Inefficient print dialog -- a downgrade from PhotoPlus X8

[Sal Santamaura]

I've owned and happily used PhotoPlus X8 for six and a half years.  Nonetheless, I recently purchased Affinity Photo in order to learn new things and see how it compares.

 

While Affinity Photo so far appears to have much more capability than PhotoPlus X8, the unnecessary effort it forces one to expend when printing is a definite downgrade.  Please consider an Affinity Photo update that incorporates a print dialog box just like the one in PhotoPlus X8, i.e. one that simply and directly enables setting printed image physical dimensions and exact placement on a sheet of paper.

 

I note that there have been multiple threads in this forum concerning use of the Affinity Photo print dialog box to size/position images on paper.  The answers/explanations given merely illustrate what extraordinary lengths one must go to rather than addressing how much of a step backward the dialog is from prior Serif products.  Note that, unlike other posters who've addressed this shortcoming, I'm not comparing Affinity Photo to Photoshop, but rather to Serif's own earlier product.

 

Thank you in advance for listening.

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[Sal Santamaura]

Still working through dealing with this.  After cropping an image and saving the file, I then resize the canvas for printing.  When Affinity Photo does the resizing, all cropping is lost.  The image reverts to its uncropped state.  Any attempts to crop again after that affects the entire canvas, not just the image I've placed in the center of it.  What am I missing?  Thanks in advance.

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, Sal Santamaura said:

When Affinity Photo does the resizing, all cropping is lost.  The image reverts to its uncropped state.

Cropping is non-destructive, and if you resize the canvas after a crop you may simply be uncovering the cropped areas again.

So, you need to make it a destructive crop. After the crop, select that layer in the Layers panel or on the canvas, and then either:

• Right-click on it in the Layers panel and choose Rasterize & Trim...
  or
• Right-click on it on the canvas and choose Rasterize & Trim...
  or
• From the menu, use Layer > Rasterize & Trim....

[Sal Santamaura]

Thanks.  Next step in my "journey" of overcoming Serif's insistence on downgrading the print dialog from what it provided in PhotoPlus X8 was discovery that, when resizing the canvas to paper size, I need to account for whichever specific printer is to be used and its printable area.  My Canon and Epson units differ in that respect, so a specific printing file version for each paper size and each printer will be needed.

I'm a retired engineer who often hangs his head in shame (by association) while muttering "people serving technology instead of the other way around."  Sad.

Thanks again.

[Sal Santamaura]

To anyone using Affinity Photo V2:  is the print dialog the same as V1, or has Serif "fixed" it to be as user friendly as the one in PhotoPlus X8 was?  Thanks in advance.

[Sal Santamaura]

On 11/11/2022 at 10:46 AM, Sal Santamaura said:

To anyone using Affinity Photo V2:  is the print dialog the same as V1, or has Serif "fixed" it to be as user friendly as the one in PhotoPlus X8 was?  Thanks in advance.

Answered that question myself by downloading the 30-day trial of V2.  Nope;  same inefficient print dialog.  No reason for me to upgrade at this point.