Photo Usability Improvements

[James Ritson]

12 minutes ago, aleale1 said:

Well, how do you toggle the selection method now? Previously, there was a great option to switch from full selection to partial selection and vice versa by pressing the right button. But in this latest version, this option has disappeared. Very sad.

Hi, which tool are you referring to? To my knowledge, I haven't taken any functionality away.

Marquee tools (Rectangular, Elliptical, Freehand): Shift to Add, Option/Alt to Subtract.

Flood Select tool: Shift to Add, Option/Alt to Subtract.

Row/Column tools: Shift to Add, Option/Alt to Subtract, CMD/Ctrl to do a range selection (increase width/height).

The "Add" behaviour was previously on the right mouse button for Windows. Mac didn't use this.

The one controversial change is related to constraining marquee selections, which was previously done with the Shift key (I'm considering ways to address this).

 

[aleale1]

Just now, James Ritson said:

Hi, which tool are you referring to?

I am referring to Move Tool and it's function, described by this setting: 

[Circulus]

4 minutes ago, James Ritson said:

The one controversial change

Also the object selection tool has no subtract function by Alt key which has been appointed to another function and is diverting from the regular modus.
And yes it is a new tool and not everybody will or can use it but consistency is the key word.

[James Ritson]

Just now, aleale1 said:

I am referring to Move Tool and it's function, described by this setting: 

Oh, I see—that's the marquee intersection modifier. That's been moved to the Ctrl key for parity with macOS. If in doubt, check out the hint line at the bottom of the screen, it will list modifiers available for each tool.

[nezumi]

Very cool changes regarding Image/RAW behavior - while we are at it, please, PLEASE - can you add that one option is settings "always rasterize bitmaps"? Not as default of course. I dont want to limit workflow of anybody. I just never,EVER, NOT ONCE find use of image/RAW.

All my work (and of my friend so there is at least two of us ) is done on rasterized material. So instead of adding separate options of behavior for different operations - can we just have one simple option: simply any bitmap that goes in is rasterized. For people who need it. Who doesn't - can happily keep image/RAW and whatnot they find useful.

PLEASE.

Did I mentioned... P-L-E-A-S-E?
😉

[Ron P.]

I hope they don't!! We need to stop with this childish begging for more features, more, more, more!! You stop and think about why their apps are getting so unstable? Probably not. They need to focus on fixing as many of the bugs that have plagued them for years now. So I'm saying NO

[bbrother]

On 12/16/2024 at 5:06 PM, Patrick Connor said:

CMD+Enter / Ctrl+Enter can now be used when actively editing text to "commit" the text input

Finally. I'm really happy to see this improvement. And what about this for example↓.

A lot of users are asking why the Align to: dropdown is being grayed out and that it's not so great to do so.

[Intuos5]

20 hours ago, Return said:

Perhaps you should run it by some real users and the excuse for the 4 vs 3 modifiers is just too lame.
You have hardcoded many shortcuts that could have been used and also other programs like Xara have implemented all functions to be set by the users.
They have many more functions and it is on windows only
Let the users decide and save in an ini/xml or propcol file or whatever but don't mix shortcuts for similar behavior.
And yes the adagium of by design and we decided is becoming stale.
I hope you can make the time for answering the users that are going to find these options confusing which you were trying to avoid.
And please stop mimicking adobe.

Honestly, Affinity should adopt Krita's Canvas Input settings, so users can setup the modifier behaviors as they like.

Besides, with the temporary tools, it should be possible to invoke a behavior with an alphanumerical key too - if the design is carried out further.

[Intuos5]

16 hours ago, blureogroup said:

Video editors, file browsers, and the largest design suite on the planet all use shift to add and alt to subtract. I’m pretty sure even Canva works that way.

Not doing things like otgers is not an argument for the decision being good.

I like opening my preferred design suite and expecting the same modifier workflow as every single other software on this planet.

CAD software often uses Ctrl to add and Shift to substract, so depending on what you use it's not exactly a single standard either.

[blureogroup]

17 hours ago, Return said:

Yes but Serif decided long ago to use shift for constraining in other parts of the affinities where it should be ctrl and now they implemented several mixed usage of the modifiers.

shift for this and ctrl for that and alt for this but not for that other tool makes people pulling hairs.

My point is the inconsistency between both the tools in the affinities and the outside world where this is making real users are tripping over these inconsistencies.

Other software have different uses of modifiers depending on context. Accepting that the most common activities are not the same when it comes to dragging vectors around and working with selections is a sign of maturity from the software. UX is primarily about users and their actions, not consistency for the sake of consistency.

[nezumi]

4 hours ago, Ron P. said:

I hope they don't!! We need to stop with this childish begging for more features, more, more, more!! You stop and think about why their apps are getting so unstable? Probably not. They need to focus on fixing as many of the bugs that have plagued them for years now. So I'm saying NO

Boo hoo! They added this features because we were asking for them. Which is great because unlike other companies they actually are listening to users. If anything I am asking for simplifying the whole thing down to one option instead of couple depending on situation. Also - for me its not unstable at all - using it daily for hours at the time, keeping it on when computer goes to sleep. ZERO problems. Not saying that's everybody's experience but also dont exaggerate. Fact that you say "NO" means nothing. I am not asking you, am I?

[blureogroup]

4 hours ago, Ron P. said:

I hope they don't!! We need to stop with this childish begging for more features, more, more, more!! You stop and think about why their apps are getting so unstable? Probably not. They need to focus on fixing as many of the bugs that have plagued them for years now. So I'm saying NO

Ever since switching to Affinity one year ago my experience has been that older bugs have been solved at a greater pace, while patches for new ones come almost instantly. Crashes in stable versions of the software (not beta) are also dramatically less frequent when compared to their main competitor. Man, I do NOT miss working in documents with a lot of artboards in Photoshop. People say stop comparing Affinity to Adobe, I reject that idea. In terms of performance, stability, and the workflow proposed by StudioLink Affinity is much better than Adobe, and it's really good that they're also ironing out some wrinkles when it comes to UX.

[paolo.limoncelli]

Thanks for these new fixes.

About this

 

On 12/16/2024 at 5:06 PM, Patrick Connor said:

Wet Edges is available on a number of brush tools on iPad. 

• Background Erase Brush
• Burn Brush
• Clone Brush
• Colour Replacement Brush
• Dodge Brush
• Erase Brush
• Healing Brush
• Median Brush
• Paint Mixer Brush
• Sharpen Brush
• Smudge Brush
• Sponge Brush
• Undo Brush

 

 

I don't know if this happened with this update but the Smudge Brush seems to be broken on macOS now.

Internal cycles (round brush) seem to be fine if you do not have Size Jitter (pressure) enabled, but texture intensity brushes generate artifacts/glitches in any case. I remember reporting this bug in the past, and it seemed to have been resolved. Now it appears to be back again.

A full explanation of what happens on my side is here with videos.

_________________

 

Another question.

Are these different builds, so we should not expect this feature in Photo for desktop maybe?

I'm asking this because the Wet Edges check box is not in the contextual bar for all listed tools.

 

Paolo

[Patrick Connor]

1 hour ago, paolo.limoncelli said:

....because the Wet Edges check box is not in the contextual bar for all listed tools.

I'm off for Xmas now but will look into this desktop discrepancy on my return. Thanks for bringing it up (and the glitching smudge tool)

[Alfred]

9 minutes ago, Patrick Connor said:

I'm off for Xmas now

Best wishes for Christmas and the year ahead.

[paolo.limoncelli]

13 minutes ago, Patrick Connor said:

I'm off for Xmas now but will look into this desktop discrepancy on my return. Thanks for bringing it up (and the glitching smudge tool)

No problems! 😀

Thank you and best wishes!

[Patrick Connor]

Additional usability improvements added in 2.6.0.3027 and above

1. Plugins can now be used on Image and RAW layers.
   • Instead of being greyed out and causing confusion, installed plugins can now be applied to Image and RAW layers, automatically rasterising them with a notification.
2. PDFs with no raster content now import at 300 DPI by default.
   • When importing PDFs that only contain vector data, e.g. line work (plans, diagrams), the “Estimate” DPI now defaults to 300 rather than 72.
     Many architecture workflows involve using bitmaps for texturing, and users will often import directly into Affinity, so the change ensures the PDF resolves to a much better pixel resolution for this kind of work. If they’re texturing in Designer with the Vector Flood Fill tool, this change is useful for that scenario too.
3. TIFF: Unassociated Alpha is now imported correctly, and a toast is displayed informing the user.
   • Straight/unassociated alpha support was added for V2, but a crash fix for 2.1 caused TIFFs with this tag to no longer import correctly. This has been fixed, and the user will also now be notified if their image contains unassociated alpha (communicating that it has been imported as a spare channel via a toast).
4. Parameterised macros no longer rasterise non-pixel layers when run.
   • The macro functionality doesn’t actually need to rasterise when parameters are exposed to the user, so this has been changed.
5. Prevent non-pixel layer rasterisation when using Ctrl+Option / Ctrl+Alt brush modifier.
   • If the user activates the brush parameters modifier with an Image or RAW layer selected, it now no longer rasterises it (or creates an enclosed mask, as part of the usability improvements).
6. Curves will render greyscale result immediately when colour model is changed to Grey.
   • Curves is now consistent with Levels: if you change the colour model to Grey, you will see the greyscale result immediately instead of having to manipulate a spline graph.