Adjustment Panel defaults - toggle presets off?

[Davideo]

Hey, everyone. When adding an adjustment layer the presets expand underneath it. I almost always begin from 'scratch' on my adjustments, so don't often use presets. But more significantly I find that the auto-expanding presets just get in the way of my UI by making the adjustments panel list much longer and shifting everything down significantly, requiring more scroll-and-search because things are moving around. Is there a way to toggle the adjustment panel's expanding presets action off, as I really don't want or need them showing up every time I add a new adjustment layer.

Also, if I want to add a second layer of the same adjustment type, say, 'Brightness / Contrast', (not a copy of it, but a second and different adjustment) I can't just click again to add one, or even double-click. If I even just click once, it resets the adjustment I just carefully tweaked, erasing my changes. I have to deselect the 'Brightness / Contrast' layer I just added, then click once on the adjustment which closes the expanded presets, then click to add a second Levels layer. Surely I'm must be missing something? Any help would be appreciated.

[Lee D]

If you access the Adjustments via the icon at the bottom of the Layers panel instead, this will just show a list of the Adjustment and add the adjustment layer and not show any presets.

[Davideo]

Thanks so much for the tip. I definitely prefer having a panel of some kind with all the adjustments laid out/listed, but this will have to do for now. Cheers.

[R C-R]

45 minutes ago, Davideo said:

Thanks so much for the tip. I definitely prefer having a panel of some kind with all the adjustments laid out/listed, but this will have to do for now.

There is no practical way to do that in a single panel because (with the exception of the "Invert" adjustment) there is no limit on how many adjustment variations you could use. That's why there is just a list of adjustment categories accessible from the bottom of the Layers panel, & a similar list accessible via the Layer > New Adjustment Layer menu item.

The Adjustment studio panel is meant for accessing the built-in presets & the custom ones you can create for each of these adjustment categories, but if you rarely use or create custom presets, there is no reason to use it, or even to devote any workspace to showing it.

[Davideo]

For someone who wants to create a ton of presets, I can see it being really helpful. For myself, I just like having a single-click option for creating a new adjustment layer (1 click is great especially with a pen/tablet).

I'm in the middle of making the move from Adobe to Affinity after using the former for 12+ years, and that was just something I really missed (example of Photoshop interface attached below).

I'm working on changing up my workflow, and recognise Affinity is trying to be an alternative, not a copy. I appreciate all you guys on these forums who help answer my questions as I figure out what can still be similar to deeply-ingrained processes, and what needs to be learned anew. Cheers!

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, Davideo said:

For someone who wants to create a ton of presets, I can see it being really helpful. For myself, I just like having a single-click option for creating a new adjustment layer (1 click is great especially with a pen/tablet).

Well, as I said, you can hide the Adjustments (presets) panel if you don't use it.

Of course, AP does't have 1-click access to the adjustment layer categories (which I assume from your Photoshop example is what you would like). The closest to that is the button at the bottom of the Layers panel, but it just pops up the text-based adjustment category menu. Personally, I prefer text to icons like PS uses for this, but whether it uses text or icons I can see how an Adjustment (category) studio panel would be a useful time saver.

Maybe you should make a feature request for that?

[Davideo]

Cheers, @R C-R, I'll definitely submit a feature request. And it helps to know more about proper terminology as well.

[AndyQ]

On 1/16/2020 at 12:47 AM, Lee D said:

If you access the Adjustments via the icon at the bottom of the Layers panel instead, this will just show a list of the Adjustment and add the adjustment layer and not show any presets.

That kinda defeats the purpose of the original post, which is to allow faster access to adjustments when working - with single-click adding of adjustments. I feel the pain - having to collapse each adjustment listing to hide the presets adds up to minutes a day, and at my age every minute counts. A simple option to "hide presets" would do the trick. Easy-peasy. Just add a flyout menu to the adjustments palette.  You could alternatively go the Photoshop way, with a compact set of icons for each adjustment, but I prefer Affinity's list most of the time (my brain doesn't have room to remember more than a couple of meaningless icons). In an ideal world you could implement both systems as an alternative. 

While we're at it...how about an option to sort the list a) alphabetically b) recently used at top (or in "most used" order) c) default (presuming there's some rationale to the current order) d) maybe allow custom ordering? Drag'n'drop re-order?) - cheers'n'beers

[2thdoc]

Actually previous versions of Affinity Photo did this.  At least it did on my mac with versions 1.8 and earlier.  When clicking on a particular panel icon (for example Brightness/Contrast) not only would the preset icons display, but the adjustment window would pop up.  Apparently this has been removed in version 1.9, and now you have to click on the default icon to get the popup window.   Perhaps there is a preference adjustment that I am overlooking.  Sometimes I just want to simply edit the photo directly and not fuss with layers.

[walt.farrell]

9 hours ago, 2thdoc said:

Apparently this has been removed in version 1.9, and now you have to click on the default icon to get the popup window.   Perhaps there is a preference adjustment that I am overlooking.  Sometimes I just want to simply edit the photo directly and not fuss with layers.

There is no preference for how it works. You need to click on an adjustment preset, or you need to use the adjustments icon at the bottom of the Layers panel, or use Layer > New Adjustment.

If you don't want to have layers, just Merge each adjustment as you make it, then you have no layer, and it is permanently applied (unless you use Undo or Snapshots).

[R C-R]

15 hours ago, 2thdoc said:

Apparently this has been removed in version 1.9, and now you have to click on the default icon to get the popup window.

At least for me on my iMac, clicking on any other preset (if there is one or more of them in the category) also opens the popup window, & applies that preset, same as clicking on the default preset.

Except that for me sometimes the first click does not do anything so I have to click on a preset a second time to open the popup. This appears to be something only I am seeing so it could be something unique to my system.

[Raymokr]

On 2/7/2021 at 12:33 PM, R C-R said:

At least for me on my iMac, clicking on any other preset (if there is one or more of them in the category) also opens the popup window, & applies that preset, same as clicking on the default preset.

Except that for me sometimes the first click does not do anything so I have to click on a preset a second time to open the popup. This appears to be something only I am seeing so it could be something unique to my system.

This happens to me too, except nothing happens 95% of the time no matter how many times I click on any of the pre-sets. I made my own B & W preset and can't use it