Will Affinity ever be able to call itself a true replacement for Photoshop untill.....

[kaffeeundsalz]

Looking at your screenshot, it seems to me that you've gone through all possible means to make Affinity Photo and Adobe Photoshop look as similar as they can. Even the toolbars have been customised to perfectly match the tools and their order. While this is fun to see how close you can get, it's of course a bit unfair because you're sacrificing the possible strengths of at least one application's user interface. There are of course many similarities in the feature set, but that's because those features implement basic and universal concepts that have evolved over time in image editing. And not even in digital image editing because stuff like masking, dodging, burning etc. has all been there in the world of analog photography, too.

[hifred]

 

12 minutes ago, kaffeeundsalz said:

Looking at your screenshot, it seems to me that you've gone through all possible means to make Affinity Photo and Adobe Photoshop look as similar as they can.

If he had wanted to do so, he probably had switched icons to monochromatic inside APhoto...

[MattyWS]

Oh of course my UI layout is intentional, photoshop it set up the way I'm comfortable and if my needs are the same, I may as well set my layout the same too. I'm not sacrificing anything by customising my layout to what I like  Mind you, photoshops layout in that screenshot is minimally changed from the default but that is the layout I've slowly come to over 15+ years of using it, removing what I don't need and adding what I use the most.

Anyway, I Don't think of Aphoto as a clone but I do think they're both made for the same job, so of course they will be compared, users will replace photoshop with Aphoto with the intentions of only using one or the other. People will expect to be able to get the same results out of both applications even if the feature set is different. The moment one of the applications cannot get that end result is the moment the user will choose the other application instead. In my case the thing that holds me back from using Aphoto is definitely the lack of export options which should be standard feature of either one of them. I dont care if Affinity has some other tool instead of the burn tool, but what I do care about is if there is no alternative to photoshops burn tool (I know there is a burn tool, that was an example). 

[v_kyr]

Quote

Will Affinity ever be able to call itself a true replacement for Photoshop untill... Photoshop plugins work?

That's more an individual needs Q and thus highly depends on the fact how important common PS plugin stuff is personally to you. Since PS plugins are mostly based on third party solutions and add-ons, these enhance or offer in some way (via dedicated interfaces) what other sources do offer for PS here. Some plugins won't need PS at all and thus are just there for interoperational purposes or in order to reuse their output further in PS.

Affinity's PS plugin compatibility is very limited and thus I won't say it's a good host replacement for third party PS plugins at all. - But beside that it offers a lot of other powerful capabilities one can use in order to not have to use PS at all. So it finally always also depends on specific individual needs here.

[hifred]

6 hours ago, MattyWS said:

APhoto is awesome, it's built from the ground up and runs more efficiently and faster than photoshop, it's streamlined and simplistic

I have read this so many times – I really wonder how things look on your end. Maybe on Mac the editing experience is extremely different.
Edit: I see you are on Windows too...

• Startup time nearly 15 seconds (Photoshop less than 5 seconds)
• RAW opening time takes ages, regardless of file-type for a single file as opposed to instant opening in Photoshop. 
• No way at all to work with a whole folder of RAWs at once (Show stopper for me). Opening a full folder of RAWs again works instantly in Photoshop.
• Freezing inside the Crop tool, no liquid rotation of the to be cropped frame possible.
• Magic Wand: Slow, needs to think briefly each time before marching ants appear
• Quick selection tool: Selection can't keep up with quick mouse / pen movement
• Refine Edge also needs to think, shows me the loader gif after every single brush stroke

I don't see crashing but constant small or not at all small delays in areas where I simply don't expect having to wait.

I7 6850K | GTX 1070 | 32 GB RAM |  SSD Samsung 850 EVO  The machine works very nicely with every other program I have installed.

[R C-R]

46 minutes ago, MattyWS said:

I'm not sacrificing anything by customising my layout to what I like
{...}
In my case the thing that holds me back from using Aphoto is definitely the lack of export options ...

Affinity Photo has many export options available in the Export Persona, even a Continuous one to automatically re-export export areas if the document is subsequently changed. While it is simple enough to switch to the Export Persona from the File menu, an alternative is not remove the default Personas button group from the main toolbar (or to hide the entire main toolbar completely, which you apparently did to make the two apps look the same), which provides a one-click method to switch among the 5 personas.

46 minutes ago, MattyWS said:

People will expect to be able to get the same results out of both applications even if the feature set is different.

Some people will also expect to get the same results out of every word processor app even if their feature sets are very different. That does not make it a reasonable expectation.

Edited October 18, 2018 by R C-R
added a bit more about the main toolbar

[kaffeeundsalz]

1 hour ago, hifred said:

If he had wanted to do so, he probably had switched icons to monochromatic inside APhoto...

True. And he could have also replaced the three panels at the top right with the transform panel. That said, it's still a close match of Photoshop's UI, and as we've learned, it's intentional. Sorry for my exaggeration.

1 hour ago, MattyWS said:

I'm not sacrificing anything by customising my layout to what I like  

You probably don't, and your strategy is totally reasonable. What I mean is that in some cases, developers might have designed the default UI of their applications with specific reasons in mind. The export options that @R C-R mentions can be an example for this. You don't have quick access to the Export Persona because you've hidden the main toolbar (where there's a button for it). I don't know the Windows version of Affinity Photo, but I suspect there's a menu item for it, and that may be quick enough for you. I'm just saying that switching between different personas is one of the main UI principles of the Affinity product line, so it should be clear why the default window layout of Photo features the Persona button bar quite prominently.

[R C-R]

10 minutes ago, kaffeeundsalz said:

That said, it's still a close match of Photoshop's UI, and as we've learned, it's intentional.

What is not at all a close match, neither functionally or visibly, is the Layers panel. That is also intentional.

[SrPx]

1 hour ago, hifred said:

I have read this so many times – I really wonder how things look on your end. Maybe on Mac the editing experience is extremely different.
Edit: I see you are on Windows too...

• Startup time nearly 15 seconds (Photoshop less than 5 seconds)
• RAW opening time takes ages, regardless of file-type for a single file as opposed to instant opening in Photoshop. 
• No way at all to work with a whole folder of RAWs at once (Show stopper for me). Opening a full folder of RAWs again works instantly in Photoshop.
• Freezing inside the Crop tool, no liquid rotation of the to be cropped frame possible.
• Magic Wand: Slow, needs to think briefly each time before marching ants appear
• Quick selection tool: Selection can't keep up with quick mouse / pen movement
• Refine Edge also needs to think, shows me the loader gif after every single brush stroke

I don't see crashing but constant small or not at all small delays in areas where I simply don't expect having to wait.

I7 6850K | GTX 1070 | 32 GB RAM |  SSD Samsung 850 EVO  The machine works very nicely with every other program I have installed.

Thank you for posting this.  When someone posting "I'm having problems" or... "this software is cr4p" , and does not go into specifics, that is a post I wont really care about... So... This is extremely curious... The way I see it, Photo development has been always focused in photography (never in my illustration/painting/game graphics most frequent fields...I collect fields.. .other ppl collect old motorcycles, huh...)...yet the issues you have are indeed all pertinent to that activity . Now I clearly see why you and me have such hugely different perceptions about the program. Yep, I have noticed things like the brush that removes the background has its lag, and everywhere else -almost- where intense processing, complex AI or whatever takes place. My lucky thing is that I don't use those tools, even in cases where it'd be handy or a shortcut ( as I DO those tasks, just with core tools). I don't use RAWs... like...ever.  Crop... I even have always used in PS just crop to selection !  Again, not a photographer. I'm an image editor across many fields, just not Photography field. Is curious that the features where surely there's more focus, love and effort from the devs ( is my 2 cents, only, might be 200% wrong), are damaging your workflow, but never touch mine. Even more, and related to part of the OP's post, I never ever use plugins/filters, other than the very basic core ( ie, a gaussian filter). I am super fan of using only very core features, just selections/masks, and do all sort of complex work with the combination of them and other image editing core features, being able of wonders (sometimes building own custom Actions(macros)). Always deeply hated that common vibe/impronta left by overusing (and badly hiding) filters that a lot of other people use... It gives quite an amateurish look to productions, IMO...Unless used very well and carefully.

But I can see how your workflow gets affected. I'm lucky, once again, then...no crashes, never other problems....... ( my luck is not infinite, I have my wishes with the brush system, but have learnt to use a certain combination of graphic apps to keep an efficient overall workflow )

About starting time... lol, never worried... EVERYTHING takes a lot to start here, in this dinosaur.... I guess my brain is used to it and learnt to multitask lightly in the waits (even reading documentation, client specs, etc)... Also, as when working on something, a single app keeps open all day... very different than when I worked at companies ( the multitasking was way heavier)

About curiosity how is it Matty's end compared to yours... I believe, if I haven't got confused with another user, he is a video game artist... is two apart worlds.. Been there, and he's probably using Zbrush, Substance Painter / Designer, Max/Maya, and doing a lot of game textures, maps, shaders., normal maps... yet tho, having always opened simultaneously apps that eat hardware resources for breakfast (surely has a very nice machine). This has very little in common to a Photographer's usual workflow with RAWs,  etc... One of his main claims is just the TGA export with alpha...

[hifred]

1 hour ago, SrPx said:

Thank you for posting this.  When someone posting "I'm having problems" or... "this software is cr4p" , and does not go into specifics, that is a post I wont really care about...

Actually I had reported all this in so many posts already, that I was kind of shy to post it yet again. I think shortcomings of that sort get a lot more obvious when you have a direct comparison. For some repetitive jobs I'm doing I really need to be fast and it just sucks if the highly praised, brand new program performs a a lot worse than my 6 years old CS6 (no AI involved). 

1 hour ago, SrPx said:

One of his main claims is just the TGA export with alpha...

This topic really made me think. Serif got enormous backfire in several threads and across a lot of pages for not properly supporting an obscure, decades old little file format which aside from a few areas of graphics indeed no longer plays a role. Must have been 2005 when I last opened a tga – seems that a lot of Game -Developers and Broadcast people gather in this forum ;o)

But every camera, even a lot of newer Smartphones shoot RAW. That topic should therefore be interesting for a lot larger group of people.
Not in the Affinity Forums: Practically nobody complains about the way Affinity deals with RAWs. Where are all the people who want to apply common corrections (remove colour casts, recover highlights, brighten shadows etc.) to series of photos? Where are those who know that a nondestructive Develop Layer and some Macros won't help – but that one actually needs to have all these images open? 

All one gets to hear is that those who think that Aphoto's  RAW handling makes no sense should use some other RAW Converter and use Aphoto for compositing. This advice may work for those who only rarely need a layered workflow. But for anyone who starts with RAW and typically wants to end up with a layered file (many of them) the division between two entirely separate programs (by different vendors) for RAW and layered composites is absolutely impractical.

Photoshop already in CS6 offered a perfectly integrated and highly flexible solution for this demand.

[SrPx]

Quote

This topic really made me think. Serif got enormous backfire in several threads and across a lot of pages for not properly supporting an obscure, decades old little file format which aside from a few areas of graphics indeed no longer plays a role. Must have been 2005 when I last opened a tga – seems that a lot of Game -Developers and Broadcast people gather in this forum ;o)

I have just made a fast test, and reported in that thread that it works, exporting a tiff to XnView ( freeware, cheap ( 26$) for commercial) , converting to tga in that viewer / converter / browser utility. I mean, this kind of I/O thing and using helper utilities ( often done in-house...now, those were the crashes...not today's...a crash that would dump the blue screen, corrupt your HD physically, and happening like 30 per day....   ) was very usual back in the days when I worked at game companies. It was indeed the regular workflow.

Yep, TGA has been used since the 3D Studio for MSDOS, and surely way before (I've handled older tools, just can't remember which formats, now, its pre 90s, probably! ), till I can remember.. And yep, for video too, in the 90s I was at a video editing group while at college, the TGA alpha channel was practically the only way for chroma masks or the like stuff.  ( no PNGs existed, nor other option for that stuff..it was mostly TGAs and tiffs. It was used for even TV production, regularly)

Thing is, there's a bazillion of people working in games, and I smell most of those complaining there are from a very specific niche: People not working at large ( Sony studios, Blizzard,etc) companies (those use pure market standard tools, like PS, Substance, etc..) but instead in small studios betting for cheaper tools to save per seat, or indy artists, freelancers working for Unity/Unreal/etc based devs, and mostly for Unity or indy engines similar to that one ( Unity was just one more, but now basically dominates the indy, mid size developers, and freelancing scene). But this bunch of people that before was a small group, that is, devs for Unity for non triple A games, or just casual games (often very profitable businesses), for all platforms, and indy scene too, those were quite a smaller group just some years ago. It has grown crazily in recent years. I'm not surprised that is a legion already and shows here, as I had already data about this fact from other sources.

But all is about comparisons... Photography should be  * waay  *  much more massive in global stats, tho. As with linux, what shows up in a forum is a ridiculously small sample, no matter how massive it looks to be. For a very simple reason: The average difficulty to reach/master something is a BARRIER, is what make the big numbers or totally discard them. Learning an entire Unity based pipeline is complex as heck (trust me), very nerd level stuff. Doing photography professionally, well, probably needs longer years of preparation, EVEN... but... doing photography as a light hobby... man, those are real hordes.  Just practically everyone is capable of at least some level of that. To reach the point of being able to generate shaders, understanding a PBR based workflow, let alone 3D model a character anatomically correct in millions of polygons AND generate a normal map out of it, include it in an already quite complex pipeline... not for the average Jane/Joe, I can tell you  . This makes it a extremely similar reason for why there has been less Linux (even if a basic handling of Linux is waay easier than that...But Windows/Macs are almost dumb proof...  ) users than Windows ones, in this world... 

All I'm saying, I totally get it if the focus is fore ever put in photography... is freaking safer for the company  ! I'm not a photographer, and as a game artist, other than isolated gigs, is not sth I need in my everyday workflow anymore.... Is just what was mentioned before... is extremely hard to make a tool that will make every specialist happy ( what people misses.is...it's very very hard to find a tool that makes what Affinity Photo ALREADY does!)  , but I would not say the sentence that short... I'd just add " in a reasonable amount of time". Again, 2 years that a feature is not added might sound crazy for you, but I am an illustrator who has worked with PS and wacom tablets ( i used previous brands to Wacom showing up, indeed) at least from '95,  and is only in cc 2018 that PS has seen added an stabilizer for its brushes! Just some months later  than A. Photo did ( which very well can be just a coincidence). That's quite a few years since PS should have had it, while Corel Painter had it since very early years. Is not that it was impossible or something. They simply did not care. Now, compare 2 years with what, 10, 20, 30... ? And even so, PS devs were in their right to consider they did not need it.

[MattyWS]

4 hours ago, hifred said:

I have read this so many times – I really wonder how things look on your end. Maybe on Mac the editing experience is extremely different.
Edit: I see you are on Windows too...

• Startup time nearly 15 seconds (Photoshop less than 5 seconds)
• RAW opening time takes ages, regardless of file-type for a single file as opposed to instant opening in Photoshop. 
• No way at all to work with a whole folder of RAWs at once (Show stopper for me). Opening a full folder of RAWs again works instantly in Photoshop.
• Freezing inside the Crop tool, no liquid rotation of the to be cropped frame possible.
• Magic Wand: Slow, needs to think briefly each time before marching ants appear
• Quick selection tool: Selection can't keep up with quick mouse / pen movement
• Refine Edge also needs to think, shows me the loader gif after every single brush stroke

I don't see crashing but constant small or not at all small delays in areas where I simply don't expect having to wait.

I7 6850K | GTX 1070 | 32 GB RAM |  SSD Samsung 850 EVO  The machine works very nicely with every other program I have installed.

That's curious. I have a very similar machine to yours, 32gb ram, GTX 1070, 1tb SSD for my main hard drive with another 1TB HDD secondary, i7 7700k though which probably only out performs yours by a tiny percentage. running W10

My start up time for affinity is 4-5 seconds. Photoshop is a fraction less but I'm always working with my applications open all the time anyway
I don't deal with RAW images so I wouldnt know for sure how that is.
Again dont deal with RAW.
I tried cropping just now and no freezing.
God forbit I ever use the magic wand unless it's to select solid colours which works instantly (like a colour ID map for example).
'Quick selection' tool, I couldnt find one under the name but if it's what i think it is I dont use that either.
Refine Edge is also not something I use.

No crashing and no delays or pauses, the little preview thumbnails in layers seems choppy to update but that doesn't really affect me. I may sometimes use tweak layers like contrast, hue/saturation etc and make the odd manual tweaks to my textures. While working at Rare I mainly had to work in photoshop to texture stuff and when I tried affinity for the same thing (hand painted texture work) affinity performed well IMO.

Alas, every texture at Rare are saved out as PSD for storing the data and TGA for the game engine. I can say the same for the majority of companies I worked at other than TT Games, which sort of used their own file format and heavily relied on scripts in photoshop to save out to the engine. Hence why I'm a heavy advocate for TGA support. in my whole career I've used TGA and I've worked at 4 different studios. The alternatives if I had to use Affinity are PNG (aweful alpha editing and bad results in game anyway, non existent alpha channel editing) and TIFF which isnt supported in Unreal.
 

[hifred]

 

1 hour ago, MattyWS said:

I have a very similar machine to yours

Thank you for having a look!

1 hour ago, MattyWS said:

I tried cropping just now and no freezing.

What I mean is not just cropping but using the crop tool at the same time to rotate the frame. The program doesn't freeze, but some stuttering occurs – one of the many occasions which remind me that the APhoto needs to work to do what I want. The delay can get very bad on larger files – I posted a clip somewhere but can't find it right now.

Getting proper .tga export should be way way easier to accomplish than proper RAW handling. What you need is only an Exporter, it may cause work, possibly a lot of work but it needs practically no GUI. Affinity dealing with RAW in ways that match popular competing programs (not just PS) I think would require a DAM developed by by Serif and implanting the RAW workspace there. The underlying concept in the Develop Persona can not get extended in any useful way that I can see.

[verysame]

6 hours ago, hifred said:

I have read this so many times – I really wonder how things look on your end. Maybe on Mac the editing experience is extremely different.
Edit: I see you are on Windows too...

• Startup time nearly 15 seconds (Photoshop less than 5 seconds)
• RAW opening time takes ages, regardless of file-type for a single file as opposed to instant opening in Photoshop. 
• No way at all to work with a whole folder of RAWs at once (Show stopper for me). Opening a full folder of RAWs again works instantly in Photoshop.
• Freezing inside the Crop tool, no liquid rotation of the to be cropped frame possible.
• Magic Wand: Slow, needs to think briefly each time before marching ants appear
• Quick selection tool: Selection can't keep up with quick mouse / pen movement
• Refine Edge also needs to think, shows me the loader gif after every single brush stroke

I don't see crashing but constant small or not at all small delays in areas where I simply don't expect having to wait.

I7 6850K | GTX 1070 | 32 GB RAM |  SSD Samsung 850 EVO  The machine works very nicely with every other program I have installed.

We are pretty much in the same boat.

I think I read you also need to work fast on quite heavy compositions, same situation here.
I had a lot of expectations when Affinity came out for Windows. I then realized that I couldn't expect a full working PS replacement right away. Then I realized I also had to come up with several workarounds if I wanted to get the job done, which is OK to some extent. I never say no when it comes to finding alternatives, as long as they don't affect my productivity down the road. Then I learned there were also shortcomings to deal with and sometimes they really do affect the productivity significantly.

Lastly, there was the stability/performance issue, and at that point, I said that's it.
Just as a comparison, here are a couple of screengrabs from the Task Manager, one using PS the other using Affinity. For the record, in PS I'm editing a half gigabyte image (2480 x 1420 px), and in Affinity a 30 MB image (520 x 520 px).

In both cases, I'm adding a few adjustment layers, mostly curves and HSL, that's it. In PS I can keep editing and do more elaborate work, the load on the CPU is still quite the same.

 

[SrPx]

Matty, I just suggested in the TGA threads an utility /workflow to batch convert your tiffs ...if saved in certain way/layers, as it depends on if you want to preserve the background pixels or not. Counting on its batch operation feature,  means you probably wont have to deal with it every time, just every bunch of them, you do the operation with a button touch (I'd do every few, just in case u keep adding some error. So that you realize it soon.  Typically, once you know the stuff to avoid, you just export in same way safely, and can batch export thousands in a single time.  And first days, maybe do it one by one, to check if there'd be some quirks in your workflow.) 

To not make those even longer omitted that you probably can even also do this with the free DOS ( and cross platform) tool imagemagick by command line, so, perhaps make some python (or whatever the script/programming of preference, I just like Python..or just with some bat file, whatever)  code to fully automate it, sth that constantly watches a folder for new files, so every new *.tiff that falls there gets converted by imagemagick to TGA with its alfa channel. That's zero extra effort, once set up. Or just run it manually every now and then. ( but if you're allergic to command line, might prefer the way easier XnView I just suggested in those threads. (dunno, maybe that one supports command line, too.) Oh, and... Irfanview seems to see correctly too the TGA channel and stuff... since always, it has a VERY powerful command line capability, very flexible, besides having its graphic mode. Also counts on batch mode.

There you go ! Three batch conversion modes suggested ( XnView MP's (maybe need to use its standalone converter, dunno), imagemagick's and Irfanview's,) all very flexible and powerful. (I know deeply batch stuff with irfanview, and have processed many frames files for video edit with imagemagick, but only have tested a ful tga workflow with XnView MP.

 

 

[myclay]

Edit: Affinity Photo is in some cases really pleasant and imo superior like for example the  auto preview when changing Layer Blend modes which Photoshop didn´t have for like three decades.

For potential new customers which come from Photoshop, Affinity Photo needs some changes;

~two Layer blend modes from PS CS6 are still missing in Affinity Photo. (the implementation so far is excellent!)
GPU acceleration for Windows.
quicker startup times are needed
All Affinity products need a lot more optimizations so it takes less ram when editing big images.
Even Photoshop CS3 which is ancient by now has had much better resource management and less hunger for RAM than Affinity photo while editing 16k-px images.
Text layers within exported PSDs would be needed.
a much better channel packing is needed and connected to it an easier editing/previewing of the alpha channel.
TGA,DDS,WebP export
compression options and previewing of to be exported images is needed.

 

 

 

 

[MattyWS]

9 hours ago, SrPx said:

Matty, I just suggested in the TGA threads an utility /workflow to batch convert your tiffs ...if saved in certain way/layers, as it depends on if you want to preserve the background pixels or not. Counting on its batch operation feature,  means you probably wont have to deal with it every time, just every bunch of them, you do the operation with a button touch (I'd do every few, just in case u keep adding some error. So that you realize it soon.  Typically, once you know the stuff to avoid, you just export in same way safely, and can batch export thousands in a single time.  And first days, maybe do it one by one, to check if there'd be some quirks in your workflow.) 

To not make those even longer omitted that you probably can even also do this with the free DOS ( and cross platform) tool imagemagick by command line, so, perhaps make some python (or whatever the script/programming of preference, I just like Python..or just with some bat file, whatever)  code to fully automate it, sth that constantly watches a folder for new files, so every new *.tiff that falls there gets converted by imagemagick to TGA with its alfa channel. That's zero extra effort, once set up. Or just run it manually every now and then. ( but if you're allergic to command line, might prefer the way easier XnView I just suggested in those threads. (dunno, maybe that one supports command line, too.) Oh, and... Irfanview seems to see correctly too the TGA channel and stuff... since always, it has a VERY powerful command line capability, very flexible, besides having its graphic mode. Also counts on batch mode.

There you go ! Three batch conversion modes suggested ( XnView MP's (maybe need to use its standalone converter, dunno), imagemagick's and Irfanview's,) all very flexible and powerful. (I know deeply batch stuff with irfanview, and have processed many frames files for video edit with imagemagick, but only have tested a ful tga workflow with XnView MP.

 

 

Thanks! At the risk of going off topic from this thread, I know there are plenty of work arounds using multiple softwares, but surely Aphoto, the application literally made for opening, editing and saving images should be able to do that basic function. But right now what you have if you want to use tga is the ability to open, edit and... Not save. Extremely basic functionality that I paid for the software for (which admittedly didn't think was going to be a problem since I assumed it was basics). And the stance right now by the devs is they don't really care about it. And then you get the defensive people coming in and saying "use all these other applications to convert" - but I shouldn't have to for something that basic.

Obviously tga support is one of many, many features people want and need and I understand there may be limited staff working on lots of other things. I praise Serif for affinity photo as I truely do like it. I feel my fight to get TGA sport is being met with a wall of negativity with devs even basically saying "no one needs it" apart from the huge games and tv industry...

I'm not really sure why there is so much resistance to the idea of adding basic functionality to save files in commonly used formats... I feel that kind of "nah, you don't need it" attitude really gets under my skin a little... It's not just me asking for this simple feature, there's whole threads on it.

 

I'm not a horrible person I swear! :p I sound like I'm angry ranting but all I want is for the software to improve and become more useful, and to be able to confidently tell people "hey, use this awesome new application if you don't want to use Photoshop". Heck I could use gimp, I'm not going to because I subscribe to CC and I paid £75 for APhoto so either way I can do whatever I need. I'm not reliant on APhoto So everything I say really is just me trying to help improve the software. 

On that note, I can't make the switch from Photoshop yet knowing there's a few missing features with no work around that doesn't involve using random other software... In that case I'll stick to Photoshop where I can do all the things I need in one application instead. I'm eagerly looking for reasons to make that switch though as many other people are. I have the money to keep paying for Photoshop no problem but I do believe they take advantage of the situation by being the dominant application with no real competition, charging a lot of money where they shouldn't. I'm hoping Aphoto will be the competition we all need.

[Alfred]

On 10/16/2018 at 9:41 PM, SrPx said:

a great user around here (one with a sort of Australian sort of mouse as an avatar)

I think you must be referring to @PedroOfOz. The marsupial that he uses as his avatar is a quokka, which is about the size of a domestic cat; i.e. somewhat larger than most mice!

[SrPx]

Big clarification : I might seem "defensive" , but I am only giving advice doing stuff that is what I have done since always when I don't get everything in a package, and this since '91 and before, till now. Much before Affinity or its legacy line would appear. Just check my signature, there's a wish list... is not like I'm not wanting Affinity product to expand/improve.... 

And well, TGA, considered by other poster here as a surprising motive of complaint, as is an "obscure old format", is basic for your niche and workflow, while you don't have a single use for RAWs... which is absolutely vital for most photographers. So, if it is a "basic" feature...  Depends on the niche. But dude, am not "defensive"... I'm practical... If you check my signature, you'll understand that is more of pragmatism that I use Clip Studio paint to draw and paint, and A. Photo (and even Gimp, Krita, etc, etc, other purchased tools...) for everything else. 

I am providing solutions, like I have done for decades in many forums, from modding for games, to projects I've worked at of other nature, blender forums, a bazillion of sites and activities where I always suggest solutions for _current_ problems so that people can get a solution for their current situation, while a feature _might_ arrive. To each his/her own if does not want to use them, I only provide help for whoever wants to use it.

[SrPx]

Quote

I'm not really sure why there is so much resistance to the idea of adding basic functionality

In any case, good moods reduce a lot that resistance, bad ones will increase it, that's for very sure.

[MattyWS]

SrPx, You may have misunderstood my use of the word "defensive" here, I'm not referring specifically to you and I don't mean it in an offensive way so I apologise if you took offence, it's many other people saying similar things. And my needs are by no means niche, my workflow is pretty common in my industry,  and it's a pretty huge industry. It's not so much specifically about TGA support that I meant people were being defensive about either, it's a lot of functional features people want or need that Affinity doesn't provide which photoshop does. Other than obviously being a newer software and limited staff there's no reason not to include features people ask for, which is why I say I'm not sure why there's resistance. It's the fact that the devs have stated there no plans for that added functionality that leaves me wondering if investing in APhoto is pointless or not, if they pick and choose what features they think I need, regardless of what I actually need. And again, not just my needs, the needs of many.

I'm under no illusion, it takes time to develop this kind of application and I appreciate that but if they don't plan on adding features then I guess I don't plan on making the switch from photoshop. There's no loss to Affinity if I dont use Aphoto though I guess since I already purchased the software.  I can wait as long as needed for the software to become even greater.

[SrPx]

1 hour ago, MattyWS said:

£75

Er...how much? It is way less for AP.... I don't understand....

1 hour ago, MattyWS said:

but I do believe they take advantage of the situation by being the dominant application with no real competition

Well, the issue I see, mostly, is if one wants ( with the market dominating brand) a single app, yep, then that's 10 -12 bucks per month (depends on country and coin exchange)... but if you need some more apps (ie, the equivalent of having at least the 3 basic ones for graphic design and etc), then it grows -even while being actually a pack offer- to 60 bucks ( in my country...and even actually, is quite more..60 euros is not 60 dollars...  ) per month ! (or , using their pack "offer" as annual prepaid 600 / 700+ per year (again, depending on the country), that's the cost of full corel draw as a lifetime purchase (and upgrades will be cheaper than the renting! IF u would really wish to upgrade) and a lot of times (around x5 times more expensive, in my country, and you'r only renting! ) more expensive than the Affinity suite, while not EVEN having purchased a license and certain rights of use for all what you paid for.    And these numbers considering one is not paying month to month, but the annual (prepaid or not) to save quite some bucks. (but then, one reads every single "sad" story with the cancelling issues... most cases, people that don't read terms before contracting sth, though....They are merely contracting a service, not purchasing a software... a SaaS, but a huge bunch of us will move to cheaper solutions, or just using open source before going there.)

Now, some people are totally fine with all of that (and the access of files if you cancel, the need of a connection in x months, etc) ... I'm not...
 

4 hours ago, myclay said:

Edit: Affinity Photo is in some cases really pleasant and imo superior like for example the  auto preview when changing Layer Blend modes which Photoshop didn´t have for like three decades.

Yep, I'm almost 99% sure you say didn't as CC 2019 is adding this  . Yet another surprise of a feature that is/was one of the "better things" in AP than in PS. IMO, this care they are putting in addressing first the features where AP has an edge ( I noticed since the stabilizer), makes it clear that AP is not that "irrelevant" or non-threat to the giant as some say, or they wouldn't be caring if not...And they really know better than us....

4 hours ago, myclay said:

GPU acceleration for Windows.

Was it a nightmare for me to check the latest trial in my system... this is definitely no good for old systems (there where CSP flies) ... I was able to tweak all stuff and get a good enough experience, at least served me to know that I "could" use it in this machine if I ever wanted, but I can tell you, all those tricks, not for the average joe. Now, yeah, a 150 bucks ( freaking bitcoin mining, tho it has gone down, luckily) card would solve it, but... Art Rage is also CPU based... integrated cards, in many office machines, or teenagers / grandmothers/fathers / family computers, all those get serious probs with anything gpu based. Yeah, it isolates it only for pros and people with recent systems. Is how it should be for professional use, I know, but...

Quote

Text layers within exported PSDs would be needed.

Totally, absolutely agreeing here. And..importing, that would rock if with also text layer effects and all, but in the import seems impossible task, as is a native format, and I don't see Adobe making it easier for the competitors, obviously...

Agreeing mostly with the rest of the list (obviously much more interested in what is in my signature list, for raster illustrators, comic artists, concept artists and a large etc). But is a WIP...

[SrPx]

9 minutes ago, MattyWS said:

SrPx, You may have misunderstood my use of the word "defensive" here, I'm not referring specifically to you and I don't mean it in an offensive way so I apologise if you took offence

Nope, I didn't   

 

[SrPx]

10 minutes ago, MattyWS said:

my workflow is pretty common in my industry,  and it's a pretty huge industry.

Indeed, I think games move more money now that film industry... or that they say in the news....

[MattyWS]

2 minutes ago, SrPx said:

Er...how much? It is way less for AP.... I don't understand....

I got both ipad and PC apps.