A few UI questions

[msk]

Hello,

A few beginner questions I hope you can answer. My apologies if these are answered elsewhere. If not found this in the forum, help or videos.

1. Is there a way to lock the image in the center of the workspace, i.e. prevent panning? I am using a mouse if my finger moves while touching the mouse the image moves.

2. Is there a way to change the color of the background around the image. In Photoshop and Lightroom I can change the background to black, middle grey etc.

3. When I create an adjustment layer, the layer settings opens as a separate window. Is there a way to have it locked on the right side?

4. My current workflow is to make tone adjustments using curves in Photoshop. Then if necessary, make global adjustment in  Lightroom or Luminar because I find it easier to do there then in Photoshop. If I switch to Affinity, is there a reason to use Lightroom or Luminar for global adjustments? I am starting to print and have been reading about pixel loss when making adjustments in Photoshop but I don't have a good understanding of these things yet.

Thank you.

[MEB]

Hi msk,
Welcome to Affinity Forums

1. I'm assuming you are using a surface/touch mouse. If that's the case no, touching the surface will pan the image. If you are using a mouse wheel you can change the wheel function to Zoom instead of panning in Affinity Photo Preferences, Tools section and ticking Use mouse wheel to zoom.
2. Yes. Go to Affinity Preferences, User Interface section and change the Background Grey Level slider. The Artboard Background Grey Level you will also find there is for artboard based documents created in Affinity Designer that you may open in Photo).
3. No. It opens where you left it the last time you used it. Note you can save a presets for the adjustments (the Add Preset button on the top left of each adjustment dialog) which will be displayed/saved to the Adjustments panel in the studio on the right (by default).
4. You can perform Curves adjustments both with Develop and Photo Personas, both locally through the use of Overlays in Develop Persona and the curves adjustment built-in mask in Photo Persona as well as globally without the use of overlays or masks.

[Alfred]

4 minutes ago, MEB said:

1. No.

However, you can work around the problem by selecting the layer and choosing the ‘Zoom to Selection’ view zoom option.

[msk]

Thank you. Regarding changing the background color, is there a quicker way? I change background colors often to evaluate tones and luminescence. Perhaps there is another way to do this in Affinity I am not aware of.

[Old Bruce]

2 hours ago, msk said:

Thank you. Regarding changing the background color, is there a quicker way? I change background colors often to evaluate tones and luminescence. Perhaps there is another way to do this in Affinity I am not aware of.

No.

I have had to do this and the way I did was to open the image then enlarge the Canvas (Not the document) from the centre and slap some solid colour layers underneath the image so I could check against the different ones just by turning them on and off. Makes the file size much bigger though so it is a rarely used solution. Your request would be great so we could swap out the background for black, white, a few  greys and a few user defined colours. Yes, I could support that, with using key commands it would be a treat.

[R C-R]

4 hours ago, msk said:

Thank you. Regarding changing the background color, is there a quicker way? I change background colors often to evaluate tones and luminescence. Perhaps there is another way to do this in Affinity I am not aware of.

The Background Grey Level slider does not change the background color of the canvas, just the grey level of the workspace window outside of the canvas. But in Affinity Photo, you can add a Fill layer & move it to the bottom of the layer stack. Do that & you can select it & change it to any color you want, or even apply a gradient to it. It is often best to lock the Fill layer so it is not selected on the canvas by accident, which means you will have to select it in the Layers panel, but once you get used to that, it can be done in no more than a second or two.

[msk]

Thanks, the fill layer is a good option, hopefully Affinity will add this feature in the future.

[R C-R]

28 minutes ago, msk said:

Thanks, the fill layer is a good option, hopefully Affinity will add this feature in the future.

I am not sure what you mean about adding the feature. Affinity Photo already has a "New Fill Layer" item on the Layer menu. Affinity Designer does not, but Affinity Publisher may be able to do that for users that also own Affinity Photo via the (as yet not implemented in the beta) Photo Persona.

[hifred]

31 minutes ago, R C-R said:

I am not sure what you mean about adding the feature.

I guess, this is meant...

 

[R C-R]

11 minutes ago, hifred said:

I guess, this is meant...

Because @msk previously said:

18 hours ago, msk said:

I change background colors often to evaluate tones and luminescence.

I am not sure changing the workspace window color would help with that (assuming that is what you are showing in PS).

[hifred]

I can't speak for the OP – but the inititial statement was...

On 11/7/2018 at 4:20 PM, msk said:

2. Is there a way to change the color of the background around the image. In Photoshop and Lightroom I can change the background to black, middle grey etc.

 

[msk]

@hifred's video identifies what I am looking for.

[toltec]

1 hour ago, msk said:

@hifred's video identifies what I am looking for.

You can change the grey level in Edit > Preferences > User Interface  by adjusting this slider

There is a shortcut for Preferences Ctrl + , (comma) but not quite as slick as the Photoshop option.