Jump to content
You must now use your email address to sign in [click for more info] ×

AP new handling and functional features


Recommended Posts

Here's a tiny list of topics within Affinity Photo for Windows I'd like to address as important improvements that need implementation from a professional photographers point of view (Based on version 1.5.1.54 Final). I'm aware that some points have been mentioned by other useres already. It would be great to get some kind of feedback from serif staff with regards to the likelyhood of implementation. I'll try to extend this list when new topics come up. Please do not see most of these points as "nice to have" additions or "customer dreaming", but essential improvements required(!) for any kind of professional workflow. The list does not cover obvious minor or major bugs as they get tracked by serif staff anyhow I suppose. As well I'm aware that some of my suggestions have already internally been rejected and implemented differently as "By Design" - maybe there's a chance to reconsider this decisions. A suggestion could be to start a discussion in the forum with your customers to see what's their preferred way to handle the implementation.

Basic workflow/Window handling:
- When undocking a document window from the workspace it should automatically adapt document window to document size (or maximum window size with scrollbars if document is larger) - maybe selectable in the preferences
- When zooming in or out a document window size should automatically adapt to document size (or maximum window size with scrollbars if document is larger) - maybe as a setting selectable in the preferences
- After resizing an undocked window the document shoud automatically be centered within the new window dimensions
- One should be able to drag and drop a layer from one document into another document (not just with CTRL+c CTRL+v)
- The area where one can grab the frame of a window for resizing shoud be enlarged

- Pressing ENTER or ESC should confirm or cancel a dialog - as defined in windows UI standards (e.g. in crop mode none of the keys work)

Macros:
- (multiple) layer selection should be recordable
- colour assignment to objects should be recordable
- for macros it would be good if resizing of a document could be based on a maximum side lenght regardles if the document is landscape or portrait
- Make conditional decisions available (e.g.: IF (DocHight > DocWidth) THAN ... ELSE ...) Alternatively include some kind of JavaScript language.
- Include "Export" functionality with parameters as part of Macro recording

- Add customizable keyboard shortcuts to dedicated macros

Other:
- it would be important to be able to make a selection based on a colour(range) (including tolerance, adding and subtracting from a previously chosen colour range) - not only based on the 3 base colour as currently implemented.
- if unproportional cropping is selected it would be good to temporarily switch to "original proportion" cropping or fixing the current proportion by pressing the Alt or Ctrl key
- optional parameter adaption for certain filters (e.g. gaussian blur) when resizing a document to fit the new dimensions. Currently unadapted parameters of these filters wreck every document after resizing.
- icon size in the layer panel should be definable (similar to PS where 3 sizes are available)
- I'd prefere to have one common command (keyboard shortcut) for the brush size and not a seperate one for each tool.
- Saving setting and content for parameter fileds and pathes would save much time. Just some exaples:
    1) Export preferences (They are continuously back to stupid *.png instead my predefinde personal settings ...)

    2) Parameter for live filters (e.g. gaussian blur or unsharp mask)
    3) Parameter for fx settings
    4) Cropping Mode (setting keeps switching back to useless "unconditioned")

    5) Resize method (e.g. bilinear/bicubic) - at least the standard setting should be something usable instead of bilinear!
- Assistant settings should be global and part of the preferences (e.g. adding new layers on same levels as selected layer or as a child)
- Make all variables available in fields that allow calculations (e.g. transforming)
- Make the frequency layer seperation parameters editable like in live filters

- Increase maximum size of liquify brush
- Increase parameter range of many FX settings

- Would like to save a list of export settings (Slices) as one preference in the Export persona
- a proper "flatten image" and "flatten group" command would be nice (combining layer in AP is not intuitive and effortless at all! Just take a look how PS does it ...)

- auto-adapt parameters of filters when scaling objects (e.g. gaussian blur, fx-settings)

- in low resoloution the fx parameters are by far not precise enough (e.g. a picture with 800x600px can't deal wit a shadow in a watermark between 0.1 and 0.0 px-precision)

- make live adjustments/filters masks directly visible as an overlay.
- When a graphic in the OS (e.g. Windows) is copied via CTRL-C it would be great when clicking on "new document" within AP the dimensions of the clipboard picture would be automatically copied as a preset for this new document
- assistant should add new layer even when flood fill tool is used

- Numerical scaling through the transformation dialog should optionally allow scling of textsize in related objects as well.

- Would be nice to display Colour Mode and bit depth behind the filename in the document window (as PS does it)

- Help files often does not open (wrong focus, dialog open that does not recognise help key)

- include "AutoClip" option in filters that change document or layer dimensions (e.g. most of the distortion filters)

- A new document should automatically have a pixel layer as the background layer (alternatively all tools that require a pixel layer should automatically add this layer - maybe an extension of the assistant)

- Metadata Editor (This is a high priority for everyone supplying stock content)

- Flood Fill with bitmap pattern

- Include a small button next to the fg/bg colour circle to reset it to black/white
- Global definition of standard grid setting

- Definition of standard output profile from the develop persona
- Provide picture thumbnails in Windows File Explorer

- Spiral Tool

- Improved Transform panel functionality (e.g. radius for circles)

 

Performance:
- Serious improvement of InPainting tool performance!

- Multiple layer performance

Cheers,

Timo

CRM.png.a048d588572393102ac3cc403bfa8af7.png

 i7-12700KF, 3.60 GHz, 32GB RAM, SSD, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070, Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet, Windows 11 Pro - AP, AD and APublisher V1 and V2
https://www.timobierbaum.com

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...
  • 10 months later...

Now it's been a year that I posted this list of improvement suggestions ... looking back hardly any one of them has found it's way into the latest beta. No one of the serif staff could even be bothered to comment on one of the topics for over a year. I should sign in as a new user for each suggestion I make ... So what is it supposed to tell me: all suggestions are useless crap? We hear you but we ignore you? I'm just trying to get the message behind it ... (an no, I do nor expect that everything I suggest should be implemented - but at least it would be nice to understand why from my perspective sensible suggestions are ignored or simply discarded)
I'll try to split up my suggestions again into seperate topics (as I started a sepeate "window" topic already - until now fully uncommented) ... not very encouraging!

CRM.png.a048d588572393102ac3cc403bfa8af7.png

 i7-12700KF, 3.60 GHz, 32GB RAM, SSD, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070, Wacom Intuos 4 Tablet, Windows 11 Pro - AP, AD and APublisher V1 and V2
https://www.timobierbaum.com

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Guidelines | We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.