Starting to feel Disturbed

[SymbioticDesign]

Blame me, I suppose.

When a person starts working in a certain way, spends years doing it that way in Photoshop, it is incredibly difficult to switch.

Affinity Photo is making me feel like an idiot, I just can't get past this:

When I resize a photo (a document), I usually always expect to keep the same aspect ratio.

When I resize the canvas, I almost never want to keep the same aspect ratio. Photoshop understands this.

What I usually have to do, over and over, all day long, is I have to resize a logo to a specific size and then save the result and export a transparent PNG.  

I make logos, a lot of logos, sometimes all day for weeks on end.

But here, I have the logo, my master is done at whatever size, usually well over 700+ pixels wide.

But, I have to resize the logo to exactly 400 pixels by 155 pixels and export.

The first thing, resize the font or vector logo Document to whichever is the larger side (when the result will be 400px wide or 155px height) that both measurements will fit into. I do want to keep the aspect ratio here.

The second thing I have to do is where I run into problems. Now I have to increase whichever side (the width or the height) to meet the criteria for a very picky, particular template I have to use. I set the right size for the other measurement so that I have a 400px by 155px resulting image, I set the anchor, and wham, it resizes with the aspect ratio. I always forget to unlock that padlock.  

So, after all that, I am a bit upset, I undo, do it all again, this time I hit the padlock and unlock the aspect ratio, but then I forget to switch the anchor. 

Photoshop remembers the last state of the aspect ratio, that helps. But not Affinity Photo. Or Affinity Photo could allow a preference setting so that I could say whether I wanted the aspect ratio lock on, or not, in either the Document or Canvas Resize tools.

This was the very first thing I asked for (on Twitter) so long ago when I first grabbed Affinity Photo and tried it out.  I was praised for my insight and told they will include that feature in the next release. Well, that never happened. And I am getting more and more frustrated.  

Affinity products have such a great UI for a designer, it is intuitive and things just work for a great work flow, USUALLY. Not always. And the way Affinity does not pay attention to these options and our save and export settings is actually quite infuriating.

Blame me, I got used to doing things a certain way, and it is much faster that way. Right now, I am switching back to an old copy of Photoshop because I NEED TO GET STUFF DONE!

There are simple ways to fix these stupid UX issues by fixing the UI or adding preference options.

I am so tired of taking twice as long to do something when I am doing tedious, labor intensive tasks just because I like Affinity Photo better for more creative/creation design projects. You really have to nail these stupid quirks down. There are even other ways to fix it, I offered 2.

Geez!

[Old Bruce]

5 hours ago, SymbioticDesign said:

What I usually have to do, over and over, all day long, is I have to resize a logo to a specific size and then save the result and export a transparent PNG.  

5 hours ago, SymbioticDesign said:

But, I have to resize the logo to exactly 400 pixels by 155 pixels and export.

Why resize to a particular size and export? Why not just Export to that particular size? You could even set up a 400 x 155 pixel PNG preset for the Export Persona.

[SymbioticDesign]

While I will investigate your direction, you are missing the whole point. 

I am alone, I have no employees, so all the menial labor crap is left up to me. 

The UX sucks for these tasks. It should be easier. This is just one example of the many, many times I run into this, over and over. Affinity doesn't remember anything in some (certain) repeated settings and it has no preference settings to set them.

While you probably have a work around for me for one thing, the fact remains that Affinity Photo is not always very functional for some very simple, stupid things that interupt work flow and cripple the usefulness of the software.  

In this case, it isn't about creativity, it's about work flow. A crippled work flow screws with creativity.

[SymbioticDesign]

You are wrong. The logo is made. I need to present it at a specific size. Designer has no such option, I can only set pixel by pixel dimensions in Photo. 

I have absolutely no idea about export personas. This seems to be a hidden feature, I will investigate.

Nevertheless, the program UX is broken.

[PaulEC]

38 minutes ago, SymbioticDesign said:

I have absolutely no idea about export personas. This seems to be a hidden feature,

This well hidden feature. 😁

 

[Alfred]

1 hour ago, SymbioticDesign said:

Designer has no such option, I can only set pixel by pixel dimensions in Photo.

What do you mean? Both Designer and Photo offer the option to resize either the document or the canvas, and both allow you to specify dimensions in pixels or physical units.

[SymbioticDesign]

5 hours ago, PaulEC said:

This well hidden feature. 😁

 

This means nothing to me. I see a bunch of brushes.

I said I would investigate this, and I am glad to have been pointed to a workaround.

The fact remains that the UI is broken and creates a frustrating UX.

Why do you guys not get this? Because you know the workaround?

The UI is still broken!

[SymbioticDesign]

4 hours ago, Alfred said:

What do you mean? Both Designer and Photo offer the option to resize either the document or the canvas, and both allow you to specify dimensions in pixels or physical units.

Here's the thing... I like to see what I am exporting.  If during the resize things get messed up, I want to see that before I save a resized version, and that's why I resize it first.

If I load a .psd I always have to remember that I have to set the FX scaling as the object is resized to on. ALWAYS.  It doesn't matter that I just did that 1,000 times in a row.  

If I am reducing the size of a logo to 400px x 155px, I want to see EXACTLY what I will get (at 100% and other zooms), first, before it ever gets seen by the worldwide web.

Why? When reducing the size of a font based or vector logo with effects, I want to make sure rounded corners and pointy edges don't get cut-off.  The rounds have to stay round and the points can't be blunted. FX like drop shadows canNOT be cut-off.  This is tough for any graphics program to get right, even Photoshop has issues with this, even Illustrator has problems. Affinity software is no exception, as sizes get smaller, concessions are made, I have corrected for these many times in Affinity software.

I am not resizing a square or rectangular photo, I need to make sure the integrity of my art survives.

This was used merely as a very simple example of how the Affinity Photo UX is BROKEN. The FX thing I mention here is yet another example of how the UI is broken, I use this all the time and it never remembers what I last did.  Plus, there is no preference setting to maintain how I expect it to always work. So then it becomes a tedious task of doing it every single time, which is contradictory to good creative workflow.

As it is, the tasks I am accomplishing are tedious routine labor intensive stuff to accommodate someone's requirement. When the UI adds tedious labor to my already tedious intensive jobs, that interupts good workflow.  

The reason I love Designer is that it gets vector illustration right, right there in the UI and creates a wonderful UX that allows my creativity to flow.

But the moment I need 12 different sizes or have to do labor intensive tasks, that UI falls apart as my UX gets frustrating and workflow is halted multiple times in the process.

I get that you guys believe in the Affinity products.  But you are denying its imperfections out of loyalty.  The only way to improve on it is to address the hard stuff, too.

Now, like I said, I will check out what you are talking about, I haven't had the time to do so yet, I have a lot to do here, but if I cannot preview something before it is saved on export, it is not a solution for me.  I have to protect the integrity of my art, always.  I have been doing this for over 25 years and I am not leaving things to chance.

 

[Old Bruce]

39 minutes ago, SymbioticDesign said:

This means nothing to me. I see a bunch of brushes.

[SymbioticDesign]

1 hour ago, Old Bruce said:

And you show me BRUSHES.

Post a damn link to a tutorial, for cryin' out loud.

I have clicked on all that stuff, the share icon, I get it.  But all that does is limit my tools.  That is not information, all you are doing is arguing for the sake of arguing, not helping, not showing me anything.

C'MON, MAN.

[Old Bruce]

Here on the Affinity forums I will occasionally I come across a rude person, I give up helping them. 

One final time, have you tried using the Export Persona? 

https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/tutorials/designer/desktop/category/export-persona/

[SymbioticDesign]

11 hours ago, Old Bruce said:

Here on the Affinity forums I will occasionally I come across a rude person, I give up helping them. 

One final time, have you tried using the Export Persona? 

https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/tutorials/designer/desktop/category/export-persona/

Yes. Thanks to your link, I found the tutorial. I think I see what you guys are saying, not yet sure, I will have to play with it.

However, if you view me as rude, why not give-up on helping me.  There is apparently some sort of friction to my opinion that you are having trouble with.  No problem, we don't communicate well.

You see, the thing is that I still view the UI as broken.  Not just broken, but very broken.  Sure, you guys appear to have a work around, and that is just great.  I will likely use it once I figure it out.  But the way I was using the software is still a miss in the UX.  That hasn't changed.  You have another way, I am very glad.  

I'm not here to rub anyone the wrong way.  I don't like how the software was not working well for me and I said something.  If anyone has a problem with my doing that, don't even bother responding to me if it upsets you.

Thanks for the link to the tutorial.  Yes, I was going to hunt for it, but just finished up something a bit ago.  Now I have the time to try to figure it out.  If I come back and ask some stupid questions that you find upsetting, don't bother with me, I'm not trying to upset anyone, I am trying to deal with the software.

[SymbioticDesign]

OK, I have resized my document to 400 pixels width. I go to the export persona and I see that I can save a layer as a PNG. But even though that document is now 400px wide. the layer is a font (corbel) that is 401 pixels wide, probably because there is extra room in the font for white space, even though there is no actual pixel beyond 399px, including the drop shadow. 

I also have to extend the height of the exported image to 155px using a centered anchor.  

So how is it that I setup a custom 400px x 155px export so that I can export anything as a 400px x 155px PNG?

None of my logos are the same size or even the same aspect ratio, btw.  They just need to wind-up at 400px x 155px.

 

[PaoloT]

On 5/8/2022 at 12:33 PM, PaulEC said:

This well hidden feature. 😁

But they have disseminated the program with ambiguous signs…

 

[SymbioticDesign]

You know, this was intended as Feedback on the Photo app.  I was trying to give feedback on why I think the UX was failing in this specific area.  I still hold fast to that, there should be a memory or a preference for how the document resize and canvas resize works.

I was happy to hear that there was a workaround where I could automatically preview and export any sized vector image to my exact dimensions, but I do not believe that is possible. I think perhaps some did not read my full post, they scanned it, skipping parts because it was boring.  There was nothing I have seen in any tutorial that allows for this and when I poked around, I didn't find such a solution, either.

Truly, if I insulted you or you are offended by my brevity, I apologize. But if someone is so loyal to a fault that they might be offended because I am critical about a beloved program, they clearly aren't trying to make it better.

Yes, I complained. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. This wheel is falling off and it needs some high maintenance.  I was promised it would be fixed in the next release upon purchase and trying it.  I will be happy when it is fixed, even if there is a workaround, the UI should still behave, period.

I honestly went back to Photoshop for these menial resizing labor tasks as it is so much faster.

Other things I would like to see?  The Photoshop > Image > Trim    (Trim away all selected columns and rows of a document based on background, color or transparency)

[telemax]

Although this is in the "feature request" section for AP, I have an idea for AD.

Use "Symbol" for this. Before creating a symbol, group your design. After creating the symbol, group it again.

[telemax]

A little clarification for Export Persona, perhaps this will help, or is completely unnecessary here 🤔

Here's a simple example.
The original artboard is 500x500px, suppose I export it in three different resolutions, 500x500, 300x300, 150x150. 

[Jose3DSigner]

On 5/8/2022 at 11:36 AM, SymbioticDesign said:

Affinity doesn't remember anything in some (certain) repeated settings and it has no preference settings to set them.

While you probably have a work around for me for one thing, the fact remains that Affinity Photo is not always very functional for some very simple, stupid things that interrupt work flow and cripple the usefulness of the software.  

In this case, it isn't about creativity, it's about work flow. A crippled work flow screws with creativity.

Although Affinity Photo includes very useful functionalities that clearly speed up productivity compared to PS and even Krita, I agree with you regarding the settings. Last setting values should be facilitated each time they may be required; it's so counter-productive to have to type (or set) a group of values again and again.

I hope they will fix it soon, it's not even a new implementation but a simple function call change.