Affinity Photo 2.6 Mask in a group couses artifacts

[PKam]

Specs:

• Windows 11
• Affinity Photo 2.6
• Machine learning modules installed: Saliency and Segmentation
• Hardware acceleration: ON
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070

Description:
The issue can be fixed by turning off hardware acceleration, still creating topic as i had no problem like this in previous versions (only other thing that changed beside affinity version was installing machine learning modules).
When painting on a mask that belongs to a group, strange artifacts appear, as shown in the attached example.
The artifacts get worse the more complicated the layer is and depending on how much I zoom in, often edges of the artifacts get very saturated colors. Sometimes the artifacts will also persist until turning the whole group off and on again.

Steps to Reproduce:
This issue occurs even in new files.

1. Open a file.
2. Develop it.
3. Add an adjustment layer or create a new layer.
4. Group the adjustment or layer.
5. Add a mask to the group.
6. Paint on the mask – artifacts appear.

Everything works fine when the mask is applied to individual adjustments instead of the group

[JamesFrankel]

Yeah, having this problem too. Lots of weird pixels appearing where they shouldn't, especially when zooming in and out in a file with lots of groups and masks.

[DaleL]

Having very similar issue.  Trying to paint black on the mask and I got a totally different image showing up in the bottom left quarter of the main image, plus a long rectangle show up in the top right quandrant of the image.  I found that by clicking on the brush in the brush selection again, it started working fine.  

[Gnobelix]

Hello @PKam,

welcome to this forum.

The same problem here.
I solved it as follows.
Before you apply the mask to the group, set the group from Transfer to normal blend mode, and only then apply the mask. Now the mask should work as expected.
Hardware acceleration is active for me.
I hope this helps. 

Cheers

[DaleL]

It is not a mask on the group that is the problem.  After being on a mask in a group, I went to paint on a normal layer mask and that is where the weird stuff started happening.

Quote

 

 

[NathanC]

Welcome to the forums @PKam,

I've confirmed this issue is a regression over 2.5.7 and logged it with the developers, thanks for your report.

[shepal73976]

Is there a way to roll back to 2.5.7?

[DaleL]

Are you asking if I can roll back or if I should roll back to V2R5?  I do sill have the downloaded version of it in my download folder so yes, I could if I wanted.  Running into some other things that I need to replicate and document also.

 

[shepal73976]

Yeah, I would like to roll back, but I was more wondering if there was some way to rollback without taking the exe from a third party.

[Eirik H]

Thanks for bringing this up, @PKam. I've also had the same issues. Weird, super saturated fringing, glitchy, boxed shaped outlines, ghosting of parts of the image where it shouldn't be...

[Alfred]

5 hours ago, shepal73976 said:

Yeah, I would like to roll back, but I was more wondering if there was some way to rollback without taking the exe from a third party.

You can download Affinity Store versions of the installer executable from here:

https://store.serif.com/update/windows/photo/2

Click or tap on the ‘Previous versions’ heading to expand the list, and then choose the one you want.

 

[shepal73976]

Thank you, for your help! I also hope that this bug is fixed soon, but I can not be too critical because I know that these updates are free.

[lepr]

11 hours ago, shepal73976 said:

these updates are free.

Not really. You prepaid the updates when buying a licence.

[shepal73976]

13 hours ago, lepr said:

Not really. You prepaid the updates when buying a licence.

Well, I mean, in my case, I bought the license for the software out at the time and it’s a great plus for me that I get continued updates. So “In My Case” I’m getting updates for free…

[JamesFrankel]

Rollback isn't possible for me anymore, since I already have couple of projects started with v2.6.0, and realized all the bugs a bit too late. Really a wolf in sheep's clothing.

I'll try the beta version now to see if it fixes some of the issues.

Edit: Nope, it doesn't 😭

[Bartosz Borecki]

I've also noticed these artefacts while zooming on 2.6. with OpenCL ON. Even more than that, transparency is broken in semi transparent areas, as shown in my attachment -  you can see gray border around mask. But with OpenCL turned OFF everything works as it should.

 

[JamesFrankel]

1 hour ago, Bartosz Borecki said:

I've also noticed these artefacts while zooming on 2.6. with OpenCL ON. Even more than that, transparency is broken in semi transparent areas, as shown in my attachment -  you can see gray border around mask. But with OpenCL turned OFF everything works as it should.

Hi,

thanks for sharing!

I tried it just now and while turning off OpenCL does in fact get rid of the artifacts, somehow, the Recolor layers I've been using now look different than with OpenCL turned on... I did A/B tests with a "Merge Visible" layer from when OpenCL was turned on to make sure I wasn't imagining things, so yeah, sadly, the effect is real, and turning off OpenCL creates other problems for me 😔

[MEB]

Hi @Bartosz Borecki and @JamesFrankel,
I’ve bumped the report to bring it to the devs’ attention again. Hopefully this will be looked soon (only affects Windows).
Thanks for your feedback.

[LKB]

I have the same artefacts when I try to use luminosity mask. It is unusable since update 2.6 so I had to change my workflow. Could you advice when this is getting fixed?

 

[keiichi77]

artifacts here too

[Affinity Info Bot]

The issue "Painting on Grouped masks causes brush artefacts" (REF: AF-6223) has been fixed by the developers in the latest beta build (2.6.3.3273). 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.

[LKB]

 I can confirm that Artefacts problem, as reported in this forum, was fixed in the Beta. I can use hardware acceleration and do not experience it.  Unfortunately Photo still randomly crashes when I use hardware acceleration. That's a bigger problem preventing me from using hardware acceleration (OpenCL), see 

Please note that I did not experienced this crashes in the Designer so for the topic of this forum, this might not be fully relevant

[Bartosz Borecki]

1. Yes, I have noticed that when Open CL is ON artifacts issue is now gone in beta.

2. More than that, layers with masks are correctly blended with layers below, no strange gray border around semi-transparent areas (Open CL ON).

3. Grouped adjustment layers also blend correctly with layers below - again, no gray border around semi-transparent areas (Open CL ON).

This is great! 👍

 

4. One thing remains - adjustment layer blend ranges stop working if separate mask layer is added. But when using only built-in mask - blend ranges work correctly. When Open CL is turned OFF - both types of masks work correctly, also in Designer. So this is a bug.

 

I am working in Photo beta and Designer beta, sometimes with large projects and experienced a crash only once, probably in Photo, but I may be wrong. I am using latest Nvidia studio drivers, maybe this is also relevant.

 

[LKB]

The only place I now experience crashes is Photo RAW editor when changing lens corrections or sharpening ... so there is improvement but still not good. I have the latest drivers as well