Finding the color values of a pixel

[Zayori]

First of all, I just need to vent a little bit, because I have been using Photoshop my entire life, and I have recently become very fed up with it. It has SO many bugs that have plagued me for years and now it has gotten to the point where I feel like the software just straight up is not working anymore. So, I hear about Affinity, and how it's a lot cheaper and supposedly a good replacement for Photoshop. I started my trial today, and my first task is to find the color values of a few pixels in a screenshot.

In Photoshop, this task will take me around 3 seconds to complete. In Affinity, this appears to be completely impossible.

I open up Affinity and go to create a new document. When creating a new document in Photoshop, it defaults to the size of whatever image you have on your clipboard. Now, in Photoshop, there's a nasty bug that prevents this from working correctly, but with years of experience, I know how to get it to work. Affinity does not seem to have this feature at all. There is no clipboard option that I can see at least. Strike one.

 With a new document created, I paste my screenshot that I want to sample from. I press i to get my color picker, and when I try to sample, the entire image changes color. There are two reasons why this makes no sense to me. First of all, no graphic designer in the history of the entire universe would want this to happen, ever. Why would this be a feature? Secondly, the way the color changes makes no sense either. It doesn't just fill the frame with the color I picked, it preserves some of the lua values, as if it applies it like a color filter. Again, even if I wanted to fill the image with this particular color, why in God's name would I want it to fill with a bunch of colors that I didn't even choose? Google tells me that there is an option to turn of "apply to selection", which prevents this from happening - but yeah, having that turned ON by default tells me whoever made this program has never once tried to use it themselves. Strike two.

So here we are, color picker no longer destroys the entire image, and I can pick my color. Where can I see the color information? Trick question: I can't. The only thing the color picker does is to set the color of a tiny little swatch in the color panel. The color panel shows some color information, but that appears to be the information of whatever color is currently selected in the color picker window, and has nothing to do with what the color picker selects. If I try to click the color I selected, I fill the entire image again. If I try to click any of the other color picker tools except the one in the toolbox, I also destroy the entire image. The only way I can see the actual color information is through the info panel (which is also not enabled by default for some reason), but this panel just shows whatever pixel I am currently pointing at, which means that I have to point at a pixel, then take a screenshot. Otherwise, I can't move my cursor to write down the values.

Just for comparison, here's how I would do this in Photoshop: Press i to pick the color, then double click the primary color swatch in the toolbox to bring up the color picker window. This will then be set to the pixel I chose, and all the values are listed, ready to copy. Again, if I try to do anything of the sort in Affinity, I destroy the entire image.

I am obviously not particularly happy with Affinity right now, and I hope that something just went wrong when I installed it, and that all of these things aren't real issues with the software - because if it is, Photoshop is coming back immediately.

[walt.farrell]

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums.

9 minutes ago, Nathzukie said:

Affinity does not seem to have this feature at all. There is no clipboard option that I can see at least. Strike one.

File > New from Clipboard

10 minutes ago, Nathzukie said:

With a new document created, I paste my screenshot that I want to sample from. I press i to get my color picker, and when I try to sample, the entire image changes color.

First, you have pasted an Image layer (which you can see in the Layers panel). An Image layer is a vector-like container. Among its vector-like functions, it has a Fill value.

Next, the Color Picker you are using has an option (see Context Toolbar) to immediately appy the picked value to the Fill of the currently selected object. With that option on, and a vector or Image layer selected, the Fill is applied.

Either:

• Turn off that option in the Context Toolbar (which you have discovered); or
• Rasterize the layer so you have a Pixel layer, not an Image layer; or
• Use a different color picking technique (e.g., the one in the Color panel) which does not provide that option.

Also important: It's best not to expect it to work like Photoshop. It is a different application, with many differences in functionality and operation. Expect to take some time learning the differences, reading Help, and watching Tutorials.

[Zayori]

Thank you for your reply! This helped me calm down a ton. The solution here was the image layer to pixel layer rasterization.

That was quite confusing and I still feel like they should at least not label it as an "image" layer when it is a container or whatever, because the name image layer does, to me at least, imply that it is a bitmap-type pixel layer. And it is not easy to find the correct tutorial for this, when there is no good explanation for what is going on. Had it said something other than "image" on the layer, it would have clued me in a lot faster.

And yes, it is a different application, but in this particular case - after rasterizing - it does in fact behave exactly the way Photoshop does. Even all the buttons are in the same place.

Thanks again!

[thomaso]

1 hour ago, Nathzukie said:

this makes no sense to me. First of all, no graphic designer in the history of the entire universe would want this to happen, ever. Why would this be a feature? Secondly, the way the color changes makes no sense either. It doesn't just fill the frame

"history of the entire univers", indeed? – Is it coincidence that your user name sounds like Zulu, meaning "Let's start"?

As in every app of that complexity you will find various terms in Affinity, too, which sound familiar but with a different meaning than expected or which sound fully unfamiliar and thus might feel unexpected and 'difficult', too. Years ago my first one was "persona" … and finally I enjoyed to read in this forum a thread about its historical use with a quite similar meaning in Greece ~2000 years ago. – The same thing happens with "image", which may have nothing at all to do with pixel, computer, photo or shop; or "frame" (as in your quoted sentence) which may refer to a container layer type (an object) – or to a coloured border (a look) with a certain width, while here "width" might confuse if it gets called something different than just "thickness" ….

However, wording, not only in Affinity, can be an endless subject, especially for those who just have started. Not to mention features with previously inexperienced advantages. Nathzukie.