NotMyFault

No. The Info bot message says has been fixed by the developers in internal build "2.3.0.2150". Old bruce says: isn't the current customer beta 2.3.0.2157 & thus already available? Yes. Both are unrelated. The is no catch or contradiction. The bug has been fixed, and Affinity published another Beta later probably with additional bug fixes.

I don’t thing there is a bug. when you use selection from layer, only the alpha channel gets converted into a selection. use channels panel to inspect all channels individually. Now, while this selection is active, when you use the fill tool for recoloring, partial transparent pixels get only partially changed to the new color, and alpha stays unchanged. For fully opaque pixels, you get the new color, but for all other pixels you get a mixture, which is always kind more greyish and looks like a halo. Transparent areas will get mixed with black by default (even if the canvas is shown white!), explaining the much darker halo. This makes artistic sense when you actually want to create a smooth transition between an actual background color and the selected area. As explained above, you will get a surprising dark halo for documents with (a) semi-transparent layer content and (b) canvas set to be non-transparent (by default). It is a kind of UI bug that by default the transparent areas of the canvas are shown in white, while the blend formula will always take black. It would be more logical to place a white fill layer or rectangle as bottom layer to avoid this effect. All said above is valid for RGB, but even more irritating for CMYK documents. The current handling of Affinity is illogic for handling of transparent areas in canvas: - color of canvas rendered (white) - color values used for layer blending (black) in canvas - colors shown in layer thumbnails of channels panels (black, even for CMYK docs) When you

If you want a clean mask for that specific file, I would use the pen tool and create a vector mask (curve layer). When done, add a little bit of Gaussian blur via layer fx. Selection brush and all other pixel based tools won’t give pleasant results, the contrast in the image is too low.

So the printer wants an PNG file in RGB / sRGB which he then converts on his own into CMYK (probably the print device). And you should use only a subset of RGB colors compatible with the unknown CMYK profile of the printer. Sounds like fun. I would not care about banding (unless proven wrong), it will be probably the smallest problem.

It depends on what color profile is used. A wide gamut profile will make this wort, as the steps between color values become larger. So for smooth results use RGB/16 and sRGB, and add noise or a little dissolve filter on top (from Photo). When bound to Designer, You may add a 50% gray rectangle on top with some color noise in blend mode linear light

For the sake of completeness I just want to add that even with RGB/16 document format Affinity is unable to render smooth gradients, as rendering on screen is capped at 8 bit. Exported documents are not impacted. Affects all versions V1 and V2.

A very quick way: add a ripple life distortion filter, with 2-3% strength add the image of a flag / curtain, experiment with blend mode for more realistic look, you may experiment with mesh distortion, or liquify persona. in essence, you need to combine 3-4 effects: adding textile texture distortion of texture Dodge and burn / lightning blur to simulate (out of) focus

I actually don’t know if Apple offers an API allowing Affinity to request the RAW file. The current state is dissatisfying.

Every RAW file contains both: the actual RAW data, and an JPEG version used to provide a preview, e.g. as thumbnail even for those apps who cannot read the RAW part. Apple Photos has its quirks and in many cases does automatically choose (the wrong one) if you use drag and drop or edit in, or even generates a downsampled version. I personally don't trust Apple Photos because of its multiple "automagic" functions. No, does not make sense. Store your RAW files in a folders or a real DAM system. It's an Apple Photos issue.

This can happen especially when you use "refine selection". If you need a hard edge for your selection, don't use refine selection.

Please find my version below. I brightened up the eyes and teeth, as these areas will attract the eye of the observer. I think the neck area is not so important. I just adjusted the brightness in face an neck area a little bit to achieve a bit more contrast. Everything is on separate layers and can be adjusted to taste. To brighten the skin, I use curve shapes, and set mode to overlay. This allows great control. Blend range limits effect to darker colors. You can play with all these settings and fine-tune everything. I'm no fan of classical pixel based dodge & burn- they work only in "destructive" mode, and I strictly prefer non-destructive work. BW Portrait.afphoto

You need to zoom to exactly 100% to get a valid preview. Your screenshot is zoomed out, so the fine pattern converges to a solid dark grey color as the light pixels are not visible. use a threshold adjustment instead, and may use bilateral or box blur.

Designer offers the same upscale methods like Photo, including HQX and XBR. (In V1 and v2). So to answer the original question: Designer and Photo offer the identical set of resize methods, so this function alone is no reason to switch to Photo. Photo in general is far more capable to edit pixel/bitmap documents. It offers a plugin interface, and some plugins like gmic may help to improve perceived sharpness of images after rescaling. You will definitely benefit from some of Photos filters in the sharpen category to reduce the side effects of resizing. Neither in Photo or in Designer is a single-click „upscale“ function which combines resizing and successive steps like sharpening.

RAW files need to be interpreted and transformed to create an image that on display has best similarity to what the human eye would seen in the camera position. Camera vendors do not disclose all their secret sauce, so competing apps need to guess on their own or pay to license the secret sauce. Affinity apps depend on LibRAW, a free and open software which naturally lacks behind Canon‘s own app which you already paid for by buying Canon camera. The best way to deal with this is to use Canon DPP or any RAW developer you prefer for critical files. Then export as tiff/16 and continue to do all creative work in Affinity apps Backround about RAW editing

Well, there is an easy workaround: don’t reduce opacity of mask layers. instead, you have multiple other methods to get the same effect: reduce opacity of enclosing group or layer add levels adjustment, reduce white output on alpha channel Use blend range, reduce both nodes to desired level (flat line).