kirk23

Thanks Alfred. Does it work with and able to export 16 bit images? Or perhaps I could compose the document in Draw plus using feather with bitmap objects and then open it in Affinity Design, then replace with original 16 bit source keeping all the transforms intact to be then saved as 16 bit image? Does Design read Draw plus files with full editability?

Does Draw Plus have similar multiple blending modes and 16 bit support? I want paired vector soft for Windows but not sure Design is what I need since it's lacking "feather" option and If I am not wrong it was in Draw plus. Can I still download Draw plus trial version or something?

Imo It's a main feature of Affinity Photo. I mean an ability to update embedded "smart" objects immediately and not waiting forever saving them as in Photoshop . It works more or less ok in released version ( after you zoom in or out a bit) but in customer beta nothing helps , some embedded docs are updated , other copy of them are not at all whatever I do. It kind of erodes the very case I moved to AP from Photoshop. Hope it's just a bug to be fixed . ps. It's not a file specific problem.

I am a huge fan of Xara too. Would it has 16bit grayscale image support and a bit more blending modes I would never look at AD probably. Everything is so easy and super quick in Xara. Here is my list of things from Xara I miss very much when open Designer: 1. Feather slider 2. An ability to instantly work with bitmaps as it would be a bitmap fill , scale, rotate , tile ,shift the pixels within vector borders without any masks or other head aches 3. Names. A kind of inheritable tags you can do for every object and then quickly select, find, sort , switch on and off multiple objects by its tags/names. it's almost Photoshop layer comps kind of functionality

Please add an option to Gaussian Blur effect to blur only layer /group transparency . in both Design and Photo. For Design blurring the vector borders of image, not filling image alpha itself. Much like "feather" option works in Xara and I saw something similar in older Serif soft too. It's actually very convenient thing to work with and a great time saver. I am missing it a lot.

Please make at least 5-10 different repeating parts, much like old Serif Draw does and make an order of those parts truly random for each new stroke or drivable by pressure. It was so cool feature I don't understand how could it be missing. I love it since Creative house Expression time

Smart objects in Photoshop have much more options to do with than embedded docs in AP. Offset wrap for example. Besides they could keep links to outer files . Still I love how AP embedded docs updates instantly. It's a greatest feature of AP.

Yeah. Layer comps are very much missed . They are one of the greatest thing in Photoshop. Could be just layer tags with ability to show only certain tag or something. Would be also nice if those comps could be savable as a chosen channels within output file or a certain side files in export persona

I think "embedded" layers already behave that way. What I meant is rather an ability to make live masks based on some formula computations /expressions like layerA*layerB/layerC without necessity to keep them visible or be all in a same stack and having their own transform relations through a whole document. Could perfectly work without nodes. Pretty much same way as 3d objects in Blender could be set any time as unique, or instanced to another object with whatever parent/child or deform relations I would want. Wonder why such a basic idea in any 3d soft have never made its way into image editors.

Well, perhaps you meant something specifically for photographers, I am not sure. I work for CG industry, not photography. And form my point of view anything precious PS introduced during last decade was available elsewhere first. For example content aware fill first appeared as a gimp plugin done by Paul Harrison years before. Seamless panorama stitching was also a few sets of open source tools. I used one done by a guy from Ukraine when PS was around number 7. And regarding non existent functionality, it actually exists in Maya,3ds max ,Blender. Substance Designer/Painter, Fusion, After effect, Mari and so on and on, In fact any 3d soft could be an incredible image editor with limitless possibilities, just lacking a few important traditional "2d" conveniences. I still use Blender whenever I need complicated image "mesh' deform and needless to say that any Photoshop filter is pathetic comparing to what is available with shader node network. Why we still don't have node based filter constructors built within every image editor or simply some programmable dependencies in between layers is beyond me. Looks like Houdini, Clarissa or even Blender have a good chance to be a next big "image editor" rather than what Adobe would do with Photoshop.

I just think being a cheaper clone of Photoshop is not enough. Photoshop itself is IMO hardly innovative during last decade. Too stubborn,conservative of afraid of anything new. Way behind of what I currently need for image editing. It's why I bought AP + AD , in the hope and support of something more modern and innovative. But looks like my expectations are never going to meet with reality. My hope now is that Adobe would probably feel the threat and wake up. Like it happened few years ago with Autodesk when Blender became somehow more advanced and easy to work with than both 3d max and Maya. We see non stop fountain of new ideas and advancements since that in 3d software.

I am also curious why we don't hear anything about linked layers? Would it be like linked smart objects in Photoshop, or linked means some advanced dependencies in between layers within same document? I have to say I am gradually losing my interest and hope to Affinity Photo. It definitely has a few advantages but I still feel more comfortable in Photoshop. Those advanced features that could truly rival Photoshop look like never coming.

Xara has super cool feature " names" . In fact it's tags you can give any object and then, if you copy or crop a part of that object , the copy inherits the tags. A special panel allow to select all objects having specific tag "name" . I love that system and very much prefer it to Photoshop pretty limited color coding . Please Affinity, do something like that. It would allow to make a certain "Layer comps" in terms of Photoshop

Discovered one more super cool APhoto advantage over Photoshop. Embedded images being replaced with equal form factor but higher ress images stay same size. So helpful when you do a composition of quickly rendered elements, done in smaller resolution, and then want to replace them with final hi-ress ones. Inability to keep the size of smart objects is what have always drove me crazy in Photoshop. Photoline has same problem too. Please Affinity, do that "layers linking" or any way to make special transform links in between layers. It's only thing that keeps AP from being a great image composer. Do it in Designer if your prefer and I will buy Designer windows version.

A great advantage of AP over Photoshop is how quickly it works with 16 bit embedded images to make resolution independent compositions within more or less non-destructive workflow. At least on Mac. With Windows version I am not that happy. Updating 16-32 bit hi-res enough smart/linked objects in Photoshop may take forever, even with compression off. In fact it's a pure torture to work that way there. And now, when every single image in CG industry must have depth channel stored within 16 bit at least, Photoshop looks like something really slow and ancient. Photoshop is so much behind current necessities of modern CG industry I puzzled it's still so widely used. What they tried to do with 3d painting mode and timeline is absolutely ridiculous as if they never see how armies of artists work for game or movie productions. Well, there are a plenty of dedicated tools for those tasks so let's just focus on image composing , not video composing, just image one. Imo it's what any image editing soft should do best so why lacking basic tools directly influencing this main task . In fact I am still keeping my hopes on AP with promised "advanced layer linking" Just gradually getting suspicious we would never see it or it never be anything advanced.

Well, for a random normal photographer even Photoshop itself is overkill. I bet many even don't know those features exists there and never try any advanced composing techniques. It doesn't mean we don't need them. After all there are plenty of cheap image toys for Mac and also open source Krita and Gimp . So why doing one more toy instead of true modern professional image editing tool that could replace so ancient and slow piece of junk Photoshop really is. Once you have to do a complex image composition, a mix of photos , hand painted and CG/ rendered fragments and re- scaling them one to another for something that is not just a photo , but a complex background plane for modern game scene for example, intended to give you an illusion of depth with ever changing illumination and shadow casting, it's where you start to appreciate all this small conveniences. And don't tell me please I have to buy $10k Nuke for this . The feature I am talking about is nothing especially "deep" like those 2d composers that use infinite true scene depth. It just a small trick perfectly possible in Photoshop since CS6 version and group clipping introduction. AP would do it same ok would it have Photoshop styled transform "chain links" in between layers and mask stack elements. It's only thing it really needs to recreate my number 2 example.

thanks for the info, Ostonica. I tried it few years ago and it didn't work at all. Probably it's time to give it another try

Well, I am not a coding expert, so can't be sure but witnessed it by myself when seemingly impossible things, at least nobody believed possible, suddenly came true with a help of experienced game render/shader programmer. Maybe they should hire someone from that industry and think about it one more time. Imo a modern 3d game is like an image editor where hundreds "live" effects are being applied on a composition of images with a speed of 60 frames per second. There is a number of things even random 3d soft does much better than typical image soft. Like image mesh deform for example . I use it very often and while APoto has best mesh deform probably it nowhere close to even Blender real time possibilities and doesn't work 'live' . So maybe some cross discipline thinking could do something new and innovative. Sometimes I think that one day Blender may become best image editing soft available with a help of some crazy programmer, few addons and few tweaks here and there.

Modern GPUs do such wonders with hi ress image processing inside modern shaders and GPU based renderers like Octane and Redshift, especially with modern 8gb video cards, I am puzzled why we still don't have a full scale GPU based image soft. I would tolerate some restrictions here and there having an advantage of something working with a same speed of light , GPU renderers do.

There are a plenty of affordable DAM solutions for Win users . My favorite is iMatch https://www.photools.com/ Alredy way better than Lightroom imo. I just want it to read .aphoto thumbnails somehow. With Windows itself too

1, I honestly don't understand how could anyone scale something precisely , one thing in relation to another, without number1 option. The feature exists in Photoshop for years, also in Photoline, Xara, Fusion . Imo using that center for rotation is less frequent necessity so it should work for the scaling first. 2. The second thing is extremely helpful for doing complex compositions of CG rendered elements, doing modern textures etc.

that I need badly to start actually working in APhoto 1. Ability to scale around specified center of scaling being placed in specific position. 2. in-between layer chain links that allow to chain-transform layers from within different groups simultaneously . Here is an example of such feature for pseudo 3d combining based on depth gray layers linked beneath the color ones and producing "live" mask

For some weird reason I have better Affinity Photo performance with big hi-res files on my toy Mac i5 8gb ram than on my i7 32gb ram 6gb Nvidia980 windows 8.1 monster. Have constant weird small freezes on pc. Is it normall? I expected pretty opposite actually since every other modern programm works better on pc.

+1. Although that very same feature in Photoshop is hardly usable since it takes forever to save and update such linked documents, especially if they are 16 or 32 bit and big enough, even with compression off. The huge advantage of AP embedded docs is that they are updating instantly. Those linked smart objects in Photoshop, and non linked too, just drive me crazy , how slow and inconvenient they are. Imo we need something like "Re-embed" and " re-embed everything " working pretty much the same as " replace document" button does currently. Another very annoying feature of Photoshop is that once you replace, re-scale or crop the source document , every linked copy would change its scale too. In AP they keep one side scale at least. And one more supper annoying , you can't make a copy of smart object and then replace only that single copy to other file, and In AP you can. So please don't copy Phototshop approach , do it better please

1. layers and masks transform links independent of groups and other hierarchy 2. "formulas" live effects so we could set something like layer3*layer2 - layer5 for a mask for example 4. scaling center of transform in any given position ( like rotating one) 5. ability to replace a brush within recorded macro so we could repeat a brush stroke on another layer with other brush dabs ( representing normal map for example) 6. live edge feather effect without necessity to make mask