Search the Community

I was wondering if I could propose support for DDS files. I did a forum search and couldn't find any existing feature requests for this. I do heavy graphics design and texturing in PC games I play and most all of them use DDS file formats for the textures. As far as 3D Luts and tonemapping go this program has it covered. I moved over from GIMP to this and was more than willing to pay the $$$ for the app because of the ease of use and light learning curve associated with the application and so, so many features when the aformentioned things are compared to GIMP (in its' defense it is free though). But to be able to do texture editing and things of that sort for gaming graphic desings I need to be able to open, edit, and export DDS in their various compressions and formats. I know you support some PS plugins but from what I've found through searches on Goolge this program sdoesn't support the PS DDS plugin; not to mention it's a Nvidia based plugin and I use AMD GPUs. If you could support DDS natively it would be greatly appreciated. Right now I'm using Affinity Photo for everything else but GIMP still for DDS. GIMP, btw, has a DDS pluging that is independent of Nvidia or AMD. If memory serves correctly all of their stuff is open source as well. Here's the link to their plugin if your team woulsd be interested in taking a look at its' mechanics and possibly incorporating something similar into Affinity. Also, there's a link for a plugin that does normal maps. That is another very common and needed texture present in PC games. DDS Plugin Normal Map Plugin

Hey, guys! I have an idea... I have been an Affinity Photo/Designer user for a few years now, having migrated from Adobe Photoshop/Illustrator/InDesign. I have been interested in and checking out the new AI-generated text to image art, which is propping up all over the internet at the moment and causing such a storm. AI-generators like Disco Diffusion, Dall-E 2, MidJourney, Stable Diffusion, Craiyon, and many others. Seeing the quality, creativity and wildly imaginative images created (and amazing videos!) that derive from the people creating using these AI-art generators, I can foresee that they will be used in the photographic, media and film industry (if they aren't already) to create images for book covers, album covers, CD covers, movie posters and movies. This is not going to destroy art (as some people fear); no, this is going to open up avenues for everyone that no one had thought possible, creating openings for people who want to get into the industry but fear their ideas are not good enough or people who have had a creative block and many others. They really will help the creativity of many people (especially young, up and coming, inexperienced artists/designers. Suggestion for Affinity Designer: I would like to suggest some kind of link with Affinity Photo and one (or more) of the AI-text to image generators (before Adobe get their grubby paws on the idea and beat you to it, as I am sure they will try to). I can see the amazing potential for Affinity Photo for art that Affinity Photo users will produce and post all over the internet promoting Affinity Photo (which is so amazing, by the way!) You can put into any of the AI-text to art generators 'prompts' (text) which the AI-art generator then creates art from. As an example: I put in "pigs in chiffon dresses at a party drinking champagne" and got the image results below. The Ai image generators generate several versions of the image, which you can download individually or as one comp image. I attach three individual results of the 'Pigs drinking Champagne' so that you can look at them. Or try: "Seven tall nuns wearing purple spectacles and gold high-heels, standing on a hillside waving their hands at the sun, which has just exploded above them. Bits of sunshine fall all around them and in the distance cities are lit up, fires started, buildings exploded. One of the nuns is laughing hysterically." You can even add: 'in the style of Vincent van Gogh' or another of your favourite artists and the AI art generator will then create an image from your text prompt. If you don't like what is produced you can request another, or select one of the images and request versions of this image. They are amazing! But these are only my quick results generated at https://www.craiyon.com/ (which is great fun!!!!!). And check out the image on Reddit done by IFRIT on Disco Diffusion (I didn't do it, unfortunately - but I think its quite beautiful). I put the link here so you can see the detail that can be achieved by these AI-text to art generators. Get experimenting, guys. And check out the video further down the page of a pumping heart from Reddit! Amazing! https://www.behance.net/gallery/149644277/The-Gathering-of-Witch-Doctors?tracking_source=project_owner_other_projects https://www.behance.net/search/projects?search=disco diffusion digital art&tracking_source=typeahead_search_suggestion https://www.behance.net/search/projects?search=midjourney digital art&tracking_source=typeahead_search_suggestion Video created in Disco Diffusion. Awesome! Other people have generated some great images (links below), see Snail Harp/ Someone created this comp, which I thought was really fun.... And this YouTube video by Olivio Sarikas (who also does a lot of excellent Affinity Photo tutorials on YouTube - check them out) If you are interested, these are great articles: https://adrianroselli.com/2022/08/ai-generated-images-from-ai-generated-alt-text.html https://hyperight.com/a-revolutionary-model-that-generates-images-from-text-openais-dalle/

Skylum is in trouble over it's vapourware DAM. Supposedly in beta, but although I was 'on the list' to beta test it, I was never contacted, and I can't find anyone on their forums who will admit to beta testing. Further they won't release screen shots, feature lists etc. This is what I want a DAM to do: Introduction Currently using Apple Aperture. Need a replacement. I've been thinking a lot about photo management. I'm starting to avoid the word 'DAM' as it increasingly refers to industrial sized software costing tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. So let's look at what I mean by a photo manager: Browser Pix initially come in in bunches, and as such they go somewhere in some folder structure on your computer. Many people will use some combination of Year/Month/ and string to describe event. Often remember that the shot took place on your trip to Italy, or that it was the Smith & Brown wedding is sufficient. Tagger But what do you do when you are looking for the closeup of a butterfly. It was an incidental pic on some holiday, but which one. Now metadata comes into play. If all your holiday shots are tagged 'Holiday' and your program can search existing metadata, your problem is solved. Search for holiday and focal distance less than 5 feet. You still may have a bunch to wade through. If, in addition to some general keywords for the batch you add a few per image you have a big win. E.g. "Butterfly" Tagging is hard. You want to tag it with multiple things. E.g: Describe the scene. Identify the location. GPS is fine, but "Lock Ness, Scotland" or Kensington market, Toronto, Ontario, Canada is easier to visualize. ID the people in the scene. Classify them more generally. (Woman with child; Young boy...) Describe the technical aspects -- close up, high/low key, lighting One or more classes of description about the scene -- weather, mood. Usage: Have you sold exclusive rights for this image? Exclusive for 18 months for a calendar? These are facets. I prefer to go through a set of images several times, concentrating on one of these at a time. Sometimes a facet is irrelevant. Weather makes no sense for an interior shot. If you do facets, you need a way to search for images that don't have an entry for facet X. You also need a way to mark a facet as irrelevant. Crudely you can implement these with constructs like WEA:Cloudy but then you still have to be able to search for images that don't have WEA:* as a keyword. And you have to decide on what to do where it's not relevant. WEA:N/A Having some kind of support for actual facets would be a big win. Searcher No point in tagging if you can't search the data. Two programs I trialed, Mylio and Photoshop Supreme, had no provision to search exif data -- where the stuff like time of day, and focal length, and camera model is kept. One program allows you to search for only one tag at a time. I can search for Holiday. Or I can search for butterfly. But I can't search for shots that have both "Holiday" and "butterfly" Ideally you want full boolean search support with 'and,' 'or', & 'not', parentheses for grouping, and wild cards for partial matches. Version tracker A photograph for a professional may have a long history. You often have a shot, then export it in some altered form (cropped, resized, sharpened, colour adjusted, watermarked) Nice to be able to find the original 5 years from now. One recommended practice I ran into had the following: Master image was Raw. Archive version was digital negative. Processing version was 16 bit tiff or PSD Delivered version was tiff or jpeg. This requires a minimum of 4 versions. Add to that: Watermarked versions. Reduced resolution versions for web pages. Colour matched versions for specific printing environments. Cropped versions for mobile web pages. So that's the base case. Implementations differ, and they refine this somewhat. Online resources Impulse Adventure (site: https://www.impulseadventure.com/photo/) Unfortunately out of date. But still several good articles. Catalogs and Multiple versions. https://www.impulseadventure.com/photo/flow-catalog-versions.html Important Features of Catalog Software. https://www.impulseadventure.com/photo/flow-catalog-features.html Controlled Vocabulary (site: https://www.controlledvocabulary.com/ ) Using Image Databases to Organize Image Collections http://www.controlledvocabulary.com/imagedatabases/ Also has a good forum/mailing list. Requirements: The four functions above describe what it should do. Here are some more details about how it should do it. Server requirments I can see implementing this in one of two ways: Either as a stand alone program or as a local web server. The latter has the advantage that it would scale for family or small photo business. Cloud services are slow when you are talking about 10-12 Mbyte files. My network connect takes several seconds per MByte. Cloud services for metadata have to be well optimized -- you really don't want to issue 3000 keyword change requests individually when you change the spelling of a keyword. So: Not cloud based. Runs on Mac or on local apache web server. Keyword handling Fast keywording. Aperture allows drag and drop from a list, multiple sets of hotkeys for words used frequently, copy paste of keywords from one photo to another, and keywords organized in folders. It also allows search for a keyword, and a list matching what you typed so far appears. Other programs that have good keywording include IMatch and Photomechanic. One of the key aspects of this is to have multiple ways to do things. I like aperture's multiple preset buttons -- combine with facets. A history of keywords might help: A pane with the last N keywords in it. Chances are that the next word I use will be one of the last 20 I use about 80% of the time. Full access to standard metadata: EXIF, ITPC, subject to limits of the file format. Controlled vocabulary. I want an extra step to add a new keyword to my list of keywords. This helps with the the Sommer Vacashun problem. Hierarchial vocabulary. E.g. Separate entries for Birds -> raptors -> falcon and Planes -> fighters -> falcon. Parents are stored with keywords. Moving a keyword in the master list, or changing spelling, corrects all usage in photos. This can be done as a background task. Parent items are automatically entered as keywords. (With the correct database linkage, this comes free as a side effect of the point above. Synonyms -- I can define "Picea glauca" as a synonmym for "White Spruce" entering one, enters the other. Facets: For a set of pictures I want to be able to define a set of facets or categories for collections or folders. Facets would be things like: Weather; Who; Where; Ecosystem; Season; Lighting Not all collections would have all facets, but a collection having a facet would nag me to put it in. A facet would have a negation for not applicable (Weather isn't applicable inside a house; Who isn't applicable in a landscape shot.) Facets allow me to go through a collection in multiple passes and get the missing keywords. Searching Complex searches: Find all shots between 2012 and 2015 shot in December or January, shot with my Nikon D70, with keyword "snow" rating of 3 or better shot after 3pm in the day. (Yes, I do use searches like that) Saved Searches. These are the equivalent of smart albums in Aperture. As new pix meet the standards they would be shown. Version Tracking Version tracking If a lower resolution, cropped, photoshopped, composited or a black and white image is produced from a master, the system should show that it's a derived image, and allow access to the master. A master should be able to list derived images. Derived images are not linear but form a multi-branched tree. If my camera produces JPEG and Raw versions, I want the JPEG to be shown as being derived from the Raw version. Metadata applied to a master should propagate down to derived images. Some form of exception handling for this: e.g. -keyword to prevent a people identifier being applied to an image where that person was cropped out. Ability to track through external editing programs. E.g. If I edit a program in photoshop, it will mark the PSD file as being derived, restore as much of the metadata as the PSD format allows. If Photoshop is used to create a jpeg image, that too is tracked. Data robustness All metadata is indexed. Metadata is also written to sidecar files. Where possible metadata is written to the image file itself. (optional -- can stress automated backup systems) Through file system watching, name changes and directory reorganization are caught. Relevant sidecars are also renamed, and the database updated with new file location/name. Sidecar contents include the name of their master file. Should be possible to rebuild entire database from images + sidecars. Should be able to restore all file metadata from database. This requires a lot of under-the-hood time stamps to determine which has priority. All database actions should be logged and journaled, so they are reversible. Reasonable speed with catalogs of more than 100,000 images. Support for previews of all common image formats and most raw formats. Previews and thumbnails are treated as versions of the master. They inherit metadata. Nice to have: Simple non-destructive editing -- crop, brightness, contrast. Rating system Smart albums Drag and drop functionality with other mac apps. Suggestions? Notes on current state of the art: Nothing I've found supports version tracking, especially through an external program. Lightroom and Aperture both support a type of versions -- different edits on same master, but at least Aperture doesn't copy metadata to a new version. Aperture supports Stacks -- a group of related pictures. Lightroom: Doesn't support PNG, very clunky interface, slow on large catalogs; Mylio home version doesn't support hierarchical keywords; doesn't index exif information, does not allow or syntax for searches, Photomechanic is fast for keywording and culling, but has very limited search capability. IMatch. Possible contender, Requires MS windows box. Photo Supreme: Erratic quirks. Crashes. One man shop. Can't search Exif in useful way. Fotostation: AFAIK no underlying database. Has to read metadata from images/sidecar files on startup. Slow after 10K images. (They have server based software too that is big bucks.) Luminar: A DAM has been promised Real Soon Now, but no demos, storyboards or feature lists have been published. There is a claim that it is in beta, but no one on their fairly active forum will admit to being part of the beta group. Affinity: Similar to Luminar. Commandline tools Much of the special features for version tracking could be implemented with scripts using calls to these programs. ImageMagick -- good for whole-image conversions, also can read/write internal metadata and sidecars. Exiftool -- read/write exif data reads most makernotes. fswatch -- not really an image processor, but hooks into the operating system and can alert when files have changed -- modified, renamed, moved. Enterprise level WebDAM No real information about capabilities on web site. Extensis. Expensive. Bynder. Joke program. Cloud based set of shoeboxes. WIDEN. Cloud only. Asset Bank. Starts at $500/month for up to 50 users. Metadata Storage There are three places metadata can be stored: In the image. In a database. In a separate file for each image (sidecar file) Typically these files have the same name as the primary file, but a different suffix. If at least some cataloging information is written to the image, then you can reconnect a file to your database. In principle this can be a single unique ID. This saves you from: You moved or renamed an image file. If you can write more info into the file -- keywords, captions -- then you are saved from: Your database is corrupted. You upgraded your computer and your database program doesn't work there. Sidecar files allow you to recover all your metadata if your database crashes. Downsides of storing data in the image Writing to the original files can corrupt the file. Most RAW formats are well understood enough now to at least identify and replace strings of metadata with the same length string. If you tell your camera to put the copyright string Copyright 2018 J. Random Shutterbug Image XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX Then as long as the DAM keeps that string the same length you are golden. Keeping all metadata (or as much as you can) in the original images makes for very slow access. Your program has to read at least the first few blocks of every image. Depending on the file structure, adding too much data may require rewriting the entire file. Any program that moves the boundaries of data sub blocks better be well tested. Writing data back is time consuming. Some file formats don't have any metadata capability. Some file formats (Photoshop PSD) are noted for mangling metadata. A glitch during the write process can corrupt the image file. The alternative, writing a new file, then replacing the old file requires that the entire file be both read and written, rather than just a chunk of it. This has serious performance issues. Downsides of Databases Databases are fast, but they are blobby, and you are writing into the middle of blobs of data. If the implementation of the database is solid, there isn't much to worry about. But hard disks have errors, and a single error can make a database partially or fully unusable. Good database design has redundancy built in so that you can repair/rebuild. Databases are frequently proprietary. Data may be compressed for speed. Getting your data out may be tricky. (Problem for people using Apple Aperture) Databases frequently are optimized in different ways. In general robustness is gained at the cost of performance and complexity. One compromise is to write all changes first to a transaction file (fast...) and then a background process does the database update in the background. This slows down access some: Have to check both the main database and the transaction file, but unless the transaction file gets to be bigger than memory, this shouldn't be noticeable. Downsides of Sidecars You have to read a zillion files at startup. If you do a batch change (Add the keyword "Italy" to all 3000 of your summer holiday trip shots) the catalog program has open, modify and write back 3000 files. If you rename a file, and don't rename the sidecar file too, your meta data is no longer connected to your image. Best practice Opinion only here: Sorry. You want a unique asset tag that resides in the image. This can be an actual tag like the copyright one mentioned above, or it can be a derived tag from information in the image. This could be the EXIF time stamp (Not unique -- multiple shots per second, multiple cameras.) If your program reads makernotes, the best one is Camera model + Camera serial number + timestamp + hundredths of a second. You want a database for speed. It, of course has the unique ID You want sidecars for rebuilding your database, and for data portability. They have the unique ID. If the database crashes, it can be rebuild from the sidecars. If a sidecar is corrupted, it can be rebuilt from the database. If an image is renamed the ID can be used to reconnect it to the sidecar, and to fix the database. To make this work, you have to use a lot of timestamps. If the sidecar is more recent than the latest time stamp in the database record, then the sidecar is the authoritative record. You also have to have internal checks on data integrity. The record for an image (sidecar or database) needs a checksum to verify that that data isn't corrupt. Given the relatively fragile nature of raw files, best practice is a system that only writes zero or once to the Raw file. This is why the exif time stamp + hundredths, copyright work well. You can include the camera model and serial number in the copyright so that now the copyright message is unique to the camera. At this point you have the ability to create, and recreate a unique ID for each image. If the DAM has the ability to modify the file, you can create this ID once. This saves some time if you ever have to rebuild the database. Having as much of the metadata in the file as possible means taht it travels with the file. This is a win, but comes with the risk of potential corruption. Possibly the best strategy is to leave the original intact, and for clients who need raw data, either add metadata to a copy, or to a derived full data equivalent (e.g. DNG) Sidecars don't need to be updated in real time. The slick way to do this would be that whenever the database makes a change to a record: Make a new record that duplicates the old record in the database. Make the change in the new record. New record is flagged, "not written to sidecar" Old record is marked "obsolete" Another thread writes the sidecar files out, writing out the new one, then deleting the old one (or renaming the new one to the old one's name). Periodically you run a cleanup on the database removing obsolete records older than X days. This gives you the ability to rollback changes. This is not complete: It doesn't address the issue of non-destructive edits. Many programs now allow the creation of multiple images from the same master file, and do not create a new bitmap, but rather a file with a series of instructions for how to make the image from the master. AFAIK all such methods are proprietary. This results in a quandary as the apps that do a good job of tracking metadata may not be able to deal with the non-destructive edits. This can be critical if you crop a person out of an image, crop to emphasis a different aspect, and receive a different caption, etc. The workaround is that you always write out a new bitmap image from a serious edit. Ideally you have a script that looks for new NDEs and writes out an image based on this, copying the metadata from the master and at some point bringing it up for review for mods to the metadata. Robustness against external programs. I like having an underlying file structure organization. I like the idea that if I produce a bunch of cropped, watermarked, lower resolution, etcetera versions of an image that my catalog will track that too. But if the underlying file structure is exposed to Explorer or Finder, then you have the risk of a file being renamed or moved, and the database is no longer in sync with your file system. To budnip answers of the form "This is impossible" here's how to "Finder-proof" your image database. When an image is edited, a file system watcher notes that the file was opened. The file goes onto the 'watch' list. (the program fswatcher does this on mac. I use it to update my web page when my local copy has been edited.) When a new file appears in a monitored directory tree, it's noted. When a file is closed, this is also noted. If there has been a new file created it is checked for metadata. If the new file's metadata has a match for an existing file, then existing file metadata is used to repopulate missing data in the file. (Photoshop is notorious for not respecting all metadata.) Database is updated with the new file being marked as derivative of the original file. optionally a suffix may be added to the new file's image number, showing whether it derives directly from the original or from another derivative. To make this work, the two components are a unique id that can be calcuated from the master, and a file system monitor program that catches create, move, change, and rename events.

Said search wasn't about solving the problem, because Affinity simply doesn't have Measure Tools implemented yet. Therefore, there are already many requests here on the forum, to which you should have added your opinion in accordance with the rules of the forum, and not start another thread.

Linked layers are a brand new feature in Affinity Photo, just added in 1.9. And that was only one of the new features in Photo 1.9. New features like that generally only arrive in 1.x releases (e.g., 1.10) not in 1.x.y (e.g., 1.9.2) releases. Even so, there have been some small additions in 1.9.1 and 1.9.2. You can find the release notes for 1.9.2 here, for 1.9.1 here, and for 1.9.0 here to see others. There have also been additional small features in the 1.9.4 and 1.10.0 betas. You can see the release notes for them starting with the current 1.10 beta on Windows here and work back. So, certainly, suggest new features for Photo. You should search first and if someone else has already asked for a function that you want, you should add to their request rather than starting your own. Additional suggestions along that line are at the top of the Feature Requests forum. Seldom will you see response time like that, as the product is bigger and they need to do extensive planning and testing and development for new functions. Also, when you ask for something it will only be implemented if Serif agrees it is important to enough people, and if its implementation fits in generally with their plans, and if they can see a good way to implement it without hurting something else, and if they have staff available to design, code, and test it. In other words, it is a much different environment than the one you describe, if I understand the comment that I quoted. You also will generally not get any response from Serif here. They do not disclose their plans, nor discuss future items.

Every time I want to do something straightforward, it doesn't work as expected, and I have to search the internet to find a solution. I've been unable to quickly find a solution to Affinity's latest bizarre refusal to work logically. Here's what I'm trying to do. copy one layer into a mask layer. I though it would just be a case of click the layer to copy, select all, copy (tried both ctrl c and copy flattened), then right click on the mask layer and choose 'edit mask', then paste..........Nope, doesn't like it...it's completely nonsensical. Can anyone point me in the right direction? Affinity, if you're listening, for the love of all that is holy, PLEASE make your software intuitive.

The problem I see in most of these posts is the requests are for another limited photo manager/processor a PAM or PAMP. Lightroom is far from the bar a real DAM solution should reach for. A full featured DAM does not hinder its use for photos only. I agree LR is probably the standard for photo manager/raw processors, but it too falls short even in that limited scope. LR does HDR but saves as a DNG, another attempt to lock you in. The standard is openEXR or older and more limited .HDR, some of us care more about that "super raw" than the tone mapped/fused byproduct (which by the way is no longer HDR). A real DAM needs to follow standards, the metadata needs to be written to the correct sections of XMP (Extensible Metadata Platform), yes that means sidecars for files that don't allow embedding the data, like raw files. When standards are followed, any other program that also follows standards can read it and use its functions to sort and search on it. All proprietary metadata should be easily extracted for remapping to the next DAM. Nothing should be locked into that particular DAM. At the very least it should handle graphics files, but that's just a GAM Steve said: The use of a database should not be required. However, if there’s just no getting around it for whatever reason (speed of searches, etc.), then perhaps the DAM could recreate it knowing only the root directory where all photos are stored. Of course, this might take awhile. Yes, speed of searches is why you need a database. Following XMP standards would take care of the second part if the XMP was written to standards in the first place at least for EXIF, IPTC, and hierarchical keywords. I agree that it should be a referenced database that leaves all files where you want them in your file system. Steve also brought up mapping and location tags. Again I have to bring up IMatch. I create location boundary on the map, then fill in all the location data for the IPTC section of XMP. I also can specify keywords to be written. I have my own location hierarchy in keywords, and some locations may also have keywords written unrelated to the location branch but always wanted for that location. I can use the GPS data if present or drop the photos on the map and even add direction of view. From there all the metadata is written and I'm in full control of all of it. I never use reverse lookup. It is too often wrong and/or not granular enough for my desire. Don't confuse XMP or other sidecars with transferring your raw conversion. Yes, some processors store the recipe for conversion in the XMP, that can serve transferring the raw in its parametric edited state to the same processor in another location. Yes some raw processors will attempt to translate that recipe to its own "kitchen" People need to understand the fact that each raw processor has its own selection of tools, and even if the tools have the same names they work differently. If they all worked the same, only the subjective attractiveness of the UI/UX would differentiate them. That is not the case, and it is a blessing and a curse. If you want a permanent copy of how that photo looks as edited in the raw processor of the moment, export it to jpg. or better 16 bit tiff. The non-destructive parametric editing we love about raw processors is the reason only that processor can read, write, and properly "cook" the recipe. If you want to use a different processor, start over. Look at it as an opportunity to do better. This is also argument one for separation of DAM and processing. Hierarchical keywords of course. Those that don't need them, don't use them, but without them a DAM it isn't. It should support import and export of controlled vocabularies. These can be created in app, found for free online, or paid curated lists. Those need to be easily editable. There should be controls for grouping keywords (keywords that are only used for organizing the list such as Who, What, Where, Why, etc.) LR has this. There should also be controls for the mapping between flat keywords and hierarchical keywords, LR doesn't. It should be quick and painless to fix the files where this mapping fails because it will. One cool feature in IMatch that I've come to depend on is color coding keywords. I color code each first level branch of keywords. All keywords under it then have that color. I can see at a glance of the thumbnail if I'm missing branches of keywords. Drilling down hierarchies can be time consuming, so you should be able to start typing and have matching keywords show in a list to speed up the assignment of keywords. Synonym support can help the organization and speed of assignment. Animals are a great example. You probably want the taxonomy, then you often have multiple common names (Puma, Panther, Catamount, Mountain Lion...) Sure you could build all of that into the hierarchy, but then you'd need to remember which did you use for the leaf. Better to use synonyms so that entering one common name applies all and the hierarchy of classification. The lack of synonyms in C1 is what drove me to separate DAM from processing when I dumped LR. Version and buddy file (sidecars like xmp, processor files, even supporting documents) control is vital. This way you can control how metadata is copied to child files and moving the parent also moves the children and and buddy files. Labels are so useful, most programs cripple them. Lightroom gives you sets of labels, you can only see, search, and filter one set at a time. You can change the label text, but not the color. There are only 5 colors plus the white custom label. Capture One has seven colors, cool two more, but you can't change the text or color and there are no sets. IMatch labels allow editing of the color and text. If there is a limit to the number, I haven't found it yet and I have 19. I have labels that match C1, others that I use for stages of workflow outside of C1 or non photo files, and others that match my main set from LR. I can see all of these labels in the IMatch viewer and thumbnail windows. I can quickly click on one in the collections list and instantly filter my view and I can use them in complex filters that combine other metadata. The point is in a real DAM I can make it work with the limitations of LR, C1, On1.... both to read the labels they can write or write labels to XMP that they'll read and filter on. I think Affinity can come up with a number of ways to make the raw conversion more like dedicated converters. Maybe something like a raw adjustment base layer that brings up the develop persona when selected with the settings always adjustable. They could facilitate copying raw settings in a number of ways without creating a PAM/PAMP/GAM or best of all DAM. If they do create a manager I hope it isn't as limited as the majority of requests on here are asking for. At the very least it would have to support all files types the current suite can edit. It must follow XMP standards so that if it didn't write metadata with the control and flexibility of IMatch it could sort and filter what I create in IMatch without mucking it up. I still stand by my post back on page 3, I'd rather they concentrate their resources on Photo, Designer, and Publisher. All amazing version 1 products. I look forward to paying for version 2.

So, at the top of the forums for this, they say to search for topics on features others have already requested. I actually found this feature requested and asked about in multiple topics here (and other places) using Google, but I figured, it's probably time someone else voiced this request. I've been looking for an excuse to move away from Photoshop for a few years now, and when I discovered Affinity Photo, it seemed like a beacon of hope. After working with it, Affinity Photo really does hit almost all points. Almost. I am aware you can set guides with percentages using the Guide Manager (just bolded so anyone skimming the entry will see I've tried it), but with how often I set up guides in various layers and such, it frankly feels jarring to use compared to my smoother photoshop experience. Instead of just taking half a second to drag a new guide to X% on a ruler, I have to go through said Guide Manager each time to set it, and it feels cludgy, like hitting a speed bump. To put it bluntly, I don't use anything other than percentages in my rulers. In years of using photoshop, I can count on one hand the times I've needed to use pixels or anything else. Now, that might be something peculiar to my usual projects, but it is what it is. So, what can I say? I would love for this feature to be implemented. It's the one thing that makes this program uncomfortable to use for me. I know there are many feature requests out there, and this one might involve working with snapping features and guides and whatnot, but it's also the biggest request I have. Not Guide Manager, not "type in this," but just the ability to set the rulers to percentages so I can create appropriate guides on the fly. Thank you for your time! Hopefully someone in the dev team sees this...

Foreword Hello dear Serif development team & hello fellow Affinity Photo user, I created this topic to write a little bit about Affinity Photo and what I see could be improved! I worked on my latest piece entirely in Affinity Photo to see how good I can work with it. Note: I have been using Affinity Photo for quite some time now but only to do sketches and a little bit digital painting now and then but I never spend very much time with it. So if there is already a solution for my "problems" than I would really appreciate it if you'd tell me So, before I start, let me give you a bit information about me and why I chose to write this article. I am a 21 year old, German Game Art & Animation student who has a background in digital art - most in digital painting. I started my journey around 6 years ago in Photoshop CS6 and since then I have always been checking out other art programs such as Rebelle, Paintstorm Studio, Clip Studio Paint, Sketch Book and now Affinity Photo as well. I have been using Affinity Designer for quite some time now and I just love it so after Affinity Photo was announced I was all raring to check it out as well. And now with Publisher released I am very confident that Serif and their programs can have quite the impact on the creative programs market and I would like to contribute to make them even more impactful. Because I did a digital painting this time my suggestions and feature requests are more suiteable for the painters but since Photo is a pixel editing program I don't see why it should not succeed in the digital painting sector as well. Room for improvement Rulers First of all I'd like to request rulers. Rulers in general for example to make parallel lines, to constrain the brush to an editable ellipse and some French rulers. In addition to that a tool to create and to constrain brush strokes etc to a perspective grid. And I don't mean something like the perspective warp tool - something more like the options the neaty little program Lazy Nezumi Pro provides. I really would like to use it in Photo as well but the downside is that the developer only focused on a good Photoshop implementation. You will get perspective issues when you zoom or pan the canvas with this tool in any other program so it is not really useful in regards of that matter. Color picking Moving on, I'd like to request something like a toggle to tell Photo to pick a color by just Alt+Click. I tend to just go very swiftly over my canvas and using the shortcut for the eye dropper tool to get colors I've already used but to use Alt+Drag just really kills my workflow. Don't get me wrong, I would just like the eye dropper tool to be active when I hold down Alt so that I can pick my color with just one click and I'd like to drag it after taht to get the exact color I want to. The layer panel Next up on my list are suggestions for the layer panel. I'd like to Make working with the Layer panel a bit more comfortable by giving access to the most used commands for manipulating layers via right click on the layers. For example create a merged version of selected layers on a new layer or clip the selected layer to the layer below. In general the idea that you can drag and drop the layer on another one too create special layer versions is good but you have so many options to create a different versions than what you've wanted to do that it gets quite frustrating + to get the desired result I really have to "aim" with the layer what is a bit counterintuitive to a nice workflow. A simple rightklick on the selected layer and then "create clipping layer to below" (or something similiar (making a mask for example)) would do just fine. Next, I'd like to have a better merge layer method. Something like "Select layers and then right click "create a new merged layer" from the selected ones but keep the origial ones. In my painting I had to select the layers > Document > Add Snapshot, then Layer > New Layer from snapshot. It feels unnecessary and complicated (I figured that out by myself after I searched for a way to do the merged layer thing). Masks After that, I'd like to speak a bit about the masks in Affinity Photo. To be honest I find working with masks in Photoshop is the most convenient thing to do than in any other program I've tested so far. For Photo I'd like to see that you can turn the entire mask black my using the flood fill tool by just selecting the mask and go. Because right now you have to right click the mask > edit Mask and only in this mode you seem to be able to make the entire mask black. Speaking of masks: When working on a mask the colors in your "current color circles" (the one where you can switch between them via x) should turn to black and white automatically and turn back to the previous selected ones by exiting the mask (by clicking on a normal layer). Creating and manipulating layer selections I'd like to have a shortcut to make a selection out of the content of a layer by Shift+Click -ing a layer. I know that there is a function that you can use via Ctrl+Shift+O but as far as I am concerned it only selects the active layer. And with Shift+Click one should be able to load a selection of a layer whether its active or not. You could also make it so that you can alter the current selection by Alt+Click -ing another layer to subtract the content of that particular layer from your current selection. The brush panel Finally, I'd like to give you a few suggestions regarding the brush panel. I find your way of organizing brushes via categories okay but for me its too segregated (of course it depends on how one handles and creates the brush packs). I had the idea in mind of giving brushes tags when you create them. For example I create a brush and give them the tags #scribble #sketch I could use a filter system to explicitly search for brushes with the tag #sketch. Combining this system with a favourite system (like with the fonts) it could sort the search with that even more. Closing For the time being that is everything I noted where I see improvement. As said in the beginning if there's already a way to get specific things I've mentioned done, pleas feel free to tell me! I would really like to learn everything so I can master the awesome program suite by Serif. Also I would really like to hear your opinion about the things I've mentioned and engage in a discussion! As for now, thank you very much for reading and considering! PS If you are interested to see the image I have painted I uploaded it here:

First of all i would like to have a real bridge-like tool as better media-browser/collector/organizer... for AP/Serif... which popups as separeate PERSONA . Afaik such a tool is in work (since years).... In the meantime: I would like to have a "STOCK-Desktop" Tool. On OSX it uses just the already existing spotlight engine, on windows i do not know, bit maybe there is something similiar. Its not much work to implement and til the Serif-Bridge (or LR...) is ready, this would be a usable and fast-find-possibility for all desktop-pictures. Just using the database of spotlight (or windows equalivalent) in the "stock"-panel. But instead looking the database of the stock-provider, AP is using the database of spotlight. If i eg in finder/spotlight-search hit the word "grandpa" i got all files and folder with grandpa in the name. If i hit "grandpa otto" i got just this, not the other grandpas i had/have... If i set some rules, eg. for suffix i got only raw-files of my grandpa otto or just AP-files of him... or just files from the last 3 months... Serif do not have to write all this database-code by itself, its already existing! Just the transport between AP and Spotlight has to code! The user itself must not extra tag, creating app-special-folder... all of your desktop has more/less this attributes in its name, or folder name, or tag... whatever you use/prefer/combine... The missing link is just the interface between AP and spotlight. So, as long there is no "Bridge"-Persona, please implement this Desktop-Spotlight-"Stock" as better media-browseer-replacement for fast search and place inside or "open in new file"... Well, people who collects his images in this restricted and access-shrinking apple-photo... instead file&folder will have here like in dozens other situations no advantage from this. I would say self-guilty... apple-photo is a way to become a slave of the goodwill from apple... Do not use such restricting apps, with its monolith-"libraries" and restricted access ! Do not become in-independent for just 2 extras! The old file/folder/finder-system, espacilly with tags, is really independent, can be used anywhre, do not need GB-space for "duplicates" So please SERIF, give us a "HD-Stock" (should be implement in a week) or a real nice "Bridge"-Persona... but however... very soon. The Media-Browser was not really good. But better than NO tool for fast open/place MY files, not the stock-ones...

I’ve given this subject some thought, and I’m in the DAM-only (option 2) camp. These are my basic requirements for a DAM: It should support hierarchical user-defined keyword tags. I do NOT require that the software automatically recognizes people. I would rather define my own people tags In my own hierarchy - it can be family based or place/experience based (I.e. “friends from college”, etc.) I find it easier to just define my own people tags and tag people myself, instead of filling in just the ones that the program doesn’t recognize or gets wrong. It would be cool if a person could be a member of multiple groups, but that’s not a deal breaker. I also do NOT require that location tags be tied to a map. Right now I am using Adobe’s Photoshop Elements Organizer that comes with Photoshop Elements. Right now I am using Adobe’s Photoshop Elements Organizer that comes with Photoshop Elements. At one point, Adobe switched from Google maps that created a Country/state/town/location tag system to a different mapping system. The new system started over and created its own Country/state/town/location tag system. Thereafter, there were two separate tags for locations such as USA/New York/New York/Madison Square Garden. I would just as soon create my own Country/state/town/location tag hierarchy. Keyword tags should be stored with the photo in EXIF data. The use of a database should not be required. However, if there’s just no getting around it for whatever reason (speed of searches, etc.), then perhaps the DAM could recreate it knowing only the root directory where all photos are stored. Of course, this might take awhile. The user should be able to define his own file structure independent of the tag hierarchy . That file structure should be visible to Windows Explorer or the MacOS file viewer. One should be able to move files from within the DAM, and should be able to create, rename, and delete folders. Complex search functions using tags, dates, and other EXIF data should be supported. One should be able to save complex searches. The ability to identify byte for byte identical photos would be nice. It should be fast to display thumbnails arranged by date, file hierarchy, or tag hierarchy, and one should be able to open Affinity or other image editing programs directly from the DAM. I’ve read through all 8 pages of comments on this topic, and one thing I haven’t seen addressed much is the question of what you would be willing to pay for your preferred alternative. It certainly could be that Adobe was forced to go to the subscription model because it just couldn’t charge enough for perpetual licenses to cover the cost of ongoing development and support. So if you want Affinity to make a Lightroom clone, are you willing to pay what it would cost? Plus, many of the other products mentioned here are free. They’re developed by a core team of highly talented highly motivated and highly committed people - but at some point, it seems to me that everybody has to make money somehow. In any event, if one of the free products meets your needs, how much are you willing to pay Affinity to provide the same product? As for myself, I already feel for the difficult situation Affinity is already in, trying to maintain and develop three major software platforms on three ever-changing operation systems (iOS, MacOS, and Windows) to support ever-changing raw formats on who knows how many cameras. I can’t imagine they’re going to add a fourth product on the spur of the moment, especially if the market leader is subscription based for $$$, and if it has competitors that offer similar functionality for $0. The second option seems like the only practical possibility in the near them - that is, the next couple of years. Allow me one other observation. There are some on these forums who seem upset that Affinity is not yet developed to the point that you feel you can ditch your CC subscription. You’re talking about a piece of software with a one time price of $50, vs hundreds of dollars a year. I think the fact that you’re upset at Serif is absurd. Thanks for the opportunity to consider this...

i would really like to be able to have the crop move on all sides together sometimes, say if one pressed a control key. it is tedious to have to move every corner separately. it would also be good to be able to choose to emulate the default photoshop behaviour - even though i don't personally like it, i am sure many people are used to it. separately, though these forums are mechanically pretty good from what i have seen so far, two things could be improved: 1) i cannot search inside a topic or thread only at a global level, or at least, that is the way it seems to me. a more granular search would be very helpful, for instance so that i can tell - easily and quickly - whether anyone else has posted a request like mine or made a similar bug report. this will surely save your developers time. 2) make the 'Notify me of replies' button below default to ON not off! surely there are no worries about GDPR here - and i would have thought that most people in these forums would want to know if their request had been answered.

Here a right-click-context-menu for all kind of brush-tools, like smudge, dodgeburn… wich should appear on the current mouse-position like other context-menus. First row = Favorite Brushes. They are always the same. But i can simple replace by dragdrop another one. Second row = Last used brushes. Third row = Fast rotation in 90°. The first symbol is jumping to saved rotation angle and by dragging left/right/up/down it will manually rotate. Dynamics = Dynamics on/off. If on the brush works with its saved dynamic settings, like x-jitter, color-random, flow-changes…. But if off. There will be a static brush, with nor dynamically changes. In the example is off (no checkmark) - so each brush will be static one, independently from its saved dynamic-settings. Keep current = Just change the textures/images of brushes when selecting another one, but hold all current attributes like size, opacity, flow, wet edges, dynamics …. In the example its on, so the saved parameter-values of each brush i select will be disabled and just the current settings will used, just the textures of this brush will changed. Synchronize tools = If i switch maybe between brush and eraser, this setting decides if each tool uses its own last brush, or the current one will used for all types of-brush-like-tools. Do you have other favorites or last used „brushes“ for eg. smudge and dodge? So this option also decides how the first 2 rows will appear. Flow, Color-Jitter, Accumulation, Saturation-Jitter = Just a placeholder, in fact that could be size-jitter, repeat or color-jitter, x-jitter… Its on you. Here your most used 5 parameters will appear, you have chosen as special preference. As soon i mouse-hover the name will replaced by a slider and i can directly change the amount here, like in the example, no need for click or whatever, just mouse-over.However this are temporally settings and will not overwrite the brush. More = opens the brush-panel direct here. Overwrite, Duplicate ans Save in folder = belongs in fact to the brush-panel. Old behavior is, that all settings in brush-window will automatically overwrite the whole brush, without asking. I absolutely not like this „feature“.* In 90% i use this panel for temporarily change of the current brush and in the other 10% i would say „overwrite“ . Duplicate does it what says: creating an duplicate with the current settings. Save in… will save the current brush in the category. (Maybe other ones like the automatically overwrite behavior, so give us an option how it will handled.) BTW: I really prefer this kind of view of brushes. So also give an option that the normal brush-panel shows the brushes in this kind. (Show them all in this quader-size will full opacity… independently from its saved opacity/flow-settings and its saved size). Show this brushes in rows and columns with the possibility to keep „empty places“ or divide-lines for better search and find. And lets select as many brushes i like and batch delete or move to another category in one action. I could eg fast move dozens of brushes and combine eg. all my daub-categories into one-big-category, just with some divide-line to differ the „sub-categorys“.

I believe your Photo program has great potential but documentation and support is poorly handled. I'm new to Affinity Photo. After installing the program and working with my fist photo I've spent days being very frustrated in trying to learn the basics of the program (explained below after Video Tutorials). In my search for answers from Affinity resources I found more issues then help: The Quick Start Guide: Is designed as an editorial piece. It is not a quick start tool to learn the basics like the user interface, layout, nomenclature, preference menu, tool functions etc. (A side note: the Affinity Photo Help, should be available for download alongside a rebuilt Quick Start Guide). Video Tutorials: I’ve watched all 18 “Basic” Tutorials. Most are not an introduction to learning the "start here" basics of how the program works. They are mostly tips, tricks or give a narrow, partial or more advance understanding of a “Basic” function. In my first experience with Affinity Photo I wanted to isolate a segment of a photo. It is after all a common request, yes/no? Seeing Quick Mask centered, separate from any groupings and on the top bar made me think this was the GoTo in this app. for isolating a segment of a photo. I tried to work with it but nothing logical worked. After two days of watching videos, searching the quick start guide and trying the Affinity Photo Help, I finally found that I needed the selection tool not the masking tool. The selection tool is listed as a brush on the side and is not a sub group to the “Flood Select Tool” (wizard or magic wand) so I missed it and never considered a brush would be the answer to my quest instead of the prominently placed Quick Mask. A simple mistake easily avoided with clear thought out support. After this experience I’m exhausted with Affinity Photo.

The lack of a custom layer thumbnail size has been discussed to death before. It is only one of several GUI interaction design issues related to the Layer panel. Here is what happens with longer layer labels: As anyone can see, this is a less than desirable situation, and things will only get worse when a custom layer thumbnail size is introduced in the Affinity range. And I agree with your @hifred observation that a checkbox is the wrong indicator for layer visibility. There are a number of other design problems, and I again agree the entire panel should be scrapped, and rethought. For example, changing the blending range, changing the opacity, or coverage map: none of these are indicated in any way in the layer panel to show the user that a specific layer happens to have other settings applied to. Layers cannot be tagged with a colour either, nor is a search option provided to filter layers. And it is not possible to drag-select like in Photoshop. But in this respect Photoshop is lacking as well. With both apps the user must select a layer first before it becomes clear which opacity and blend mode settings are applied. The only application that I know of that does include this information for each layer is PhotoLine, and that works very, very well. Looking at a layer comp in the layer panel immediately tells you how things work. I wish other image editors would allow for this, or at least include an option. Anyway, the way the layer visibility controls are handled in Affinity reminds me of how a programmer would solve it. But it is only one of a whole list of layer panel issues and limitations. I do hope the developers are working to solve and improve these, but I was hoping to see some much-need improvements in the beta of Affinity Publisher, and noticed how little has changed. Publisher is presumably the v1.7 version of the Affinity range? If so, we may be disappointed when V1.7 is released.