Clone Brush scale shortcut keys

[elzevir_block]

Affinity Photo version 2.3.0.

When using the up/down keys to change the Clone Brush's scale, the numbering doesn't proceed logically. If I start at 100%, and press up, it moves to 105%, then 110%. But then it moves to 116%, then 122%, 128%, 136%, 141%... I've also had the app crash when moving the Scale slider to adjust, although I've not been able to reproduce this.

[GarryP]

Welcome to the forums @Elzevir Block

The value change is logical but it just looks a bit odd.

As far as I can figure it out, when you press the up-arrow key you are adding 5% to the underlying scale value each time while the displayed value is rounded to the nearest integer.

So we get:
100 + 5% = 105 (exactly), then;
105 + 5% = 110.25 (rounded down to 110), then;
110.25 + 5% = 115.7625 (rounded up to 116), then;
115.7625 + 5% = 121.550625 (rounded up to 122), then;
121.550625 + 5% =  127.62815625 (rounded up to 128), then;
127.62815625  + 5% = 134.0095640625 (rounded down to 134),  etc.

It’s a similar thing for the down-arrow key.

As for the application crashing, that shouldn’t happen so that sounds like a bug to me but without a reproducible workflow it may be difficult for the developers to find what the cause could be and fix it.

[elzevir_block]

Thanks for your reply, @GarryP 😀.

Well, that is logical, mathematically and programmatically; thanks for working it out. It isn't very logical from a creative/user perspective, though! It makes more sense (to me) to ditch the notion of adding the percentage to the current value and then rounding, in favour of keeping to 5% increments exactly (or even 1% increments). The goal of the shortcuts is to work quickly, without having to reach for the slider/value box. The most infuriating thing about the current method is that once I've gone up to, say, 116%, I can't get back to exactly 100% without abandoning the keys.

Cheers, and Happy New Year.

Edited December 31, 2023 by Elzevir Block

[GarryP]

It does sound a bit strange to go up/down by 5% increments of the last value, rather than ‘pure’ 5% increment/decrements, but the same thing is done in other parts of the software too so I guess that’s a bit of consistency.

From a creative point-of-view I don’t think it really matters much to me either way as 122%, for example, isn’t much different from 120% considering all of the other things that need to be taken into consideration when using the tool, e.g. brush, hardness, opacity, flow, wet edges, etc. As long as I get the result that I want, the exact scale value doesn’t really matter so much.

However, I do think that it would be nice if is was easier to get back to 100% than it is now as that’s a ‘normal’ thing to want to do.

Happy New Year to you too.

Note: If you have a scroll wheel on your mouse you can use that the with Shift pressed down, while hovering the mouse pointer over the value field, to go up/down by 10% increments. (This works with most other numeric fields too.)

[elzevir_block]

Yes, it does seem strange. Sounds like a programmer's design decision, rather than a UX decision! Thanks for the extra info. I'm coming from twenty years in Photoshop, and haven't been working in Affinity that long, so I hadn't cottoned on to Serif's way of working these things. My brain likes to see exact values, and is locked in a constant battle between free creativity and logical engineering.

Cheers.

[walt.farrell]

15 minutes ago, Elzevir Block said:

My brain likes to see exact values, and is locked in a constant battle between free creativity and logical engineering.

Then you will probably need to type the values you want, rather than using the arrows.