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A.I. Selection Tool


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I searched this forum first and was surprised not to see this asked before. Adobe's subject selection tool with a single click is proving very popular with subscribers to that software. I often isolate my subject to blur the background and would love this to be much faster. Do any of you know or even just think, that we'll see a feature like this added to Affinity Photo 2.0 in the very near future?

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Would love to see this happen aswell. I mean AI has always pros and cons but AI selection tools and some AI filters are really missing in Photo. But personally i use them more with DAM systems to darken or lighten or blur backgrounds as you do. So we miss DAM aswell ;-). Still the reason I love LR and PS for these tweaks.

BR Steffen

 

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44 minutes ago, artmischke said:

Would love to see this happen aswell. I mean AI has always pros and cons but AI selection tools and some AI filters are really missing in Photo. But personally i use them more with DAM systems to darken or lighten or blur backgrounds as you do. So we miss DAM aswell ;-). Still the reason I love LR and PS for these tweaks.

BR Steffen

 

@artmischke I think using one click select A.I. is just a tool to add to the box, there shouldn't be any controversy about using it as the creativity in the process is still 100% human. I enjoy masking out subjects using Affinity and get a kick out of a good result but oh the time involved! I don't subscribe to Adobe but did trial Topaz Mask A.I., the results though were disappointing compared to Affinity's refine tool. Let's hope that the Serif team are working on these next level A.I. tools to enhance the user experience.

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On 4/13/2023 at 10:37 AM, artmischke said:

Would love to see this happen aswell. I mean AI has always pros and cons but AI selection tools and some AI filters are really missing in Photo. But personally i use them more with DAM systems to darken or lighten or blur backgrounds as you do. So we miss DAM aswell ;-). Still the reason I love LR and PS for these tweaks.

BR Steffen

 

Yeah it would be nice to have these AI selection tools available in both the Photo and Develop personas.

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1 hour ago, maikm said:

I agree, and that is currently the only thing I envy my Photoshop pals about. They can get the selections done much faster, which puts me at an uncomfortable disadvantage.

@maikm Yes although the sense of achievement about creating a good mask is all well and good, it would be better to have more free time! Now Lightroom has denoise A.I. tools which leaves us even more disadvantaged. Serif will be left behind if these innovations aren't added which would be a great shame.

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25 minutes ago, Balveda said:

@maikm Yes although the sense of achievement about creating a good mask is all well and good, it would be better to have more free time! Now Lightroom has denoise A.I. tools which leaves us even more disadvantaged. Serif will be left behind if these innovations aren't added which would be a great shame.

I agree, those recent updates have made me look at Lightroom again I just don't like renting the software. Affinity seems to be the odd duck out with these technologies as most do include ML/AI versions of these tools, like Pixelmator Pro/Photomator and Luminar.

 

As unexpected as it sounds I get the feeling that photographers are underserved with Affinity Photo, comparatively speaking. I'd like to be proven wrong though.

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2 minutes ago, Revanian said:

I agree, those recent updates have made me look at Lightroom again I just don't like renting the software. Affinity seems to be the odd duck out with these technologies as most do include ML/AI versions of these tools, like Pixelmator Pro/Photomator and Luminar.

 

As unexpected as it sounds I get the feeling that photographers are underserved with Affinity Photo, comparatively speaking. I'd like to be proven wrong though.

@Revanian I have to confess that I did check out Adobe's pricing last night, it's still ridiculously priced though. I'm on the verge of buying DXO PureRAW 3, as it's better than Topaz Denoise AI which I already own. Amateur photographers are keeping Serif going and these tools would help tremendously, all the pro photographers I know still use Adobe or the likes of Capture One, Affinity Photo doesn't seem to be a good fit for them, if Serif want more pro togs to switch they'll have to innovate or be left behind.

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Very true.. I'm already used to affinity Designer and Publisher after escaping Adobe...and I'm loving it. But still looking for a software that can handle raw images well and mass editing of images like the way Photoshop and camera raw does. Affinity photo is good but it has a lot of issues with raw images.. someone advise

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 4/24/2023 at 2:55 PM, Kabiru said:

Very true.. I'm already used to affinity Designer and Publisher after escaping Adobe...and I'm loving it. But still looking for a software that can handle raw images well and mass editing of images like the way Photoshop and camera raw does. Affinity photo is good but it has a lot of issues with raw images.. someone advise

Photomator is releasing a Mac version soon that I've been interested in. It may be worth checking out.

 

I am surprised though that there isn't more discussion around this topic in general seeing how prevalent AI/ML tools are in a wide assortment of graphics applications now. Even something as common as subject selection is absent in Affinity Photo.

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I'm actually worried about Affinity Photo's future if nothing happens in regard to AI-based tools. That's where the most meaningful current advances in imaging tech are, and Serif really needs to up their game here. Right now I can't even smoothly integrate external AI tools like those from DxO or Topaz which have Photoshop plugins that don't work with Affinity Photo.

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11 minutes ago, maikm said:

I'm actually worried about Affinity Photo's future if nothing happens in regard to AI-based tools. That's where the most meaningful current advances in imaging tech are, and Serif really needs to up their game here. Right now I can't even smoothly integrate external AI tools like those from DxO or Topaz which have Photoshop plugins that don't work with Affinity Photo.

I share those worries, really don't want to see Affinity Photo falling by the wayside. I don't have problems integrating Photoshop plugins though. For example I recently trialled DXO PureRAW3, I opened the files as I normally do in another program called Fast RAW Viewer, the image opened in DXO PR3 was processed then DXO automatically opened the processed file in Affinity Photo 2.0.4., I can also open other plugins like Topaz Denoise A.I. and Luminar 4 in Affinity, it may be worthwhile for you to have another go at enabling 3rd party software in Affinity Photo, simply point to the location of the exe file for each plugin and make sure you have "Unknown Plugins" selected as you can see in this screen shot. Hope this helps.

 

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Yeah, I can have DxO PureRaw 3 deliver the preprocessed DNG files to Affinity Photo, but I was unsuccessful trying to use the Topaz plugins like that, let alone DxO. I'm on a Mac though, so there is no simple EXE to point to, and no real documentation that helps in specific cases. My plugin prefs section looks different. Googling found me only other dudes with the same problem and no solution.

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@maikm Ah I've never owned an Apple computer, so can't help much with that I'm afraid. Noticed lack of a tick in the "Allow 'unknown' plugins to be used though, does that not help if activated? Hope you manage to get a resolution at some point.

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1 hour ago, maikm said:

I'm actually worried about Affinity Photo's future if nothing happens in regard to AI-based tools. That's where the most meaningful current advances in imaging tech are, and Serif really needs to up their game here. Right now I can't even smoothly integrate external AI tools like those from DxO or Topaz which have Photoshop plugins that don't work with Affinity Photo.

I agree as well. While advanced, I'm wondering if Serif views Affinity as a true professional tool or more for prosumers? Either way when consumer grade applications offer these kind of tools it makes me wonder.

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13 minutes ago, Revanian said:

I agree as well. While advanced, I'm wondering if Serif views Affinity as a true professional tool or more for prosumers? Either way when consumer grade applications offer these kind of tools it makes me wonder.

I can't speak for the powers that be but it seems to sit somewhere in the middle. Having said that all of the pro photographers I know stick with Adobe or Capture One. Some are thinking of going back to Adobe thanks to the new A.I. tools in Lightroom. I've even asked Bard if it "thinks" Affinity will ever have such tools and the answer came back as "very likely". Tbh I was a bit disappointed and dare I say shocked that Ver 2.0 was lacking in A.I. tools. Some of the improvements though were too tempting to ignore and optimism that Serif will continue to innovate came into play. Here's hoping!

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18 minutes ago, Balveda said:

I can't speak for the powers that be but it seems to sit somewhere in the middle. Having said that all of the pro photographers I know stick with Adobe or Capture One. Some are thinking of going back to Adobe thanks to the new A.I. tools in Lightroom. I've even asked Bard if it "thinks" Affinity will ever have such tools and the answer came back as "very likely". Tbh I was a bit disappointed and dare I say shocked that Ver 2.0 was lacking in A.I. tools. Some of the improvements though were too tempting to ignore and optimism that Serif will continue to innovate came into play. Here's hoping!

While I don't care for Adobe's renting model, at least they are improving their products at a steady pace. I'm hopeful as well for Affinity though.

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10 minutes ago, Revanian said:

While I don't care for Adobe's renting model, at least they are improving their products at a steady pace. I'm hopeful as well for Affinity though.

Hold in mind that Adobe have 30 million subscribers and Adobe bringing in over 11 billion dollars every year…

Serif Lab is doing what they can after the economical situation…

Hire pro developer/programmers is expensive, very very expensive…

Happy amateur that playing around with the Affinity Suite - really love typograhics, photographing, colors & forms, AND, Synthesizers!

Macbook Pro 16” M1 2021, iPad Pro 12.9” M1 2021, iPad Pro 10.5” A10X 2017, iMac 27” 5K/i7 late 2015…

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 5/3/2023 at 6:36 PM, Balveda said:

I can't speak for the powers that be but it seems to sit somewhere in the middle. Having said that all of the pro photographers I know stick with Adobe or Capture One. Some are thinking of going back to Adobe thanks to the new A.I. tools in Lightroom. I've even asked Bard if it "thinks" Affinity will ever have such tools and the answer came back as "very likely". Tbh I was a bit disappointed and dare I say shocked that Ver 2.0 was lacking in A.I. tools. Some of the improvements though were too tempting to ignore and optimism that Serif will continue to innovate came into play. Here's hoping!

Interestingly I had the same feeling: shock and disappointment that 2.0 had no AI-integration. I expected AI, honestly.
Still I purchased 2.0 and hoped that those AI-tools would eventually and very fast find their way into the Affinity suite. There are many tools based on AI integrated in other competing products. As I am almost only using Affinity Photo I can just speak for that product and miss at least the following AI-based features:

- Noise reduction (sorry, but Lightrooms new AI-based noise reduction is just amazing in keeping details)
- Subject Selection (as the creator of this thread mentioned)
- Sky selection (without having to manually use those really great masks Affinity Photo 2.x has)
- Sharpening (why do we have to rely on expensive 3rd party tools? I know there are many ways to sharpen in Affinity Photo, tons of different ways to find on Youtube, but those are often invented by some really creative users and are based on knowing Affinity inside out)

Although there are great things in Affinity such as astrophotography stack (where there exist plenty of free open source tools) and on top of all that the complete workflow experience of all the Affinity suite products together. And I like those minor changes, bugfixes, additions. But those are all not revolutionary ... just minor. To me 2.0 to 2.1 was still a minor and not major update. Even 1.x to 2.0 felt not that big even if I aprreciate new masking possibilites and the change of layer organizing, grouping and so on. There was no real wow effect like "finally you can do this".

I think many Affinity users would not hesitate to use AI-tools if they would make their workflow easier. And this could be the step for Serif to not fall behind.
Rarely I see any of those Youtube-Pro-Photographers using Affinity but instead praising the new possibilies and powers of AI.

Optimism is still great that Serif will change that soon.

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Und an den Westerwälder:
es geht mir nicht um AI-generierte Bilder, sondern nur das Nutzen von intelligenten Algorithmen, um den Workflow zu vereinfachen.
Wenn etwas gut funktioniert und die Arbeit vereinfacht/verbessert, dann sollte es nutzbar sein.
Es gibt unter Hunderten z.B. ein Video von Brent Hall, um sich klarzumachen, wie gut das funktioniert mit wenigen Klicks:

Grüße aus dem Schwarzwald

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KI ist nur das können und Wissen anderer abzugreifen.
Wenige Klicks lässt mich immer darauf verweisen, Automatiken machen nur durchschnitt aber niemals etwas richtiges!

Google Übersetzer

AI is only the ability and knowledge of others to tap.
A few clicks always lets me refer to it, automatics only do average but never anything real!

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On 5/3/2023 at 10:03 AM, maikm said:

My plugin prefs section looks different.

I noticed that no one has addressed your question yet, @maikm. There are 2 things to note in the Plug-Ins part of the Preferences. First, you should definitely check the "Allow unknown plugins to be used" box. Second, since the Mac is "sandboxed" you have to click the button labelled "Authorize Global". This allows Affinity Photo to delve into folders which it does not "own"; not clicking on that button will definitely screw up at least some of your plugin use. That having been said, I'm not sure if DxO PureRaw can be accessed as a plug-in on Mac, but it's certainly worth a try!

Affinity Photo 2, Affinity Publisher 2, Affinity Designer 2 (latest retail versions) - desktop & iPad
Culling - FastRawViewer; Raw Developer - Capture One Pro; Asset Management - Photo Supreme
Mac Studio with M2 Max (2023}; 64 GB RAM; macOS 13 (Ventura); Mac Studio Display - iPad Air 4th Gen; iPadOS 17

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