Adjustment panel

[Jrm]

Adjustment panels not working. I press selection, shows pre-sets, which don’t work and no ability to manually adjust.

[walt.farrell]

OS?

Application and release?

[R C-R]

Click on a preset (the default for example) to pop open the window with the adjustment sliders.

[walt.farrell]

9 hours ago, R C-R said:

Click on a preset

They said the presets "don't work", which (to me) indicates that they did click on them.

[Alfred]

2 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

They said the presets "don't work", which (to me) indicates that they did click on them.

Perhaps, but it might simply mean that (as discussed in a number of other threads) they don’t work the way they used to work.

[hikeandphoto]

1 hour ago, Alfred said:

Perhaps, but it might simply mean that (as discussed in a number of other threads) they don’t work the way they used to work.

I have the same problem.

Previously, just left-clicking once one an adjustment (e.g., to create a new adjustment layer "gradation curve" for the freshly imported photo), automatically would open the detailed adjustment panel, which you could then apply or cancel.

Now, regardless of whether you left-click once or double-click, it only opens the "drop down" below the adjustment command, showing only the "standard" thumbnail. It is only after also left-clicking this "standard"-thumbnail, that the detailed adjustment panel is opened.

This is really not good and it took me half an hour going thru my settings, then checking in the forum here, before I realized I hadn't screwed up my settings somewhere myself. If Affinity has inadvertently introduced a bug with 1.9, I hope they fix it fast. If it's been changed intentionally, this is a step backward in usability and I hope they change it back quick.

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, hikeandphoto said:

I have the same problem.

Previously, just left-clicking once one an adjustment (e.g., to create a new adjustment layer "gradation curve" for the freshly imported photo), automatically would open the detailed adjustment panel, which you could then apply or cancel.

Now, regardless of whether you left-click once or double-click, it only opens the "drop down" below the adjustment command, showing only the "standard" thumbnail. It is only after also left-clicking this "standard"-thumbnail, that the detailed adjustment panel is opened.

This is really not good and it took me half an hour going thru my settings, then checking in the forum here, before I realized I hadn't screwed up my settings somewhere myself. If Affinity has inadvertently introduced a bug with 1.9, I hope they fix it fast. If it's been changed intentionally, this is a step backward in usability and I hope they change it back quick.

This is an intentional change, introduced in 1.9 to fix some other workflow issues.

Click on the Adjustment category, then click on a Preset. Choose Default (if available) to get the same behavior as before. Or, click the Adjustment icon at the bottom of the Layers panel, or use the menu Layer > New Adjustment Layer.

[hikeandphoto]

On 3/20/2021 at 3:12 PM, walt.farrell said:

This is an intentional change, introduced in 1.9 to fix some other workflow issues.

Click on the Adjustment category, then click on a Preset. Choose Default (if available) to get the same behavior as before. Or, click the Adjustment icon at the bottom of the Layers panel, or use the menu Layer > New Adjustment Layer.

Hi Walt,

thanks for your reply.

Yes, clicking a preset and then the "default" (which I called "standard" thumbnail, as that's what it's called in my German version) opens the detailed settings box. But that's still not "the same behaviour as before" as you wrote. Before, you only had to click the preset and the detailed settings box of that preset would open automatically. Also, under the preset, there always used to be offered the "default" plus one option "weaker" and one "stronger" than the "default".

Anyway, if that was unavoidable to fix other workflow issues, i guess I'll just live with it. Once you know it, it's only a minor inconvenience, but if you don't know it was changed, you start panicking thinking it "doesn't work" anymore.

Therefore, the written help texts should then also be updated, as they still explain how the old behaviour used to be, and that can lead to confusion as it did with me 🙂.

Have a good one.

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, hikeandphoto said:

But that's still not "the same behaviour as before" as you wrote.

Sorry for being unclear. The behavior I meant was (a) creating the adjustment layer and then (b) applying the "default" set of adjustment settings and (c) opening the dialog. Before, all that happened automatically when you opened the adjustment category. Now it happens when you click the Preset.

1 hour ago, hikeandphoto said:

Also, under the preset, there always used to be offered the "default" plus one option "weaker" and one "stronger" than the "default".

That still happens as far as I know. Where is it not happening for you?

[R C-R]

5 hours ago, hikeandphoto said:

Also, under the preset, there always used to be offered the "default" plus one option "weaker" and one "stronger" than the "default".

That depends on the adjustment type. For instance, the Invert Adjustment category can have only one preset. The Soft Proof category can have a number of presets but none of them really can be characterized as "weaker" or "stronger" than the default. AFAIK, the Split Toning category only has the default built-in preset, although users can add others.

[hikeandphoto]

22 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

Sorry for being unclear. The behavior I meant was (a) creating the adjustment layer and then (b) applying the "default" set of adjustment settings and (c) opening the dialog. Before, all that happened automatically when you opened the adjustment category. Now it happens when you click the Preset.

That still happens as far as I know. Where is it not happening for you?

Thanks Walt, as you mention, it used to happen automatically upon opening the adjustment category, now you have to click the preset. Now that I know this, I can live with it. I was just worried that it might be a bug, as I had gotten used to the former behaviour. Also, in the German version of the Help (the text versions online), under "To apply an adjustment" it still says "optional" in step 2 (which it doesn't say in the english version, as I just found out), why I didn't realize it might be an intentional change of behaviour. I guess the German version is probably still the old help-text.

As for the presets, the only adjustment still showing 3 presets is the HSL-adjustment. I checked all the other ones as a test, they all have only 1 preset called "default". I'm sure there used to be more than 1 preset at least for the adjustments I use regularly, which are, e.g., "Brightness and Contrast", "Exposure", "Shadows / Highlights" and "Vibrance". For the other ones I don't know if they used to have more than one preset, as I hardly ever used them.

I've included some screenshots from an example file, where I apply the topmost adjustment called "Levels", in German "Tonwertkorrektur" (Screenshots numbered 1-5 by the successive steps), and a screenshot (no. 6) showing the HSL-adjustment has 3 presets. Maybe that'll help my point a bit.

[hikeandphoto]

19 hours ago, R C-R said:

That depends on the adjustment type. For instance, the Invert Adjustment category can have only one preset. The Soft Proof category can have a number of presets but none of them really can be characterized as "weaker" or "stronger" than the default. AFAIK, the Split Toning category only has the default built-in preset, although users can add others.

Hi R-C-R, thanks for your info. I just replied to Walt's answer a minute ago in a bit more detail. If you take a look at it, my point may become clearer.

Since I hardly ever use the adjustments you mention in your answer, I can't really say anything about that.

In any case, now that I know that "it's a feature, not a bug" 😆, I can live with it, just adding one more click to my customary handling routine 😊