Has V2 fixed Affinity's biggest issues?

[debraspicher]

5 minutes ago, Kal said:

Thanks for that. I've used up my daily allowance of 'reactions' again

Sending prayers and condolences

I didn't know we could run out until I think launch day. I actually PM'ed one of the mods because I thought it was the forum glitching out 😂

[Kal]

7 minutes ago, debraspicher said:

Sending prayers and condolences

I didn't know we could run out until I think launch day. I actually PM'ed one of those mods because I thought it was the forum glitching out 😂

😂

Thank you Debra. It is quite traumatic to reach into your little bag of love hearts and find it empty.

But let us be consoled by what the Affinity forum administrators have allowed us… no limits on verbal diarrhoea!! 💩🎉 

[JaGold]

I'm finding this thread to be quite interesting @Kal ... just found it. 

Overall, I feel ya man, I'm a "seasoned pro" in all things Photoshop (UI/UX, web, print, digital art, photo editing, etc) and I've just recently dropped Adobe's Sub business model in favor of owning my stuff again.

v1 AF Photo right now is pretty solid and dependable enough to be my daily driver for all things (formerly) Photoshop. v2 however... oof, it's pretty rough right now. I mean v2 is slick looking and the whole AF Suite integrates nicely, but trying opening a 1GB PSD file and see how it all falls apart. Pragmatically, there's a lot of performance issues that need to be quelled before I can use (er... trust) v2 apps. 

I'm a fan of Affinity's main goal since 2015, I want to love their apps, but they've gotta fix v2 Photo so it's rock solid with opening my 15 year archive of PSD files first before that trust is truly grounded.

[PedroOfOz]

51 minutes ago, JaGold said:

but trying opening a 1GB PSD file and see how it all falls apart

I'm on a medium spec PC (Ryzen 5 5600X, RTX2060, 32G Ram) and have no issues opening a 1.05G PSD file (launched from Bridge 2023 into AP2).

Personally I'm not having any issues with AP2 at all so far ... unlike AP1 which I stopped using 2.5 years ago (mainly due to (a) Destructive RAW developing and (b) the outstanding Tony Kuyper PS Plugin (TK8). AP2's new masking features now give me (us!) all the core masking of TK8 plus we now have non destructive Raw editing (not possible to open a smart object from PS back into Camera Raw with Adjustments as per AP2's new feature). 

 

[JaGold]

8 minutes ago, PedroOfOz said:

I'm on a medium spec PC (Ryzen 5 5600X, RTX2060, 32G Ram) and have no issues opening a 1.05G PSD file (launched from Bridge 2023 into AP2).

Ya gotcha, I'm on an older Mac Intel, so it's a different experience for you. I opened a 300MB PSD in AP1 in under 10sec, and in AP2 it took 3min! There's something very wrong with the MacOS version.

[Tia Lapis]

1 hour ago, JaGold said:

but trying opening a 1GB PSD file and see how it all falls apart.

What has one to do to get such huge psd files?

[deeds]

22 minutes ago, Tia Lapis said:

What has one to do to get such huge psd files?

Quote

less blithe posting on forums...

 

[JaGold]

2 hours ago, Tia Lapis said:

What has one to do to get such huge psd files?

Web page layouts, print files, digital art files... I have PSB files up to about 5-6GB. 

[chessboard]

6 hours ago, Tia Lapis said:

What has one to do to get such huge psd files?

That's no problem. Apart from photos, which can use a lot of memory (that starts with using 16bit channels), you can do all kind of print documents in an image editing software. I for example do puzzle illustrations in Photoshop. With A3-Size in at least 300dpi, perhaps CMYK-Mode (I use RGB as long as possible), lots and lots of layers the memory requirements can also get very high. Since clients tend to change their minds about some things, it's always good advise to not flatten layers until the work is really done.

[Tia Lapis]

45 minutes ago, chessboard said:

That's no problem. Apart from photos, which can use a lot of memory (that starts with using 16bit channels), you can do all kind of print documents in an image editing software. I for example do puzzle illustrations in Photoshop. With A3-Size in at least 300dpi, perhaps CMYK-Mode (I use RGB as long as possible), lots and lots of layers the memory requirements can also get very high. Since clients tend to change their minds about some things, it's always good advise to not flatten layers until the work is really done.

I guess also only lossless codecs for the image data?

[chessboard]

1 hour ago, Tia Lapis said:

I guess also only lossless codecs for the image data?

Well, of course 😉. You never want to lose quality, especially in the manufacturing phase. If the client agrees, maybe you can save the final version in a lossy format, but even that publishers don't like to see. Saving in a lossy format, reopening the file, and repeatedly saving in a lossy format means that sooner or later this file will become garbage. BTW, I don't know any lossy file format, that could handle layers.

You might want to add that Photoshop is not very good at compressing the file. Other programs can do that better. In Photoshop, for example, it is already decisive whether the bottom layer is a "real" background layer. If it is, this also saves some memory. For whatever reason.

[AllAppsUser]

11 hours ago, Kal said:

I detest the forced subscription model

As do many-many others. They're pursuing freedom with the same emotion you just expressed, Kal.

So of course it expresses itself in the forums as the mirage of a better life seems in danger of slipping away altogether.

While I'm in the camp that there's too much emotionally driven stuff happening in the world, I'm not inclined to discount the emotion of frustration in here. It could be the canary in the mine ultimately.

The understandable frustration is why these forums are described as a mess, which they are. Only the Stack Overflow model works as a useful resource IMHO. But Serif are a small business despite millions on their accounts, so they've not had the resource. The few who valiantly give their time in any great quantity helping others in these forums are very much to be admired.

A bit of give n take, slowness to take offence and a calm response to those who seem a bit off key, often because emotion is near the surface, and usually without intention, goes a long way.

[Tia Lapis]

53 minutes ago, chessboard said:

BTW, I don't know any lossy file format, that could handle layers.

TIFF should be able to handle that. As far as I remember it supports JPG als codec and multiple layers.

[chessboard]

@Tia Lapis Right. TIFF can save lossles or lossy and handle layers (However, I'm not sure if this is part of the official specification of this format, or a propriety feature.) But as mentioned above, lossy is a no-go, because it damages the quality of the image if it is used serveral times in a row.

But back to the problem with large files: The filesize on the disk is one side (rather less important today). The question is, can the image software handle this large images when they are opened and edited. This seems to be the problem that @JaGold appearently had to struggle with in AP V2.

[Tia Lapis]

7 minutes ago, chessboard said:

But back to the problem with large files: The filesize on the disk is one side (rather less important today). The question is, can the image software handle this large images when they are opened and edited. This seems to be the problem that @JaGold appearently had to struggle with in AP V2.

I would check opening times in V2 on my Ryzen laptop and my Mac Mini, but I don't have anything in this size region to test.

[A_B_C]

12 hours ago, Kal said:

Sure. Words and labels without context are always prone to misinterpretation. When I said that Affinity needs to 'listen to the pros', that was just a succinct way of labelling a very diverse group of users who would, in the process of sharing feedback with Affinity, provide the necessary context. But I think you probably understood that, and I agree, it would be good if we could 'leave this debate behind us'.

I did understand that, and as I said, I didn’t mean to reply to your post or any of your earlier remarks. They make much sense to me and mirror my experience quite closely. 🙂

 

12 hours ago, Kal said:

I found the transition frustrating. IMHO, UI/UX is not Affinity's strength. Like someone else said in this thread, all those little annoyances do add up, and they contribute to a less enjoyable experience. You learn to adapt of course, but I've never been able to say that I truly enjoy using Affinity software.

Yes, I wished *so dearly* that the developers would just take one, two or three weeks off, leave their planned schedule, and fix all those little things that add so much friction to the daily workflow. I provided an initial list earlier, but you could easily expand this list by reviewing what has been posted over the years on these forums. To repeat, these are really tiny annoyances, but they add up. The suggested solutions would non-disruptive and should be largely non-controversial, so I just hope that after bringing the suite to its full cross-platform extent, there will be some time for the developers to make improvements in this area.

[loukash]

3 hours ago, chessboard said:

In Photoshop, for example, it is already decisive whether the bottom layer is a "real" background layer. If it is, this also saves some memory. For whatever reason.

No alpha channel on a "Background" layer, from what I remember from my PS years.

[JaGold]

1 hour ago, A_B_C said:

I did understand that, and as I said, I didn’t mean to reply to your post or any of your earlier remarks. They make much sense to me and mirror my experience quite closely. 🙂

 

Yes, I wished *so dearly* that the developers would just take one, two or three weeks off, leave their planned schedule, and fix all those little things that add so much friction to the daily workflow. I provided an initial list earlier, but you could easily expand this list by reviewing what has been posted over the years on these forums. To repeat, these are really tiny annoyances, but they add up. The suggested solutions would non-disruptive and should be largely non-controversial, so I just hope that after bringing the suite to its full cross-platform extent, there will be some time for the developers to make improvements in this area.

I TOTALLY FEEL ya! Photoshop has been frictionless for a long time, and it's really difficult to use Affinity products and not keep running into these annoying unpolished bits, whether it's an unintuitive workflow issue, or some software glitch, like how I'm trying to figure out why painting on a mask layer using the "Color" tab frequently get's stuck on black-only (hence the reason I'm here, searching for a solution! ). 

I'm of the current mindset to be cautiously optimistic that they will get around to the polishing. During the v1 launch in 2015 I dove right in, and it was a barely-useable mess (Photo I mean, Designer I've been pretty happy with mostly) that I abandoned after I tried to actually use it in my design pipeline for client work. I'm seeing the same pattern play out again here with the v2 launch. They really do need to allocate some people resources and get senior-level Photoshop users to meticulously go through the workflow or real projects and find-and-fix all the issues, along with the use of the forum's help and the legacy problems we've all been pointing out for years. 

Since I've gotten off the PS train this winter, I'm definitely personally invested in seeing Affinity succeed, and willing to help.

 

[Tia Lapis]

I'm not so sure I even want a clone of PhotoShop's workflow.

[JaGold]

2 minutes ago, Tia Lapis said:

I'm not so sure I even want a clone of PhotoShop's workflow.

I get ya, and I think ideally it would be great to improve upon the foundation of the legacy of Photoshop and take it in it's own unique direction. It's the rock solid daily usage experience, quality of life stuff that is grinding gears. 

Affinity development reminds me of Zbrush/Pixologic, which was a hot mess for years and years (until the maybe the last 4 years), the software was simultaneously brilliant, yet it's UI never truly intuitively made sense, and it would combust every so often.

I'd love to see AP really rock solid and fixed.  Serif crew, make it happen!! 

[Tia Lapis]

As long as Maxon doesn't buy Serif... I'm still mad about that move and fearful about what happens to my hobby Zbrush.

[hinoki]

Looking at frustrations in this discussion…
I’d like to add one

Affinity came out,
they had a refreshing approach
that I wanted to support.
After a very frustrating year of beachballs and crashes
with Photo on a MbP, crash reports,
support always looking into it,
I really wanted to pull the plug.
Finally an update which resolved
and proved the issue.

Few reasons I didn’t quit
liked that they were fighting the big guys
too many afPhoto extensions
and no real affordable alternative.
So happy and supportive for what I have.

To be honest, why these memories came back with V2,
Launch 40 off…
and no differentiation for new and existing users.

It’s not the amount that does it
just a bit of acknowledgement for early adapters
will encourage support for Serifs V2 approach,
even beachballs now and then.

Now it’s more like I will stick to V1
which is ok for average use
and if something comes up in time
Affinity or not
I can always decide.

Serif cherish your users!
Don't forget
why many of us chose you. 

[JaGold]

Yes @hinoki

[JaGold]

@Tia Lapis ya I was disappointed too about the Maxon purchase... fortunately ZBR pro 2022.0.6 is solid... won't be subscribing for the same reason why I abandoned Adobe!

[iuli]

Hi @hinoki and welcome to the forums  

You may want to read Serif’s managing director addressing the whole situation here 

Personally I think that 40% off was (and is) a very good offer for both new and old users like myself.