[Layers transform linking aka chains]

I work as a texture artist  and hate all Adobe tools I have to use.  Substance designer , Sampler , Painter .        Affinity Photo and Designer  always seemed   a decent alternative whenever you need a  quick fix , easy job quickly done, one click macro  execution.     it's a perfect mix of simplicity and flexibility  with it's non destructive  linking  and layers system.    Beyond that of Photoshop.

But I  miss one thing . An ability to link transforms of the layers.   And have to use annoying  same tag/name selection that even doesn't  have a hot key.     it's important since I usually have  layers representing  height/ normal map/ roughness/ and color values  and absolutely need them be always in sync .  Whatever groups   they might be part of .      See Photoshop for example.   

I tried to use a workaround with symbols containers   and pixel content linking  but it starts to  turn into same insane complexity I hate  Painter and Substance Designer for.   I want just a click and forget solution .     Or maybe you just allow as to add extra channels   whenever we need them.       

Or just make a 16 bit  CMYK  mode.   or rather  RGBA+ height/depth.

Or just make a checkbox  that would select and transform all same named layers in sync  whatever group or parent  layer they could be  related to.  

 

[Please get rid of black holes in imported pictures with zero alpha value. Keep the rgb intact]

Left side is how I save the file in Photoshop , right side is what it turns to in APhoto . Whenever the alpha is perfect zero  it  multiplies  RGB values to that zero.   It makes APhoto unusable for gamedev  for example.     Just make it keep original values.  

 

[Please get rid of black holes in imported pictures with zero alpha value. Keep the rgb intact]

In opened tga file for example .   If alpha is not perfectly 0  it works just fine   but once it's zero the soft multiply RGB values to zero.  

 

 

[Bring a few features from Krita please.]

1.   16 and 32 bit CMYk mode.

2. layer compositions

3 wrap around mode  ( working not on a single layer  but rather for whole document)

4. Gazillion live filters all being live by default   . Like height to normal map for example  working correctly  not in 32 bit images only

 

Through years non stop Krita development made  it kind of  more advanced image editor than  both Photoshop and Aphoto .   it's sometimes slow  and crushy still I am amazed how advanced and flexible it is.    Please borrow  some of those features from them.

 

 

[Feature Request: Allow macro recording of layer movements.]

I'd rather want  something  like in Photoshop were   you  can   switch documents  by special script .   like copy layer named "A" from previously selected document    and paste it  in current document.     Photoshop is able to now  an order of documents you opened.     

[inpainting with flip and rotate.]

1 hour ago, Old Bruce said:

I believe that the Stamp Tool has some ability to do this sort of thing

Yes,but stamp tools is an ancient concept . It doesn't do anything cool like matching/fusing  cloned  piece into new surrounding .      I have no idea why somebody still use it when there are patch tool, heal tool, content aware move in Psh and inpainting .       My guess it still there for historic  purpose mostly, an atavism of a past.  

[inpainting with flip and rotate.]

It's a huge improvement in Photoshop .   Makes in-painted areas so much less repetitive  visually.    Would be nice to have flip option in  patch tool too   like   Photoshop content aware move tool can .   

I believe it's nothing really hard  to do , basically an extra math operation in the process  and for patch tool is just a gizmo option

[16 and 32 but in CMYK please]

It's a reason I still pay Photoshop subscription.     We could have so many use of extra channel

[New Realistic Paint Mixing Technique]

Just tried this feature in last Rebelle version.   Not a big difference  really.      Rebelle is nice natural media  simulator indeed , well ahead of Corel Painter.    But the purpose of such simulators  always eluded me. 

   For a digital art who cares if it resembles  traditional  one or not.  It's still digital and  your skills never  translate to actual watercolor or oil/canvas .   

  For  sketches and illustrations   Photoshop is totally ok  and such  things like Rebelle are so lacking in basic  compositing  tools, non-destructive anything    it looks like just a toy to please uself sometimes  to recollect your  art student years  decades ago.

[Invert layers selection in Layers pane by hotkey]

On 1/28/2022 at 5:34 PM, walt.farrell said:

You can already create hotkeys for those options

in Designer but not in Photo last time I tried

[Invert layers selection in Layers pane by hotkey]

We have select same name and same color tag  options. For god sake  Seriff , make those  commands hotkeyable  please   and add another option that would invert the selection.   

So  if  we have a set of layers  named composition  1  or tagged red   for example . we could  select all such layers with one click , then invert the selection with another click  and uncheck  all other layers.   

Basically mimicking  what layer comps  do in Photoshop  with only 3 clicks

[Color Correction with X-Rite Colorchecker Passport]

I am pretty sure all those color checker special tools and applications are basically LUT transforms.     So my guess the existing LUT filter  in Affinity could do  exactly same.   You floodfill a photo of your checker with what  color values  it supposed  to  show.  I have  those values printed  on backside of my $10 noname carton checker from China. And then use this corrected image as a target picture  for  building  LUT preset  with maximum quality  slider .    

Seems like working   for me

[RGB/16, rendering limited to 8 bit]

I'm more concerned with not what Affinity shows on your screen but rather what it saves to files.      And it saves every gradient with noisy dithering, in 32 bit mode too .  Sometimes it's not ok at all. Especially when you work with depth  channel.

[I need to be able to do this in Affinity Photo.]

You also can use  open source inscape  that can vectorise  you bitmap sign and do it better than PHotoshop .   By copy/pasting your bitmap there and do Path>Trace bitmap     I don't think APhoto should waste their resources for features already available for free .  

[Scriptable blend modes]

Please Serif . modifiy PT live filter the way we could use it to sample pixel values of layer A,  subtract what "beneath" of layer B  , perform treshold and use it as a live calculated mask for mixing layerC over layerD   .     That we could save it as a custom layer blending  mode  without doing a huge stack of  groups, symbols,  linked layers and mask stacks.   The one  we could later do with just on click.

 

 Or maybe we could do a separate document ,   mark   layers A and B  as well as C and D as blending  inputs  and  save all this  as a custom blend mode  with input fields  in special dialog widow   we later could use in another document  without  recreating the whole stack of layers again and again.     

Would be working perfectly for those who want Photoshop fill vs opacity  blending.

[Expression based layer groups, masks and blending]

34 minutes ago, Alfred said:

Please explain what you mean by “stuck” here.

My bad, I meant "stack" 

[Expression based layer groups, masks and blending]

Layers are a great concept indeed  but when you have to stack  and then scroll a huge  never ending mess of dozens  layers  IMO  it'so monstrously incovenient, so unreadable.  

Let's have layers for something  meaningful , something you would switch on and off, move around and be part of  design versions.    And keep all the dynamic masks generation, complex layer blending  etc in  expression driven groups  we could use as mask .     So for simple fist grade mathematics   like layerA + layerB  divide to layerC   it could be just a  layer with  expression  working  with some hidden folder named 'input resources"    somewhere in the bottom of layer stack. 

It's so tiresome  to looks through groups inside of groups clipped to another groups  and so on   to recall where another copy of this damn thing that you need to fix is .

Just make it a part of procedural texture filter . let it sample other layers( hidden too) including "image" ones please.

 

[Transform links]

in between layers like those chains in Photoshop.    They are so much missed.   How could they be forgotten  when Serif did link panel ?  Any complex layers construct is having no sense if you  can  mess it all accidentally any time.

That workaround with  Symbols is  complicating layer stack so much it's useless basically 

[Layer compositions, tag panel or ability to to show only choosen tag,names( in embedded docs too)]

Paired with slices in export persona be able to export several layer compositions per slice

That snapshot feature is absolutely useless . Nobody use it in Photoshop either.

Exportable layercomps  is so much missed feature  that could greatly  automate the export if exists.      Maybe we could have a macro doing it  at least?  Like a macro showing layers with a certain color tag/ name only and export it with a certain suffix. 

Or make Aphoto support Phyton or javascrip  and we have someone writing the script

 

 

[Face-Aware Liquify in Affinity Photo]

I hope they wouldn't waste  their resources for such toys .    Not until they manage to turn Photo into modern Image editor with non-destructive workflow  with decent UX ,fully scriptable , hotkeys driven ,  flexible and easy to use . There are so many  much more important features on that way before  useless AI toys Photoshop seems so obsessed now. 

But who knows perhaps it's where the future are so  soon  every image soft will be an Instagram companion tool  first before anything extra .

[A few texture art related live filters]

On 12/30/2021 at 2:03 PM, rschaub said:

I'm not sure if this is already possible,

Loooks like it's impossible in PT.  And it should be a single most  necessary update Serif should do IMO as well as ability to do it on  other layers  or just on given channel of  "beneath" .   They already codded these features in some of live filters so why wouldn't let us use them in procedural one.  It's so weird omission.

As you say a whole world of options would  appear.  I would finally get rid of  adobe substance  suite + photoshop which I consider both inconvenient as hell, with nodes or without   but have to use anyway instead of Affinity.

 

[Luminosity masks panel]

Use layers  blend ranges  ( gear mark)  It's basically  same thing.  You can chose what luminosity values of beneath layer is affected by next layer .  So it's a mask by lumonosity by itself  without complication the layer stack with actual masks.  You can use it with levels too

  I suggest also to look at HLS layer closely and use picker  and hsv checkbox.   They could allow you to color edit without bothering about masks

 

 

[Live filter editor with remap pixels and sample layers or channels options]

We need it badly.   Without it  the soft is still a toy  for merely photo tweaks .   We have gazillion  of photo editing  programs  targeting  hobbyists already.    Some of them free.     Weirdly both features are already coded into number of filters but not together , not allowing to sample more  than one " beneath"  image and not even a chosen channel of that "beneath".

So no complex or controllable image  manipulation  is possible  without  tedious manual work .

Such sidecar editor, preferably node based and GPU bound,   could advance AP so much ahead  of any competition.

 

ps.  or just make it read Adobe sbsar  export files from   Substance Designer and  use them as filters.   

 

 

[Adobe Bridge Alternatives]

People say Adobe made Bridge available for free to anyone.    I never tried it free myself although since I pay  Photoshop subscription.    But  I heard it's free for everyone  whether you have active subscription or not.  It just have  RAW processing features locked  if you don't have active subscription.

[Brushes remembering their last used size]

it always annoys me beyond limit  when you have to scale your brush each time you chose anther one .   In Photoshop too.    I wonder  why nobody made them remember last used size. Is it a big issue codding wize.      I loved how Xara  could do it .  Only soft  ever felt convenient