Affinity Photo bugs that I hope get fixed
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- Опубліковано 24 лип 2024
- As much as I love Affinity Photo, it still had some long standing bugs that really prevent it from being perfect (at least for me.) So I made this video to talk about them, but also want to hear if you guys also have these same issues.
00:00 Intro
01:07 Macros bug
02:54 Select all layers bug
06:06 Color Sampling bug
08:25 Liquify brush size shortcut bug?
10:50 Language switch bug
12:36 Quick layer switching bug
14:52 Brush cursor disappearing bug
17:00 Wish list
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/ ben.r.g_visuals - Навчання та стиль
I work with Windows desktop.
Macros can be activated with the pen of the graphics tablet. Maybe ask Wacom if they know about the problem.
The checkerboard effect when switching layers on and off isn't something I'm familiar with. However, when using live filters, it takes a little longer to switch on, and a kind of black rectangle appears for a fraction of a second.
The size of the Liquify brush can be changed using the combination Ctrl + Alt (on Mac, Ctrl + Option) and moving the pen or mouse from left to right or vice versa.
The little display gets stuck, like your keyboard changer, but this happens on Windows and not in Affinity.
The quick layer switching bug I do know and can be quite annoying when you can't see what you're doing. Sometimes restarting Affinity helps, but it is not a permanent solution.
The brush cursor disappearing happens, in my case, when using the brush setting sliders.
For the inpainting brush, having "current layer and below" as the default setting makes more sense.
For zooming, the letter Z is used. Then adjust the zoom with the pen or mouse by moving left to right or vice versa.
Bugs not only depend on the operating system but also vary from device to device. I noticed this while browsing the Affinity Forum. For instance, Affinity used to crash almost every time I used the color pickers, though few others reported this issue. After setting up the operating system on my computer again, the problem with the color pickers was resolved.
My text has now become much longer than intended. I hope there is something here that is useful to someone.
Wow, thank you for the fantastic comment.
You know, contacting Wacom is something I never really thought about, but I think I will. Because it’s like other users are also experiencing these bugs.
I’ve tried using the Z key for zoom, but could never really get used to it. It was also much faster to use the keyboard. And since I changed my keys, they are right above my brush size keys, so R and T zooms me in and out and F and G changes my brush size. This allows me to basically keep my hand and fingers in one places (thumb on the space bar) and really speeds up my working speed.
You’ve definitely given be some interesting things to think about. I really appreciate it!
@@brgphotography You're absolutely right, you definitely have to feel comfortable with the workflow. And I suspect you've created a pretty sophisticated system there.
You’re definitely right. Everybody works different, and has a different workflow.
I made a video maybe a year or two ago showing how I set up and re-mapped all my keys. But I’ve made a few changes since then, so I’m thinking about making another video. Because the way I have it now, is my left hand sits on the left side of my keyboard, and doesn’t have to move much at all. I have access to all my brushes, clone stamps, zoom in and zoom out, selecting sources for my clone brushes, and moving around, all without having to move my hand too much. Then of course using the tablet.
Totally agree with the inpainting brushes, very annoying you have to change it to "current layer and below", should be the default. Also I think AF are falling behind other software in terms of object selection and removal tools.
Yeah, and seems like something that would be just an easy thing to add. They could make it a preference in the settings. So you could set each tool to whatever you want.
Yeah. I agree. I recently tried out the newest version of capture one and their AI auto-selection tool was really impressive. Sure it missed a few small spots, but it got you 90% there. Definitely a time saver.
When I got into serious photography Affinity was my first real editing software. The learning curve was almost too steep for me and I still struggle. I have a fairly good work flow with it now thanks to what you and others have taught me. I'm not leaving Affinity though. Compared to other programs it lacks AI, an easy user interface, and gimmicky effects but thats exactly why I stay.
I sometimes feel that people get too caught up in new features. Where, I think if you know the basics, and have a good understanding of the software, you only really need a few tools to get the job done.
I think I do 90% of my work with probably only 10% of affinity photo’s features. 😂
Thank you for all the time and effort you put into your videos! I haven't got any of these bugs outside the disappearing brush once or twice... but I'm far more of a hobbyist. While I'm happy with Affinity, it would be great to see them add a generative fill or content aware fill feature...
Thank you very much, and I really appreciate it. I would like to start posting more frequently as I still have a lot of ideas for future videos, but they do take a lot of time, and I probably spend too much time trying to get everything perfect.
For example my last video about clone brushes I think I recorded like 4 times before I was finally satisfied with it. 😅
But thank you. Comments like this really motivate me to keep making more and more videos. 🙇🏻♂️
Add this one to your wish list please- I recently moved to Affinity after 18 years of PS experience. The biggest thing I miss is the ability to have a 2 up view while doing D&B. I typically keep one zoomed all the way out, and the working view zoomed in to 100% to make sure I don't overdo it. Yes, I can zoom in and out, but that's not efficient.
That’s an interesting idea that I’ve never thought about, but I could see being very helpful.
One work around could be using the “navigator” window to always give you a full sized view. Under the window tab you can check on navigator. You can make the window pretty big and have that side by side as you are doing D&B. The only thing is you can’t zoom the navigator window. So you always get a full view.
@@brgphotography Thank you for the suggestion! I'd be okay with that, but when I'm zoomed in at 100 - 300% to do some very fine detail work the area your zoomed into is covered by a translucent box in the navigator panel to show where you're zoomed into. The nice thing about this trick in PS is the second view is live, or updates as you work. It's so easy even for a seasoned retoucher to over do things when zoomed in that close.
I've been playing with this and found a way to replicate most of what I need. Once you have a file open for editing, select "View>New View" on the menu bar. Next, go to "Window>Arrange>Float All". In PS, I would then go to Arrange and select side by side and the photo's would be docked to the correct size. The Retouching Toolkit and other panels had this as an action (macro) to set it up for me. Alas, AP2 doesn't have this (yet), so I'm forced to resize the floating windows around my workspace. The good news is it works and updates the copy live as you're editing!
I'll update you if I find a way to automate this. Try it out and let me know what you think...
@williamcarter6374 that’s a really clever idea. I actually never used the new view option. And it’s always interesting to hear new ways to work. Because I sometimes also do lots of fine detail, and very fine dodging and burning. And I’ve always just kind of zoomed out and zoomed in. But having a copy of the image right next to where I’m working as a great idea. I’ll be able to see my retouches at full size without having to zoom in and out so much.
Yeah, unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be an option to scale it like Photoshop. You can just have the window floating off to one side. One thing that I do, that you may have noticed, is I undock my toolbar. This allows me to float the tool bar on top of the view I’m not working in this saving a little space.
I’m definitely gonna try this on my next retouch.
@@brgphotography I can't take credit for this method. I learned it many years ago from someone else.
Thank you very much for taking the time to do these video's. The presentation and quality is excellent, and really helping me get up to speed on AP2!
@williamcarter6374 you’re very welcome! I’m always glad to hear when I can help people out, even though I’m still learning everyday 😅
Re Macros: MacOS 12.7.4, AP 2.4.1 (and all previous versions) I too can't get them to run with my WAC OM pen BUT also it is very hit and miss with the mouse🤔. Often takes three or four clicks to get the required macro to run.
I very occasionally get an arrow for my brush rather than the variable circle.
My editing workflow is far simpler than yours so I haven't experienced any of theother ‘bugs because I am not using those features/techniques
Support having the in painting brush default to ‘current layer and below’
Great video, thanks👋
Hey there! Thanks a lot for the comment.
Yeah, the macros tablet bug is really annoying. And I do remember, a few versions back I also had similar issues with the mouse. Where it often took three or four clicks of the mouse for the macro to work. Now it’s gotten a lot better. But every once in a while it still won’t activate with a mouse click, but that’s become less common.
You would think this issue would have been resolved by now, because I feel like I’ve had it for years. Maybe Canva can help them with it! 😂
@@brgphotography Don’t hold your breath!! 🤣🤣
Affinity is such a great program to have so many bugs. I've opened so many bugs over the years. Zero have been fixed. I'm not experiencing your bugs, but I don't use a pen, so maybe most of yours are bugs in combination with the pen?
I hope Canva will put more resources on fixing the long standing bugs.
Yeah, it’s a real shame. Like you, most of the bugs I’m experiencing have been around for years, and never been fixed.
Let’s hope Canva will help.
@@brgphotography It is so frustrating. Affinity has done many things so well, but are failing terribly now at quality.
I've been beta testing the next update. They fixed no bugs I reported for the new line width feature. Some of which are so bad they will crash the application. They are now in the release candidates, so unlikely anything else gets fixed.
The feedback on the forums was overwhelming negative and almost none of the issues were addressed.
I was really excited about line width, but not so much now. The curves look terrible. They look like segments instead of curves if you expand them too much.
@dakara4877 that’s a shame to hear. I don’t use those tools when I’m doing photo retouching, but I do use them a lot when I’m doing my own personal projects, creating graphic designs and such.
I haven’t been on the official forums for awhile, but it is frustrating a lot of these bugs and oversights are keeping the program from being really amazing.
@@brgphotography I use Affinity mostly for illustrations for articles I write. So I often use a combination of vector and photo manipulation tools. Affinity has such a great workflow using Publisher in which I can essentially use all these tools from the same app. I also use art boards, typically for all the illustrations on a topic. So much faster than individual files.
However, Affinity has so many bugs with Art Boards. About half of the photo live filters don't work correctly in Designer. I still stick with Affinity mostly for the superior workflow. If they would fix some of these bugs I would be ecstatic.
On my Windows system I have no problem, starting macros with the pen of my Wacom Tablet. I would also like the points for showing and hiding layers to be larger, especially when working with the pen.
That’s interesting to hear about it working on windows. Must be a macOS issue.
And I’m glad I’m not the only one who sometimes misses the little layer toggle button, especially when using the pen. I wish they would just make it a little bit bigger.
I'm a Windows user and have no issues activating macros with the pen from my Wacom tablet either.
I moved to Affinity Photo when Adobe introduced the subscription model and even though I recently relented and went back to LRC for RAW processing which gives me full access to PS I still use Affinity for all my final processing.
Great program, especially the healing tools and auto masking.
Your videos have been a great resource and I've watched since you started the chanel so thanks Ben. 🙂
Thank you very much for the kind comment! I really appreciate it.
Yeah, I was never a fan of subscriptions, so I used to use Photoshop Express I think it was back in the day. It was like a light version of photoshop at a reduced price. But one they discontinued that and started the subscription model I luckily found Affinity.
Then I eventually bought Capture One for my RAW processing. And I’d like to eventually make some videos showing my workflow from capture one to affinity photo.
Maybe one day affinity will make a good program similar to LR or Capture one.
@@brgphotography Yes, Affinity's RAW module is passable, but without a library function or the ability to copy edits across files it just doesn't do the job for me.
I always recommend it to people though, I'm often still shocked at how few people have even heard about it which is a real pity.
Affinity and channels like yours deserve a lot more attention, keep up the great work!
@shanewilliams613 exactly. When I come back from a photoshoot with 300+ RAW files, I need to quickly view, organize, select favorites, and do some global edits to them before I start the retouching process. Currently Capture One does an amazing job at that.
Thank you very much! I’m really happy you are finding my videos helpful.
I just found your video with the retouching macros. I install and was able to activate your macros with a single tap using my Huion tablet
That’s really interesting! Must be a Wacom issue…? I’ll have to contact support. Thanks for the info!
@@brgphotography you are most welcome.
You raise some very valid points!
Thank you! And, I think my suggestions seem pretty easy to implement. Like, it doesn’t seem like something that would take a lot of time to code. Maybe affinity photo watch this video and make some changes! 😂
Problem that I've noticed is when trying to transform a selection and then flip it. Instead of flipping it in place normally, just like any other software does, it will instead flip it to the other part of canvas if that makes sense, while selection itself stays in place.
So the result is freaking frustrating and weird with part of the selected area withing selection, while the other part is cut off on the other side of the canvas.
That’s interesting. I don’t seem to have that problem. When I select an object or a layer, when I click the “flip horizontal” icon at the top (looks like a blue and white triangle) it flips it on its center axis. Staying in place.
I can understand what you’re saying, and that sounds frustrating. Maybe there is a setting somewhere to change that behavior? Or it might be a bug.
@@brgphotography Yeah, i've tried looking at the settings, but it's hard when you've no idea what to look for lol (also I'm a long time PS user, so it's hard in some places ).
But, I've wrote to customer support, so hopefully there's a solution to this.
Hopefully they can at least provide me an older version installation or something if that's actually a bug.
Thanks for your kind reply ))
Not a problem! Hope it gets sorted out! It’s always interesting to hear about the different bugs/issues people have, especially when they are so different for everyone.
For the last wish, if you hold the mouse wheel and scroll you zoom into your mouse pointer. Is that what you're looking for?
Yeah. That definitely works, but the problem is, is I always use my pen and tablet when retouching. And I’m hardly using the mouse. So I’m always using the keyboard to zoom in and out.
I also experience the disappearing brush bug but it only seems to happen when I am refining a selection. I'm wondering if some of your bugs are related to the amount of RAM on your computer. Thanks for the video.
Yeah. If you notice on the part where I’m refining a selection (I think when I’m talking about the brush size keyboard shortcuts) the curser changes to the arrow icon when it should be the brush circle.
Yeah. I might have to take a look at that. Good tip.
Hate to break it to you, but I've had Infinity products for a while when I dumped Adobe and while they are great for having a "single purchase model," what they usually do rather than fixing bugs is just release a new version and ask you to pay for the fixes as a new feature.
That may be true. But at least I can say that over the 5 or 6 years I’ve been using affinity photo, I’ve spent I think a total of maybe $100-150? I think I bought them both when they were on sale.
Don’t want to think about how much that same amount of time would have cost me with Adobe. So I guess it’s a trade off.
But unfortunately, you may be right…
Have raised these bugs with Affinity? If so, have you had a response?
I think a few years back, I posted about some of these bugs on the serif forums. And I do remember a few other people mentioning some of the similar bugs. I honestly can’t remember what the response was. Maybe I should go back and make a new thread.
I’m a windows user and I experience affinity photo are very buggy and slow when I try to edit my raw images and has been a problem since version 1. Have reinstalled my pc and this problem stands. Any one else who has that problem? I use a laptop who are suited for photo and video editing.
Sorry to hear that. That sounds frustrating. Outside of looking at the performance settings and setting the RAM usage I don’t really have any other advice.
Hopefully another windows user can offer some advice.