HuniSenpai

A selection/masking tool based on Resolve's Qualifier panel would indeed be most welcome, as I have indicated before:

 
Indicate a range and low/high taper for each of hue, saturation, and luma (or alternatively of red, green and blue), along with options to "finesse" the resulting mask (plug holes, etc.) - Resolve really does have the best tool set I have encountered to date for working with color.
 
An adjustment with a set of color wheels would be a nice addition too at some point, but a selection tool based on Qualifiers would make many types of selections SO much easier...

Nice. I did not know they had hidden that there.  Now if we could drop a guide from any tool as well. Or at least from the selection tools.

From what I see - no. You can specify hue range of color you want to affect, but not saturation. There is a walk around for this - mask can be created based on saturation, but this is inconvenient at least. 
For example in Capture One (see attachment) you can define saturation range to edit. 

How about HSL adjustment that allows to control a saturation range as well, similar to advanced color tool in Capture one?

I don't think it's a good comparison.  Adobe, Corel and others were innovating without the benefit of what came before them.  Essentially, not much came before them.  Affinity Designer comes along with the benefit of decades of software development that came before them, not to mention their own 30 year history in software development.  It would not be unreasonable to think that any vector software created today would have vector tracing in version 1.0.  We're not talking about the newest, latest, most amazing, stuff like Adobe's puppet warp, etc.  We're talking about a feature hat is decades old.  Adobe integrated vector tracing into Illustrator at version 9, but Adobe Streamline existed for many years before that.  I was using it in the late 90's.
Shapebuilder was a part of Macromedia's software which Adobe acquired.  So they merely integrated it into Illustrator, but it's still very old functionality.  The real question is regarding the intended scale and scope of Affinity Designer.  These features may never appear in Designer along with a lot of other stuff that people want, simply because it's not what Serif intends for their software.

But...Adobe first provided Streamline in 1989 (4 years after AI). It was discontinued when CS2 gained "Live Trace." So Adobe beat Serif by a few years as regards time from first AI release to providing a solution...😁

Let's be honest, they're probably saving auto trace, shapebuilder, and line weight tool for version 2. The guys at Serif have proved that they are excellent software developers capable of solving problems and implementing new features relatively quickly.  These are the main things keeping Designer from being a near perfect software. 
If they give us these features now, what else is there to entice us to upgrade to version 2 when it rolls around? The performance is basically perfect, all other tools are there, and it already beats Adobe Illustrator in a few ways. They already have programmed these features in the past with DrawPlus X8, so they certainly have the skills necessary to program them again.
I do not blame them for putting off these features. I sometimes grow a little worried about Affinity's business model, and if they are going to stay afloat. With such a low price and free updates, it amazes me that they can pay all of these fantastic developers. Some time along the line, they will have to raise their price and get people to buy their products again. And, if version 2 has these features, I will gladly pay $75-$100 for it, especially if it means keeping Serif afloat.
Additionally, I feel confident that they will make my $75-100 well spent. I have no doubt that they will make the auto trace and shapebuilder etc. as good as they can possibly be. Frankly, if I had the money, I would be donating to Serif. Adobe needs competition.

I absolutely recognize that vecorizing happens essentially once-- you don't keep repeating it. But you are seriously underestimating how long Inkscape takes to open and how long it takes to make a switch between these two programs and export/import the result.
Don't think too far into my analogy, that's literally just one sentence in my post. I'm just trying to say that it is onerous to open inkscape any time I need to vectorize an image. I would argue that Illustrator is missing a large feature because you must switch to Photoshop to edit a raster image -- thankfully, Designer has the pixel persona. 
I'm also a user of Blender, Fusion 360, and Affinity Photo, and I do have to switch between those apps a lot. But there's a reason for that: they do completely different things and are in entire different worlds. I don't expect Affinity Photo to have 3D abilities, and I do not expect Blender to have raster image editing abilities. 
What I am saying is that a car should have the basic features that you expect. Your analogy is broken-- a pressure washer is not something that a motorcycle would be expected to have. I picked the example of a car's reverse because that is a basic feature that is expected on all cars. Evidenced by this entire 12 page thread, there are many, many people who expect a vectorize feature in a vector program. The devs deemed this important, too-- the old DrawPlus X8 had it. I wouldn't be mad if my car was missing heated seats, but I would be if it was missing something as basic as reverse. To many people, vectorizing is a basic vector program feature, and it's missing.
Telling them to go hop in another program is dodging the obvious problem: why not just include a vectorizing feature in Designer in the first place? I know the Affinity team is scared that people will complain that it isn't perfect, but I think the vast majority of us know that vectorizing isn't perfect. Anyone who goes looking for this tool should know what they're getting themselves into.
And, besides, I am fairly confident Serif will add this feature eventually in version 2.0. And I don't mind-- I, and many others, will gladly pay for it is available.

No doubt about that. I'm sure they've been considering it and hope that it'll happen. It wouldn't surprise me if they roll it out for version 2.0 as they've done a fantastic job with the three apps. Serif deserves to be supported and continue the good work. 

Let's be honest, they're probably saving auto trace, shapebuilder, and line weight tool for version 2. The guys at Serif have proved that they are excellent software developers capable of solving problems and implementing new features relatively quickly.  These are the main things keeping Designer from being a near perfect software. 
If they give us these features now, what else is there to entice us to upgrade to version 2 when it rolls around? The performance is basically perfect, all other tools are there, and it already beats Adobe Illustrator in a few ways. They already have programmed these features in the past with DrawPlus X8, so they certainly have the skills necessary to program them again.
I do not blame them for putting off these features. I sometimes grow a little worried about Affinity's business model, and if they are going to stay afloat. With such a low price and free updates, it amazes me that they can pay all of these fantastic developers. Some time along the line, they will have to raise their price and get people to buy their products again. And, if version 2 has these features, I will gladly pay $75-$100 for it, especially if it means keeping Serif afloat.
Additionally, I feel confident that they will make my $75-100 well spent. I have no doubt that they will make the auto trace and shapebuilder etc. as good as they can possibly be. Frankly, if I had the money, I would be donating to Serif. Adobe needs competition.

Here are a few things to comment on that I think are being overlooked:

This thread exists within a section of Affinity's forum under "Feature Requests & Suggestions"
- My message is a Feature Request and a suggestion about why it is needed.
None of the feedback / flashback to my comment has provided a justifiable reason to not warrant the addition of the image trace feature.
I have seen the developers mention that an image trace feature is only not currently implemented because they are unhappy with the existing performance of their version of image trace.
In other words, not only is my Feature Request valid, but they agree and have been working on it.

Adding this feature will in no way damage the viability of the program or make it less desirable as @JET_Affinity seems to imply.
It will only make it more desirable because it will service an additional user base. If existing users don't like / want to image trace, then they don't have to.

As for an argument that they should not implement this feature because they charge a comparatively small fee for their software already.
Well I expect that the Affinity team would love it if their software became the premier #1 software used by all designers. They are working to get there from what I can see, by offering what those at the top offer but doing it better. But the Affinity software will never make it to the top if it is missing key components.

We as Users are in an extremely fortunate position with the Affinity team because they are currently working to build their name.
This means we can get their very excellent software for much less than it's actual value.
They are being very smart about their business plan if you ask me.

I keep saying this software looks great, but I think it can still improve, and adding Image Trace is one particular way they can do that.

Yup. And so is the one I already have.
If I'm going to image trace then I'll use a program that can image trace - makes sense.

But what about buying a new program that doesn't image trace when what I want to do is image trace?
See the problem there?
Honestly it's a little confounding to talk about a program that doesn't do something it should, then the defender tries to support it by offering some other program that can do what the first program should already be doing.

I already said this - the Affinity programs look great, but Affinity Designer SHOULD image trace, it's an integral function to many aspects of design.

I'm just here to throw in my two cents about hoping for an auto-trace feature for Designer come version 2.0. It's a fairly large deficiency at the moment.

Yes, you can always use the tones adjustment panel if you want. The "develop persona" can always be accessed at the top left. So, if you need to do a curve adjustment on a layer, you can use that. However, it only affects the layer you have selected. And it's missing the picker tool and LAB adjustments. That panel is basically a watered-down version of the real thing.
Do you have any monitor calibration software or anything?
Is your graphics card's driver up to date? Have you recently installed a new GPU, meaning that the old drivers might be left over? Is the program laggy when zooming in or panning around?
Also, just a random idea, try turning off Windows Aero.

Problem solved!!!
@HuniSenpai, you're a genius, prompted me in the right direction. 😄
Here is the Curves dialog I was looking for.
I will write another post where I describe what I did.
Thanks so much HuniSenpai!!!!!
 

Big thanks to the people at Serif for bringing us updates despite the current situation.
Please keep staying safe and all the best to you, your family and friends!

maybe I'm missing it, but is there an option to open a JPEG, or bitmap image
and trace,or convert it to a vector file for further editing? If not there should be one, it would be a great option. even if it had only a few modes like black and white, and 5 color
it would make me convince me to convert from adobe illustrator

I use tracing mainly for adding stressed/textural elements to my graphics work. It’s also helpful for getting rough approximations of real shapes or images you want to block out on the art board. And for those very edge cases of not being able to find the proper typeface. It’s not a top priority feature for me but I find myself missing it from time to time. That said, it has been 2 years since I’ve first seen it requested on these forums and I’m wondering what the progress on it is like beyond “it’s not ready yet”. 

AD doesn't need to wait for "the best tracing routine known to human kind" before it is added (my paraphrase of Serif's response). How good it is can be refined over time.
If the exact same principles were applied to the core applications, they wouldn't have been released to this day.
Personally, I would opt to roll in Potrace and build a really good UI for it.

Hello.
I know these two functions have been asked before and some people question them ( specially the Shape Builder Tool) but I found a quick video that shows them working together.
I think these are the only two things I'm missing from Illustrator . These two tools are  pretty much essential for Logo and Brand Designers (which I'm sure are a big market )
Hope they are added to the road map soon , now that you are working on the improved convert to path function.
Thanks
 
 
 

Okay, this is messed up....
I have a (pixel) layer in Photo..... I add an HSL adjustment to just that layer (adjustment layer gets parented to the pixel layer).... I do the adjustment, and then click the Merge button in the HSL window (which SHOULD bake the adjustments into the pixel layer)... and the content of the newly merged layer disappears.
I can't try any of the suggestions regarding selection order, since you can't separately select both layers (pixel and adjustment), since selecting the pixel layer will also select all the child layers anyway.
What happened???!  The merge doesn't appear to work at all now.
BTW, for those of you struggling with this, there IS a workaround....  select the pixel (parent) layer (which then selects both layers), and hit Rasterize, which will bake the adjustment of the adjustment layer into the pixel layer, and merge the two.
So, what exactly IS the point of the Merge button in the HSL window?  (This most likely also applies to all adjustments)
NOTE: I'm on Windows 7.

I second this motion. It will be very useful to crop to a fixed ratio (standard photo sizes) to add border that will keep the image in that ratio.

All with drawing and painting in Affinity Photo in mind:

- Canvas rotation
- faster Color picker. It has a little lag and the "zoom lens" effect could be swapped out for 2 swatches. The current selected color and the one I'm picking right now.
- A popup color selector (Press hotkey when painting, the color wheel/color. Would be great if we didn't need to go to the color settings all the time, can potentially save lots of time while painting
- easy brush switching with hotkeys instead of needing to click them in the menu all the time. If I need 3 brushes it is simpler to have them in a list and switch them back and forth. Alternatively, a brush toggle between the last two selected brushes. One key toggle back and forth.
- more options in the brush editor for the textures. Like contrast, brightness, blend modes. And curves for the depth of the canvas. Press light - little "scratching" on the surface, press hard to push the pigment deeper into the canvas.

Just started working with Affinity Photo and the biggest brick wall I've hit was the feathering of a vector mask with the Gaussian blur effect.
It only feathers outwards meaning I have to shrink the shape of the mask by hand over an over again as I try different feather amounts to get it to look how I want.
Feathering with Vectors as masks is something I do a lot and this seems like an easy fix (option for feather out/in/centred?) 

The drag aspect is however not the problem. The problem is when you're only holding down alt. You can still colour pick by just tapping with your pen or mouse, but Affinity doesn't actually inform you that the picker is active, thus creating a disconnect between the program and the user. 
I don't see why we would have to choose between having no colour picker icon when immediately pressing alt and the alt+drag functionality currently in place. Just change the mouse/pen icon to a traditional colour picker when holding down alt and change to the magnifying glass when alt+dragging on the screen. It is one simple icon change and no other change to how colour picking functions. Problem solved!