Reasons for Switching Back to Photoshop

[Tyler Bay]

Hey everyone,

 

I don't like to say it, but today I went back to Photoshop for my work due to a few features that are lacking in Affinity.  I really want to return back to Affinity and upgrade to v2, but there's a few things that have added up for my workflow that just don't cut it right now.

 

1.  Affinity Photo doesn't allow for full screen mode (and I mean FULL screen) - I need this because I often create diagrams for teaching.  This requires that I record my screen, and I need to have everything but the work area hidden.

2.  The magic wand tool doesn't perform as well as Photoshop does.  With photoshop, I can most often click the tool, click the area I want to cut out, press delete, and it gives me a pretty clean cutout every time.  With Affinity, you have aliasing issues along the edge and the refine selection performs slowly + has a hard time giving me crisp looking results even after adjusting.

3.  Converting 32 bit images to 16 or 8 is complicated and difficult to achieve.  With Photoshop, I can click the defaults and everything looks the same when I convert.  With Affinity, I need to remember a complicated, multi-step process each time I want to convert from 32 to 8 bit when exporting a render from a 3D application.  I can do it, but it's always a huge pain when I need to remember all the OCIO conversions, ICC display transforms, and complications that need to take place.

4.  It's not as easy to blend layers based on tonal ranges as it is with Photoshop.  In photoshop, you can double click a layer and and adjust the black / white sliders to exclude or include tonal ranges non-destructively with clipped and feathered values.  With Affinity, I've found it much more difficult to control this, and defining tonal zones isn't as easy as it is in Photoshop.

5.  Pressing shortcut keys multiple times will cycle through all the variants of a tool, and it's not something I've been able to get used to.  Often, I'll be in a tool already and hit the hotkey again by mistake.  Then, I'll try to use the tool, it doesn't work as I expect it, and I have to undo and spam the hotkey again to get back to the variant of the tool I'm looking for.  I've tried to get used to it, but after years of using Affinity, it's still annoying.

 

I'd love to see these improvements in the future, and if it happens, I'll gladly switch back to Affinity again.  But, for now, these user experience / feature issues are adding up for me.  I just want to let you all know what's up before I leave.

 

All the best,

 

-  Tyler

 

 

[Pšenda]

4 hours ago, Tyler Bay said:

Pressing shortcut keys multiple times will cycle through all the variants of a tool, and it's not something I've been able to get used to.  Often, I'll be in a tool already and hit the hotkey again by mistake.  Then, I'll try to use the tool, it doesn't work as I expect it, and I have to undo and spam the hotkey again to get back to the variant of the tool I'm looking for.  I've tried to get used to it, but after years of using Affinity, it's still annoying.

Just change the settings in Preferences.

https://affinity.help/photo2/English.lproj/pages/Workspace/preferences.html

[Tyler Bay]

Thank you for the tip Psenda!  I had been looking through the "Hotkey" options and missed that checkbox.

 

Cheers

[James Ritson]

19 hours ago, Tyler Bay said:

Hey everyone,

 

I don't like to say it, but today I went back to Photoshop for my work due to a few features that are lacking in Affinity.  I really want to return back to Affinity and upgrade to v2, but there's a few things that have added up for my workflow that just don't cut it right now.

 

1.  Affinity Photo doesn't allow for full screen mode (and I mean FULL screen) - I need this because I often create diagrams for teaching.  This requires that I record my screen, and I need to have everything but the work area hidden.

2.  The magic wand tool doesn't perform as well as Photoshop does.  With photoshop, I can most often click the tool, click the area I want to cut out, press delete, and it gives me a pretty clean cutout every time.  With Affinity, you have aliasing issues along the edge and the refine selection performs slowly + has a hard time giving me crisp looking results even after adjusting.

3.  Converting 32 bit images to 16 or 8 is complicated and difficult to achieve.  With Photoshop, I can click the defaults and everything looks the same when I convert.  With Affinity, I need to remember a complicated, multi-step process each time I want to convert from 32 to 8 bit when exporting a render from a 3D application.  I can do it, but it's always a huge pain when I need to remember all the OCIO conversions, ICC display transforms, and complications that need to take place.

4.  It's not as easy to blend layers based on tonal ranges as it is with Photoshop.  In photoshop, you can double click a layer and and adjust the black / white sliders to exclude or include tonal ranges non-destructively with clipped and feathered values.  With Affinity, I've found it much more difficult to control this, and defining tonal zones isn't as easy as it is in Photoshop.

5.  Pressing shortcut keys multiple times will cycle through all the variants of a tool, and it's not something I've been able to get used to.  Often, I'll be in a tool already and hit the hotkey again by mistake.  Then, I'll try to use the tool, it doesn't work as I expect it, and I have to undo and spam the hotkey again to get back to the variant of the tool I'm looking for.  I've tried to get used to it, but after years of using Affinity, it's still annoying.

 

I'd love to see these improvements in the future, and if it happens, I'll gladly switch back to Affinity again.  But, for now, these user experience / feature issues are adding up for me.  I just want to let you all know what's up before I leave.

 

All the best,

 

-  Tyler

 

 

Hi Tyler, thanks for your feedback. Regarding the points you've raised:

1. Are you on Windows? I ask because macOS has a very usable full screen mode. When I do Windows screen recording, I hide the taskbar at the bottom (you can right click, as I remember, to get to taskbar options, and there's a setting you can enable to auto-hide it). Combined with using the full-screen button, this gives you a completely app-focused screen for recording.
2. Have you tried enabling Antialiasing on the context toolbar at the top? It's disabled by default, but for 2.6 we're experimenting with having it on by default (available in the 2.6 beta now).
3. Yes, if you're using OCIO things are a bit tricky at the moment. Do you need OCIO for your workflow? It's primarily intended for look dev, where you're retouching linear stills (either from raw footage or 3D renders) and are going to export back to EXR. For everything else, the recommendation is to use ICC Display Transform, as this will match when exporting/converting to gamma encoded 16-bit or 8-bit. If you're converting down to 16-bit or 8-bit with the intention of editing further, then you would also want to flatten your document or at least use Merge Visible—otherwise, adjustments, filters and blending operations will composite differently as they'll be operating in non-linear gamma as opposed to linear.
4. Have you looked at Blend Ranges, and/or the live Luminosity mask? Both of these options will give you detailed control over how layers blend based on tonal range. Or is there another workflow that Photo is missing?
5. As @Pšenda has mentioned above, the tool cycling is optional and can be switched off.

Hope the above was helpful, and thanks again!

[fde101]

10 hours ago, James Ritson said:

I ask because macOS has a very usable full screen mode

Yes, and it is great for what it is, but even after using the tab key to hide the UI, there is still a status bar at the bottom.  This doesn't match the OP's stated requirement:

On 12/18/2024 at 11:20 PM, Tyler Bay said:

I need to have everything but the work area hidden

 

I suspect from what the OP described that this is an attempt to treat the application as a poor man's presentation tool and bypass the video editing stage (or the OP is working live).

[Tyler Bay]

16 hours ago, James Ritson said:

Hi Tyler, thanks for your feedback. Regarding the points you've raised:

1. Are you on Windows? I ask because macOS has a very usable full screen mode. When I do Windows screen recording, I hide the taskbar at the bottom (you can right click, as I remember, to get to taskbar options, and there's a setting you can enable to auto-hide it). Combined with using the full-screen button, this gives you a completely app-focused screen for recording.
2. Have you tried enabling Antialiasing on the context toolbar at the top? It's disabled by default, but for 2.6 we're experimenting with having it on by default (available in the 2.6 beta now).
3. Yes, if you're using OCIO things are a bit tricky at the moment. Do you need OCIO for your workflow? It's primarily intended for look dev, where you're retouching linear stills (either from raw footage or 3D renders) and are going to export back to EXR. For everything else, the recommendation is to use ICC Display Transform, as this will match when exporting/converting to gamma encoded 16-bit or 8-bit. If you're converting down to 16-bit or 8-bit with the intention of editing further, then you would also want to flatten your document or at least use Merge Visible—otherwise, adjustments, filters and blending operations will composite differently as they'll be operating in non-linear gamma as opposed to linear.
4. Have you looked at Blend Ranges, and/or the live Luminosity mask? Both of these options will give you detailed control over how layers blend based on tonal range. Or is there another workflow that Photo is missing?
5. As @Pšenda has mentioned above, the tool cycling is optional and can be switched off.

Hope the above was helpful, and thanks again!

Hey James,

Thank you for the detailed reply.  I do have the taskbar hidden, and when I do fullscreen mode, there are still the top and bottom bars visible on the screen.  When recording live video, that means I need to crop it in and degrade the quality of the video in order to only show what's on the canvas.  In photoshop, they have a presentation mode that removes everything on the screen except for the canvas, however, the fullscreen mode in Affinity doesn't seem to have that option.

With the anti-aliasing, is that a new feature in v2?  I've been using v1 and haven't upgraded to v2 yet in Affinity.

With OCIO, what I'd like to accomplish is this:  1. Render out an exr.  2. Pop it into Affinity for some 32 bit edits  3.  Send out a jpg to display on web or send a co-worker an image file that's easily accessible.  The problem comes in when going from 32 down to 8 bit.  In photoshop, the solution is... 1. Select the 8 bit format and 2. Change the "Method" setting to "Exposure and Gamma."  And the colors / tones will remain consistent.  In Affinity, you need to go through a lot of complications in order to compensate for the ICC Transform, and it's always difficult to remember how to do this because the OCIO transform options are a mile long with options.  I've been able to get this working with a combination of OCIO transforms + baking the layer to compensate for the transform that occurs with the ICC, but it's always a big pain in my workflow when I'm just trying to send out a rendered image real quick. 

With blend ranges and/or live luminosity masks, I don't see this as an option when making an adjustment layer or under the layer fx options.  Would this be a new feature in v2 as well?  Or is this located somewhere else?

The tool cycling is a big help as well.  I was looking under the hotkey options for that, but it's good to know where that is now.

 

Thank you again for the help, have a nice day,

 

-  Tyler

 

[Tyler Bay]

5 hours ago, fde101 said:

Yes, and it is great for what it is, but even after using the tab key to hide the UI, there is still a status bar at the bottom.  This doesn't match the OP's stated requirement:

 

I suspect from what the OP described that this is an attempt to treat the application as a poor man's presentation tool and bypass the video editing stage (or the OP is working live).

Yeah, it's exactly that - I'm recording video and revealing layers as I'm teaching.  It works much better than a powerpoint presentation because I can just design everything I need and not worry about re-assembling everything again in powerpoint.

Outside of that though, I imagine this would be a requested feature for times when a photographer wants to show clients their work.  Isolating the canvas without anything else does look cleaner than having bars on the top / bottom.

[PaoloT]

6 hours ago, fde101 said:

an attempt to treat the application as a poor man's presentation tool

In any case, that sticky toolbar is annoying even if just wanting to work in a screen that is entirely devoted to the image, with no tools in the way.

Paolo

 

[PaoloT]

49 minutes ago, Tyler Bay said:

I've been using v1 and haven't upgraded to v2 yet

Keep in mind that v2 is much more advanced than v1. It might not solve all your issues (or it might even introduce some new ones…), but it is in general a much worthier set of programs.

Paolo

 

[fde101]

21 hours ago, Tyler Bay said:

I imagine this would be a requested feature for times when a photographer wants to show clients their work

Affinity Photo would not be my choice of tool for that because it is a single-image-document editor.  I would be using a DAM-like app with a catalog so I could quickly switch among different images.

[PaulEC]

22 hours ago, Tyler Bay said:

I imagine this would be a requested feature for times when a photographer wants to show clients their work. 

I would think that most serious photographers would use dedicated presentation software to show their work to clients, not codge something in a photo editor! 

[Tyler Bay]

I've been on a shoot before where the photographer used a full screen window in photoshop to go over some edits.  It was a couple days of shooting, he had done some skin smoothening edits that received feedback from the director, he quickly pulled up the edit file while the director was there, popped the canvas over to the other screen, and went full screen mode to adjust it right on the spot.

Also, anyone who digitally paints would appreciate a full screen mode as well.  The point is - full screen mode should be full screen and not partially full screen.  I'm sure there's other uses for this that myself (or you) are not even thinking of right now as well.

[PaulEC]

To me there is a difference between wanting a "full screen" to see an image as large as possible, maybe so people who you are working with can see the latest edit, and when you're showing off your work to clients. In the second case I would certainly choose to use dedicated display software. However, in the first case, if you're discussing an image with colleagues, I don't see why it's a problem to have a title bar and scroll bars on the screen, which can easily be done with a two screen setup with APhoto.

[PaoloT]

8 hours ago, PaulEC said:

I don't see why it's a problem to have a title bar and scroll bars on the screen

I can only speak for myself, and will say that it makes a huge difference. Like a fly on a painting. Do you remember Giotto and Cimabue?

 

[Fixx]

I also prefer to use Photoshop as workflow there is generally much simpler. I though like to do advanced compositing in Affinity Photo.