Creating macros from sequence of adjustments

[ApvdG]

I understand how I can record a macro, but when I have a set of adjustments I am happy with, but did not press the record button before I started, is it still possible to create a macro from the set of adjustments?

[John Rostron]

No, the macro recorder only records what you do between clicking on the red circle and clicking on the black square. If you cannot remember the sequence of adjustments you made it might be worth stepping backwards through the .History panel and making notes. I would recommend keeping a copy of the macro steps in a text file, in the same folder as your macro.

John

[carl123]

You may also want to have a look at LUTs although I'm not 100% sure of what they are good for since I do not use them

[walt.farrell]

4 hours ago, carl123 said:

although I'm not 100% sure of what they are good for since I do not use them

They can encapsulate a set of adjustments that have been made in the Photo Persons, so they can be applied to other photos.

https://affinity.help/photo/English.lproj/pages/Adjustments/export_3dLut.html

[lepr]

7 hours ago, ApvdG said:

I understand how I can record a macro, but when I have a set of adjustments I am happy with, but did not press the record button before I started, is it still possible to create a macro from the set of adjustments?

Yes. Select the Adjustment layers and press cmd+c to copy them to the clipboard, then start recording a macro, cmd+v to paste, stop recording. Now add the macro to the Library.

The macro can be applied to any document to paste whatever was pasted when the macro was recorded.

[ApvdG]

Anon2, Thanks, looks like a straight forward solution, but after pasting with cntl - V I see this in my macro window, and after storing this to the library and applying it, nothing happens...

What could I be doing wrong?

 

[lepr]

42 minutes ago, ApvdG said:

Anon2, Thanks, looks like a straight forward solution, but after pasting with cntl - V I see this in my macro window, and after storing this to the library and applying it, nothing happens...

What could I be doing wrong?

 

I don't know. All i know is that the instructions I wrote work on my Mac. Maybe broken in Photo on Windows.

[walt.farrell]

@anon2: is it possible that such a macro is sensitive to the layer structure of the document? 

I suspect it is, and the macro might work if the document has one pixel layer, and the adjustment layers, when the macro is recorded. And that same structure when it is played against another document.

[lepr]

24 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

@anon2: is it possible that such a macro is sensitive to the layer structure of the document? 

I suspect it is, and the macro might work if the document has one pixel layer, and the adjustment layers, when the macro is recorded. And that same structure when it is played against another document.

Not for me. I can open any Affinity document, play the macro and get the expected paste (even if I copy some other object(s) before playing the macro).

[walt.farrell]

6 minutes ago, anon2 said:

Not for me. I can open any Affinity document, play the macro and get the expected paste (even if I copy some other object(s) before playing the macro).

Thanks.

[lepr]

1 minute ago, walt.farrell said:

Thanks.

Did my instructions fail on your Windows machine, Walt?

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, anon2 said:

Did my instructions fail on your Windows machine, Walt?

Haven't had a chance to try, yet. Was just hypothesizing why they might have failed for @ApvdG.

[walt.farrell]

3 hours ago, anon2 said:

Did my instructions fail on your Windows machine, Walt?

No, they work on Windows for me.

With the Assistant configured to add adjustments as child layers, the first adjustment got added as a child, and the second one as a separate layer. I didn't think I'd be able to copy both adjustments with that setup, so I modified the Assistant to create adjustments as separate layers in all cases, copied a set of adjustments, started recording a macro and did a Paste. Then saved the macro into the library and played it on a different image.

I only tried it with simple images; just the background layer. But I had multiple adjustments.

[carl123]

Surprisingly (to me at least) it appears that adjustment layers can also be added to assets so you can just drag an adjustment layer from assets to another image.

You can also group adjustments and add the group to your assets but when that group is dragged to another image nothing happens unless you then ungroup it and zoom in/out to refresh the screen.

At least that is what I am seeing, not sure if that is just my setup or a bug?

[firstdefence]

57 minutes ago, carl123 said:

Surprisingly (to me at least) it appears that adjustment layers can also be added to assets so you can just drag an adjustment layer from assets to another image.

You can also group adjustments and add the group to your assets but when that group is dragged to another image nothing happens unless you then ungroup it and zoom in/out to refresh the screen.

At least that is what I am seeing, not sure if that is just my setup or a bug?

Yup that works for me too, although I just ungroup and uncheck/check the adjustment layers and they become active. I tried doing that on the group but it didn’t work. How cool is that Adjustments as Assets.

[carl123]

You can also save Live Filter Effects to assets but this appears to be much more buggy with quite a few crashes before I got it to work

Which means I was able to add a Layer > New Live Filter Layer > Distort > Ripple effect to assets in APhoto then export and import that asset in Designer (and presumably Publisher - untested) then add the ripple effect directly from my assets onto an image in Designer.

Cool, if this was a little less buggy I could have all my Live Filter Effects as assets directly in Designer and Publisher.

[R C-R]

10 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

With the Assistant configured to add adjustments as child layers, the first adjustment got added as a child, and the second one as a separate layer.

Just in case it is not obvious to some users reading this, the macro records however the Assistant is set during the record process. This means it does not matter when using it on another file how the Assistant is set at that time.

[Joachim_L]

3 hours ago, carl123 said:

Cool, if this was a little less buggy I could have all my Live Filter Effects as assets directly in Designer and Publisher.

Understatement of the year. I thought it to be useful to add Live Filter Effects to Assets. Unfortunately it crashed APu and after restart it crashed again. In the end I had to reset my assets. Lesson learned.

 

[carl123]

6 minutes ago, Joachim_L said:

Unfortunately it crashed APu and after restart it crashed again. In the end I had to reset my assets

Yep, that happened to me after I tried adding a Gaussian Blur Filter but I did manage to add and export a Ripple filter asset

[ApvdG]

Thanks all for reacting. All interesting, although as a relative novice it is not all that clear to me (e.g. not sure what an asset is). So, back to the original question, would it be an idea to ask the development team to consider implementing the following:

Once the user has developed a nice sequence of adjustments / live filters, allow the user to select them all in the layers panel and offer the option (on a right mouse click) to "save as macro".

[lepr]

1 minute ago, ApvdG said:

Thanks all for reacting. All interesting, although as a relative novice it is not all that clear to me (e.g. not sure what an asset is). So, back to the original question, would it be an idea to ask the development team to consider implementing the following:

Once the user has developed a nice sequence of adjustments / live filters, allow the user to select them all in the layers panel and offer the option (on a right mouse click) to "save as macro".

Did you get my workaround above to work (it is working for other Windows users) so you have something until the developers implement your idea?

Also, you have a better chance of the developers reading your request if you post it in a new thread at: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/forum/55-feedback-for-affinity-photo-on-desktop/