of Photoshop users who have never touched a program like Lightroom with DAM capability. That also includes myself. Not everyone needs a DAM, which was my point by comparing the popularity of each program with each other. Sure, I might change my mind on that at some point, but as of now I am not interested in one. I don't mind if Serif does develop a new program for it, but it is still is not something I crave for right now. I think those ideas for other types of softwares are decent ones. If they would be able to deal with handling brushes, assets, etc. so they are shared between all programs I would consider that as a decent upgrade to what we have now. Right now Photo, Designer, and Publisher have different types of assets and if you want them to be the same you have to manually export and import them over. If the assets were more universal that would be a pretty solid selling point that I could consider worth investing into.

Agreed, especially regarding the brush manager being directly accessible on the canvas; i.e. R click. Another aspect that needs improving is the Colour Picker Tool not sharing its custom settings with the other brushes. For instance, you want to sample with a 3x3 Radius instead of 1x1 with Current Layer activated while using the Brush Tool? Nope, can't do it. You have to select you Colour Picker Tool with either "I" or the tool icon and then use it with those settings. I want these settings to apply to ALL colour picker tools in Affinity, not just the Colour Picker Tool. Another downside is that if you want to have a specific setting that you wish to use every time you start up Affinity, you then have to do it manually. Every. Single. Time. It sure gets tiring repeating the same action every time you want to work. Saving them as sticky settings that remembers the customisations from your last session would be a massive quality of life improvement as well.

Funny, I always thought the Photo Persona was the core of Photo. The vast majority of editing work is done there for the vast majority of users who are not photographers, but photo manipulators and artists. Heck, even a lot of photographers likely use the Photo Persona more than the Develop Persona. It's as absurd as saying Camera Raw is the core of Photoshop. I won't deny that it it is very important to have the feature and that it remains well supported for photography use, but don't go on and assume that the majority uses it when that frankly isn't true at all. You just have to check the vast majority of Photoshop tutorials to see that the focus is not about using Camera Raw which is Photoshop's equivalent to the Develop Persona in Photo. Heck, why is it that Photoshop is vastly more popular than Lightroom despite the latter being a DAM? I rest my case. Besides, first you said you agreed that a separate program using StudioLink would be sufficient for a DAM program in the Affinity Suite, but now you try to argue against that very thing which harrym supported. So which is it? Do you want a separate DAM program with StudioLink or not? You can argue as much as you like if it is selfish or not, but that argument could be applied to you just as well by wanting to force something on to people that they don't want. However, it really doesn't matter if any of us here are selfish since it is frankly natural to have your own best interests at heart. So if it is selfish or not is quite frankly inconsequential.

Man, that honestly sucks to hear. Seems like a wasted opportunity by Adobe not to have these things ironed out for their iPad versions when their PC model is built around being able to work between Adobe softwares.

We don't have to justify ourselves to you if we are needed customers. That's for Serif to decide. They have already said that they appreciate the feedback and things I have done on this forum before, so I'd rather take their word for it than listening to someone who thinks he knows what he's talking about.

What an absolutely absurd statement. I bought the softwares as well as some additional things beyond that and I am ready to buy 2.0 whenever that comes out, assuming it has features I want on launch. Who are you to decide who is a good customer or not? Ever since 1.6 when I bought Photo on Windows I have been actively Beta testing all of Affinity's major releases, including minor patches, and written pages upon pages of feedback on how to improve them. If I wanted a stagnant product, I wouldn't have done any of this in the first place.

At least we both agree on that. I already bought all three. Your argument really doesn't work here when we started off with the premise that Affinity should become more expensive than their current price points, specifically Photo by making it a DAM as well. I like the current pricing model, which is why I decided to buy them all and is also why I am arguing against such a push. I have no doubt that eventually prices will go up just as economy inflation eventually kicks in, but that wasn't what was talked about, wasn't it? We were discussing making Photo more expensive by making it a DAM program as well, which is not something I want to happen. Making each program more expensive for the sake of it when it is a major selling point that there is a low bar of entry for getting into the Affinity ecosystem is not what I consider wise. Heck, if it wasn't for the pricing I might not have been using Affinity right now, but something else. I think that's the case for a lot of people. I think there are other ways to monetise a product besides the intitial price point. For instance, I have already checked out the Affinity shop and bought a couple of brush packs I liked because I didn't break bank when I began using Photo. I am also considering buying Photo for my Macbook Air since I have been using a bunch lately and my current versions are Windows only. I would frankly never consider double dipping like this if Affinity had a higher price point.

Why not make this a separate program with the StudioLink feature instead of cramming a DAM into Photo? Last I checked Photoshop is not Lightroom and to me it sounds a bit absurd to increase the pricing of Photo by forcing it to become Lightroom as well, especially since I am not a photographer who would be the only ones that benefit from such a system. By all means, Serif should make a DAM program eventually after they have developed their current three programs some more, but please don't cram all of these things into Photo and up the pricing.

Tried testing super fast brush strokes performance and from my own perspective it seems to have improved a bit. Not completely fixed, but it seems harder to reproduce the unresponsive UI performance issue I reported last time (still a bit laggy sometimes, but at least the UI can be clicked on after a second or two unlike the previous Beta). What hasn't been fixed is some brush strokes being considered as one history state, since I was able to create 2+ strokes = 1 history state when making super fast strokes in the current Beta. It is going in the right direction, so keep tinkering some more there and we should be golden eventually. One aspect that can however be slow still is when painting/drawing while using some adjustment/live filter layers on top of that layer, especially in larger projects. However, I don't think there is any true solution to this by improving GPU acceleration, but instead adding more tools for layer management. I.e. adding a global disable/enable all adjustments/live filters that you can toggle on and off to optimise your project. I know we have alt clicking thumbnails, but that method only works for individual layers. For larger projects it gets more complicated, especially since you can't alt click groups and then work on the contents within said group by clicking on one of those layers (the isolation resets). Alternatively you add the ability to create embedded documents directly from the Layers panel like how Photoshop does it with smart objects. Since performance is also related to the amount of layers you have inside a single document, being able to divide up your project into different documents would be a good solution for dealing with these types of slowdowns. Ideally I would like to see both of these features to deal with this performance problem, but the latter would honestly be my top priority because of how useful creating embedded documents/smart objects from the Layers panel actually is other than just performance boosts.

Here's an example of how I use the current version of the curves. Easy to get very exact values on a percentage basis. No need to type "0.5" or the like, just ".5", ".35", ",76". etc., etc. A perfectly reasonable approach to using curves if you ask me. Adding more options for how to type in curve values would of course be a nice plus. Desktop 2020.10.14 - 22.49.00.02.mp4 Anyway, speaking of this feature, I think I might have found some bugs regarding it, @Chris J. Apparently you can type a value smaller or larger than the current range 0-1,000. Got some wonky results with the curve which could only be fixed with Reset, since I couldn't access the actual handles for moving the curve values with certain settings. Maybe change it so that if you type in a value larger than 1 or smaller than 0, the curve handle resets back with the value 1 and 0 respectively? That way the value can never go beyond the current range set in place. Desktop_2020_10.14_-_23_00_17_03.mp4

Then please, enlighten me. I am not a photographer, so I am naturally not going approach the way you expect to be using curves. I like the current version of the range as 0-1,000 since it works for me when working on my art and my thought process of working with percentage type values. Unless you explain why it is important to have it from 0-255, I will not understand you. Besides, I didn't say that I was against adding that as an option if it was just that, an option. Doesn't Photoshop have something similar as well? That GIF you posted earlier shows two different options for the range, one being labelled as 0-255 and the other as %. Seems to me like a reasonable thing to request for Affinity as well.

I mean, x and y aren't that complicated to understand. Understanding the x and y-axes and reading graphs are taught to children in grade school. Just dragging the curve will show this relation in a couple of seconds. I can agree that the Photoshop method is solid, but the Affinity version is hardly that confusing. One advantage of reading the values from 0 - 1,000 with x and y values is that it can be calculated more in terms of percentages rather than the 0-255 Input/Output values that Photoshop deals with. For instance, try finding the 50% value of 255 just off the top of your head compared to just typing 0,5. Why not let the user choose between the two methods if there is a use for having the value range as 255 with Input/Output labels? Would at least be a decent compromise.

Indeed, but to be fair, it is going to be hard to test if people don't know how it works yet. Some pointers are always appreciated. ^-^

Jowday, you may leave good feedback regarding Affinity most of the time, but this comment to me is one of the reasons you can leave a bad impression on people from time to time. Photoshop is expensive. That price point sure may look cheap, but the cost of handing over your professional future of never being able to truly own anything you produce in the Adobe Suite is the exact reason that people have moved away from the company. We honestly don't care if you can afford it or not, since at this point it is not where the problem lies. It is the very concept of subscription only that some people will never consider Adobe as an option ever again. Besides, if Adobe is so affordable and you have so few complaints about their softwares, why are you even here? To me it seems like you are here because despite the flaws Affinity has, not having to pay that monthly fee was a compelling enough reason to keep coming here and write admittedly useful feedback. To me it looks like you do have a problem with Adobe's prices or you wouldn't have bothered with any of this in the first place. Or am I wrong in my assessment?

Would love to have this. Man, those are some fast gradients for painting! : )

I really don't see how removing the current placement and moving those settings there would improve the UI in the slightest. The upper toolbar has always been a standard used for showing specific custom settings that are relevant to the selected tool in question. You completely undermine the very idea of having this bar by doing this change. I can also have my gripes with certain aspects of the Affinity UI, but this part is in fact very consistent across not just Affinity, but other similar programs as well. To be perfectly frank, your idea is "all over the place".

You've been able to copy paste from Illustrator into Photoshop and vice versa for a long time. Problem is that Photoshop doesn't actually have true vector support, so whatever you do you aren't able to properly view them as vectors inside Photoshop (as I recall they are ported in as smart objects which open up Illustrator if you want to edit them), and the Pen Tool in Photoshop can't really edit any vectors you paste into the program (unlike Photo). This is in stark contrast with Affinity where you can not only copy paste between different Affinity programs, but also work on a single file as previously mentioned, while being able to preview raster and vector simultaneously. Either way, it is still working with both vectors and raster regardless of how you spin it. Well, I hope that gets added then! Just because I said that doesn't mean I don't want to see more fixes being done to issues that hinder productivity. I personally wish they worked more on brush management, layer management as well as improved the Colour Picker Tool for Photo. I hope that last one especially gets addressed in 1.9, since having to switch to the tool instead of using alt on all the brushes to access colour picking from a selected layer can get really old every time you open Affinity.