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

[SrPx]

2 minutes ago, MattyWS said:

I got both ipad and PC apps.  

Oh! Now I get it...

Quote

 I can wait as long as needed for the software to become even greater.

+1 to that, is my own take at it....

[hifred]

16 hours ago, verysame said:

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.

Hehe, no I'm not even talking about seriously large and complex files...

While I have made larger compositions in the past, the task I use Image Editors for mostly in recent time is a trivial one: Series-processing of E-Commerce imagery – a job that's offered at bargain rates by countless vendors in Asia. I help my partner out with this not exactly creative work – and if I'm at all willing to series process images, I want to do it quickly. Right now I see no way to do this bread and butter job effectively with Affinity Photo.

I shoot as RAW to have some headroom, also for creating realistic looking variations from just a single frame (for products that are available in various colours).
Then I use Bridge to cull and throw a dozen or more RAWs into Photoshop to apply common corrections with its ACR workspace. Afterwards I cycle through these open frames and see if any of the individual shots needs some extra tweaking with ACRs combination of various tools in one brushstroke approach. (Does anyone know a good name for this layer-less editing principle?)

Last I bring all of these images as Smart Objects into Photoshops classic workspace, with the RAWs embedded (they remain editable in ACR). These dozen or twenty open RAW files don't impress PS at all, it's rather me who with too many open images at some point loses track of things :o).

Inside Photoshop I usually only clip objects out to present them on a purely white background and paint back in a bit of of ground shadow – that's it. For this task I merely need basic tools but they have to work well. Cropping / rotating frames without stuttering, selection and selection refinement which work instantly. Good mask editing, also painting on masks with blend modes (essential for editing masks on hairy stuff). A streamlined way to turn every supported item type into pixel selections. Well functioning brush controls for Pen Display users, fully hooked up keyboard shortcuts to quickly change the brush flow.

All of this is either...

• not at all possible due to the way Serif has set up the foundation of its RAW handling
• not (yet) implemented
• implemented, but in a needlessly convoluted manner
• available, but not functioning well enough for binge editing ;o)
   

verysame:  What app did you use to capture these Task-Manager gifs?

[verysame]

7 hours ago, hifred said:

Hehe, no I'm not even talking about seriously large and complex files...

While I have made larger compositions in the past, the task I use Image Editors for mostly in recent time is a trivial one: Series-processing of E-Commerce imagery – a job that's offered at bargain rates by countless vendors in Asia. I help my partner out with this not exactly creative work – and if I'm at all willing to series process images, I want to do it quickly. Right now I see no way to do this bread and butter job effectively with Affinity Photo.
[...]

verysame:  What app did you use to capture these Task-Manager gifs?

I see, you also need to work fast, which is not only a matter of performance and reliability but also workflow.

Well, the test I did in the previous post was with a very small file of only 30 Mb, a few layers, a couple of adjustment layers and yet, the performance was horrible.

My edit is mainly comprised of 3D renders, with all the passes needed on top of the starting editing in order to make it less digital and more photographic: depth of field, grain simulation, color grading, etc, all components of my work. I wouldn't expect Affinity to provide a serious depth of field plugin, Frischluft alone costs $199, so for me, the depth of field filters in Affinity is useless. But I had great expectations for the 32-bit editing, unfortunately, plagued by a bug which has never been fixed, so pretty much useless too.

As for the RAW editing I gave up on that front too. I was going to buy Capture 1, but then I tried Darktable and I must admit I'm quite impressed. Not as user-friendly perhaps and not as fast, but in my case, I do RAW editing for passion, not for work, I can deal with tinkering in DT.

I know people sometimes mention the "right attitude" to find workarounds and solutions, not that I haven't figured out stuff in Affinity myself and came up with "creative ideas". But in the end, the number of workarounds made the use of Affinity irrelevant at that point. Also, when you need to work fast, workarounds can only slow you down, period.

The screen capture utility I used is ScreenToGif , pretty handy. It comes with a portable version as well.

[SrPx]

So... You are not using any of the Affinity apps anymore. Right ?  (just curiosity)

[verysame]

4 hours ago, SrPx said:

So... You are not using any of the Affinity apps anymore. Right ?  (just curiosity)

Not really, but I keep hoping it will get there (now and then I open Photo as I miss the feeling of working with it).

For the vector needs, I have switched to Coreldraw that literally blew my mind in terms of everything: tools, features, customization. It took me a little more than expected to switch to it and if I have to use AI (which I really, really, don't like) for some moment it feels off when I go back to Coreldraw. But after a moment of adjustment, oh boy if it feels so incredibly productive!

The problem remains PS that's why I keep hoping Affinity Photo one day will get there. I do everything I need in PS, but I would be more than happy to ditch it for Affinity. Unfortunately, even the betas now slowed down, I hope it means longer waiting for a stronger next release.

[Merde]

On 10/18/2018 at 9:20 PM, hifred said:

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?

I don't complain, because I just use something else for RAW development.

At this stage Affinity Photo is pretty much useless in that area (speed, mediocre shadow/highlights recovery, no sidcar files, etc).

[hifred]

17 hours ago, verysame said:

I see, you also need to work fast, which is not only a matter of performance and reliability but also workflow.

Yes. Photoshop works ideally for that product shots task and contains other small features which help me a lot, like it's integrated Acrobat Notes tool for collecting product data. Taking any other route right now only would mean a workflow-complication. As 100% of my product shot RAWs end up embedded in a psd I would be plain silly to separate out the RAW processing to a standalone converter. One needed to keep track of separate stacks of files, and needed to sync all sorts of settings, which throughout the Adobe suite, once set up remain intact.

15 hours ago, SrPx said:

So... You are not using any of the Affinity apps anymore. Right ?  (just curiosity)

Right now, no. I have Designer too and it looks good to me, overall. I have those complaints with it, which often come up here (no tracing, no element drilldown via Doubleclick  like in Illustrator and Xara). But then again I don't have a lot of vector illustration needs and as a CAD user I often just export my line graphics from there and only apply some styling inside the vector editor.

17 hours ago, verysame said:

The screen capture utility I used is ScreenToGif , pretty handy. It comes with a portable version as well.

Thanks! As they look so good I thought that this was even a dedicated program which only writes automated gifs from the Task Manager.

12 hours ago, Merde said:

I don't complain, because I just use something else for RAW development.

Yeah, that route can make sense, but it of course forces you to keep two separate stacks of files.

[OldRadioGuy]

On 10/15/2018 at 12:43 PM, ian1357 said:

I would just like to add that Affinity Photo is my editor of choice. But after wanting to try some plug ins and finding very few work with Affinity Photo it got me thinking. I know the Nik plug ins work. However I wanted to try Alien Skin but it keeps crashing Affinity Photo. 

When it's a task Affinity Photo won't handle (that is, needing a Photoshop plugin), I have turned to PhotoLine. The interface is a mess, but it will run all the plugins I have tested either as a plugin or as a standalone external program. The results can be saved as a PSD layers file for then opening in Affinity Photo for additional work, if needed.