There is much more but like above, I really have had to force myself to spend a huge amount of time to learning its quirks to do much with it. Then there are the things that simply do not work, like the search field in the Add Filter window or that the Crop Tool is unavailable when the app is called as a plugin from AP, or that in the startup screen Recent Photos section the right-click Show in Finder switches to the Finder but does not open a Finder window where that photo is stored.
For example, once you find where it is hiding in the UI it is easy enough to use the AI Quick Mask tool to mask part of an image, but like several other tools you would not even know it exists without referring to the manual or just clicking on each of the tool icons on the left & then hovering the pointer over each of the icons along the top of the window (sort of an overly complicated version of the Affinity context toolbar). Affinity apps now fully support 32-bit HDR PNG, so users can work with high dynamic range on-screen graphics. Several of the other various AI-powered masking features are not exactly straightforward or intuitive to use. Another is that when opened for the first time, the Layers item on the left where one adds or modifies layers is collapsed & there is no indication at all that it can be clicked on to reveal those options. Selecting parts of an image with it are usually straightforward enough but without watching a video or reading through the huge manual, it is far from obvious that to do anything with the selection you have to right-click to pop up the adjustment & filter selection menu. You’re in control This layer stack will give you full control of line width, line detail. the Blackline template opens in both Affinty Photo and Affinty Designer. Highly recommend.I'm not sure why you mentioned using ON 1 for years or a DAM/RAW editor but here we are talking specifically about the UI of the ON 1 Effects 2023 product & its several AI powered features, both as a standalone app & with AP as a plugin.Īmong the things I found counter-intuitive with it are how the AI-powered "Super" select tool works. Blackline Template An Affinity Photo file with a layer stack of pre stacked and adjusted adjustment layers and live filters that are ready to turn your photos into line art. It is a really good tool for the price they're offering it at right now. Maybe start with the free NIK one and see if that works for you. In particular, if you want to use it for the raw development step and shoot high ISO, you might want to find a good noise reduction plugin to go with it. I don't really like the raw developer "persona" compared to other tools I've used, but they are still improving the product and hopefully someday that will get some attention. I use it post-Raw-conversion for layered editing (especially dodging and burning by hand), those plugins, perspective correction, panorama stitching, focus stacking (sometimes), adding mattes/borders, watermarks, text, etc. There were some bugs with some of them until the latest version of Affinity was released now they're all good.
I got the free Google version of the Nik plugins to work fine. Usually what I'll do is flatten the layers I'm happy with and continue working if the slowness irritates me too much. I have a 4 year old Dell business class laptop (aka no speed demon and no fancy graphics card), and it works OK until I get about 10 layers deep and then it'll bog down.