Several bugs and problems with Affinity Designer 2 MacOs

[comickrempel]

Hi,
i really don´t know where to start, because i got several problems mit Affinity Designer 2.
I buyed it a while ago and used it mostly to scan my black and white comic pages and make simple tonal correction.
But now i want to do digital paintings and its a mess.

First my brush is always transparent. It seems like it is on 33% opacity, because i need to paint three times till
the color is covering. But the opacity and the flow of the brush is on 100% and also the opacity of the layers.

Another thing is, that sometimes, its not possible to mark a part of the picture with any kind of marque tool and simply spin it.
The programm is spinning the whole layer, while the layer is marked in the sidebar! Then i turn the programm off and on and sometimes the error is gone. But a day later, it`s back.

Otherwise is not even possible to protect the whole layer. I locked it with the lock in the layer sidebar, but i can still paint on it. Did i forget something?

Another problem is that i can´t make quick sketches with the pencil or any other drawing tool. I draw with a Wacom Intuos M on an Imac 3,8 GHz-8-Core Intel Core i7 (Sonoma 14.5) with
a AMD Radeon Pro 5500 XT 8 GB and i use 43008 MB of the RAM for the performance and the lines are always a tick late!
It still happening when a use 65536 MB of the RAM and put the redo limit on 8 times.

I got over 17 years of experience with photoshop and many other graphic programms. So i´m not a beginner, but i can´t find the source of these errors.

And by the way, is there a possibilty to protect the transparent part of a layer, when i just want to color the pixels i´ve already drawn?
This is such an old function. I already used it 16 years ago, but i can´t find a tool or a layer setup (and the Magic Wand is not a good alternative).

So, thats all. If anyone of you got ideas to solve one of these problems, i would be very thankful.

Greetings

Timo

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, comickrempel said:

First my brush is always transparent. It seems like it is on 33% opacity, because i need to paint three times till
the color is covering. But the opacity and the flow of the brush is on 100% and also the opacity of the layers.

Welcome to the Affinity forums.

It would be very useful to have a screenshot, of the complete application window, to show this problem.

From your description, I can only guess that you are in the Pixel Persona, using a raster brush, and you have Wet Edges enabled in the Context Toolbar. (Note: this setting may be hiding off the right edge of the Context Toolbar, with a chevron (>>) icon to let you see it.

1 hour ago, comickrempel said:

Another thing is, that sometimes, its not possible to mark a part of the picture with any kind of marque tool and simply spin it.
The programm is spinning the whole layer, while the layer is marked in the sidebar! Then i turn the programm off and on and sometimes the error is gone. But a day later, it`s back.

Again, a screenshot would be useful. But it sounds like when it doesn't do what you want, you are working with an Image layer, not a Pixel layer. If so, you need to Rasterize the layer to access its pixels directly.

1 hour ago, comickrempel said:

Otherwise is not even possible to protect the whole layer. I locked it with the lock in the layer sidebar, but i can still paint on it. Did i forget something?

That is how layer locking works in Affinity applications. It prevents selection of the layer by clicking in the workspace, and moving of the layer that way. It does not prevent changes to the layer. (Many users have asked for changes to this.)

1 hour ago, comickrempel said:

Another problem is that i can´t make quick sketches with the pencil or any other drawing tool

A screen recording would be useful for that. Again, of the complete application window, and with the Layers panel showing the layer you're in and its parent layers.

1 hour ago, comickrempel said:

And by the way, is there a possibilty to protect the transparent part of a layer, when i just want to color the pixels i´ve already drawn?

There is a Protect Alpha option in the Context Toolbar, for some functions. Without knowing exactly what you're doing I can't say more.

[NotMyFault]

1 hour ago, comickrempel said:

First my brush is always transparent. It seems like it is on 33% opacity, because i need to paint three times till
the color is covering. But the opacity and the flow of the brush is on 100% and also the opacity of the layers.

The brush itself can be semitransparent. Chose a basic round brush with hard edges.

check blend mode of brush.

check if you have enable pressure control for the brush.

all this can lead to reduced brush opacity.

[NotMyFault]

Generally, Photo is probably the better suited tool to edit pixel/bitmap documents.

1 hour ago, comickrempel said:

I got over 17 years of experience with photoshop and many other graphic programms. So i´m not a beginner, but i can´t find the source of these errors.

This trove of experience makes it harder. Affinity UI and workflow partially match PS, but major aspects differ strongly, especially selections, layers and non-destructive workflows, and several missing functions.

Affinity makes it hard to almost impossible to edit pixel layers in-place. It works better when using multiple layers (every copy/paste creates layer copies in principle). You cannot edit alpha channel like PS.

[comickrempel]

Hey,

thanks for the fast reply. Sorry, on friday i was in a rush and very stressed, so i was unable to see the forest for the trees.

Walt Farell you were right. I used Wet Edges. That was the cause of the transparecy of the brush. I searched the brush setups only in the brush window,
but it was in the top line in the context toolbar on the right side... and there´s also the 'protect transparecy' function, that i was searching for.

I solved the problem with Image and Pixel Layers.

NotMyFault you were right, with the experience thing. When i was searching for solutions for my problems, i searched like i was working with other programms,
but Affinity is different here and there and so i wasn´t open to take a closer look in the programm. Thanks.

I still got the problem with the quick sketches and the ´slow drawing tool´. Today i ain´t got time for a screen recording, but i will make one in the next week.
Thank you both. Your posts were very helpful.

 

[walt.farrell]

You're welcome. Happy to have helped you make progress  

[BBG3]

 

On 9/2/2024 at 4:09 AM, comickrempel said:

I still got the problem with the quick sketches and the ´slow drawing tool´.

I have the same problem, and I'm looking for a solution. 

[BBG3]

If you have even a vector object on your artboard, you will experience lag. * Please don't judge my handwriting; I will fix it later. 🤪

 

 

[BBG3]

I've found there is no lag at all in Affinity Publisher!!!

[walt.farrell]

4 hours ago, BBG3 said:

If you have even a vector object on your artboard, you will experience lag.

Please let us see the Artboard content in the Layers panel. Exactly where the Pixel layer is can be important. There is at least one "lag" bug associated with having the Pixel layer inside a Group within an Artboard (or other vector object).

[BBG3]

19 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

the Artboard content in the Layers panel

Sometimes, having one vector object on an artboard causes lag in pixel drawing, but it didn't happen this time. It started to lag after adding more artboards. I've attached my test file.

I found that if I open the same file in Affinity Publisher and draw with Photo Persona, I will face the same issue, but if I make a new file in AP and copy and paste everything from AD to AP, everything will work well without any issues.

Affinity Designer_2024.09.05_Wacom_Lag.afdesign