Otto Manuel

Thank you to everybody. I started making a few engraving brushes, and realized how easy it is to make a brush. I also realized that a very good way to understand the suitability of a brush in a specific circumstance is to have a familiarity with the source files. I think I will pursue making more brushes that are designed to be contextual to the goals I have. Thank you!

Hi, I was considering buying some "Vector" brushes for Affinity Designer, and thought to look up some tutorials about making brushes to compare the value of purchasing a pack versus making a set of my own from scratch. I was surprised to learn that all the tutorials seem to instruct you to make a png file as the basis for your Vector brush. This inspired me to take a look at some of the "Vector" brushes in Affinity Designer and zoom in closely, which lead me understand that the brushes I assumed were vector are actually raster and exhibit aliased edges. Are Affinity's smoother looking "Vector" brushes just based on incredibly high resolution png files? If so what sort of resolution are they using? Thank you.

Hi, Thanks, that is good to learn. I guess for me, more often than not, adding the adjustments as a child layer, usually at the top of a group, is my use case, so the assistant has been helping me do that ok. The particular question/solution I asked about in this thread was a new twist on my work habits. Thank you!

The problem I was having is that when I added an adjustment layer while a layer was selected the adjustment nested into that layer and I would not get the result I hoped for, so then I thought it might be a good idea to create a new empty layer and place the adjustment in their, and that did not work either. Finally, I figured out that when no layers were selected the adjustment would be placed as a top level adjustment that was not nested etc., and then I could add the mask layer to nest in the adjustment, and produce the result I desired. I find the way Designer places layers and nesting to seem less than intuitive, which has been caused by forming a couple decades of familiarity with other layering conventions. In any event, I think I finally figured out how to do what I wanted. I hope the info proves helpful to someone else. Thank you.

I was having trouble replicating with success using the steps mentioned above. It seems like making sure there are no layers selected before adding the adjustment layer is important. I must be in need of help to fully understand why I am missing where to do what when. :-) Thank you!

I think I figured it out, but it took a lot of tries and I don't really understand why it worked this time because once again I stumbled into the result. Here is what i think worked: 1) Make sure no layers are selected, add a Levels Adjustment layer at the top of the stack, and make some adjustments. 2) Add a Mask to the Levels Adjustment layer. 3) Right Click on the mask layer and select Edit Mask. 4) Switch to Pixel Mode and create an oval shape that is filled with black. 5) Right Click on the mask layer and select Refine Mask. Use the Feather control to soften the edge of the oval shape. I think one of my problems is that I spent a lot of time trying to make a vector OVAL an adding a FX guassian blur. Any insights you can share will be appreciated. Thank you.

Hi, A while ago I asked about and learned a way to make a Vignette style which I could save and use in Designer. It has been helpful, but when I compare the results that I get using a method in Photoshop the appearance of the style that I use in Designer seems a bit "dull'. The method I am using in Designer simply multiplies a masked layer of black over everything and darkens both the darks and the lights underneath. In Photoshop I apply a Levels Adjustment Layer to the top of my layer stack. I compress the blacks and sometimes darken the mid point without dulling the brights. Then I apply a mask layer with a soft edge oval so that the dramatized blacks and shadows are displayed at the edges. This gives the look of a Vignette by emphasizing the intensity of the dark tones without introducing the sensation of dulling the brights. I tried to replicate the idea in Designer, but always seem to get confused when working with masks in this app, so I have not been able to stumble may way to success. I wonder if I can archive what I hope for in Designer. I would like to keep the entire project in the Affinity Designer workflow. Is it possible to replicate the simple Photoshop method I have described? Can you help me understand how? Thank you. These images are crops of the lower left corner of a large illustration. The Vignette effect may not seem obvious when just looking at the corner. The effect was appreciable when viewing the whole. The overall effect of the Designer vs Photoshop method is close when viewing the entire picture, but I prefer the more intense detailing of the Photoshop results.

Hi, Thank you @Dan Cfor the follow up comments and questions. I have ungrouped and re-grouped the groups which cleared the group color assignments and let me continue as I had hoped. Thank you! Yes, I believe that at one point I had purposefully selected the group and assigned the colors. On other occasions I will use the group to conform a stroke size throughout the group layers. When I do this, a stroke color is assigned. It seems there are repercussions to using a group's stroke size, stroke color, and fill color that I only acknowledge later in a project. One thing I have learned is that after the group has assignments to the parameters mentioned, I can still go to the individual curves and override the group assignment with specific choices, but the group parameter settings remain as evidence of the previous action even if they are no longer applicable to some of the nested layers. I think the circumstance that I caused, and which inspired this question, is related to that sort of sequence of events. Thank you for the help.

I think I figured it out. My groups have colors assigned to the stroke and fill, which was at one point a convenience, but now the constituents of the groups have varied colors, how ever when I select a curve that shares the same color as is assigned to the groups the groups are selected. I have not figured out anyway to clear the assignment of color on the groups without changing everything inside the nest. For example; deleting the colors of the stroke and fill on the group delets the colors of everything in the nest. The only solution I can see is to ungroup each group and then group them again, which clears the color assignment of the group while leaving the nested elements undisturbed.

Here is a sample file. I can replicate the issue over and over again. You may have to try a few times to replicate the issue. It may or may not happen when you try. I have found that selecting some of the elements and using Select > Same > Fill Color works as expected, while selecting other elements causes the Select > Same > Fill Color to select both the individual curves as well as the groups they are nested in. When the groups are selected, making a change to the fill color results in all the elements in the groups adopting the color. Thank you. AD 1.1.05. 1342 Win x64 WEEDS SMALL 01B-EXP.afdesign

Hi, I have recently begun using the Select > Same Fill Color command in Affinity Designer with vector curve fills, and today ran across an issue which I assume may be a case of the colors that I am working with having too subtle a difference. The command is selecting elements where the RGB or HSL values are indeed different but very near to the same color. In other words the selection command selects more than just the same fill color. Is there an option to set the precision of the selection? Thank you!

Thank you for your helpful suggestions. Thank you!

Hi, I have a group of groups. I applied a HSL Shift adjustment to the primary group which affected all the groups in the group. In this case it was leafy bushes, and I wanted to shift the hue of the green leaves from a cool to warm cast. Now, I am finding that the group of bushes should be split up to allow me to layer other element fore and aft of the bushes, so I want to remove some of the bushes from the group and use them elsewhere in the stack. It seems like it would be nice to permanently apply the HSL Shift to the entire group to simplify the process, but I want to keep the vector info etc. Is there a way to permanently apply the HSL Shift and retain all the vector curves and layer stacking? Thank you!

Thank you @v_kyr I opened my svg in a text editor and found the tag <svg width="100%" height="100%" and changed it to the dimensions of the project. For example; <svg width="7.5in" height="14in" and now I can import the svg in other apps and have it load as I had hoped. Thank you for pointing me in the right direction.

Hi, I have been working with some SVG files exported from Affinity Designer, and the next app I load them in does not recognize a document size. In this case I am drawing the shapes to scale with a document size in inches. Is this is a basic characteristic of SVG format or is there some way I can learn to make sure that my SVG exports maintain the intended dimensions? Thank you!

Thank you @thomaso for providing an answer to my question and suggesting a work around solution.

Hi, I started working with a project in Affinity Designer that was handed off to me as an .svg with arbitrary frame sizing. Now, I have realized that I can trim a few pixels off the width of the document to make the file a nice and tidy width : height ratio. For example; lets say I started with 309x360, and I am willing to reduce the size to 300x360, but I want to crop rather than shrink or distort the content. I tried the crop tool, but it didn't seem to have a dialog entry where I could make a precise crop, and it sort of seemed like it was some type of mask rather than an old fashioned crop. I reduced the width with a document setup, which allowed me to work precisely, but now I nodes and such outside the boundary of the document and I am concerned that it will create confusion in the future. Is there a good solution using Affinity Designer? Thank you!

I would gladly buy a VectorStyler license but I am still rocking Win7 x64 and can't get the demo to launch on my laptop because specific info in my USER32.dll is missing. Numeric Path says they will only support Win 10+, although I wonder why it would be hard to include a copy of the required .dll in the installer, so I look forward to running it when I finally upgrade my OS. In the mean time I very much enjoy drawing with Affinity Designer.

I came looking for info about making and using vector pattern fills in Affinity Designer, and was surprised to learn it is only a wished for feature. +1 for the feature request. Using bitmap pattern fill in a vector illustration seems like it negates the benefits of vector illustration. Thank you!

FWIW, it seems as if increasing the screen tolerance value makes dragging nodes feel "choppy" regardless of whether I have snapping turned on or off. I guess it makes sense, although I admit I had assumed this parameter would be contextual and specific to snap functions rather than a global adjustment.

Hi @MEB Thank you for the suggestion. I have not tried this, and probably misunderstood the function. If I recall correctly I had assumed a smaller value made it more sensitive. After learning the idea of increasing the value the snapping does seem more aggressive. Having said that my impression is that the tendency to snap is not just confined to the nodes but also the the grid which makes dragging nodes seem choppy rather than smooth, so I think I will need to learn more about how to prepare suitably sized grid divisions, while also become more active in managing the snap settings at differing stages of an illustration's development. In my case, once I use the grid to establish the basic planar objects, I tend to prioritize snapping to nodes on other objects. I will need to develop habits for changing the snap settings when one or the other priority is more suitable. If anyone has some experience with this and can articulate some of the concepts they employ, I will appreciate the opportunity to consider your ideas while I try to clarify this info into a better state of understanding, which I may apply to my workflow. Thank you!

Thank you for taking the time to post a suggestion!

Hi, I have been working with an Isometric style grid and am hoping to learn some tips about snapping. The snapping I am using works pretty good, but my master document has a relatively large pixel dimension of 8000x4000 and I have been struggling when working with small details in a large project. I have been assembling elements in smaller documents, such as 1000x1000 so I can work with the snapping grid effectively and then copy/paste the elements into a large master file where I don't need to do very much detailed editing I would like to enjoy more aggressive snapping when working on the elements, and feel as if I am spending too much time inspecting for and adjusting the position of nodes so they are actually snapped in an Isometric relationship. As I say, the snapping works pretty good, and I am continually impressed by how effective the snap features are in general, but I am hoping to learn some tips to improve my situation. For example; I have found that when I resize my isometric elements there is often times some very minor displacement, not the obvious type that occurs with an unlocked aspect ratio, but small deviations that occur when sliding several nodes along one of the axis to stretch a shape, or when scaling an element with aspect ratio locked. These are all tiny issues, but they appear obvious when you zoom in, so I spend a lot of time trying to make sure every thing is tight and clean. I feel as if I should be working with very aggressive snapping while I lay out my basic shapes so I can work quickly, but still establish a very accurate foundation of angled line work to which I can add detail to in subsequent steps. Does anyone have any favorite Snap and Grid management suggestions they can share? Thank you!!!

Thank you for the suggestion. I was hoping to use the size dialog box to type in an exact size, and have not found a way to do that without having to explicitly select the text and reduce its letter set size after the group resize. If the drag method works maybe I can adapt to using it, but I would greatly prefer to use the parameter dialog and type an exact size in. Maybe there is a way? Thank you.

Hi, I have a grouped multi layer object that I prepared and now that I am trying to shrink it into another document and may use it as symbol. When I do so, some text which I have on a curved path starts crawling along the path and loses its orientation etc. I know I can change the text to a curve, but then its not text any longer, and I would like to keep the lettering editable as text in the new document. Is there some check box, perhaps analogous to the "scale stroke when resizing" check box that I may learn to use? Thank you.