How can I get history back?

[JuliaKading]

I have been using Affinity Designer for about a month. I was trying to look back into history so I used the slider in the history tab. I clicked on one of the items in the list and I was HORRIFIED to find that ALL of my work between then and now disappeared. HOURS of work that I can't get back. I even saved it previously but then when I went back into history and clicked on an item, it auto-saved and I lost everything.

 

Needless to say, I was furious. 

 

Why isn't it more intuitive how to work this? Can I get my work back?

[Callum]

Hi JuliaKading,

 

Welcome to the the Forums.

 

Your History/Document will only disappear if you make a change after moving the slider backwards as you have changed the history of your document. This means you never made any of the steps after the one you just edited.

I am sorry to hear that you lost some of your work I can only recommend making backups before you make any edits to the History tab. The program only auto saves if the app/computer crashes so it wouldn't have auto saved after you changed your history unless the app crashed but you will still have the option to use the Auto Save or go back to your most recently saved document once you re-open the app.

 

 

C

[MEB]

Hi JuliaKading,

Adding to what Callum said, you may also want to use Snapshots (menu View ▸ Studio ▸ Snapshots) to store specific stages of your work that you can revert back to/restore in case you want to experiment new things and aren't sure you will end up with a better result. Snapshots don't restore document's History but let's you get back to a specific stage you have saved if you need to.

[John Gass]

On 7/25/2016 at 11:32 AM, MEB said:

Hi JuliaKading,

Adding to what Callum said, you may also want to use Snapshots (menu View ▸ Studio ▸ Snapshots) to store specific stages of your work that you can revert back to/restore in case you want to experiment new things and aren't sure you will end up with a better result. Snapshots don't restore document's History but let's you get back to a specific stage you have saved if you need to.

This was helpful, thank you. there's always something to be learnt - especially for someone who uses Affinity products in their hobbies, not as a profession.

But here's a question - I kind of understand why stepping back through an image's editing history to point X makes any historical edits beyond that point somewhat nebulous but why isn't it ever possible to look back through the editing history and remove just one particular step?

As I see it, I can move freely through the history, backwards and forwards, until I choose a point in the history and then recommence editing. But why can't the software allow me to go back to a specific point in the editing process, remove one, regretted, action (in my case adding noise) and then automatically reapply all subsequent editing steps? I get that, for plug-ins and such, Affinity cannot have knowledge of what is done externally but, within the programs, couldn't the saved 'af' files contain all the necessary information?

[kaffeeundsalz]

6 minutes ago, John Gass said:

But why can't the software allow me to go back to a specific point in the editing process, remove one, regretted, action (in my case adding noise) and then automatically reapply all subsequent editing steps?

For the same reason you can't travel back in time and murder your grandmother: because it will produce a paradox or at least completely unpredictable results in most cases. The very definiton of history is that it's a chronological list of all your editing steps that all depend on each other. Affinity's behavior would just be way too chaotic if this was possible. For example, what if you used a reference layer for your clone brush and then later decide to delete that layer from your document history? Which layer should Affinity then use as the cloning source? And what is supposed to happen if you have nested adjustment layers and then remove their parent layer from a point in history before the child layers were created?

In your case, rather than scrubbing through document history, you can just select your noise layer at any point in time and delete it. Because you did use a separate noise layer, didn't you? A non-destructive workflow is key for not having to mess around with time and try to wipe out undesired events from the past. See also: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Year_of_Hell.

[John Gass]

5 minutes ago, kaffeeundsalz said:

For the same reason you can't travel back in time and murder your grandmother: because it will produce a paradox or at least completely unpredictable results in most cases. The very definiton of history is that it's a chronological list of all your editing steps that all depend on each other. Affinity's behavior would just be way too chaotic if this was possible. For example, what if you used a reference layer for your clone brush and then later decide to delete that layer from your document history? Which layer should Affinity then use as the cloning source? And what is supposed to happen if you have nested adjustment layers and then remove their parent layer from a point in history before the child layers were created?

In your case, rather than scrubbing through document history, you can just select your noise layer at any point in time and delete it. Because you did use a separate noise layer, didn't you? A non-destructive workflow is key for not having to mess around with time and try to wipe out undesired events from the past. See also: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Year_of_Hell.

Thanks for your reply. To add to the paradox, I had one grandmother I remember with great fondness but the other was venomous, so any opportunity to go back and change my history is complicated, to say the least!!!

But, as a result of your post, I've learnt two things today - the second being your advice about the importance of always looking for a way to edit non-destructively, even when Filters -> Noise -> Add Noise seems the obvious way to go. 

[carl123]

11 hours ago, John Gass said:

But why can't the software allow me to go back to a specific point in the editing process, remove one, regretted, action (in my case adding noise) and then automatically reapply all subsequent editing steps?

 

11 hours ago, kaffeeundsalz said:

For the same reason you can't travel back in time and murder your grandmother: because it will produce a paradox or at least completely unpredictable results in most cases.

1. Open a JPG file in APhoto
2. Add a triangle shape anywhere on the image
3. Switch to background layer
4. Filter > Noise > Add Noise (use maximum effect)
5. Add a 2nd and 3rd triangle to image
6. Select the background layer in the Layers panel
7. In history panel click the camera icon on the layer just before you added noise.
8. Select the Undo Brush Tool
9. Paint over image to remove the noise

Notice that the 2nd and 3rd triangles still exist - so we have selectively deleted a part of history without altering the future timeline

Time travel is a complicated subject which is why there are strict controls over who can travel back in time and what protocols they must adhere to but such paradoxes as not being able to murder your grandmother do not exist if you know the correct sequence of events that; have/may/will occur at a particular point in time.

PS You may be reading this today (10/1/21) but I actually wrote it 14 years from now in 2035

[firstdefence]

If you were on Mac, maybe Time Machine would have helped?

[kaffeeundsalz]

On 1/10/2021 at 8:16 AM, carl123 said:

Notice that the 2nd and 3rd triangles still exist - so we have selectively deleted a part of history without altering the future timeline

Just to avoid confusion: You have really just taken a known state of the image from the document history and used it as a brush source to paint on the currently selected layer. It's nothing more than that. Append the following steps to your instructions:

1. With the background layer still selected, go to Filter > Colors > Solarize.
2. Delete the triangles.
3. Select the step before solarizing as your undo brush source.
4. Paint over the background layer with the undo brush tool.

You'll see that this will indeed undo the solarization, but you'll also paint the triangles back in as pixel data to your background layer. I you don't happen to have a history step where your background layer is in the state you need it as the only visible layer in your composition, you're lost. I'm sure you might be able to alleviate the problem with the use of the alternate history feature. But it remains a rather makeshift approach given that you could have just solarized a copy of your background layer / added the noise as a live filter layer.