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[Todd Prior]

New to Affinity. Trying to get used to the UI. I can see that for some filters there is a compare / split preview and I can turn layers on or off if added but for example and simplicity...if I hit autolevels auto contrast auto color auto contrast....is there a key to see how the result of applying those edits compare with the original....or is the only way to visit the history seems like a big omission if there is not a unified common way to preview the current state of an edit with the original...Just wondering ...maybe it is obvious and I have missed it....

[walt.farrell]

8 hours ago, Todd Prior said:

but for example and simplicity...if I hit autolevels auto contrast auto color auto contrast....is there a key to see how the result of applying those edits compare with the original.

Those specific ones are filters, which are applied destructively.

Ctrl+Z will undo the filter, and Ctrl+Y will redo it. You can bounce back and forth between "filter applied" and "filter removed" using those two shortcut keys to see the effect. But there's no way that I know of that is more convenient than that.

[GarryP]

Would it improve usability if the Auto enhancements on the Toolbar – Levels, Contrast, Colours, White Balance – added a non-destructive adjustment instead of using a destructive filter? This way the user could hide, show, remove or alter the adjustment like any other.

On the other hand, is there a good reason why these enhancements should be destructive, as they are currently? I don’t use them so maybe I’m not seeing the whole picture (pardon the weak pun).

P.S. Which adjustment(s)/filter(s) does an Auto Colours enhancement use?

[Old Bruce]

I have always viewed these sort of adjustments (Auto Anything) being used in situations where you have to work quickly on a series of images. One click and done.  They are in my view specialized items for workflows which value speed over fine adjustments. 

[GarryP]

I can understand why they exist – a few clicks and your photo looks better without much effort, and that’s great – but that doesn’t tell me why they don’t create adjustment layers (or live filters) instead of making destructive changes, which was why I asked the question.
Having the software add an adjustment (or live filter) – which can be later changed or removed – instead of making a destructive change, does not change the user’s workflow as far as I can tell; they can still just make one click per enhancement.
However, by adding an adjustment/filter layer instead, the user also has the opportunity to change things later if they want to, thus giving the user more control if they feel the need for it without forcing them to do anything else if they don’t want to.
To try and reiterate, why do they do what they do in the way they do it? And is there a good reason why they shouldn’t do it another way?

[Murfee]

38 minutes ago, GarryP said:

why do they do what they do in the way they do it?

Hi Garry, most photo editing apps have these auto correct functions, even Photoshop 😀 They are there for users that do not want to make many adjustments to their images, they are just a quick simple solution. Users that want to make advanced corrections have the adjustment layers and live filter layers. It is just a way to give users as much choice as possible for their particular workflow. Users that rely on the auto corrections would probably complain if adjustment layers were added 😀

[GarryP]

Like I said above, I understand that they are there for ‘quick fixes’, but I don’t know why automatically adding adjustment layers would make those fixes any less quick. One button click one way, one button click the other way, same thing. If the user doesn’t want to modify the adjustment then they don’t have to do anything else, they can just leave them alone. (There could be an option in Preferences – default to OFF, perhaps – that lets users have adjustment layers created for the enhancements if they want them instead of a destructive change.)

I also don’t understand why making a destructive change gives the user more choice than allowing them to make changes later.

I’m also not that sure that people would complain if they got adjustment layers automatically added. I’m not saying that they wouldn’t, only that I have no proof either way.

I don’t want this to get into any kind of argument as I’m not particularly bothered about it – as I said, I don’t use them myself – I’m just wondering if there might be a 'better', possibly more useful, way of doing things.

[Ray S.]

An other way to applying a one-click-fits-all-filter with the option to adjust/finetune later is the preset of each adjustment layer. For example, there could be an preset with a S-Curve on the curves-adjustment(-layer) to enhance some contrast to have an "Auto-Contrast". Just an idea. I'am also not an Auto-Anything-User, but maybe this is an option for someone.

[GarryP]

Yeah, that sounds like it could be a good idea to me as long as each Auto Enhancement only uses one adjustment/filter. I would be happy with that, even if the existing Auto Enhancements continued to do what they already do. We get two ways of doing the same thing, one quick and one that allows for later adjustment. Best of both worlds.

[R C-R]

6 hours ago, GarryP said:

Like I said above, I understand that they are there for ‘quick fixes’, but I don’t know why automatically adding adjustment layers would make those fixes any less quick.

For one thing, users looking for a "quick fix" probably would find the addition of added adjustment layer(s) an unwanted & possibly confusing complication.

For another, the four auto adjustments may not have any direct equivalents to the other types of user-modifiable adjustments provided by the app. IOW, they could be using algorithms specifically 'tuned' for quick & efficient automatic adjustments that bypass some of the computational overhead of the user-modifiable ones.

[GarryP]

If the answer to this is something like “The Auto Enhancements are a lot more complicated than simply applying single adjustments/filters.” then I’m happy with that as a reason why they can’t be applied as layers. I guess that could also be why they aren’t applicable as Live Filters, like most of the other filters are. I’m okay with accepting that and moving on.