Qs from former Photoshop user

[Gary_F]

Hi. I've dumped Photoshop after 20 years so I have a lot of instinctive habits while working! I don't know if there's a solution to any of the issues below please? I'm primarily a web designer using Windows 10.

1. Opening a file opens it full screen in a tab, even if it's a tiny image. Is there an option to always open in an appropriately sized window each time?
2. Double clicking on the magnify icon doesn't resize the window to fit the image. It's frustrating having a window way bigger than the image itself. Photoshop has this as an option, does Affinity Photo?
3. Alt+Tab jumps to the next image. There is no option to bind all Affinity windows into one item in the taskbar (like IE does) so Alt+Tab jumps to next app instead. (This is also a problem in Photoshop to be fair.) I was hoping the Affinity team would be able to address this.
4. In Curves there is no preview toggle to compare before/after while making adjustments.
5. The resolution of the current image isn't displayed in a status bar. e.g. "800px x 640px". As a web designer this would be very handy info to always see.
6. No "duplicate image" function. I often need to create an exact duplicate of the current image (document?) with an option to merge down/flatten it. I couldn't work out what the equivalent is in Photo.
7. What's the equivalent to Photoshop's Shift + Backspace to make the current layer or selection a solid colour?
8. Is there an equivalent to selecting a layer by right-clicking on the canvas? In Photoshop right-click will show all layers under the mouse pointer in a pop-up menu. Very useful if you have many layers and don't know which one to pick from the normal Layers palette.
9. From Export, there is no live preview when saving JPEG to show how quality is impacted by compression. Missing feature or my oversight?
10. When saving GIF or PNG there's no live preview of what it will look like once saved. Down sampling the palette to 256 or 16 colours really needs this.
11. No ability to select the type of dithering when saving GIFs or 8-bit PNG.
12. Time stamp of an exported file (jpeg, png, etc) isn't updated when saving - surely a bug?

Thanks in advance and sorry if any of these have previously been asked.

Gary.

[toltec]

Yeah, I had the same problem. 

 

Some of these are halfway there, not quite the same or a bit of a fudge so you might have to change the way you work slightly. But somebody might know better. Somebody always does

 

You can have floating windows, which might do it for 1 and 2.

 

1. Drag the image tab off the main window (click on the top and drag) resize it and press Ctrl + 0. The image will fit.

2. No. as above, drag it off, resize it and press Ctrl + 0

3. Ctrl + Tab toggles between tabs. Although not if you've dragged them off. it just changes focus.

4. You can click on the Curves Adjustment layer hide/show box to turn the layer off temporarily. Or Shift + click on the thumbnail which also toggles hide/show.

5. If you select the Move tool (V) image size is displayed on the Context toolbar.

6. Layer > Merge Visible will make a new layer with everything currently visible on it. That is flattened.

7. Shift + F5  or (Edit > Fill)

8. Yes, that would be really useful. The best you can do is Alt + click to toggle between  the layers under the mouse. (I think).

 

As far as I know the following are missing. Still, 2 out of 3 answers isn't bad 

9. 

10. 

11.

12. 

 

 

[R C-R]

15 hours ago, Gary_F said:

Time stamp of an exported file (jpeg, png, etc) isn't updated when saving - surely a bug?

Which time stamp are you referring to? The time stamps stored in the file system (for date created, modified, etc.) are independent of those embedded in the file's metadata (in dc, EXIF, XMP, etc. tags). Currently, Affinity Photo (which I assume you are using rather than Affinity Designer) can display the file's metadata but not edit it, except for the dc Description field.

[MEB]

9,10 - Previews will be added to the Export Persona in a future version, later.

11 - Not sure if this will be included with the Export Persona improvements. You can always request it in the Features Requests section in case it's not.

[R C-R]

26 minutes ago, MEB said:

11 - Not sure if this will be included with the Export Persona improvements.

Regarding not the method but the color palette used for dithering GIF's or palletized 8 bit PNG's, how does the "Custom" palette option work? I cannot find anything about that in the built-in help.

 

I assumed this would use either the current document color palette or whichever one was currently selected in the Swatches panel, but no matter what I do or what color palette I select, I always get "An error occurred while exporting to <file path>" warning.

[Gary_F]

Toltec, thank you for your reply. I know how to change an image from tabbed to windowed, but I want Affinity to change the default behaviour so it no longer tabs every image I open or create. i.e. Windowed only. Unfortunately Ctrl+0 does not resize the window to fit the image, that only resets the zoom. Afinity's windowed mode is stupid in that it creates massive windows for small images. It's like wearing a shirt 10 sizes too big!

Display size of image - I press V but no pixels size info is displayed anywhere on the screen. Ideally I'd like the size displayed constantly, such as in the window's title bar or even a status bar. Maybe I need to file a feature request.

Duplicate image - I meant I want to create a duplicate of the current document in its entirety, not just 1 layer. I still can't work out how to do this.

Thanks.

[Gary_F]

3 hours ago, R C-R said:

Which time stamp are you referring to? The time stamps stored in the file system (for date created, modified, etc.) are independent of those embedded in the file's metadata (in dc, EXIF, XMP, etc. tags). Currently, Affinity Photo (which I assume you are using rather than Affinity Designer) can display the file's metadata but not edit it, except for the dc Description field.

I'm referring to the time stamp shown by Windows Explorer. You know, next to the file name and size there's "Date Modified". It never updates when I export a new version of a file from Affinity Photo.

[lepr]

.

 

[toltec]

12 minutes ago, Gary_F said:

Toltec, thank you for your reply. I know how to change an image from tabbed to windowed, but I want Affinity to change the default behaviour so it no longer tabs every image I open or create. i.e. Windowed only. Unfortunately Ctrl+0 does not resize the window to fit the image, that only resets the zoom. Afinity's windowed mode is stupid in that it creates massive windows for small images. It's like wearing a shirt 10 sizes too big!

Display size of image - I press V but no pixels size info is displayed anywhere on the screen. Ideally I'd like the size displayed constantly, such as in the window's title bar or even a status bar. Maybe I need to file a feature request.

Duplicate image - I meant I want to create a duplicate of the current document in its entirety, not just 1 layer. I still can't work out how to do this.

Thanks.

 

 

Well you can just save it (save as) with a different name. But I'm not sure why?

 

If you want that in the same document, go file place and you can import it as an embedded document.

 

otherwise as owenr says

 

 

[toltec]

9 minutes ago, Gary_F said:

I'm referring to the time stamp shown by Windows Explorer. You know, next to the file name and size there's "Date Modified". It never updates when I export a new version of a file from Affinity Photo.

 

That is Windows. If you close the folder and reopen it it should update.

[Gary_F]

2 minutes ago, owenr said:

Making a duplicate doc is a bit convoluted:

Open Snapshots panel.

Add a new snapshot.

Select that newly created entry in the panel.

Click the panel’s button for “New document from snapshot”.

 

Thanks. That's 5 clicks to create a duplicate or 7 if you include flattening it. This compares to 3 or 4 in Photoshop. I use this duplicate function all the time. It won't even let me create a Macro to simplify this process - "Cannot record Add Snapshot" it says.

[lepr]

.

[toltec]

3 minutes ago, Gary_F said:

Thanks. That's 5 clicks to create a duplicate or 7 if you include flattening it. This compares to 3 or 4 in Photoshop. I use this duplicate function all the time. It won't even let me create a Macro to simplify this process - "Cannot record Add Snapshot" it says.

 

Well, if all you want to do is flatten it, go Merge Visible. Thats only one click.

[Gary_F]

4 minutes ago, toltec said:

 

That is Windows. If you close the folder and reopen it it should update.

That would be a terrible solution if it worked, but it makes no difference when I try that. The date is still the original one, even a file I saved yesterday and just exported again now is still showing yesterday's date and time. It has to be a bug.

[R C-R]

1 minute ago, Gary_F said:

I'm referring to the time stamp shown by Windows Explorer. You know, next to the file name and size there's "Date Modified".

Actually, I don't know because I only use Macs, but from what the developers have said in the past about this in reference to the Mac versions, updating certain file system time stamps is intentionally delayed or handed off to the OS because of some undesirable effects immediate updates would have on certain system level processes that use these time stamps for other 'housekeeping' purposes.

 

I did not understand that explanation very well to begin with & I have no idea if or how it would apply to Windows, so please don't ask me for the details, but apparently this is something they considered & it works as intended rather than being a bug.

[toltec]

3 minutes ago, Gary_F said:

That would be a terrible solution if it worked, but it makes no difference when I try that. The date is still the original one, even a file I saved yesterday and just exported again now is still showing yesterday's date and time. It has to be a bug.

 

I just tried that with two different files and it updated instantly.

 

This machine is Windows 7 though.

[Gary_F]

1 minute ago, toltec said:

 

I just tried that with two different files and it updated instantly.

 

This machine is Windows 7 though.

Thanks Toltec. It must be a Windows 10 issue for Affinity then. I'll probably spend some time in the feature request and bug section of this forum. :-) I don't know how responsive Affinity are to requests. I just want all the simple stuff to work first, all the clever effects and features they might be working on are very much secondary for me. (Of course I realise I'm just 1 voice among a million users!)

[toltec]

I just tried it on a Win 10 machine and it did as you said. I clicked on "properties" for the file in the directory and it updated it then.

 

 

 

 

[toltec]

36 minutes ago, Gary_F said:

Thanks. That's 5 clicks to create a duplicate or 7 if you include flattening it. This compares to 3 or 4 in Photoshop. I use this duplicate function all the time. It won't even let me create a Macro to simplify this process - "Cannot record Add Snapshot" it says.

 

You can assign a shortcut to make a snapshot

Assign a shortcut to open the snapshot panel

Click on the snapshot

Click on the create document from snapshot

 

That's 4 clicks (about the same as PS?)

 

if you want to flatten it later, Merge Visible (there is a shortcut) .That's 5 clicks, maximum.

 

If you just want to Flatten it, 1 click.

 

Not much in it, is there?

[lepr]

.

[toltec]

Sure, but until then the fewer clicks the better.

[R C-R]

59 minutes ago, owenr said:

There shouldn't need to be any clicks or a sequence of key presses to duplicate the current document, though. It should be available with a single keyboard shortcut.

"Save as" does exactly that, but of course in Affinity (as well some other apps) it also closes the original so you are then editing/viewing the duplicate instead of the original.

[toltec]

1 hour ago, owenr said:

 

 

There shouldn't need to be any clicks or a sequence of key presses to duplicate the current document, though. It should be available with a single keyboard shortcut.

It has become quite common for document-based apps on macOS to have a command named Duplicate, with a keyboard shortcut, in the File menu, which instantly opens a new doc tab containing a duplicate of the current doc.

 

 

Out of idle curiosity, what happens when you duplicate the document. 

 

Is it a separate document, or like an embedded image layer type document? i.e. duplicated inside the existing document.

Because obviously, to duplicate as a separate document, you only need to "save as" with a different name.

 

i.e.

Save the original. say File 1

Save as  say File 2

Open  File 1

 

Two identical documents side by side

 

If it is embedded inside, You would just get two of every layer, so what is the point? File size is immediately doubled.

 

Just curious.

[lepr]

.

[toltec]

1 minute ago, owenr said:

 

No, "Save as" is not "exactly that". I'm surprised that a Mac user doesn't know the difference between the Duplicate and Save As commands.

 

 

 

Well. the OP is using Windows 10.