Switch from PSP to Affinity Photo ~ Feature Questions

[Kira Resari]

Hello everyone,

I've been a passionate user of PaintShop Pro for about 20 years, but recently, it has gone really downhill, so I am looking to switch to a different software. And what I've seen so far in Affinity Photo really provides a massive improvement over some of the flaws of PSP. However, there are still a number of features that I use a lot in PSP that I haven't been able to find in Affinity Photo yet. I was hoping someone could help me out with that, telling me whether those are possible in Affinity Photo, and if so where to find them.

Saving Path Line Styles

In PSP, it is possible to create custom line styles and then save them. Since one of the things I do is making maps, I do have several different line styles for different types of borders, maps, roads etc... saved that I use all the time. Also, the Line Styles are highly configurable, even if the editor for doing so is kinda buggy.

In Affinity Photo, I have found a limited functionality for line editing, but none for saving them. Is this somehow possible?

Selections

In PSP, there's a bunch of different selection options past the "usual" ones of rectangle and circle, such as arrow, triangle and octagon. I don't need them a lot, but every now and then they do come in handy.

Soft Selection/Feather (Inner Outer)

In PSP, there is the option to adjust a selection so it is feathered only on the inside or outside. I wasn't able to find something like that in AP.

Select ~ Remove Specks and Holes

This is something I use a lot when I scan drawn pictures and want to separate them from the canvas they were drawn on. I wasn't able to find something like that in AP yet either.

Pattern/Gradient/Texture Fill

In PSP, it is possible to fill selections with colors, gradients and textures, all of which behave like a color. Also, it is possible to apply a texture to all of them. I use that feature a lot to create interesting surfaces at the click of a mouse.

In AP, I have found a fill tool for color and a gradient tool, but no fill tool for patterns, and also no way to combine the fills with textures. Is there such a thing?

Crop Tool

In PSP, I was able to say that I wanted a certain ratio, and then specify the pixel value. For example, say, I wanted a 4:3 ratio and have the long side at 1280 pixels. Thus far, in AP I have only found the option to specify either a ratio or a pixel value, but not both. In PSP I usually said "640x470" then "maintain aspect ratio" and then if I changed one value then the other would automatically be adjusted to fit the ratio. Also, in PSP it is possible to specify a rotation angle, as well as save settings that one uses a lot as templates.

Color Palette/Swatches

While I have found the "Swatches" panel in AP and was able to add swatches to it, I was not yet able to figure out how to create a new swatch group. Is this possible? And if yes, how? Also note: In PSP it is possible to add colors, gradients and patterns to the swatches.

Grid Snapping

While I was able to enable and configure the grid in AP, somehow the snapping does not seem to work with selections. In PSP, I use that all the time, for example when creating maps for grid-based games.

Right-Clicking for second color

In PSP, you can have two colors active at the same time: A foreground and a background color. The left mouse button uses the foreground color, and the right mouse button uses the background color. I use that feature quite a lot. In AP, you can also have two colors active, however, you can only use the foreground color.

And that's pretty much all there is that's preventing me from switching over to AP this minute.

Since that was now a lot of negative things, allow me to also praise a few things that I've already noticed AP does really well, and that I've been missing in PSP so long so bad:

• 3D/Bevel with customizable profile
• Text tool that supports characters from the extended multilingual plane and Emoji 🦊
• Outline as a Layer Effect
• Recent colors that work
• Better Grid Warp Tool

Cheers, and thanks in advance already!

Kira

=^,^=

[GarryP]

Welcome to the forums @Kira Resari

You would be better served if you split this post into multiple threads – one issue per thread – and then hide this one.
That way the responses to each will be separate and easer to digest, both for yourself and others.
Otherwise you will get a ‘spaghetti’ of responses all mixed up with one another which will be difficult to untangle.

[Kira Resari]

Normally I'd agree, but honestly, I'm afraid the answer to all of those is going to be "Sorry, but this is not supported yet" =^,~'=

[GarryP]

You might be correct, but what if the responses you get contain lots of techniques and ‘workarounds’? (These forums contain lots of friendly people who have lots of advice.)

Will you, or anyone else reading the replies, be able to easily isolate the responses for a particular issue?
If you put each issue in a single thread then you, and anyone else reading the thread, will know that the responses are for that particular issue (for the most part, sometimes the threads can go off on tangents).

(Better still, search for an issue and add your voice to an existing thread if one exists, e.g. "Is this still the latest advice on this?".)

Remember, other people may find this thread when they search for their own related issue and a mixed bag of responses to many issues will not be as useful as as responses to a single issue.
In other words, the forums are not just so you can get answers, they are for everyone to get answers, so the better they are organised the easier it is to find an answer, for everyone.

I’m not intending to ‘browbeat’ you in any way, I’m just saying that it’s easier to get answers when those answers are organised.
And a good way to have organised answers is to have organised questions.

[walt.farrell]

I think you'll find that almost all of them exist already. But I agree with @GarryP that inquiring individually will make the discussion much easier to follow, with such a long list of questions.