Randall1028

I have to admit, I'm a pretty bad graphics designer.
That's the reason why I dream of AI functionality like I see in Photoshop - https://www.adobe.com/dk/products/photoshop/ai.html
I really hope that Affinity will not be left behind in the area.
Also I would love if it was easier to apply some basic filters to photos. I'm using levels etc. But it would be cool if I could quickly browse through a gallery of artistic filters, adjust and apply it.
Best regards
Chris
 
 
 

I’m probably more surprised by the lack of a dedicated workspace for painting than I am from the lack of any significant UI customizability. I’m loving all of the quality of life improvements you’ve made but there’s a big question mark over having more purpose-built perspectives than just photo ops.
Editorials aside, it would be great to have you partner with a few professional illustrators/fine artists to come up with a sandbox for digital painting. Perhaps splitting the mixer from the regular brush as distinct tools; and enhancing the brush metadata to make it clearer which brushes work best with which of the two primary tools.
I’d also love to have a mixing palette or color picker that I can move around for inline sampling and comparisons. There’s a lot of room for innovation in the perspective space on this pipeline.

yes, it's very difficult to manage brushes on desktop
it's a long time user request for desktop.

Please please add an option to display the names of brushes in the brush panel, on the Desktop versions of Photo and Designer.
I have hundreds of brush packs, I need to see the names of them without hovering over each.

The iPad is a mobile device, to make full advantage of this fact is to have the option to remove the keyboard from the equation completely.
This could be achieved with voice control, I would love it! No more requiring 3 mouse clicks to adjust settings and get back to where you were. Example: To change opacity, click layer properties, move slider to desired level then click to return in-lieu of saying “opacity 25” or saying “deselect” to deselect a layer. Selecting a layer by saying layer name or “layer number” all layers being assigned an id number.
If I have to sit at table to use a keyboard for shortcuts, I might as well use the desktop app.

all this and…
- Also a need to non-destructively flip the canvas horizontally. with shortcut capability. 
- either a second window ability or an ability to resize (and have it permanently up) the navigator panel. Like the reference panel already mentioned
-a selection tool option in the photo persona like it is on desktop. Having to switch personas and then back again, for simple selections, just grinds the flow to a halt  
-not completely resetting a brush when you tap off of it and then tap back. Resetting the to default should be a manual effort, not automatic.

all this and…
- Also a need to non-destructively flip the canvas horizontally. with shortcut capability. 
- either a second window ability or an ability to resize (and have it permanently up) the navigator panel. Like the reference panel already mentioned
-a selection tool option in the photo persona like it is on desktop. Having to switch personas and then back again, for simple selections, just grinds the flow to a halt  
-not completely resetting a brush when you tap off of it and then tap back. Resetting the to default should be a manual effort, not automatic.

ill be gathering the issues i had in this thread and lack of QoL features ive found in this post. I like this app and the business model of affinity but these minor issues or after thoughts gets really frustrating when trying to get in the zone. Most of this applies for touch screen use.
 
Lack of a ruler tool and poor implementation of constraint tool in touch screen only use. see this  Lack of brush size presets, and poor implementation of brush size entry on touch screen. The smallest stroke of the pencil on the tool area causes brush size to be massive or tiny. its near impossible to do small adjustments, like taking it to 20px from 10px. Also it would be nice if we could enter brush size by writing the number with apple pencil on the toolbox. And presets, thats a must imo. Lack of split screen support or an in app browser for referencing. Cant relocate toolbox at the bottom. Longer list of recent colors and ability to add custom colors easily. A window to save brush + size + color combos on toolbox on the right would be pretty nice to have.

I'm still trying to set Affinity to my go-to app for digital art, but some essential things are pulling me back, making me go back to Krita or Paintstorm Studio:
 
- A single hotkey to toggle show/hide layer (it's dumb to have 2 different keys for doing this)
- A single hotkey to toggle lock/unlock layer (same as before, a single key instead of 2!)
- A single hotkey to toggle group/ungroup (again, if some element is alone, press to group. If it's grouped, then press again to ungroup)
- Define custom hotkeys for brushes (so we can change the selected brush on the fly, this is a must. An example for this is changing between different brush sizes)
- Hotkey for toggle brush lock alpha option
- I don't want to make another post for this, but, it's SO annoying that the brush selection highlight is gone after changing the size or switching tools... Idk if this is a bug, but this need to be addressed as soon as possible I think. I believe it's a bug or a missing feature, but please solve this.
- Brushes panel doesn't even have labels for the brushes (besides the tooltip when mouse hover, but this is unconfortable).
 
That's all for now. These changes will make Affinity A LOT better for digital artists, it will definitely improve the workflow. Thanks and forgive if any mistakes, english isn't my first language.
 
 

I can't believe I just posted this same suggestions...
Brush label names and keep the brush selection... among other suggestions... and your post it's from 2019! I hope devs see this, because there are a lot of digital art users that need a decent painting workflow.
You can't even paint if you don't know which brush is already selected!
 

I am pretty certain that Affinity Photo and Designer are their biggest applications in that order when it comes to sales with Publisher coming in third.  I have gone back to the dark side.  I had wanted very much to make the switch but Publisher holds me back... in three words, "footnotes and endnotes".
There we are.
p.s. couldn't agree more about the lack of transparency.  Even Scribus is more transparent than Affinity when it comes to being open (no pun intended).

To add to my previous comment, I don’t like paying for Adobe but please, take a look at their apps’ uservoice forums. They have a section for active-indevelopment features. They never give dates, only a heads up to say, “Hey we have this feature in dev now.” or, “What is your workflow like?” That’s all that’s needed. 
 

I must admit I share all those concerns. I am not a professional though and for me Affinity is still the best option. However, some years ago, to me Affinity was like a shining star by taking known functions, rethink them from scratch, and in many examples made them better, more intuitive, more consistent. It cannot be overlooked that this has changed. It somehow seems to me that product management changed some time ago as such things in the end depend on very few people with outstanding analytical and conceptual capabilities. However, to me it is also clear that Serif has an enormous lack of resources since quite some time now. Sometimes I think I can feel the principle willingness paired with the typical frustration due to being overloaded too long, and not seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. So, it might well be that the current situation is caused solely by this fact. If this is really the reason I can say for my part that I would accept a higher price for sure, if this would lead to more development resources.

I have to agree with this. For example let's take a super simple feature. Some really low hanging fruit. Just showing brush names in the brush panel. This functionality is already in the IPad versions. It should be really easy for them to add it to the desktop versions. But nothing. Is it because they intend to do a major revamp of the brush panel and so don't want to bother fixing the old one? Is it because they think it will look cluttered? Some other reason? We don't know. They could probably fix this super annoying thing over the course of an afternoon but instead it's just left the way it's always been and using brushes in affinity software kinda sucks as a result. And what's worse we have no dialog as to why it's that way.
You can take that example and use it for every other feature or quality of life addition. 
I think tackling the IPad apps and Affinity Publisher have really reduced the momentum Affinity had when it was just Designer and Photo on desktop. I'm guessing they know that too and have delayed the DAM app to work on 2.0. At least I hope so. 
It'd be nice if they told us though. And maybe started previewing some features. 
My theory is everything is quiet because they want to go big with Affinity 2.0 and so until we get close to it's release we can expect a quiet time. 
 

A lack of a roadmap (before anyone asks, I know why it was removed) or a priority list (what I’d prefer) does not give clear communication to anyone on the outside looking in. There’s no reasoning as to why certain features are/aren’t made, what milestones to get to certain features, why development seems slow, etc. There’s a lot of “We’re listening!” but not a lot of “Here’s what we’re up to/no longer up to and why.” So much of communication is just about being transparent.
I don’t care if they veto some popular request so long as we’re not left guessing as to why. And without a central place to discuss this (like a roadmap of sorts – you don’t even need to give out dates!) the same requests are going to keep popping up. 

I'm feeling the same frustration and disappointment. I've been using each Affinity app for my work since they released on windows (and also recommending them very vocally to my peers). I was ok with having a little bit of friction product of not using the industry standards and missing some quality of life features in exchange for speed, stability and not having to rent my tools. But something has been happening to the Affinity suite during the last year, each release makes the software a little bit slower and unstable each time. As things stand today; I'm willing to wait one more year (assuming performance doesn't become worse) to see performance restored and new big features. Otherwise I will just go back to Adobe, as much as I dislike them, the pros-to-cons ratio of Affinity is getting worse and the software is becoming not worth it for professional work.

I fully share the frustration.
I will continue to use the Affinity suite, based on heavy investment of my time to master the product and find efficient workflows. Never the less, i think it is high time that someone at Affinity like a product owner / product manager really starts to communicate with the active user base (forum users), hear their voice about priorities, and provide a raw roadmap how to overcome the painful issues. 
 
Still convinced that all Affinity staff is really working hard, never the less I‘m deeply dissatisfied with Affinity as a company regarding their autistic behavior and complete ignorance to well documented user feedback.
 
 

I know this thread is nearly a year old, but I’ve been running into just this exact issue and trying to find a solution. 
Anywho, as Serif uses “Support for Photoshop Brushes” as a selling point for Affinity Photo, no, I don’t think we should be leaving support for PS Brushes behind (at least not in this current iteration). Like it or not, PS Brushes are still the “industry standard.” And while I love affinity photo (especially the iPad version), advertising it has support for PS brushes and then they don’t work at all well is problematic. Serif is offering a way to get away from photoshop because you don’t have to give up your favorite tools,  but then not really. 
Especially on the education side of things does this really become a glaring issue. I recently signed up for a digital painting course, and we are encouraged to use the PS brushes supplied by the instructor. These brushes were specifically designed and created for this course. I popped them into AP, only to discover the brushes were pretty much unusable. I almost had to go back to a PS subscription, but luckily I learned Artstudio pro can read the brushes just fine and I was able to use the brushes there without an issue. 
But here’s the thing: I don’t want to use Artstudio, I don’t want to use PS, I want to use Affinity Photo. If Serif doesn’t want to fully support PS Brushes, that’s fine. But then say there’s no support for it at all and not get hopes up that these brushes will work. 
Or, conversely, really allow those PS Brushes to be used and sweep yet another leg out from under Adobe. Just because I use PS Brushes doesn’t mean I won’t use brushes designed specifically for Affinity, it just means I can confidently leave PS behind.

Not sure if this is a limitation of iPadOS or Affinity Photo on iPad at this point, but with V2.0 not far away (I’m guessing based on V1.9 beta), thought I’d throw this request out there. While dodging and burning, it would be useful to have a zoomed in version alongside a zoomed out version of an image. This would require one of the larger iPads to make sense, but is this possible, or is iPadOS the bottleneck?

😕 It's not a particular lut, @Callum. It's the Infer Lut feature. 
 
Looks like it was fixed in the 1.8.4 update. I'm able to do so now. Yay!

Having the same issue. IPad Pro 2020 and 2017 2nd Gen, both had AP 1.8.3

I'm aware of the Ctr + click on the thumbnail, but this doesnt work for a simple curve traced with the Pen Tool  (it doesnt create any selection), it work for curve from texts and curve from polygons. If i want it to work for the curve i need to add a fill to the curve i just traced, one more step in a process i will do a lot.
The real question is WHY  deleting the curve layer when i just ask for a selection, the behavior doesn't really make sens to me.
 
 

I know this thread is nearly a year old, but I’ve been running into just this exact issue and trying to find a solution. 
Anywho, as Serif uses “Support for Photoshop Brushes” as a selling point for Affinity Photo, no, I don’t think we should be leaving support for PS Brushes behind (at least not in this current iteration). Like it or not, PS Brushes are still the “industry standard.” And while I love affinity photo (especially the iPad version), advertising it has support for PS brushes and then they don’t work at all well is problematic. Serif is offering a way to get away from photoshop because you don’t have to give up your favorite tools,  but then not really. 
Especially on the education side of things does this really become a glaring issue. I recently signed up for a digital painting course, and we are encouraged to use the PS brushes supplied by the instructor. These brushes were specifically designed and created for this course. I popped them into AP, only to discover the brushes were pretty much unusable. I almost had to go back to a PS subscription, but luckily I learned Artstudio pro can read the brushes just fine and I was able to use the brushes there without an issue. 
But here’s the thing: I don’t want to use Artstudio, I don’t want to use PS, I want to use Affinity Photo. If Serif doesn’t want to fully support PS Brushes, that’s fine. But then say there’s no support for it at all and not get hopes up that these brushes will work. 
Or, conversely, really allow those PS Brushes to be used and sweep yet another leg out from under Adobe. Just because I use PS Brushes doesn’t mean I won’t use brushes designed specifically for Affinity, it just means I can confidently leave PS behind.

I know this thread is nearly a year old, but I’ve been running into just this exact issue and trying to find a solution. 
Anywho, as Serif uses “Support for Photoshop Brushes” as a selling point for Affinity Photo, no, I don’t think we should be leaving support for PS Brushes behind (at least not in this current iteration). Like it or not, PS Brushes are still the “industry standard.” And while I love affinity photo (especially the iPad version), advertising it has support for PS brushes and then they don’t work at all well is problematic. Serif is offering a way to get away from photoshop because you don’t have to give up your favorite tools,  but then not really. 
Especially on the education side of things does this really become a glaring issue. I recently signed up for a digital painting course, and we are encouraged to use the PS brushes supplied by the instructor. These brushes were specifically designed and created for this course. I popped them into AP, only to discover the brushes were pretty much unusable. I almost had to go back to a PS subscription, but luckily I learned Artstudio pro can read the brushes just fine and I was able to use the brushes there without an issue. 
But here’s the thing: I don’t want to use Artstudio, I don’t want to use PS, I want to use Affinity Photo. If Serif doesn’t want to fully support PS Brushes, that’s fine. But then say there’s no support for it at all and not get hopes up that these brushes will work. 
Or, conversely, really allow those PS Brushes to be used and sweep yet another leg out from under Adobe. Just because I use PS Brushes doesn’t mean I won’t use brushes designed specifically for Affinity, it just means I can confidently leave PS behind.

I have a good amount of photoshop bruhes (some paid) and would like to use them in photo too. Is there any plan to cover this in any futher version of photo?
 
Cheers