Affinity Photo 2.6.0 (2984) - Smudge Brush Tool broken behaviour (artifacts/glitches)

[paolo.limoncelli]

Hi there,

I reported this bug in the past, but it seems the recent update has caused it to resurface.

My system

Affinity Photo 2.6.0 (2984)

Mac Studio 2023

Apple M2 Ultra

macOS 14.7.1 

Wacom Cintiq 27" QHD (DTK-2700) Driver 6.4.8-2

Simply take the Smudge Brush tool and use any brush that supports pressure to reveal areas displaying a central square, smudged with alpha, even when the area itself is a different color.

 

An educated guess: I don't believe this is related to the recent propagation of Wet Edges setting, as shown in the video above, the issue persists even when Wet Edges is disabled, and Wet Edges is the only "new" feature for his kind off tool since 1.X I guess...

It is like the very first click is picked from an empty (transparent) area, regardless cursor's position.

I'll try to explain.

Below you can see this behaviour using a mouse and a debug brush.

The image here consists of two layers: a dark blue background layer and a top layer with red and yellow areas.

The Smudge Tool, should smudge so it is meant to blend or displace existing pixels on a layer, and this video shows how it works

When I select the top layer and use the Smudge Tool, I'm basically "sampling" the area I clicked and transferring that data elsewhere. For instance, if I click in an "empty" (transparent) area and then click on a filled (colored) area, the tool behaves like an eraser, transferring the transparency sampled earlier onto the coloured area.

Logically, if I click on a transparent area, nothing should happen when smudging elsewhere, anyway it makes sense if you want to bring "transparency in", you're gradually mixing with transparency (basically erasing).

Also, the exact opposite happens if I click on a coloured area and click outside, acting like a stamp/cloning tool.

And this makes sense, since the the engine is gradually blending towards transparency the area that has been sampled.

Using a graphic tablet now the artifacts shown in the first video can be consistently replicated and undisclosed.

A the end of the video I'm turning off the blue layer to show the erased areas.

By reducing the brush spacing, the behaviour becomes more logical; however, the initial sampling of transparent areas and the resulting erasure should not be there since I'm starting from a filled/opaque area.

And this is exactly what happens in the first video.

Am I wrong?

Cheers,

Paolo

 

 

[paolo.limoncelli]

Also... Just to add further information.

Moving strength up to 100% on a simple opaque pixel layer the Smudge Brush acts as a pure eraser...

So for some reasons it is sampling transparent pixels for the very first click, no matter where you are.

 

 

 

[Pauls]

I've been able to recreate some blocky textures so far but it's not as bad as your examples shown. Are you using a mouse or graphics tablet in the videos ?

Also when you get the chance can you try with the use Internal GPU option enabled as well to see if the behaviour is any different

[Affinity Info Bot]

An issue raised in this thread ("Blocky Textures using Smudge tool") has now been reported to the developers by the testing team (Ref: AF-5391). Thank you very much for reporting this issue to us.

[paolo.limoncelli]

On 12/22/2024 at 7:05 PM, Pauls said:

I've been able to recreate some blocky textures so far but it's not as bad as your examples shown. Are you using a mouse or graphics tablet in the videos ?

Also when you get the chance can you try with the use Internal GPU option enabled as well to see if the behaviour is any different

 

Both, tablet's interpolation and spacing make things a bit hidden, but as you can see from the first video it is there.

Will check the CPU/GPU settings and let you know!

Cheers!

[Affinity Info Bot]

The issue "Blocky Textures using Smudge tool" (REF: AF-5391) has been fixed by the developers in the latest beta build (2.6.0.3058). The fix 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 @Affinity Info Bot to notify us.

[JaneV]

Hi I've just downloaded 2.6 and my smudge tool has changed dramatically, it is acting like liquify or by moving the selection around or and not smudging, and blending, it also is not consistant.    Is there a way I can change it back to how it was before the update?   Thanks

[Art51]

I agree with @JaneV. It's quite a dramatic change from how I expect it to behave and, indeed, how it behaved in previous releases.

Are you experiencing the same @paolo.limoncelli?

[JaneV]

@paolo.limoncelli  I've just installed a back up to not have the new version, I cannot produce decent work with it; I use smudge to perfect edges in cut outs, I use smudge for blending blemishes, it's more important to me than the new Ai features, it's not even mentioned that it has been changed, nor is there an option to revert to the brush that worked.

 

[Art51]

It's a pretty big change for artists. I use Affinity Photo primarily for illustration/art creation and the smudge brush is fundamental to my work as well. I agree with your comment it is now functioning more akin to a liquify tool regardless of how I modify the settings.

Perhaps @Pauls might have some news about the updates?

[paolo.limoncelli]

@JaneV @Art51 @Pauls

On my side all works fine now... The behaviour has not changed (still the same since 1.0) and glitches are gone.

 

 

 

As you can see, it is a blender not a liquify tool... 😀

Did you set strenght to 100% maybe?

If you force it to work a 100% it goes towards the "liquify behaviour", to act like a blender I suggest to set strenght somewhere between 25-50%.

Also, to make it "spread" colours around you need to set you brush to work with jitters (scatter X and Y)  and low spacing.

Maybe if you share a video of the process/results and the brush you're using, I can try to help.

[Art51]

Thanks for your feedback @paolo.limoncelli

Unfortunately, I don't have a video of how the Smudge tool behaved in 2.5.7 so I'm unable to show a comparison of the same brush settings in both 2.5.7 and 2.6.0, but as my brush presets haven't changed I have noticed the Smudge tool doesn't behave the same. No doubt there has been some tweaking by the developers to remove the glitch artefacts and so the character of the tool has seemingly been modified somewhat. Specifically, it's more aggressive in picking up pigment even at comparatively low strength settings.

[paolo.limoncelli]

3 hours ago, Art51 said:

Thanks for your feedback @paolo.limoncelli

Unfortunately, I don't have a video of how the Smudge tool behaved in 2.5.7 so I'm unable to show a comparison of the same brush settings in both 2.5.7 and 2.6.0, but as my brush presets haven't changed I have noticed the Smudge tool doesn't behave the same. No doubt there has been some tweaking by the developers to remove the glitch artefacts and so the character of the tool has seemingly been modified somewhat. Specifically, it's more aggressive in picking up pigment even at comparatively low strength settings.

Maybe I've spotted a new bug... 

It seems that Spacing of Smudge Tool is somehow forced to 1% and cannot be modified...

 

 

This could be the cause... Let's wait @Pauls feedback on this...

In the mean time I've reported this bug here

 

[Affinity Info Bot]

An issue raised in this thread ("Affinity Photo 2.6.0 (3134) - Smudge Brush Tool forces spacing to 1% and blocks editing") has now been reported to the developers by the testing team (Ref: AF-5991). Thank you very much for reporting this issue to us.

[Art51]

@paolo.limoncelli You've nailed it. It is indeed a result of 2.6.0 forcing the spacing to 1%. My default Smudge brush has spacing of 10% but it is forced to 1% in this release. (My strength setting of 50% has not changed)

I imagine the 1% locked spacing was the method used to minimise the artefacts per the topic of this thread.

In earlier releases, when I have spacing set to 10% there are echo artefacts when I first brush over an edge etc. however further smudging removes the echo. This is the behaviour I expected with spacing at 10% as it leaves some pigment in place.

When the spacing is at 1% all the pigment (or blank space) is picked up and moved/smudged. The echo is eradicated but at the cost of too much pigment being lifted and shifted.

Ideally, the smudge tool needs to leave some pigment (or blank space) in place whilst dragging some over the new area.

I reinstalled 2.4.1 and recorded a video for comparison. The brush used in each is my own Smudge brush with spacing set to 10%. I did not modify it when I upgraded to 2.6.0. I have increased the brush width/size to 200px in each.

This is in 2.4.1:

 And here's 2.6.0:

 

 

[Art51]

This is a good reminder for me to not export my brushes (which I do in order to back them up) as 2.6.0 might have changed some settings I'm not yet aware of, particularly in brushes I haven't used in a while.

[Frozen Death Knight]

As an artist, the new method is a lot better for blending and it has reduced a lot of the artefacts that came with the tool like how it broke the alpha with transparency artefacts on completely opaque layers. Still some issues as I have reported on previously, but a lot better compared to previously. Smudging now behaves more like Krita smudging, which has a really good smudging algorithm.

All that being said, I can understand if someone would like to have the old behaviour back in some way, because the results can be very different. Personally I vastly prefer the results of the new smudging over the old one. The forced spacing is indeed weird however.

[Art51]

Indeed, the forced spacing is the whole issue.

[Art51]

@paolo.limoncelli @Pauls It seems that if you enter the Edit Brush panel by control-clicking the brush and selecting Edit Brush you 'may' be able to change the spacing. But not always. It seems hit and miss.

However, if you double-click the brush to enter the Edit Brush panel the Smudge tool spacing will be stuck at 1%.

See the second video here (you can see the brush spacing is set to 10%):

 

[paolo.limoncelli]

9 hours ago, Frozen Death Knight said:

As an artist, the new method is a lot better for blending and it has reduced a lot of the artefacts that came with the tool like how it broke the alpha with transparency artefacts on completely opaque layers. Still some issues as I have reported on previously, but a lot better compared to previously. Smudging now behaves more like Krita smudging, which has a really good smudging algorithm.

All that being said, I can understand if someone would like to have the old behaviour back in some way, because the results can be very different. Personally I vastly prefer the results of the new smudging over the old one. The forced spacing is indeed weird however.

The new smudge tool works fine to me, but the way it has been solved compromises brush presets and performances too... 1% spacing with 1024px nozzles is an heavy load, and with sub-brushes or multiple nozzles things get even worse...

The old behaviour is good too, gives you more great flexibility, maybe put this as an option could be a win-win?

I only want those blocks/glitches away... 😅

[paolo.limoncelli]

10 hours ago, Art51 said:

In earlier releases, when I have spacing set to 10% there are echo artefacts when I first brush over an edge etc. however further smudging removes the echo. This is the behaviour I expected with spacing at 10% as it leaves some pigment in place.

Yes but it is not expected... I do not want to further smudge...

It forces us to apply an overdone blending.

Also, all presets looks broken.

 

 

[JaneV]

Great for discovering out what has happed with the forced spacing.  Its disappointing the changes have been enforced so we cant modify the brush to not just what we had before but what we want.  I can't produce work with this strong smudge, so I have gone back to 2.5 in the hope that future updates with change this.

Quote

 

 

[Affinity Info Bot]

The issue "Affinity Photo 2.6.0 (3134) - Smudge Brush Tool forces spacing to 1% and blocks editing" (REF: AF-5991) has been fixed by the developers in the latest beta build (2.6.2.3213). The fix 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 @Affinity Info Bot to notify us.

[JaneV]

Hi I have just downloaded 2.6.2.3213 and compared the smudge brush with the same settings in 2.5 and it is not fixed I still have a fundamental problem, the photo shows the same brush used in 2.5 and 2.6 the 2.6 brush is still working like liquify and is too strong picking up too much material and swishing it around not a gentle blend when moved slowly and when moved faster there is no response from the brush.  This brush is the tool I use most in my editing, and in nearly every photo I edit and it is not working as 2.5. I cannot use 2.6 unless this is fixed.  Oddly 2.5 lets me copy and paste here, beta version 2.6 does not.

[Chris B]

Hey @JaneV - I can see what you mean here. I've just carried out a few tests and can reproduce what you've down in your screenshots. 

I will log this with the developers.