Observations by new user

[Lee.K]

Hi everyone,

 

I'm on the trial of Windows Affinity Photo and really hoped to be able to switch from Photoshop CC since my annual subscription is up for renewal very shortly. However, I've come across a few problems, most of which would just slow me down but one is a deal killer. Here's some observations I'd love to hear comments about (maybe ways around that I haven't found).

 

Comparisons to Photoshop CC 2017

Tests running on Windows 10 64-bit, i5-2500 CPU, 16 GB RAM, NVidia GTX 1050, Wacom Intuos Pen & Touch tablet

(Test system may not the latest, but it is very fast in PS.)

 

Comments in no particular order...

 

Flood Fill tool (Settings: 10% tolerance, Contiguous)

Works EXTREMELY slow (2 seconds) compared to Photoshop (instant)

No anti-aliasing option

 

Select Sampled Color

Doesn't save the last used tolerance %, always returns to 15%

PS allows choosing invert during select so I can select everything except selected color.

 

Grow/Shrink Selection

Sama as above, doesn't keep last used setting for pixels, reverts to 0 every time.

 

Automatic Cropping (Ctrl-R or Image/Crop) *** DEAL KILLER ***

Just can't believe this doesn't even exist

For product photos, in PS, after completing editing, I have an action that selects product from the white background, expands selection by 6 pixels, then crops to that automatically. It looks like there's no way to crop to a selection in Affinity which is a deal killer for me. I need an exact, consistent, 6 pixel border around every product image I edit, not a hand drawn approximation.

 

Trim (Image/Trim)

Another oddly missing feature. Trimming to either transparent pixels or a selected color is essential for me.

 

Levels

Missing eyedroppers to quickly set white, gray and black points in Levels

 

I've only been using Affinity for a few hours, but I've watched some videos and can't find solutions to my problems. Any thoughts?

 

Thanks,

Lee

 

[Richard S.]

Lee.K,

regarding the deal breaker issue - I see you are currently using a photoshop action.

 

Have you tried creating a macro in Affinity Photo, this might allow you to do the same thing. I have personally never tried creating a macro to do that specific task, so not sure if it would work, as some actions are not recordable in a macro.

Therefore, try creating a macro and see if that works for you. It works along the same lines as recording a PS action.

 

Hope this helps a little.

[Lee.K]

No. Automating it via a macro would have been my next step, however, there doesn't seem be be any command to crop to a selection. I'm guessing that any command I can initiate manually I can also use in a macro, but this command doesn't seem to exist.

 

If it's there and I'm missing it, please let me know!

[IndigoMoon]

Hi Lee.K,

Have you tried to cut out the selection via Ctrl + X and Ctrl + V or duplicate the selection via Ctrl + J, and embed this workflow into a macro?

Cheers!

Indigo