jmwellborn

@srg I have just found your post. Don't know whether you are using V1 or V2, but if you have your Assistant settings per the screenshots below ("Add new pixel layer and paint") you should get a popup notice each time you attempt to paint on your active layer. V2 on the left, V1 on the right. Click on the Assistant icon on your Context Toolbar, and be sure that your settings match those below. I hope this will help.

@jimh12345 The Selection Brush Tool is sensitive to edges. The Flood Select Tool is the one that responds most to color. At least that is the way I work with them. I am sure that there are others on these forums with far more photographic experience than I have, who will be better able to advise you, when they see your post. There have been so many thousands of posts since V2 was introduced in early November that many have been missed. Hopefully this "bump" will invite new attention!

I have no experience with Ventura, but do know that there was a significant change in responsiveness with my Big Sur Mac when I followed the suggestion made by James Ritson on the Affinity Staff. Open Apple System Preferences, Displays, and uncheck Automatically adjust brightness. If you have not resolved this issue already, could you try to see if this will make a difference? I hope this may help.

@wolboe Are you still experiencing these crashes? If so, could you create a new post, with any new information, and submit it in the Forums Section, Report A Bug in Affinity Publisher V2, Publisher 2 Bugs found on Windows ? I am sure the team will want to know about this.

@Lukester Have you been able to update your Designer to V 2.0.3? Hopefully you will find it responding more quickly to your desktop panel preferences.

@Mick Bennett There has been an update to V2, which may have resolved your issue. V. 2.0.3 has speeded things up here! If you have not done so, could you try it>

@Alfat Your post seems to have become buried in the general Questions part of the Forum, when it possibly should have been posted under Bugs. Could you consider posting it again, in the appropriate section? Either Bugs in Photo on Mac, or Bugs in Photo on Windows?

@John Rostron I thought your solution ought to reach so many new people on the Forums, so have given it a little boost! Happy New Year!

Perhaps you have resolved this, but if not, could you try restarting Publisher? First close it down. Then reopen it by holding down CONTROL on your keyboard as you click on opening Publisher. Do not release the CONTROL key until Publisher has opened with a dialogue box. Uncheck every option and click on CLEAR. Publisher should reset with the Pages panel operating correctly. I hope this will help, and am sorry for the delay in responding to you!

@wVanDyck Have you solved this? I notice that you have posted in other sections of the Forums.

@thomaso how is this poll doing?

@Alexandre Valensi I have just stumbled across your post. You are correct about saving files. Actually it is an excellent recommendation no matter what we are doing. It spares us many a headache.

@Realm_SGG I have found this posting which may answer your question, although obviously it won't resolve your issue right away. I hope this will assist you in the meantime.

I hope that you have been able to resolve your issue with tool delays!

Welcome to the Forums @Evernote! When you have some time, perhaps you might look through the Resources section of these Forums to see whether there may be some free templates provided by other Affinity users.

Welcome to the Forums @Antje Müller! I am so glad that you have everything working properly again. If you find that the spinning beachball raises is ugly head again, one thing you might try is to go to Apple System Preferences>Displays> and uncheck Automatically Adjust Brightness. This seems to make a major difference with the three V2 apps, and doesn't affect anything else. I know it has for me.

Welcome to the Forums @nheimler I stumbled across your posting today, and don't know whether this may help your issue, but if you are still having these crashes, could you check the link I have shown above, and see if this could solve it? I know that I have a nerve, since I am using MAC, but just in case . . . .??

Welcome to the Forums, Miguel Jr.! Did you purchase the Universal License for Mac or for Windows? And where did you purchase it? From the Serif/Affinity website or from the Mac App Store or the Windows Store? Did you select the Trial first? More specific information should make a resolution much easier. Thank you!

@filoplume I hope that you are feeling just a little bit better now that the holidays are over. It is the worst time of the year, when one has lost a beloved family member or a dear friend. The only consolation — if it can even be considered that — is that your loved ones are no longer suffering. Best wishes for a gentle New Year!

@Tony Hicks Welcome to the Forums! I think that you probably have your Layer Panel, Thumbnail background set to "Checkerboard" while the tutorial has it set only to Dark. Could you please click on the little hamburger icon at the right of the Layers Panel, and then open Thumbnail Background> and see what you have. The setting I show below results in the background layer image with the dark borders top and bottom (shown in your first posted image). If you click on Checkerboard, then those dark borders will become a dark grey with the checkerboard showing on top (like your second posted image). If you change from Dark to Light, or to Auto, with Checkerboard still chosen, then you will have a background layer with white borders top and bottom with the checkerboard on top. I tried the Hue Range Mask with an image that has a lot of snow in it. So I didn't have much scope to test it out, but I used the Picker in the dropdown dialogue to select a colour that I wanted to adjust. It seemed to function correctly. The Luminosity Range Mask worked very well, by adjusting the various sliders up and down. Is it possible that you may have "Invert Output" checked? (See the left-hand screenshot below, versus the right-hand one.) I hope this may help!

@RobinMcL I made some marble styles which I have used as the background for illuminating some text —particularly drop caps. There are free calligraphy brushes available on the web plus some excellent brushes shared by @StuartRc here in the RESOURCES section that can do amazing things painted over the marble. You could create many styles in the colours you want or with the background effects you want so that you will have consistent colours. I have found a website, Textures.com, that has many interesting .ttif files that you can use as a basis for creating your own decorations. I have included two samples in the PNG below as well as some fonts that I fiddled with. Bear in mind that I am most definitely not an artist, and can draw nothing without a ruler. (Ex violinist, however. So not entirely a cultural zero.) You can become a free member of Textures.com and download a few each day. Sorry for the huge image. My iPad wouldn’t let me shrink the view. I hope this will get you on your way. It is fun!!

If you have Designer V2, and if you have a backup file of all of your brushes, you can at least import several categories at a time, rather than one by one. You could try a few categories on the first attempt, and if that works well, add a larger group the next time. If you select a group large enough to invoke the spinning beachball, you will have to wait until it stops, but that group will be imported too. I have attached a portion of Photo2 Help, for you to see. It is the same thing for Designer2 Help. Although Styles are not checked, I know that you can definitely import several Styles categories at the same time because I have done it. They do take a long time, though, because Styles files are often quite a bit larger than Brush files. I hope this helps!

Here is a first attempt, following James Ritson's excellent new video tutorial. Not only is there a huge difference in the two images on my retina screen, but also the printed versions have a major difference too. There is also a vast difference in file size. The HDR version is 31.0 MB. The original JPEG is 3.1 MB. The exported HDR image does not appear in FINDER with the usual image thumbnail. See below. So here are my first and second tries. HDR.jxl on the left, JPEG on the right. Next set, HDR.jxl on the top, JPEG on the bottom.

I have four crash reports today, using 2.0.3, if they are of any use. Would be happy to send one or more. Big Sur, M1 chip. I have also tried this with the most recent Beta, doing a DEVELOP and then a SAVE before attempting anything in White Balance. I then opened the Develop Persona again and attempted to move the White Balance slider. Still crashes, and the previously saved document has entirely disappeared from my MAC.

If you plan to place an image as your first step, you can create a preset document with the dimensions you want and the measurement (cms) you want. At least that might help you a bit.