DragonWhimsy

This sounds really great. It's something in Serif's marketing arsenal I have thought has been missing for quite some time. Nothing sells design software better than seeing other professionals use it. Plus, it's fun and educational and helps to build an online community around your products. I really hope you guys continue this past May. I would love to see this become a regular thing.

I changed my panel layout last night and now I can't recreate the problem. So problem solved I guess? I'll keep an eye out for it and see if it pops up again. It's weird, it's been plaguing me for days but now seems to be gone ever since moving the panels around. 

This sounds really great. It's something in Serif's marketing arsenal I have thought has been missing for quite some time. Nothing sells design software better than seeing other professionals use it. Plus, it's fun and educational and helps to build an online community around your products. I really hope you guys continue this past May. I would love to see this become a regular thing.

This sounds really great. It's something in Serif's marketing arsenal I have thought has been missing for quite some time. Nothing sells design software better than seeing other professionals use it. Plus, it's fun and educational and helps to build an online community around your products. I really hope you guys continue this past May. I would love to see this become a regular thing.

As announced on Affinity Spotlight, throughout May, as a way to stay connected while so many of us are still in lockdown, we’ll be bringing our community inspirational, free video sessions led by top creative talent.

Every day in May at 4pm BST, the official Affinity YouTube channel will be premiering inspirational creative sessions
Tune in every day in May at 4pm BST on the official Affinity YouTube channel as incredible artists, illustrators, designers and photographers who use Affinity invite you into their world to witness their personal creative workflows. You can subscribe to our YouTube channel here: https://affin.co/youtubesub 
Each creative will be available on live chat when their pre-recorded session premieres so you can ask any questions, and free content will  be provided for some of the sessions so you can have a go yourself. It’s a great time to learn new tricks, pick up on tips and break that lockdown boredom.Ash will be kicking off this virtual creative festival tomorrow and we’ll be announcing the rest of the line-up on our social channels. 
We will be announcing each daily session on our social channels, so make sure you're following us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook to learn about each daily session. 
We will also post weekly lists of event announcements here in this thread.

Watch the announcement trailer here: https://affin.co/LD2020Trailer 
If you want to be notified each week of the list of creatives presenting, follow this similar thread in the Tutorials section of the forums, which is locked so you will only get notified when we add new weekly posts

I'm really loving the Affinity Suite, they are fantastic products. But it's become frustrating that my biggest pain point with the desktop software is seemingly something so easy to fix. I'm talking about how you can only see the brush names in the brush panel by hovering your cursor over the brush. For someone who has bought a lot of brushes for the software this is really painful. This has really hampered my ability to find a brush, or even remember what brush I had used previously. It seems like a small thing, but it really isn't. Seeing the names in the panel helps greatly with memory retention and creates a much stronger user experience. Right now I either have to hover over the brush, taking an extra second to let the name pop up (getting me out of my artistic flow and annoying me, and that annoyance meaning I'm unlikely to bother), or I have to not register the name in my consciousness at all, leaving me to hopefully remember later which in a long line of squiggly shapes is the brush I used.
While I realize this isn't the most important feature in the world, it's also really low hanging fruit. And doesn't the ipad versions of the suite already have this (I don't have the ipad versions but I'd swear I saw in a video that they do)?
Is this a result of someone in UI wanting to make the panel look prettier and more streamlined and thinking it doesn't hamper our workflows? Because if so please, please put that strange notion aside. You are most definitely hampering my workflow. 
Please don't tell me we have to wait for 1.9 for this. It's such a small thing but so important. 
 

That would also be a great quality of life feature I'd love to see. 

I'm really loving the Affinity Suite, they are fantastic products. But it's become frustrating that my biggest pain point with the desktop software is seemingly something so easy to fix. I'm talking about how you can only see the brush names in the brush panel by hovering your cursor over the brush. For someone who has bought a lot of brushes for the software this is really painful. This has really hampered my ability to find a brush, or even remember what brush I had used previously. It seems like a small thing, but it really isn't. Seeing the names in the panel helps greatly with memory retention and creates a much stronger user experience. Right now I either have to hover over the brush, taking an extra second to let the name pop up (getting me out of my artistic flow and annoying me, and that annoyance meaning I'm unlikely to bother), or I have to not register the name in my consciousness at all, leaving me to hopefully remember later which in a long line of squiggly shapes is the brush I used.
While I realize this isn't the most important feature in the world, it's also really low hanging fruit. And doesn't the ipad versions of the suite already have this (I don't have the ipad versions but I'd swear I saw in a video that they do)?
Is this a result of someone in UI wanting to make the panel look prettier and more streamlined and thinking it doesn't hamper our workflows? Because if so please, please put that strange notion aside. You are most definitely hampering my workflow. 
Please don't tell me we have to wait for 1.9 for this. It's such a small thing but so important. 
 

I have a similar problem using colors from Presets (Pantone, etc). I need the selected color to remain somehow marked/highlighted so that I can easily select a lighter/darker shade. Unfortunately, the selected/used color is not highlighted in any way, so it is just a confusing array of colored squares in which I easily get lost.

I'm really loving the Affinity Suite, they are fantastic products. But it's become frustrating that my biggest pain point with the desktop software is seemingly something so easy to fix. I'm talking about how you can only see the brush names in the brush panel by hovering your cursor over the brush. For someone who has bought a lot of brushes for the software this is really painful. This has really hampered my ability to find a brush, or even remember what brush I had used previously. It seems like a small thing, but it really isn't. Seeing the names in the panel helps greatly with memory retention and creates a much stronger user experience. Right now I either have to hover over the brush, taking an extra second to let the name pop up (getting me out of my artistic flow and annoying me, and that annoyance meaning I'm unlikely to bother), or I have to not register the name in my consciousness at all, leaving me to hopefully remember later which in a long line of squiggly shapes is the brush I used.
While I realize this isn't the most important feature in the world, it's also really low hanging fruit. And doesn't the ipad versions of the suite already have this (I don't have the ipad versions but I'd swear I saw in a video that they do)?
Is this a result of someone in UI wanting to make the panel look prettier and more streamlined and thinking it doesn't hamper our workflows? Because if so please, please put that strange notion aside. You are most definitely hampering my workflow. 
Please don't tell me we have to wait for 1.9 for this. It's such a small thing but so important. 
 

I'm really loving the Affinity Suite, they are fantastic products. But it's become frustrating that my biggest pain point with the desktop software is seemingly something so easy to fix. I'm talking about how you can only see the brush names in the brush panel by hovering your cursor over the brush. For someone who has bought a lot of brushes for the software this is really painful. This has really hampered my ability to find a brush, or even remember what brush I had used previously. It seems like a small thing, but it really isn't. Seeing the names in the panel helps greatly with memory retention and creates a much stronger user experience. Right now I either have to hover over the brush, taking an extra second to let the name pop up (getting me out of my artistic flow and annoying me, and that annoyance meaning I'm unlikely to bother), or I have to not register the name in my consciousness at all, leaving me to hopefully remember later which in a long line of squiggly shapes is the brush I used.
While I realize this isn't the most important feature in the world, it's also really low hanging fruit. And doesn't the ipad versions of the suite already have this (I don't have the ipad versions but I'd swear I saw in a video that they do)?
Is this a result of someone in UI wanting to make the panel look prettier and more streamlined and thinking it doesn't hamper our workflows? Because if so please, please put that strange notion aside. You are most definitely hampering my workflow. 
Please don't tell me we have to wait for 1.9 for this. It's such a small thing but so important. 
 

I would be shocked if Serif didn't announce their Lightroom alternative at the next "Affinity Live" event. It's the only app listed in their initial vision of the suite that hasn't been released (as outlined in the forward to the Affinity Designer Workbook). It's definitely coming next and before the 2.0 versions of Photo and Designer. 

I would be shocked if Serif didn't announce their Lightroom alternative at the next "Affinity Live" event. It's the only app listed in their initial vision of the suite that hasn't been released (as outlined in the forward to the Affinity Designer Workbook). It's definitely coming next and before the 2.0 versions of Photo and Designer. 

An extensive plugin system may be the solution for the pop-up palette, if that is indeed something they have an interest in creating in the near future. Though an extensive plugin system is a lot more resource intensive than the simple pop-up palette I'm asking for if plugin's were not something they were planning until much later. And the pop-up palette could be used for other tools besides just the brushes so it doesn't seem like bloat to me. 
But there are three other things I asked for above, all of which are actually more important to the digital painting experience than the pop-up palette. In fact the lack of first two are so painful to the experience of using the Affinity products that they actually seem like bugs. Why won't a brush stay highlighted? WHY?!!!!!!! Oh please just stay highlighted if I've selected you. Why can't I see the brush names? I can't remember squiggly lines. I need to see the names. I don't want to wait and hover over each brush until the name pops up. Together these two items make for a horrible user experience and it effects everyone who uses brushes for any reason, not just digital painters.
Finally the third request is more of a bonus I suppose, but I'm often creating an effect that I can't remember later how I created it. Sometimes if I'm trying a lot of different approaches, one right after another, I don't even remember how I did something just moments ago. Being able to click on a layer and have something tell me exactly what brushes I've used would be a godsend. Yes I could name each layer after the brushes I used in it I suppose but that's another thing taking me out of the painting experience. 
  

Yeah, well, about that... I keep thinking you are not fully serious with these statements, so, am not offended in any way....  .... In Japan, manga (a style which is not my cup of tea) comic production is a huge industry. Is not only read by the young ones, Japan is different in that to other countries. And another example of content for the younger ones, games could also be considered kind of a product mostly for younger people (even if today there are legions of 20-30s yr old gamers, still the consume is more massive with teens) and yet it has been said in several occasions to move more money than the film industry. Heck, half of the companies I've got a job at. An art director (and each specialist of these) needs to master Zbrush, Photoshop, 3DS Max and or Maya, or if in charge of the cinematic, maybe is Houdini, After Effects, etc. Serious as heck tools, very technical and moving mountains of money. There's nothing more, er, serious than doing well a complex UV Mapping of the mid or low res cage of a 3 million triangles model, or a complex face rigging, or a full PBR workflow.

Yep, a logotype and visual style guide for the corporate image of a company, or photo retouch for magazine covers (been there, too), or even the company brochures for their latest products might sound like "more serious", but in the sense that both can move a lot of money, and the level of professionalism can be high or low, but only depending on the individual in charge, then, there's no point on considering an entire field more a case of child stuff. I respect your opinion, though, if you think so, but cannot agree, from all what I have seen and experienced. Even in the area that kind of would "sound" as more of a  total teenagers' land, the actual manga comics creation (except in Japan), which has been mentioned when speaking about Krita... The other day I watched an EXTREMELY interesting video (I'd post the link, but we're all already off topic ) of an interview to the director of a Manga comic studio, and the several workers there, and it tells you since minute one, how much of a serious and successful business is manga there. Not only because these people work non stop since 6 in the morning, full day non stop, but for the level of production, money involved, discipline, etc.  It is is having even a greater moment than what I knew back in the 80s in European comic. 

What is even funny about this aspect of the conversation:  (having worked at both types of stuff) I would TOTALLY say game art (2D or 3D) gets in some details way more technical, with more depth and more complex workflows and pipelines than the most complex projects I needed to solve as a graphic designer, of just in image editing roles. Of course, graphic design requires a certain perspective and background. But so does painting. Painting usually requires deep studies in anatomy, perspective, color theory, lighting, composition, etc. Typically BFA's level studies, at least. I have taught people how to do some basics in design and image editing, in months, and the person(/s) has become a good piece of a team, even if needing to supervising/polishing. Is a ton harder and longer to teach the art matters, to improvise that, usually impossible even in a full pair of years. And to good level... fully impossible unless solely dedicating all your energy to teaching that to that person, for quite more years.
I know is off topic, but we're all gone that path, and that one statement, even as a light joke, I believe deserves a comment... As is not the first time I read or hear about it. For quite some people there are some misconceptions about the whole thing of "seriousness" in a particular field.

If Affinity Photo was meant to just be for photo manipulation (and yes that is it's primary use I freely admit) then why did they just add the Symmetry and Sub Brushes feature? Why did they just add a nice selection of Daub Brushes? Why is there an entire section about their "beautiful brush engine" on the main page for Affinity Photo? 
Besides all these features are low hanging fruit. None of these are resource intensive. 
And bonus! These features would also be very useful in Affinity Designer as well and would be easily ported there. It actually seems like a very efficient use of resources. 
Finally, hobbyist digital art is a major gateway into using graphic design software. Especially the sort of person who wants professional features without paying for an Adobe subscription. These people also don't have to worry about what is "industry standard" since they're not working with or for anyone! Affinity is really missing a trick by not catering to that market at least a little bit. Adobe knows you own the future by getting them when they're still hobbyists. Affinity needs to learn that too. 

If Affinity Photo was meant to just be for photo manipulation (and yes that is it's primary use I freely admit) then why did they just add the Symmetry and Sub Brushes feature? Why did they just add a nice selection of Daub Brushes? Why is there an entire section about their "beautiful brush engine" on the main page for Affinity Photo? 
Besides all these features are low hanging fruit. None of these are resource intensive. 
And bonus! These features would also be very useful in Affinity Designer as well and would be easily ported there. It actually seems like a very efficient use of resources. 
Finally, hobbyist digital art is a major gateway into using graphic design software. Especially the sort of person who wants professional features without paying for an Adobe subscription. These people also don't have to worry about what is "industry standard" since they're not working with or for anyone! Affinity is really missing a trick by not catering to that market at least a little bit. Adobe knows you own the future by getting them when they're still hobbyists. Affinity needs to learn that too. 

Given the large number of issues the Affinity-Applications still have, I do not support to use developer-manpower to downgrade "Photo" to a Painting-Application.

...but maybe I misunderstood the request.

kind regards
Fritz

I really don't see how adding painter friendly features is somehow "downgrading" Photo in this case. Last I checked, even photographers use brushes to work. The Krita tool wheel is actually one of those features I think is a very clear upgrade over what Photoshop has traditionally offered with its brush manager with R click. Right now Photo does not offer anything when just pressing R click for your brushes, so why not consider adding this feature?
Besides, I actually want Photo to become a very solid art program. I've used Photoshop to paint for many years and I still haven't found a single program that comes close to what I want out of an art program like Photoshop. Affinity Photo is the closest to that kind of experience, so I will keep giving feedback with that mindset. I am pretty sure the majority of my feature requests will be benficial for most users of Affinity, including photographers.

I've been enjoying my time in Affinity Photo a great deal. And while I know it's primary use case is photo manipulation it's also clearly marketed toward digital artists as a secondary use case so with that in mind I figured I'd ask for some quality-of-life features geared toward the digital painting experience. Specifically geared toward keeping the artist in the zen creative mindset. The more he or she is using the brushes and the less he or she is fiddling with the interface the better for the overall creative experience.
So here we go!
It would be great if there was an option in the brushes panel to display the brush's name. It would be more than great, it would be immensely helpful. I believe the IPad version of Affinity Designer already has this feature. Please bring it into the AD/AP desktop versions too. I find it difficult to remember what brush I was just using and it's frustrating.  For some reason the selected brush in the brush panel never stays highlighted. Even when it's still selected. It'd be nice if the last brush I used just stayed highlighted. Even after I switch tools.  Along the same lines it would be great if I could click on a layer and see what brushes have been used in that layer. This would be amazing for remembering how to achieve an effect I've previously created.  It would help that "zen" feeling if a feature along the lines of Krita's "Pop up Palette" was implemented. See how it works here:   
 
 
Unlike the Krita version, it would be wonderful to have an option for the Popup Palette to be able to display brush names too. 
It goes without saying that these features would be just as useful in Affinity Designer as in Photo. So having them added there would be great too!
And now here's the part where YOU dear reader chime in with how you don't want to see these quality-of-life features because you fear it will take away resources from features that will help YOUR workflow instead. Because that's what we do here.
Obviously Serif knows what their target market priorities are and will choose the features that are the biggest bang for their buck. These are just things I'd love to see. Your trying to guess what those target market priorities are (and that they just so happen to coincide with your feature requests) is irrelevant but thank you for your concern on the matter future poster!
And yes I know you're going to post anyway. 
 
 
 

I've been enjoying my time in Affinity Photo a great deal. And while I know it's primary use case is photo manipulation it's also clearly marketed toward digital artists as a secondary use case so with that in mind I figured I'd ask for some quality-of-life features geared toward the digital painting experience. Specifically geared toward keeping the artist in the zen creative mindset. The more he or she is using the brushes and the less he or she is fiddling with the interface the better for the overall creative experience.
So here we go!
It would be great if there was an option in the brushes panel to display the brush's name. It would be more than great, it would be immensely helpful. I believe the IPad version of Affinity Designer already has this feature. Please bring it into the AD/AP desktop versions too. I find it difficult to remember what brush I was just using and it's frustrating.  For some reason the selected brush in the brush panel never stays highlighted. Even when it's still selected. It'd be nice if the last brush I used just stayed highlighted. Even after I switch tools.  Along the same lines it would be great if I could click on a layer and see what brushes have been used in that layer. This would be amazing for remembering how to achieve an effect I've previously created.  It would help that "zen" feeling if a feature along the lines of Krita's "Pop up Palette" was implemented. See how it works here:   
 
 
Unlike the Krita version, it would be wonderful to have an option for the Popup Palette to be able to display brush names too. 
It goes without saying that these features would be just as useful in Affinity Designer as in Photo. So having them added there would be great too!
And now here's the part where YOU dear reader chime in with how you don't want to see these quality-of-life features because you fear it will take away resources from features that will help YOUR workflow instead. Because that's what we do here.
Obviously Serif knows what their target market priorities are and will choose the features that are the biggest bang for their buck. These are just things I'd love to see. Your trying to guess what those target market priorities are (and that they just so happen to coincide with your feature requests) is irrelevant but thank you for your concern on the matter future poster!
And yes I know you're going to post anyway. 
 
 
 

I've been enjoying my time in Affinity Photo a great deal. And while I know it's primary use case is photo manipulation it's also clearly marketed toward digital artists as a secondary use case so with that in mind I figured I'd ask for some quality-of-life features geared toward the digital painting experience. Specifically geared toward keeping the artist in the zen creative mindset. The more he or she is using the brushes and the less he or she is fiddling with the interface the better for the overall creative experience.
So here we go!
It would be great if there was an option in the brushes panel to display the brush's name. It would be more than great, it would be immensely helpful. I believe the IPad version of Affinity Designer already has this feature. Please bring it into the AD/AP desktop versions too. I find it difficult to remember what brush I was just using and it's frustrating.  For some reason the selected brush in the brush panel never stays highlighted. Even when it's still selected. It'd be nice if the last brush I used just stayed highlighted. Even after I switch tools.  Along the same lines it would be great if I could click on a layer and see what brushes have been used in that layer. This would be amazing for remembering how to achieve an effect I've previously created.  It would help that "zen" feeling if a feature along the lines of Krita's "Pop up Palette" was implemented. See how it works here:   
 
 
Unlike the Krita version, it would be wonderful to have an option for the Popup Palette to be able to display brush names too. 
It goes without saying that these features would be just as useful in Affinity Designer as in Photo. So having them added there would be great too!
And now here's the part where YOU dear reader chime in with how you don't want to see these quality-of-life features because you fear it will take away resources from features that will help YOUR workflow instead. Because that's what we do here.
Obviously Serif knows what their target market priorities are and will choose the features that are the biggest bang for their buck. These are just things I'd love to see. Your trying to guess what those target market priorities are (and that they just so happen to coincide with your feature requests) is irrelevant but thank you for your concern on the matter future poster!
And yes I know you're going to post anyway. 
 
 
 

There seems to be a misunderstanding by some posters here on what is being asked for. The OP is not asking for a WYSIWYG functionality being added to AD. No one is asking for AD to be turned into Adobe Muse or Frontpage 2000. 
What is being asked for is that each layer be given CSS Properties so that when a designer hands off the design to a developer that the developer can EXACTLY match the design given because the CSS properties are right there for him to see. He's not approximating the design, he has the option of an EXACT translation. It saves the developer time and guesswork. No one is expecting AD to do the actual coding. It's just supplying some CSS Properties to speed up the developer's work.
Most software used for UI design already has this functionality. Sketch. InVision. Illustrator. Photoshop. Only Adobe XD doesn't have it yet. And AD. 
Serif put a lot of effort into making AD ready for UI designers in the 1.5 update, but without CSS export it's mostly for naught. You absolutely have to have this feature to compete. 

There seems to be a misunderstanding by some posters here on what is being asked for. The OP is not asking for a WYSIWYG functionality being added to AD. No one is asking for AD to be turned into Adobe Muse or Frontpage 2000. 
What is being asked for is that each layer be given CSS Properties so that when a designer hands off the design to a developer that the developer can EXACTLY match the design given because the CSS properties are right there for him to see. He's not approximating the design, he has the option of an EXACT translation. It saves the developer time and guesswork. No one is expecting AD to do the actual coding. It's just supplying some CSS Properties to speed up the developer's work.
Most software used for UI design already has this functionality. Sketch. InVision. Illustrator. Photoshop. Only Adobe XD doesn't have it yet. And AD. 
Serif put a lot of effort into making AD ready for UI designers in the 1.5 update, but without CSS export it's mostly for naught. You absolutely have to have this feature to compete. 

There seems to be a misunderstanding by some posters here on what is being asked for. The OP is not asking for a WYSIWYG functionality being added to AD. No one is asking for AD to be turned into Adobe Muse or Frontpage 2000. 
What is being asked for is that each layer be given CSS Properties so that when a designer hands off the design to a developer that the developer can EXACTLY match the design given because the CSS properties are right there for him to see. He's not approximating the design, he has the option of an EXACT translation. It saves the developer time and guesswork. No one is expecting AD to do the actual coding. It's just supplying some CSS Properties to speed up the developer's work.
Most software used for UI design already has this functionality. Sketch. InVision. Illustrator. Photoshop. Only Adobe XD doesn't have it yet. And AD. 
Serif put a lot of effort into making AD ready for UI designers in the 1.5 update, but without CSS export it's mostly for naught. You absolutely have to have this feature to compete.