ptodd

Thanks, I'd seen similar advice about switching RAW engine on another thread, but then lost track of it and couldn't find the option (I was looking in preferences). The result when using Core Image RAW is better, but has problems of its own (as well as presumably not being available on Windows, which I do also use but am not necessarily massively concerned about here). In this image (same settings as before, but Core Image in AP), it seems to be bringing a lot of inappropriate green into the shadow regions: That's (presumably) no fault of Affinity, but it does weigh against this format being viable for the time-being. I'd say that it's still bad enough to be considered 'incorrect'. While I'm here, here's the lossy version processed by LR (I've not gone to great lengths to make them exactly match, but pretty much left on neutral defaults apart from shadow boost):

I just tried with https://github.com/tigranbs/test-heic-images/blob/master/image1.heic on the same version of AP and macOS, and it works here.

p.s. it seems like there's some geometric difference between the two output images here as well... interesting... I certainly didn't knowingly apply any lens correction / cropping / anything else.

I'm somewhat tempted to convert the bulk of my photo library to lossy DNG, but have noticed that Affinity seems to have some bugs with colour in this format. For example, I tested an underexposed photo of some trees at sunset, and while Affinity renders the lossless DNG colour correctly, the lossy version is very magenta (in a way that cannot be corrected with white-balance adjustment in the develop module). This isn't a good photo, just one that I happened to try that illustrates the problem. Both of these images are developed in Affinity with 60% shadows boost and no other adjustments. I generally use LR for the asset-management side of things, but am holding out for an Affinity DAM (and anyway, would rather not have data in a form that only works well in certain apps). I'm sure the same is true for many here. I don't quite know why Adobe didn't make some other choice than 8bit JPEG compression for the lossy DNG format when technology is available that ought to be able to make smaller and better quality files, but it seems that it should be adequate for many uses... indeed a poor-quality underexposed photo like this renders similarly well in either format when processed in LR, so I'd be fairly happy converting the bulk of my photos as long as I felt confident that I could still open them in Affinity. Tested with Affinity Photo 1.10.5 on macOS 12.3.1 FWIW. Lossy and lossless DNGs are attached. P1035400-2.dng P1035400.dng

On the Windows side (probably mac too), if changes are made to an open document, common good UX practice would probably be something like a modal "this file has been modified externally, keep local version or open new version?" dialog, it seems you need to explicitly close the document and open it again. I can't see a 'file/revert' either. Very happy with the software generally, but just now trying to move between desktop & iPad to mock up design and add annotations with Apple pencil and it's fairly cumborsome. If it was a shared document with other people working on it at the same time, of course that's always going to be very difficult to avoid problems and it'd take a heroic effort to get perfect UX for that... but I'd definitely like to see this situation improved.

Yep, been evaluating focus merge and find the results are very good, but it's a shame that references to sources are not saved with the document. Ideally I would like it if all stacks / panorama / HDR could be saved with references to the original images rather than a copy of all of the data (nb, I haven't tested each of these) although of course there are caveats with portablity of documents and making things clear to users. In the case of sources, it seems to me that relative paths could be saved, and if at some point these were invalid it would simply mean the user would be presented with a warning that corresponding sources weren't available & option to relocate - it wouldn't mean that the image itself as saved became invalid. I suppose it does somewhat differ from the way that 'sources' was conceptually designed so there'd likely be some refactoring and even re-design needed to decide how sources relate to a project rather than the current state of the program while running, but hopefully it'll be considered.

I'm seeing something similar here, not sure if it's exactly the same bug. In my case, Dropbox is disabled while other options work fine. It definitely worked recently, and other apps are able to export to Dropbox.

Good to know, thanks.

I'm not entirely sure, depends a bit on other factors really. I had an Adobe CC subscription from an old job, but that's running out... I think it would be reasonable for a cross-platform desktop license to cost ~1.5x single platform, maybe. I'm currently thinking about subscribing to the Adobe photography plan. I use Lightroom a lot more than PS on a day-to-day basis, and Affinity wouldn't really replace that. So I'd need to make an investment of effort in migrating my photo library and getting into a new workflow if I wanted to move away from Adobe entirely (which I somewhat do). It'd still be handy for me to have some decent graphics software that would run on my non-mobile machines without needing to juggle logins etc, and I'd like to support smaller developers. I'd probably mostly want to use it on the Mac (at the moment), but knowing that buying it from the App store would mean no hope of the license realistically ever being upgradeable to cross-platform gives me extra pause. I suppose ultimately I don't really have a very great need for Affinity (if I get Adobe CC photo), but I would be somewhat likely to buy it at some point when I was reasonably ok for money, even without a great need for it. I don't know how much more seriously I'd consider as a function of cost; if it were the same price as single platform I would probably snap it up without much hesitation, but as I say, 1.5x would seem reasonable. Excuse my vagueness; to be honest I'm kind of procrastinating about filing expenses and invoices at the moment. Perhaps when they're done and paid I'll be in a better state to think about what would actually part me from money I realise having searched the forums a bit that this subject has been rather done to death, which doesn't surprise me too much.

Yes. You could always get a refund from Apple within two weeks I think if you had any trouble.

This is absolutely fair enough, and as well as the apps themselves being different across platforms, I don't think Apple have any mechanism for a developer to sell a cross-platform license like that (which could make sense in some cases, or for example iOS and macOS versions as a 'bundle' or something on the app store). On the other hand, digressing somewhat, what I don't understand is why it's necessary to buy separate Windows and Mac licenses for Affinity products. Obviously the Mac version is sold through Apple, but you have the store setup for Windows customers and there must be at least a few people like me who'd be much more likely to consider buying if there were a cross-platform desktop license. Cheers, Peter

I am experiencing the same problem; a lot of skipped strokes and not great general responsiveness. IIRC, I've not experienced this *at all* with any other apps I use (ProCreate, Concepts...) and I'm afraid it is quite a significant annoyance with Affinity. I'm on a 2017 12.9" iPad Pro. Normally when it 'skips' a stroke, it doesn't completely miss it, but just makes a tiny dot at the start point of the stroke. It vaguely feels like it could have to do with palm rejection, but taking care to make sure the pencil is the only thing in contact doesn't appear to make a significant difference (and again, other apps do not have the same problem; Apple have done a great job with this it seems at the iOS level). The problems of lag and skipped strokes unfortunately compound each other; you never quite know when it's going to catch up and fill in the missing bits, or which strokes will have been lost. I will admit that I'm not in the habit of actively closing unused apps (notwithstanding things like music apps that use CPU in background) and doubt that this is the problem. Frankly, given that as I mentioned, all the other apps I use appear to work fine with my current habits, I would rather expect Affinity to as well. I tried killing a load of stuff just now, and as expected it didn't make any difference. Fingers crossed the problem can be sorted at some point; it's a great app in most respects, but for my personal use at the moment this issue severely impacts its usefulness.