Unsharp Filter Issue

[Panamarts]

I am convinced something is not right within Affinity Photo, when using Unsharp Filter. Regardless of ratios of Radius/Factor, it visibly 'bounces' back to a less sharp image once processed. It has been a problem I have had for ages, maybe always, but I am either too aware or it IS getting worse. I have recently started using Repeat Unsharp mask just to get it looking as it showed it should. Why there is this function -not a clue - but it helps, but then the dreaded noise is awful. Any suggestions?

Pls be aware.  I have been using Affinity Photo since beta, so I feel happy with whats what, even if I only use a fraction of what it can do. 

[Jowday]

3 hours ago, Panamarts said:

I am convinced something is not right within Affinity Photo, when using Unsharp Filter. Regardless of ratios of Radius/Factor, it visibly 'bounces' back to a less sharp image once processed. It has been a problem I have had for ages, maybe always, but I am either too aware or it IS getting worse. I have recently started using Repeat Unsharp mask just to get it looking as it showed it should. Why there is this function -not a clue - but it helps, but then the dreaded noise is awful. Any suggestions?

Pls be aware.  I have been using Affinity Photo since beta, so I feel happy with whats what, even if I only use a fraction of what it can do. 

😤

[Jowday]

Congratulations. You noticed it @Panamarts !! 

[John Rostron]

I take it that you are viewing everything at 100%. If you are not, then that could explain your differences.

Jihn

[Jowday]

8 hours ago, Panamarts said:

I am convinced something is not right within Affinity Photo, when using Unsharp Filter. Regardless of ratios of Radius/Factor, it visibly 'bounces' back to a less sharp image once processed. It has been a problem I have had for ages, maybe always, but I am either too aware or it IS getting worse. I have recently started using Repeat Unsharp mask just to get it looking as it showed it should. Why there is this function -not a clue - but it helps, but then the dreaded noise is awful. Any suggestions?

Pls be aware.  I have been using Affinity Photo since beta, so I feel happy with whats what, even if I only use a fraction of what it can do. 

I think this post is the most helpful - let me know if changing preferences as described in this posts makes any difference:

 

[lepr]

The filter works correctly, but the preview is misleading when the target is a non-destructively transformed (non-destructively scaled, rotated, etc) Pixel object.

In the preview, the filter is being applied to a display representation of the Pixel object, and that representation has been created by resampling the transformed unfiltered pixels of the Pixel object to the document pixel grid. 

When the filter is applied, it is applied to the pixels of the actual Pixel object, and then a display representation of the now filtered Pixel object is created by applying its transform and resampling to the document pixel grid.

In short, it is the preview which is wrong, and the result of the filter is correct.

To make the preview and actual result match, first apply Rasterise command to the Pixel object to destructively resample its transformed pixels to the document pixel grid, and then use the filter.

[Jowday]

LOL, perhaps Affinity is better suited for Linux anyway. What is up and what is down in this program. Even Paintshop Pro had it right as a shareware program in the 1990's.

I just (have to) do it like this:

[Panamarts]

On 9/18/2020 at 9:44 PM, John Rostron said:

I take it that you are viewing everything at 100%. If you are not, then that could explain your differences.

Jihn

Thanks and yeah

 

[Panamarts]

On 9/18/2020 at 6:17 PM, Panamarts said:

I am convinced something is not right within Affinity Photo, when using Unsharp Filter. Regardless of ratios of Radius/Factor, it visibly 'bounces' back to a less sharp image once processed. It has been a problem I have had for ages, maybe always, but I am either too aware or it IS getting worse. I have recently started using Repeat Unsharp mask just to get it looking as it showed it should. Why there is this function -not a clue - but it helps, but then the dreaded noise is awful. Any suggestions?

Pls be aware.  I have been using Affinity Photo since beta, so I feel happy with whats what, even if I only use a fraction of what it can do. 

Thanks for all suggestions and variations to my theme. A few things for me to try. Is it fair to say this is a known issue?

[Jowday]

47 minutes ago, Panamarts said:

Thanks for all suggestions and variations to my theme. A few things for me to try. Is it fair to say this is a known issue?

I have seen confusion and customer reports about it but no answers/comments from Serif about what you experienced. I can only conclude that this is not professional software used by professionals when this was not spotted and dealt with in 2016 or earlier.

[AlejandroJ]

6 hours ago, Jowday said:

I have seen confusion and customer reports about it but no answers/comments from Serif about what you experienced. I can only conclude that this is not professional software used by professionals when this was not spotted and dealt with in 2016 or earlier.

I think there is no program that does absolutely everything in a sublime manner and doesn’t have a flaw or something that can be improved or added (which is what new versions of a program are usually for and the reason for which there is a “Feature requests & suggestions” section in almost every program’s forum). But nevertheless, when there is a limitation in a program, one can usually find out some workaround if there is one.

I can give as examples of what I said regarding my thinking:
With not that old versions of DxO (when it was DxO Optics), you didn’t have the possibility of doing local adjustments (you can now). No masks nor gradients. This, was so, while there were other programs for developing raw that at that time already had them. A great program nevertheless. Now they have added this.

Capture One is a good program, but they have very few profiles for correcting optical distortions of lenses.

The cloning tool of older (not that old) versions of PaintShop Pro did not allow one to see what was going to be cloned whilst other programs allowed, at the time, to do this. And for what I reckon, it does not allow one to work in LAB mode (not the version I have of it at least). Also, many of the profiles it has for an automatic correction of optical distortions of lenses simply do not work. Anyway, my perception is that Corel is changing its policy and is now aiming more to a more amateur photographer. 

ACDSee Ultimate does not allow to work in LAB mode and the “Light EQ” (the tool to work with shadows, midtones and highlights), also severely affects the saturation of colours when moving its sliders.

Maybe you are thinking of PhotShop. Doesn’t it have any flaw? I wouldn’t pay every month the due rent to be able to use it even if it didn’t. But I doubt it hasn’t any. This is the link to “Adobe Support Community” https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop/bd-p/photoshop?page=1&sort=latest_replies&filter=all and it seems to me there are as well people there expressing complaints, and asking about things that are not working for them.
I haven’t tried the new versions of the program, but I once had PhotoShop and for what I remember (regarding that old version and if my memory is not distorted), a free program (yes, a free one) as Hugin was able to assemble panoramas better than that PhotoShop (for which you had to pay), and I remember that you had to download profiles for the correction of optical distortions of lenses from the web and hope you would be lucky and able to find the one you needed, whilst there were other programs at the time that included this ability (within them). I think adobe has improved this, but I don’t know how extensive is the list of lenses for which Adobe has the corresponding profile, specially because they have links to where you are taught how to make your own.

Maybe there is some program that I don’t know of nor have yet tried that does absolutely everything to perfection, one that doesn’t have some bug or something that can be improved. Is there, really?

[walt.farrell]

6 hours ago, Panamarts said:

Is it fair to say this is a known issue?

Yes.