Both softs still lack a lot of modern necessities

[kirk23]

Sadly Affinity does not fill that huge empty gup in CG field  we have in image editing soft . Modernt textures and  CG /rendered image composing , multi channel  images,  complex UI  graphical interfaces etc.  For all this we still have to rely on Adobe products or expensive, inconvenient and unintuitive node based 2d composers.    I still keep my hope on Affinity.  I came here out of my extreme frustration with Photoshop. It's not going to evolve into something pro and would ever be just a photographer toy.   Looks like "convenient" soft  is still an oxymoron and we need to wait 500 years  like it took for paint tubes to be invented after oil paints appeared.  

 

So IMO what Affinities is lacking:

1. an ability to create interdependent arbitrary links in between layers.   expressions/ links/ nodes or whatever based . In fact I need innovations here since typical node based approach is a paint in the a.. too

3. an ability to created my own procedural live effects  (see point one)  

2. an ability to link and auto-update outside file  inputs and do arbitrary export./outputs.  That export persona is nothing  useful on my side.

 

Yeah,  Affinity photo has a bit more convenient macro system and more  live "embedded files" than Photoshop ones   but it's just a tiny step in right direction. Still behind Photoshop in general with inflexible  layer system/ no layer links/ no group clipping.     All this considering Photoshop is an ancient fossil, slow as hell , inflexible in every task, miles from being "convenient"

 

 

 

[Michelangelo_]

9 hours ago, kirk23 said:

I still keep my hope on Affinity.  I came here out of my extreme frustration with Photoshop. It's not going to evolve into something pro and would ever be just a photographer toy.   Looks like "convenient" soft  is still an oxymoron and we need to wait 500 years  like it took for paint tubes to be invented after oil paints appeared.  

 

in your opinion which is the percentage of customers who need this specific implementation?
 

9 hours ago, kirk23 said:

So IMO what Affinities is lacking:

1. an ability to create interdependent arbitrary links in between layers.   expressions/ links/ nodes or whatever based . In fact I need innovations here since typical node based approach is a paint in the a.. too

3. an ability to created my own procedural live effects  (see point one)  

2. an ability to link and auto-update outside file  inputs and do arbitrary export./outputs.  That export persona is nothing  useful on my side.

 

in the long list of features requests planned for the 90% of users ( the most are not professional) , where do you place your list?

 

[kirk23]

Any customer needs convenient tools.  Intuitive, easy to use and simple like a brush and palette.    Unfortunately, from my  experience, programmers often have  just no idea what it may be. 

 

   Pro tools are born form CG production companies custom in-house tools done by what some random software engineer  might invent considering a solution for  very specific requests.  Such programs do what they was purposed  for but at the same time often miles from being "convenient".   Often absolutely terrible and nobody beyond an author is able to understand a thing  within the same team.

  I believe software engineers do have just an other way of thinking, a special one.   Often it's very hard to explain them even what is wrong with a tool.  They are just aliens  .

But  once the soft works and a few people, namely the author and a couple of key people from  production team managed  to cope with them, they considered  ok and done and then  gradually constitute a kind of a golden rule of how such soft should look and work.    Thus  it's how we have so called pro tools.

 

On the other end we have Adobe  who is stubborn in rejecting node based approach, any software flexibility or any true innovations in general.  They just want to please masses who often even don't know that what they want was there before or already available in  open source soft for years (like glorified content aware fill) .     Those 90% just don't know how much more possibilities and creative  freedom a true flexible pro level soft could give them, just don't want to waste their lives trying to figure out what a random alien/programmer did.    

 

 I understand  financial reasons  for such gap  but it's still a pity .   So again, in 500 years maybe, I don't really expect anything.   Perhaps some neural network based  thing for phones would do it first.

 

 

ps. A thing any modern image soft needs badly is a dynamic , live, "smart object" , expression or script  based  or whatever masks. Could do it even in  Photoshop with group clipping and chain links. Although inconvenient and slow as hell.     Affinity looks like just in one small step of it. 

[Mithferion]

I'm just curious. Can you share the name of a Program / Platform / Solution, in general, that has that workflow you want?

Best regards!

[kirk23]

There is no such solution on the market. it's what I am talking about.  There is a huge gup/ market share nobody filled yet.

 

  There are a simple photographer tools like Photoshop and such and   very specialised programs like Substance Designer, Nuke, Fusion  etc.   They differ from Photoshop in  ability to work not only with image represented  by 3 RGB + alpha channel but  also  many extra properties, channels and masks  representing surface reflectivity , surface geometry,  depth etc.  A complete physical material, not just rgb color.  Still they are very same 2d image editing programs in its core.

 

 All they are very flexible with their node based approach and could do whatever you want  but at the same time they are inconvenient as hell when you need to prototype something quickly.   My main tool is Substance Designer and it's like being created by aliens.  I hate it but have no other choice. 

 

 Layer approach is so much more instantly intuitive, simple and easy to work with for simple things.   Photoshop and such usually have so much more convenient color tweaks and brushes  but they are just not enough to do something useful.      In fact just a bit more complex layer approach with a kind of expression system , dynamic mask, transform links to interconnect several images representing an object material properties, namely roughness, normals and depth at least doing necessary blending math automatically based by some predefined "formula" , After effect style maybe, would be perfectly ok.  

 

 I hoped for something like that when  Affinity promised  sophisticated layer linking but looks like it would never happen.  I dream about a soft that could bring together  robotic flexibility of nodes and true feel of a brush in your hand of layer based approach.    Something in between Photoshop and Nuke. 

 

 Modern CG painting is not just RGB+alpha  I need a brush that would paint over  rendered 3d scene or photogrammetry produced image and be depth and surface aware.  It's just a matter of time when we would see the depth as a part of every photo. But seems we would see it first on cell phones and neural something  with all the apple innovations.   Then maybe all the photographer masses will suddenly realise how necessary true layer linking/ interconnections could be