Learning to use Photo for photo adjustment

[tom van vleck]

These are my issues and questions as I attempt to adapt my Photoshop processing to Affinity Photo. I would be grateful for clues.

My current computer is a 2013 MBP retina, macOS 10.14.6.

Observations: Affinity Photo 1.7.1 Compared to Photoshop CS5

These are not complaints. Affinity Photo is different from Photoshop, not better, not worse. 

• Crash with KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS. I read in a picture, cropped it, used Curves, merged, used Vibrance, merged, crashed. Restarted Photo and my image came back, but the History was empty.

• Affinity general interface: the application ignores clicks sometimes, and I have to click again. For example, after I Open a file and it displays on the screen, I click Curves in the Adjustments panel to bring up the Curves pane. Sometimes nothing happens. I click again, and the Curves pane appears.

• Affinity's Resize Document: The DPI setting in this popup varies depending on the camera: an iPhone has 72, a Nikon has 300, a Sony has 350. Default Resample is Bilinear. Every time I Resize, I have to change these values to 72 and Bicubic. No way to change default.

• Affinity's Resize Document: If I change the DPI of a document, the dimensions in pixels change. For example, if a document has height 648 pixels, and I change the DPI from 350 to 72, the height will change to 822.9. WTF.

• Macros/Actions parameters with Resize: In Photoshop Actions, I can record a Resize operation and give it only a width or height, and specify Constrain Proportions. When the Action is executed, it calculates the correct height for the current image from the width (or vice versa) and preserves the image proportions. I defined two macros: one for landscape photos using my standard height, and one for portrait photos using my standard width.

  Affinity does not support this approach. When I define a macro in Affinity that invokes Document => Resize Document..., it saves both the width and the calculated height of the current image in the macro. If I apply this macro to a different image with different proportions (e.g. as a result of cropping), the macro will use the width and height originally saved, and the result will be distorted.

• Curves: In Photoshop, if you click on the picture, a circle appears on the Curves panel showing where the photo pixels appear on the curve. Affinity has a "Picker" button but it does nothing.

• Curves: Photoshop has the black point, white point and gray point eyedroppers. Affinity does not.

• Curves: Photoshop shows an intersection line from the beginning and end of the curve, so you can see what part of the gamut will be cut off if you slide the endpoints. Affinity does not.

• Curves: Photoshop provides an Auto button, which basically slides the endpoints of the curve to eliminate areas with no histogram pixels. Affinity does not.

• Curves: Opening the panel in Photoshop shows the histogram right away. In Affinity, the panel shows up without the histogram, which then appears after about 10 seconds. Disconcerting.

• Filters: Photoshop has Filters => Sharpen => Smart Sharpen. Affinity does not, only Unsharp Mask, which doesn't sharpen as well.

• Filters: Photoshop has Filters => Noise => Despeckle. Affinity does not.

• Adjustments: Affinity has a Vibrance adjustment. "Boost subtle color intensity while minimizing the over-saturation (clipping) of more intense colors. Skin tones are also preserved to retain a natural appearance." Haven't found a picture yet that needs it.

• Filters: Affinity has a Filters => Distort => Perspective filter and also a Perspective tool. Not sure if they are different. The Perspective filter shows a grid, but the grid stretches as you change the shape, so it is not helpful for rectifying. Furthermore, as you stretch the grid, the handle goes behind other panels and if you let go, you can't get it again. Frustrating interface.

• In Affinity's Filters => Sharpen => Unsharp Mask, the preview looks like it is tiled and the tiles don't quite match. This may be true with other adjustments that show previews.

• Affinity's File => Open dialog remembers the last directory.. but doesn't remember the last file opened: it always starts at the top. As I open one file after another to convert, I have to keep scrolling down to where I left off.

• If I forget to resize my image, and attempt to Save for Web a large image in Photoshop, I get a warning box saying this is probably not what I want. In Affinity, File => Export just saves a big file.

• After exporting a file, I close my edit window. Photoshop and Affinity both query if I want to save changes. In Photoshop, I can type "D" to select Don't Save. Not in Affinity: it just beeps. I have to click the mouse.

• The Affinity Macro library opens a huge panel, costing screen space. It is possible to resize the box, but finding the resize handle is finicky.

• Photoshop's Lens Correction tool does straightening, distortion and lens fixes, and perspective fixes; it automatically crops the result. Affinity's Straighten is inside the Crop tool, and Filters => Distort => Perspective is both a filter and a tool in the left side toolbar. These tools do not crop the results and there is no button that will do so.

• Filters: Affinity has Filters => Haze Removal. Haven't tried it yet.

• Macros. Affinity lets you edit a macro by right clicking on its name and selecting Edit Macro, but when I choose "edit macro" nothing happens. I can export all the macros to a file but it is a binary file, not editable.

• Macros. Affinity help says "Within the Settings dialog for a recorded action, enable the Eye icon to expose the parameter to the user (making it interactive) when the macro is run" but I don't see a Settings dialog for Resize Document, or any Eye icons.

 

[John Rostron]

27 minutes ago, tom van vleck said:

Affinity's Resize Document: If I change the DPI of a document, the dimensions in pixels change. For example, if a document has height 648 pixels, and I change the DPI from 350 to 72, the height will change to 822.9. WTF.

Do you have the Resample option ticked? If so, then this is what you would expect. If you have it unticked, then it should behave as expected.

 

31 minutes ago, tom van vleck said:

Macros/Actions parameters with Resize: In Photoshop Actions, I can record a Resize operation and give it only a width or height, and specify Constrain Proportions. When the Action is executed, it calculates the correct height for the current image from the width (or vice versa) and preserves the image proportions. I defined two macros: one for landscape photos using my standard height, and one for portrait photos using my standard width.

Affinity does not support this approach. When I define a macro in Affinity that invokes Document => Resize Document..., it saves both the width and the calculated height of the current image in the macro. If I apply this macro to a different image with different proportions (e.g. as a result of cropping), the macro will use the width and height originally saved, and the result will be distorted.

This is a known problem. The only way round it is to use Filters > Distort > Equations. I have posted a macro which will resize portrait and landscape documents as you wish.Search for "Resize an image to a fixed maximum size".

 

41 minutes ago, tom van vleck said:

Adjustments: Affinity has a Vibrance adjustment. "Boost subtle color intensity while minimizing the over-saturation (clipping) of more intense colors. Skin tones are also preserved to retain a natural appearance." Haven't found a picture yet that needs it.

Say you have an image in which  the red channel is highly saturated, but the blue and green channels less so. If you apply the Saturation slider then the red channel will oversaturate before the blue and green channels. If you use Vibrance, the it will not do so.

46 minutes ago, tom van vleck said:

In Affinity's Filters => Sharpen => Unsharp Mask, the preview looks like it is tiled and the tiles don't quite match. This may be true with other adjustments that show previews.

You should always assess such adjustments at 100%.

John