When I open any photo, my workspace blinks, altering how my image looks. I can't work because of this effect. Video included!

[mustysturd]

Before you start reading, I need to mention that I had to use my phone to record the error taking place. When I tried to record my screen via my computer, I couldn't replicate the issue.

1. What Application are you using? [Designer/Photo/Publisher]
   • Photo
2. Are you using the latest release version?
   • yes, i just bought Affinity photo today.
3. Can you reproduce it?
   • Sure can! I have a video attached here.
4. Does it happen for a new document? If not can you upload a document that shows the problem?
   • It happens immediately when opening a new photo.
5. If you cannot provide a sample document then please give an accurate description of the problem for example it should include most of the following:

•    What is your operating system and version MAC OS, Ventura 13.3
•    What happened for you (and what you expected to happen)
  • When I open a photo, there appears to be a sort of overlay placed on my image. If i move my cursor around or select different tools, or move the Affinity Photo window around, the image alternates between how it SHOULD look and how it looks with this weird overlay effect. It does this with every photo. These are all basic jpgs, no raw files.
•    Provide a recipe for creating the problem (step-by-step what you did). I only opened a photo.
•    Screenshots (very handy) or a screen capture/video. - Attached here!
•    Any unusual hardware (like tablets or external monitors or drives that may affect things) or relevant other applications like font managers or display managers.
  • This is literally a brand new macbook air M2 - i just bought it Friday July 21st.
•    Did this same thing used to work and if so have you changed anything recently? (software or hardware)
  • No, I just purchased the software earlier today and haven't changed any preferences. This started happening immediately. I've restarted the software as well as my computer.

Thank you for your time!

[stokerg]

Hi @mustysturdand Welcome to the Forums,

This is something we already have logged with the developers to resolve.

Can you just try going into Setting for Affinity and on the Performance section, change the Display from Metal to openCL and close Preferences and you'll be asked to restart Affinity.  Once restarted, try opening an image and let me know if you encounter the same issue.

[Babelfisch]

I have the same problem and changing the display renderer to OpenGL solves the bug. But I hope that Affinity fix this bug because Metal is much faster than OpenGL.

[Truthseeker10]

I'm seeing the same problem running Affinity Photo 2.1.1 on my M2-based MacBook Pro with macOS 13.5.1.

When Metal acceleration turned on, opening an existing image results in the content and surrounding work area to appear brighter than it should be. Leaving the most pointer still for a few seconds often reverts to a proper image, but moving the pointer immediately  causes the problem again.

It doesn't seem to just affect display either — exporting a copy of image then viewing it in Preview seems to show the different/wrong colours too. (This is reminiscent of a problem back with V1 some time ago, but then the image was getting strange blocky/black squares over it; that also affected exports and was  caused by Metal acceleration.)

Unfortunately I'm not sure when the problem started as I've not had to use Affinity Photo for a while, and have had upgrades installed for both it and macOS.

I've currently turned Metal acceleration off within Affinity Photo, switching to OpenGL, which works around the problem.

[Affinity Info Bot]

The issue "M2 Mac flashing workspace - when using Apple Wide Colour Gamut" (REF: AF-473) has been fixed by the developers in internal build "2.3.0.2150".
This fix should soon be available as a customer beta and is planned for inclusion in the next customer release.
Customer beta builds are announced here and you can participate by following these instructions.
If you still experience this problem once you are using that build version (or later) please reply to this thread including @Serif Info Bot to notify us.