outdoors Posted April 26, 2015 Share Posted April 26, 2015 The navigator is super useful to give you an overview when for example drawing details at 3-400% zoom.Many use it to see the look and feel of the over all picture when working on details. In AP however, the navigator will darken down everything and only show the correct brightness inside the zoom box marker. I understand that this is meant to "highlight" the zoomed area, but it also means it is no longer as useful as a navigator since the overall picture now is way darker. I would suggest that you keep the brightness consistent in the navigator and make the box as "invisible" as possible. Or if you absolutely must do something that visible, then please instead brighten the content inside the zoom box and leave the outside untouched. Because when you think about it, what you need to see correctly in the navigator is those areas that you can't see while zoomed in. It would also be super useful to be able to color pick (alt+click) in the navigator without moving the zoom postition. Here is how a pure white document looks when darkened in the navigator Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nravenlock Posted April 27, 2015 Share Posted April 27, 2015 (edited) @outdoors As an alternative, you can do the following: Switch to Separated Mode (from the Window menu). Then from the View menu, select New View. Arrange the views so you can see both and set one of them to Zoom to Fit (cmd+0). There is an Affinity Designer video which covers this process but it can be applied to Affinity Photo too. Thanks. Affinity Video link: Edited April 27, 2015 by nravenlock Affinity Designer video link added Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff MattP Posted April 27, 2015 Staff Share Posted April 27, 2015 It's done this way simply because I thought that I needed to see at a glance which area I am looking at, but it sounds like you want it to show you what the areas you aren't looking at look like - so I can see it's far from ideal for your needs! Maybe we can add a menu to the Navigator panel to let you choose how it shows the frame and border? Then everyone can get what they want? :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
outdoors Posted April 27, 2015 Author Share Posted April 27, 2015 Thank you both for your replies and ideas. To open another view could be handy indeed, but not as practical as using the navigator. I do understand that you designed it this way to be easy to see the zoom area, but allow me to explain a little bit further. Below are two images. One has the original darkened down navigator, and one is a mockup where the zoomed area is lightened instead. In the original/first image, the navigator is only showing a very small area with the correct brightness, when that small area doesn't have to be that accurate since it is also filling the entire screen. In the second image I have instead made the whole image in the correct brightness while the tiny zoom box instead is brightened. This way I get an overview of the whole image, that is correct, while the tiny zoom area is already showing correctly on the main screen, thus allowing me to view both the zoomed in view and the whole correctly. To me that seems like the most optimal way. Either way, I think your suggestion of a navigator option for how it is displayed would be a wonderful solution, and it is that mentality and those details that really set AP apart. /Andreas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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