Frozen Death Knight

Yep. I had it deactivated in my Wacom Tablet Properties at first since the Beta and official releases share the same settings, but once I activated Windows Ink there it all worked perfectly fine afterwards.

Tried the latest build with the new input precision list that was added. A nice little surprise I found was that Windows Ink allows you to use L click on the side buttons of your tablet pen again, so you are able to produce brush strokes with no pen pressure like you used to with Low Precision. High Precision on the other hand does not work, so it is the only one with this regression. Ctrl+alt+L click works with Windows Ink, so I am overall pretty satisfied with using this method for my tablet input. A pretty good patch overall. Keep it up! 🥳

Didn't seem to work, but anyway, @Old Bruce solved the problem for me. Was a bit confused where the export template option was at first, but I managed to find it a few rows below the regular export operation. Thanks for the help both of you!

How do I do that?

Been trying to create templates that I can use when working on new projects, but of some reason I can't get them to show up in any Affinity program for some reason. Here's a video showing the problem. Desktop 2020.08.13 - 14.13.35.01.mp4 Some help to fix this would be much appreciated. 🥳

@Mark Ingram All right, good to know!

Well, yes, I can do that. However, that also means rasterizing all the layers and masks clipped to the parent layer at the same time, which is not something I want. I want to be able to run merge selected so I can rasterize the parent layer and one clipping layer at a time. I am able to do this when I unclip the clipping layers to run merge selected, but not when they are clipped, since you can't select the clipping layers and parent layer at the same time, as previously mentioned. Fixing the issue of not being able to select both at the same time would make this possible.

@MEB Yes, you are right that the masking layers don't get transformed despite being selected in the Layers panel. However, I disagree that not being able to select the clipping layers and parent layers at the same time is consistent. From the user's point of view it looks very weird when you are able to shift/ctrl select everything except the clipping layers, especially when you lose your parent layer selection if you try to select a clipping layer. Also, I would argue that not being able to liquify a mask layer that is clipped to a parent layer as being weird when it looks like you can select it in the stack. If that's the case, why are you then allowed to liquify both the parent layer and masking layer at the same time when you unclip the latter from the former? If you don't want to liquify the mask as well, then why not just let the user manually deselect the mask from the selection stack or simply lock all edits of said layer through Edit Lock? Still, I may concede on the point that adding this feature to masks might be a feature request rather than a bug. Desktop 2020.08.13 - 14.42.53.02.mp4 However, my next point I definitely don't consider as a feature request, but as a bug. Look at this video for example. I can select layers unrelated to the clipping layers themselves and even liquify them at the same time, but when I try to select the parent layer I can't. It is a very odd limitation since you can select everything else at the same time, with the only exception (that I know of) being parent and clipping layers. Not being able to select clipping layers and parent layers at the same time while simultaneously allowing selection of other layers is just really, really awkward. Desktop 2020.08.13 - 14.51.23.03.mp4

@drawup Never mind, I just made the report myself.

Another user found two shortcuts that were missed during the purge of R click commands for various tools. The Node Tool for all Affinity softwares still uses R click+L click to remove nodes from a selection when dragging the parent node around as well as the shift version of said shortcut.

Well, since I barely use that tool, I didn't come across this issue. However, now when you mentioned it, I sat down and tried it out myself, and I can also confirm this being the case. You are right that this is an inconsistency, since pretty much all the other shortcuts were changed. I would suggest making a report about it, since the devs quite explicitly stated that they were removing all type of R click shortcuts while replacing them with modifiers instead.

Was trying to select the clipping layers and the parent layer in an attempt to work on them simultaneously, since the Liquify Persona allows you to work on multiple layers at the same time which I find very useful. However, of some reason there is a big limitation where the clipping layers are not allowed to be selected while clipped to the parent layer, leading to situations where you have to unclip the layers, edit them all together, and then clip them back to the parent layer to get the desired effect. Of some reason masking type layers that are clipped to the parent layer are allowed to be selected, which makes it feel very inconsistent. Here's an example of what I mean. Desktop 2020.08.13 - 03.19.14.01.mp4 Another reason why this is a big limitation is that this causes problems when you wish to merge a specific clipping layer to the parent layer. You can only use the merging operations like merge selected when you are allowed to select both, but since you can't when you have them clipped, you get situations like these. Desktop 2020.08.13 - 03.22.51.02.mp4

Found a strange visual bug regarding a certain brush setting with a Square brush and Tilt while using a Wacom tablet. Basically what happens is that the small outlines of the brush get stuck on the canvas multiple times until you either zoom or use another brush by hovering over the artefacts. The artefacts are not actual brush strokes, so they don't corrupt the project in any way. They are just being annoying. Copy the brush settings shown in the video to replicate the effect. Desktop 2020.08.10 - 22.51.23.02.mp4

@drawup Doesn't matter much anymore. In 1.8.4 they changed all R click+L click type of shortcuts to ctrl+alt+L click. Just hold down ctrl and alt while using your pen and mouse and you will be able to do what the old shortcut did. Alternatively you can use alt gr on the right side of the Spacebar key.

@Fred Lespine @Alfred Thank you I will! Hihihihi! : ) Anyway, here's another daily update. Still some of the same problems I that I mentioned that aren't fixed yet, but I'll get there! ^^

I would very much like to switch cache directory. Just a couple of minutes ago I had a cache that went up to 6-7 GB for a single file because I was working on a pretty big project, but since my main hard drive for running Windows on only has around that much I had to reset the whole thing and reopen. I do have plenty of disk space on other hard drives, so I would very much appreciate being able to direct all those cache files there instead.

Glad to hear it was useful! To me it's one of those "Is it a bug or a feature?" type of deals. In some cases it's super useful to have super sharp brushes, in other times not so much. ^-^

@swobyman777 Okay, I got it. Yeah, that is a big problem I agree. Don't really have any useful tips on how to fix it except for doing a couple at a time while working with those brushes specifically and then build up your library over time. Have no idea if it is even possible to fix when they are completely different programs and some settings are not quite the same as the ones existing in Photoshop. Eventually you should have all your brushes ready to go without it feeling like climbing a mountain. I saw one of your topics. I made a comment there and explained it in more detail, but I guess you've already read it, lol. Also, yeah, there are some really kickass brushes in Photo. Took some time and just hijacked a bunch of them to put in my personal collection. A personal favourite of mine is the Natural Pencil 4B one from the Pencils section. It's also great as a smudge tool. 🥳

@swobyman777 @Sean PI can explain what's going on here. It's something I noticed years ago when picking up Affinity Photo. It's all related to brush hardness. Compared to Photoshop, Affinity has much sharper brushes with next to no anti-aliasing when reaching 100%. However, you can get the brushes to look a bit more like regular Photoshop brushes by changing brush hardness to 99%. It produces a slight blur on super massive brushes, but nothing that would be super noticeable in most projects. In the vast majority of cases the brush will have that anti-alias look. Here's a video demonstration. Desktop 2020.08.09 - 19.17.28.03.mp4

Eh, no? Serif always release the same features and content updates for each platform. There are of course unique bugs for each platform and some unique features that are platform specific because of the differences between Mac and PC, but overall they releases are nearly identical. I highly doubt this feature will be PC exclusive.

@swobyman777 Really nice! What kind of problems are you having with importing PS brushes? I was able to import all my brushes from Photoshop into Affinity, but a big downside was that you have to manually fix the settings for all of them since they don't all properly convert. Is that the problem you're having as well? Is the jagged anti-aliasing problem something that occurs with all brushes or some? Are you using the 1.8.4 version? They recently rewrote the brush API to be WinTab instead of Windows Ink with better quality brush coordinates, so the typical jaggy lines I used to experience in older Affinity versions with fast brush strokes got vastly improved. Or maybe it is something else you mean?

One of the developers mentioned months ago that the ability to centre you transformation with the Elliptical Marquee Tool is going to be added in 1.9. My guess is that will also apply to the Rectangular Marquee Tool as well.

Edit Lock/Unlock is a feature that has some serious design flaws. I made a thread discussing how it was still possible to edit layers with brush strokes, which is something you want to avoid since that's the point of wanting to lock a layer. However, I also noticed while working on a piece that despite locking the main layer of a stack with a mask clipped to the main layer, it was still perfectly possible to move around the layer with the Move Tool. This frankly should not happen and I would suggest having every single clipping layer being locked as well when you lock the main layer to make things more consistent across the board. This would also apply to things like groups as well, since locking the contents of a stack should mean the locking of everything inside said stack of layers. Desktop 2020.08.09 - 16.49.35.02.mp4 Also, as you can see in the video, my clipped mask layer could also be locked manually, but no lock icon actually appears (a possible bug). However, if you unclip and clip it back to the same layer the icon finally appears. The way I created the original mask was pressing the Mask Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel, so try to do that first in order to replicate the invisible lock icon bug.

1.8.4 got me more pumped for some longer painting sessions, so I decided to boot up an old project I left unfinished for a long time in an attempt to finish it. Really need to fix the hands before I am satisfied. Also not super keen on the background, so will have to work on that. Anyway, enjoy my current progress! : )

Alternatively you divide each option up so that you can decide the settings for each layer type separately. So one tab is "Groups", another is "Vectors", another is "Images", etc., etc. That way you have a bit more control for each layer type while allowing for better naming that directly refers to the type of layer you are changing the setting for.