Get back to Photoshop

[Mischugo]

I'm sorry but I'm going back to Photoshop. Too many functions. Unclear, Not flexible ... Plugins do not run cleanly or are not supported. I'm trying to edit an existing mask ... no success. Only errors. It costs all so infinitely much time. Move from one document to another? It does not work. Pallettes organizing works only in a part ... Everything simply not intuitive. It is as if you want to offer 1 million functions, but you can not manage to organize them. For each function you have to look in some tutorials. Working with my Intuos 4 is awful ... and really much more.

If you all are happy. Fine. For me not at this time.

[KiboOst]

Keep in minds it is a very new product that is compared to a 20years old standard and mature software. This alone is ever a success, that no other have.

 

Now yes, it really needs to mature in nearly all areas regarding flexibility and workflow efficiency in production. Lack tons of small things here and there to be effective. But I'm quite confident it will come. Settings not being saved, missing very basic features can make it feel like an unfinished product. I agree some stuff should be rearrange (assistant options itself should be in preferences, layer options in menus not being in contextual menu on layer panel is a bummer, etc). I think the Affinity team really need to listen professionals trying to get into the product.

 

We have achieve such maturity with Photoshop efficiency over decades that it's really hard to beat. Not a hazard it is still a standard without real competition. Tons of small things everywhere, shortcuts with shift/ctrl/alt combinations and contextual menus everywhere allow us to be very fast and effective with very rarely going into menus. It also have lot of customization option allowing lot of different use of the product, according to each preferences. This is such sort of efficiency/adaptation that really lack into AP, and where developers really need to listen feedback from professionals using such tools all day long. If they listen and enhance AP, it definitely have the potential to become a landmark in the industry. If not, it will just stay a gimp-bis. We all need to be patient regarding development of such product, Photoshop didn't make it in a few month ...

 

Regarding your Wacom problem, my intuos 3 is as responsive as in Ps, maybe check your driver version or such, there is other posts on this subject.

[tpf1952]

I too am having issues with AP and my tablet -- a Wacom 5 Touch. I can be working on AP document for either a few minutes or an hour and suddenly the pen freezes. The tablet controls (buttons) still work, but the stylus is out of action. Only cure is to restart the computer. I am using the latest Wacom drivers; my computer is a late 2016 MacBook Pro. 

 

Regardless, I'm sticking with AP as my Photoshop replacement. I'm with KiboOst: let's give the Affinity team a chance to let their applications to season. This is a development team that does listen and is working very hard to build a stellar application.

 

Tom

[PaulAffinity]

I am here to help make AP better than PS. Any monopoly is not good. I am willing to work around the minor issues. My personal opinion.

 

I hark back to the 80s and 90s when installs and getting software running took some effort.

 

Nowadays it appears that many folks want to click and run without any effort or work whatsoever. No appreciation of unique configurations... No willingness to explore, learn and research.

 

Too lazy even to search forums or check drivers etc.

 

I suppose it is an App world...

 

I salute the patience of Serif staff living with the cr*p they get in these forum posts.

 

P

[KiboOst]

+1000

Paul, a lot of people are with you, keep it good ;-)

[Patrick Connor]

Steady Paul, it's great that you are willing to participate the way you do, but Affinity Photos approach will not be to everyone's taste and that's fine. I don't particularly agree with what Mischugo says, but I defend wholeheartedly his right to give some feedback, particularly if he's not asking for a refund... Mischugo may reap the rewards by returning to APh in a more mature form, and to get there we need user's like yourself.

 

KiboOst, I just hope user's are as considerate of Publisher version one as you are of Photo version one. Many here are expecting something better than Quark and InDesign straight out of the gate, gulp.

[MartinK]

Too MANY functions? More than Photoshop? I can't believe.

[PaulAffinity]

Sure Patrick, which was why I stated, 'my opinion'.

 

If the OP had provided a more detailed appraisal and circumstances pertaining to the issues and failures of AP, as many folks spend their valuable time so doing I could appreciate the value of the post.

 

The OP however merely listed issues that may, or may not, be due to AP.

 

I doubt that any further 'maturity' of AP will tempt in certain users as per my 'app culture' statement.

 

IMHO if forum posts are merely a rant at AP without any supporting information or merit they should be removed.

 

You guys are the moderators, so good luck.

 

I will keep on using, enjoying, testing and feeding back.

 

Cheers, Paul

[Kuttyjoe]

I'm sorry but I'm going back to Photoshop. Too many functions. Unclear, Not flexible ... Plugins do not run cleanly or are not supported. I'm trying to edit an existing mask ... no success. Only errors. It costs all so infinitely much time. Move from one document to another? It does not work. Pallettes organizing works only in a part ... Everything simply not intuitive. It is as if you want to offer 1 million functions, but you can not manage to organize them. For each function you have to look in some tutorials. Working with my Intuos 4 is awful ... and really much more.

If you all are happy. Fine. For me not at this time.

Don't feel guilty about it. Photoshop is apparently an impossible act to follow. And it's not realistic to think that a 50 dollar program would be the one to challenge Photoshop. And I agree that Affinity software is quirky and there are lots of little things that don't do what they should. The Serif Plus line of products never got beyond that level of quality. Hopefully the Affinity stuff will be better.

[Kodiak]

… a very new product that is compared to a 20years old standard and mature software…

 

… it really needs to mature

 

… I'm quite confident it will come…

 

+1 +1 +1

 

I'm sticking with AP as my Photoshop replacement…

 

+1

 

I am here to help make AP better than PS. Any monopoly is not good.

 

+1000 too!

[verysame]

I'm sorry but I'm going back to Photoshop. Too many functions. Unclear, Not flexible ... Plugins do not run cleanly or are not supported. I'm trying to edit an existing mask ... no success. Only errors. It costs all so infinitely much time. Move from one document to another? It does not work. Pallettes organizing works only in a part ... Everything simply not intuitive. It is as if you want to offer 1 million functions, but you can not manage to organize them. For each function you have to look in some tutorials. Working with my Intuos 4 is awful ... and really much more.

 

If you all are happy. Fine. For me not at this time.

 

Too many functions, meaning...?

Not flexible, meaning?

Plugins: it's been stated several times already, plugins' support is not 100% there yet.

Editing an existing mask, no success: again, what's the issue? Editing masks can indeed feels different from what people is used to. That said, there are other similar posts on this very forum already solved. It only takes a minute to understand how it works, then it's a matter of habit. The more you use it, the better you get (as for everything, right?).

Not intuitive. You should expand on this topic because it really opens a can of worms. What is intuitive for you, could be totally counter-intuitive for someone else. Also, what you find intuitive could be only your habit to something you are used to, which surely took some time to get used to. So, perhaps, your definition of intuitive is better interpreted as "X doesn't work as Y", which is not the meaning of intuitive.

 

I agree with PaulAffinity: it's the era of the apps. Which is totally fine, no one forces anyone to use one particular program. But then, people should also be either more descriptive about the issues they find, or more honest and admit they are not willing to give up on their habits. But that has nothing to do with a program being ready for new users.

 

Perhaps I went through too many programs to know that a learning curve is always needed. That learning curve, though, is what gives me new ways to explore things I take for granted. If I want to stay in the comfort zone, why wander in other territories in the first place?

[Bri-Toon]

This is what I think. If working in the main Photo persona, everything to me seems pretty straight forward aside from a few new tools I'm not quite familiar with. That persona mostly makes sense to me. In the other three (not counting Export Persona), it gets confusing. I have to research what each tool for the other personas do, and I do not understand the difference between the Develop Persona and Tone Mapping Persona. I certainly don't doubt what each function can do, but there is a lot thrown at you compared to Designer. A lot of technical skills and terminology is needed.

[TheEyesHaveIt]

I think part of it is if you're coming from Photoshop, you need to revise your workflow to fit into AP's UI / layout / functionality. This is for better or worse. Maybe Serif should've kept things more similar to Photoshop in certain cases to ensure lower switching costs, but then perhaps they feel they are doing things in a more intuitive way.

 

I think the other thing is that Photoshop has a lot of cool features, but AP I believe has some unique ones as well. For example, being able to preview what is beneath a mask when you hover the brush without having to actually paint is pretty handy. I'm sure there are others, but I'm very new.

 

Having said all this, I too get very frustrated within AP because I'm using to Photoshop. Just as AP will continue to get better, we shouldn't forget that Photoshop will as well. AP will really never "catch up" in that sense. So they need to focus on efficiency and workflows that are more intuitive and useful for photographers. Right now, some basic stuff is missing there.

[SrPx]

I am an expert with Photoshop, know each corner of it, and even for several fields. And I still can't agree with the OP view at it, even while I agree is positive to hear all opinions. I don't find such issues, and when I find some obstacle, I dig the matter and find a workaround, which, as everything related to computers in my case , since 1985, it leads to never loose time in that again, you just earned your trick/technique for a particular workflow. In this I probably am saying sth similar to part of what Paul said.

 

I am still a bit surprised, I confess, when mentioned it being a tool hard to use or something, the UI for a Photoshopper like me makes me feel at home... And whatever is different, has enough logic to be guessed very, very fast. PS ain't perfect, either, despite the decades of perfecting, it has long time issues in it, too (we comic authors know this). True that whatever the issues, wouldn't be such for those of us having a "multiple applications" workflows kind of thing (and mindset) in place, where that A or B product's feature is not complete is never a problem, as whatever other of your apps will allow you to  solve it in the project. In general, though, is a mater of patience, or about being a long distance runner, or just fond of fast sprints (to be honest, some projects and some professional activities can't allow it. But then, the "come back later" is a good advice, even for those). Am in the former (patient grunt) group. But again, IMO is not a matter of considering an app for everything no matter what, but go integrating new tools in what you can (even while this might not fit everyone, and that's ok).  So I did with Blender, firstly only with rendering, and today I do a lot more with it (ie, character animation, physics simulation, etc). With Wings3D instead, which makes a perfect example of my point, it has no more features than organic or object modeling for mid-low (high with some suffering or a good PC) res cage. Still, it beats anything out there (my very personal POV) in what it does. I don't uv map with it (while has the feature,nicely).  I don't see why can't be a clever approach to use Affinity's in what you already can in your workflow, go as well including other projects steps as features go maturing, bugs fixing, etc. This is probably  the youngest pair of apps I have installed, I would not have ever expected other way, previous to purchasing or even to coming to these forums.

[SrPx]

AP will really never "catch up" in that sense

 

That you never know...While your logic is fine, and PS has an entire army behind, I've seen many large companies go the way of the Dodo (or products like Max that never dies(happily, is my tool in salary-staff jobs), but get some years perfectly "stuck"), I have purchased products licenses of large companies (Alias(I had a reduced version of XSI), RightHemisphere (Deep Paint 3D), Amorphium (~elder "zbrush", but other company, unrelated), Impulse's Organica, Caligari's Truespace...) taking a nice amount of dust on the shelves, as companies closed (or just closed the product line), no matter how big or promising they were (Photoshop IMo has only the danger of getting a bit "stuck", though.). And they costed me a lot more money each than multiplying per several factors the cost of all affinity's tools...

 

 

[Pollux]

Hallo,

@Mischugo
ja es gibt Ecken und Kanten, für mich aber kein Grund die Software nicht zu benutzen.

Das angesprochene Wacom Problem ist auch ohne Affinity, ein bekanntes Problem unter MacOs und Windows und hat mit der Software,

soweit mein Kenntnisstand rein gar nichts zu tun, eher Betriebssysteme.

Unter MacOS wurde von Adobe ein PlugIn für Photoshop  bereitgestellt, hilft aber auch nicht 100%.
Bei Windows 10 ist es Windows Ink ... ich spare mir da eine weitere Erläuterung.

Mit Wacom war es nie ein Problem zu arbeiten aber leider hat sich das unter beiden Systemen auf denen ich arbeite mit der Zeit verändert.

 

 

@KiboOst, PaulAffinity

meine volle Zustimmung zu euerem Beitrag!

Pollux

 

 

Hello,

@Mischugo
Yes there are corners, for me but no reason not to use the software.

The mentioned Wacom problem is synonymous without Affinity, a known problem under MacOs and Windows and has with the software,

as far as my knowledge to do nothing at all, operating systems.

Under MacOS, a plug-in for Photoshop was provided by Adobe, but also does not help 100%.
In Windows 10 it is Windows Ink ... I save myself because a further explanation.

With Wacom, it was never a problem to work but unfortunately this has changed under both systems on which I work with time.

 

@KiboOst, PaulAffinity

My full approval for your contribution!


Pollux

[Mischugo]

Thanks for the excited comments

 

Now I would like to report again. Of course I stayed with Affinity :-) It is not always as hot as it was written!

 

The functionality of AP and AD is out of competition. And yes, if one is used to working with Photoshop is the change is not so easy.

 

However, I would rather, instead of new functions, to optimize existing ones or even rethink them. Sometimes unpredictable things happen.

A selection can be deleted, sometimes simply not. A brush tip is set to soft, but does not paint so ....

Unfortunately, I can not explain so well in English, which is why a German-speaking support would be an advantage ... The export of a picture is made transparent, but is issued with background.

What I would like to say is, it dive, at least with me, too many "problems", which can not be immediately removed. But cost a lot of time.

 

Why I have not returned AP?

Because I believed it from the beginning. Therefore I was also one of the first who bought the program.

 

However, yesterday's crashes made me very angry. AP apparently does not backup (temp). The file is now destroyed, 5 hours of work is gone. Very annoying!

[SrPx]

IMO, it is a route of adoption of new software. Not every user is ready for that. I still remember very similar crashes with PS, as was not always as stable as it is today. So, it is a balance each user has to do ... More stability and more complete feature set? Or less of those benefits (for now) but no forced subscription and a crazy low price ? Depending a lot on how critical is what you need to do in your workflows with the feature set and stability already provided by ap or ad, it may be worth it or not. For drawing, I actually already prefer other tools than ps , but ap/ad are my future dominant tools for general raster and vectors, for sure. (in the non open source field). But yep, crashes can happen. 5 hours....Do you save often, with different named versions, etc ? I do so, even naming them after a special change or project stage... is way, way less likely to find yourself so with 5 hours of work lost. Indeed, working in companies one is always told to do so...(5 hours lost is 5 they paid... ;)  )