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JDW

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Everything posted by JDW

  1. JDW
    In Photoshop I need only hit the "D" key to switch the Foreground Color to BLACK and the Background Color to WHITE (in the color picker/palette, I mean). I see that when I open a new document in Affinity Photo, it uses the same BLACK and WHITE colors by default too. (In Affinity Photo, I am talking about the 2 round overlapping color circles at the top left corner of the "Color" tab.) But when I change those colors and then press the "D" key, nothing happens. How do I revert them back to the default BLACK and WHITE? And can I assign a keyboard shortcut to accomplish that? Thanks.
  2. JDW
    In Photoshop, if I have a BACKGROUND and then multiple layers atop it, if I select one of the layers atop the Background and then hit CMD-Shift-[, that selected layer gets thrown to the bottom of the stack, but not lower than the Background. Since by definition the "Background" is the VERY BACK, it is illogical that Affinity Photo casts layers below the Background when I hit CMD-Shift-[. Please fix this such that SEND TO BACK only sends selected layers to the lowest point ABOVE the background layer. Thanks.
  3. JDW
    In Photoshop if I add fx to a layer, I can easily MOVE or COPY those fx to another layer simply by dragging (with the Option key held down, if Copying). Empower us to accomplish the same feat in Affinity Photo. Thanks.
  4. JDW
    In Photoshop, if I sketch a rectangle (or any other shape, or use the Pen tool to create one) then give it a fill and a stroke, if I then choose Layer > Layer Style > Color Overylay, it affects only the FILL not the STROKE. But if I do the same in Affinity Photo (AP), the Color Overlay affects the FILL and the STROKE. It would be very useful if a new feature could be added to AP's Layer Effects dialog such that I can choose if the effect will work on the FILL or the STROKE or BOTH. Thanks.
  5. JDW
    The best way to think of Photoshop's White POINT tool (the one in the Curves dialog) is to consider what happens when you scan a mostly white paper document that has some black text on it. Most often, you scan it, bring it into Photoshop, then notice that the white part isn't quite white. It's a tad grayish. To fix that, you open CURVES, then click the WHITE POINT dropper tool, then click on a whitish part of your document. When you do that, it changes from being slightly gray to pure white. It also shifts the White BALANCE too, although technically that would be a different feature.
  6. JDW
    Thank you for pointing out the "White Balance Tool" within the "Develop Persona." However, that White Balance tool is NOT the same as Photoshop's White Point dropper tool (inside the Curves dialog). That Photoshop tool, when clicked on light areas of a photo, will make light gray areas brighten to become pure white. A purely White BALANCE tool, in contrast, doesn't make changes to the light gray areas of the photo, but instead changes the color of light. There is a difference. If you have PS, just open a pic, then open Curves, then click on the rightmost dropper tool with the tooltip "Sample in image to set white point." Click in a light gray area of your pic and watch as it changes to pure white and the overall brightness of the image increases too. Then hold down the OPTION key to see areas that still are not pure white. There are big differences between the two tools. AP needs the functionality that the PS tool has.
  7. JDW
    Again, I am a veteran Photoshop user who is desperately trying to get weaned of PS and start using AP exclusively. But the speed of AP's "Refine Selection" is just terrible. Any adjustment is followed by about 3 seconds of waiting on my 3.06GHz iMac. And yet on the same iMac, PS's "Refine Edge" features work instantly, with no delay at all. Change Feather, Smoothness, etc. It doesn't matter. PS is instantaneous while AP gives a progress bar. This seems to be related to the same slowness we see with the Export Calculations. These things need to be instantaneous, and on our modern machines, there is no reason they should not be, especially when they are instantaneous in Photoshop. Thanks.
  8. JDW
    Maybe it's just me, but when I click that "thread" link, I get an error about not having enough permission to view it! Am I alone on that? Back to the topic... Photoshop's Polygonal Lasso Tool (PLT) works differently from AP's Free Hand Selection Tool (FST). With the PLT, you click multiple times to slowly create your selection. Even if one does have the means to create straight lines with the FST (the Shift key does NOT do that for me, by the way), the fact remains the FST does not use a "Path Tool" style means of selection. Therefore, it would be nice to see a true PST equivalent in AP.
  9. JDW
    I cannot get the SHIFT key to trigger Straight Line functionality as you describe. I am using Affinity Photo 1.3.4. But even if that's a bug and you fix it, the fact remains that Photoshop's Polygonal Lasso Tool (PLT) works differently from AP's Free Hand Selection Tool (FST). With the PLT, you click multiple times to slowly create your selection. Even if you did have the means to create straight lines with the FST, the fact remains the FST does not use a "Path Tool" style means of selection. Therefore, it would be nice to see a true PST equivalent in AP. Thanks.
  10. JDW
    I cannot get the SHIFT key to trigger Straight Line functionality as you describe. I am using Affinity Photo 1.3.4. But even if that's a bug and you fix it, the fact remains that Photoshop's Polygonal Lasso Tool (PLT) works differently from AP's Free Hand Selection Tool (FST). With the PLT, you click multiple times to slowly create your selection. Even if you did have the means to create straight lines with the FST, the fact remains the FST does not use a "Path Tool" style means of selection. Therefore, it would be nice to see a true PST equivalent in AP. Please seriously consider adding it. Saying it another way, the PLT in Photoshop doesn't require you to "hold things down." No constant clicking required. No constant pressing of any keyboard keys. You just click to add a point, then click to add another point, and continue on until you complete your selection. It may not have an appeal to you if you've not grown to love that method of selection, but trust me, I use it EXCLUSIVELY in PS. I can't explain why. It just is my favorite way to make selections. So of course I'd love to do the same in AP. Also keep in mind that the PS PLT is not the same as the Pen Tool in terms of the way the "line" appears. With the Pen Tool, you click once to set a point and you and you won't see a new line appear until you click the next point. But with the PLT in Photoshop, you click once and then you will see the selection line. In other words, you will always see the selection line as you click new points. Thanks.
  11. JDW
    In Photoshop I can choose Brush, Pencil or Block as Erasers. In AP, I don't see anything similar to Block or Pencil. More specifically, I want the means, like in Photoshop, to erase WITHOUT anti-aliasing. Even when I set AP's Erase Brush Tool to 100% Harness, it is still anti-aliased and therefore it is no substitute for Photoshop's Pencil and Block erasers.
  12. JDW
    I started a TOPIC on this back in February named EPS export option, Slowness of "Calculating...", and although I can still see that post header in the My Content section of my profile, clicking on it yields an error. Searching for it reveals nothing. It seems like the topic was deleted for some reason, hence my follow-up post on the same matter today. Try this: 1. Open a rather large photo. 2. File > Export 3. Note that PNG is probably selected by default and at the bottom right of that sheet you see "Calculating..." Note how long it takes for the file size to appear. Then switch from PNG-24 to PNG-8 and note the time. It takes forever. Switch to JPEG and play around. JPEG file sizes calculate faster than PNG, but the are still slow. Switch to GIF and then go get a cup of coffee because you'll be waiting a VERY long time before the file size appears. I've got a 3GHz processor! None of my other apps that show sizes are this slow. Seriously, those sizes should be calculated and displayed almost instantly. Why is this important? Because I sometimes want to prepare pics for the web and I want to see if PNG-8 or GIF or JPEG are the best choices for the smallest size. In Photoshop's "Save for Web" feature, such is fast and easy. But the current functionality in AP slows me down tremendously. Suffice it to say, AP has not yet weaned me off Photoshop. But I am hopeful it will. That's why I bought AP just as soon as it hit the MAS. I want to support your development efforts. Thanks.
  13. JDW
    I cannot imagine that this hasn't been discussed before, but a simple search of this forum didn't reveal a similar topic, hence my feature request post today. When I display the Adjustment tab and then click once on anything (Recolor, B&W, Posterise, etc.), that adjustment appears automatically in the Layers tab. But most of the time, I just want to click once and take a look at what the default 3 choices are. Maybe I don't even want to see that adjustment at all. So the way things are now, I have all these adjustment layers stacking up even though I didn't want to apply any of them. Some people may like the existing functionality, so perhaps adding a Preference would be best. Allow me to DISABLE the automatic application of the adjustments when I merely click on their name in the Adjustments tab 1 time. Create the adjustment layer only when I then click on one of the 3 options (e.g., Default or Cold or Warm, for "Black & White") or when I move one of the sliders in that particular adjustment's dialog. All said, I really don't like it when I just click once on an adjustment and then it becomes a new layer. Thanks.
  14. JDW
    Inside the Layers tab, when I drag a layer onto the Trash icon, please make something happen (like a Hover state on the web). Right now it works -- if I drag atop the trash and release, it gets deleted with feedback of a little cloud -- but I want feedback BEFORE I release the mouse button. Photoshop gives feedback. Drag a layer atop the trash icon and the background of the trash icon gets darker. It's a small thing but one that will be noticed by everyone and LIKED tremendously. Thanks.
  15. JDW
    This thread is related to the new topic I just created here: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/10589-set-white-point-photoshop-style/ If that "picker" inside the Affinity Photo White Balance dialog is all there is, then it would seem there is indeed no equivalent to the "Sample in image to set white point" dropper icon tool residing in the Curves dialog of Photoshop. One click with that tool and boom!, you're done. Plus, if I press the option key, I can see the dark points that I may then wish to click with the dropper and lighten.
  16. JDW
    Where is the Set White Point in Affinity Photo (AP)? Please note that I've been using the AP beta and recently I purchased the app via MAS. I am trying to transition from Photoshop but I am faced with a learning curve. In Photoshop, I hit CMD-M to bring up the Curves dialog and then click the rightmost dropper icon ("Sample in image to set white point") and click on the light parts of my image. That adjusts the white balance and the white point beautifully. I use this all the time on the white parts of scanned images to make sure white is 100% white. I want to do the same thing in AP, but no such feature exists in the AP Curves dialog that I can see. And when I type "Set White Point" or even "white point" in the Help menu Search field, nothing relevant appears. How do I accomplish this in AP? Again, I want a drop tool (or similar) that allows me to click on light areas of the image and set those parts to pure white. If there is such a feature in AP, please note that Photoshop allows me to press the Option key after I click the White Point dropper to see areas that are still dark. That is very convenient to allow me to see where else I should click the dropper to make sure all the white areas are pure white, not leaving any light gray patches anywhere. Does AP have this? Thanks.
  17. JDW
    Well, after I copy in Illustrator, switch to Affinity then Paste, I can zoom in on the pasted content in Affinity and it never gets jagged. (Zooming in on a raster will show jagged pixels at some point.) It looks "vector" to my eyes while displayed in Affinity. Yet after Exporting with Affinity, I see a screen resolution bitmap. That is confusing to me. Again, it looks like a vector in Affinity, so if it is indeed vector, how then can I Export it as a vector rather than a 96dpi bitmap? Again, this seems to be a Copy/Paste issue because I don't have the same "vector to raster" problem when I open an Illustrator generated SVG in Affinity and then Export to SVG from Affinity. I don't want my SVGs to rasterize at all. That would defeat the entire purpose of using an SVG on my websites. I want vector data, not a rasterized bitmap.
  18. JDW
    Matt, please note that I usually can shrink Illustrator's SVGs down in size further by using this: http://petercollingridge.appspot.com/svg-editor/ Maybe that site will give you some ideas as to the fat which can be cut to maximize optimization.
  19. JDW
    I am finding Affinity-exported SVGs to be screen resolution bitmaps when created by COPYING & PASTING Illustrator vector data: 1. Select and then COPY your vector content in Illustrator CC 2014. 2. Switch to Affinity Designer 1.1.2. 3. File > New > (Type = Web, Set Page Height/Width dimensions) 4. PASTE. (Transparency and object structure should appear identical to Illustrator.) 5. File > Export > SVG > Export for Viewing > Export (button click) 6. View your Affinity-exported SVG in a browser or in Illustrator and note how it is a screen resolution bitmap! I've created an Affinity Designer 1.1.2 document and included the exported "bitmapped" SVG in the following ZIP archive: http://cl.ly/0s161t2V002V
  20. JDW
    If I open an SVG in Illustrator CC and in Affinity Designer and then export the SVG from both apps (using the smallest file size settings in Illustrator), the Illustrator saved SVG is slightly smaller than the Affinity exported SVG. And that remains true even though I select "Export for Viewing" in Affinity. It would be nice to have file sizes the same or smaller than what Illustrator generates. I am specifically thinking about WEB use.
  21. JDW
    I mentioned this in a recent post in another thread, but perhaps it bears repeating in a more appropriately titled thread like this one... I use SVGs with SoftPress Freeway (web design app) and find that Illustrator-generated SVGs lack HEIGHT and WIDTH attributes which make the SVGs have problems in Freeway (when used with Freeway's "SVG Image" action). The Illustrator SVGs display in-browser, but the problem is that Freeway auto-creates a fallback image (JPG/GIF/PNG -- your choice) for SVGs and that fallback image isn't generated if the SVGs HEIGHT & WIDTH tags are missing. So I either have to use a text editor to hack in those two tags or bring the SVG into Affinity Designer and then export it (which nicely exports the Height & Width tags). The only problem with using Affinity Designer to do this is that Affinity exports slightly larger SVGs than Illustrator does (yes, I am choosing "Export for Viewing"). Another issue is that I sometimes open an SVG and see whitespace surrounding the vector content. I know I can click the Document setup button in Affinity to shrink the artwork/artboard area to the dimensions of the artwork, but it's fiddly. It would be wonder to have a one-click means of shrinking the artboard to the artwork size. Thanks.
  22. JDW
    Actually, I use SVGs with SoftPress Freeway (web design app) and find that Illustrator-generated SVGs lack HEIGHT and WIDTH attributes which make the SVGs have problems in Freeway (when used with Freeway's "SVG Image" action). The Illustrator SVGs display in-browser, but the problem is that Freeway auto-creates a fallback image (JPG/GIF/PNG -- your choice) for SVGs and that fallback image isn't generated if the SVGs HEIGHT & WIDTH tags are missing. So I either have to use a text editor to hack in those two tags or bring the SVG into Affinity Designer and then export it (which nicely exports the Height & Width tags). The only problem with using Affinity Designer to do this is that Affinity exports slightly larger SVGs than Illustrator does (yes, I am choosing "Export for Viewing"). Another issue is that I sometimes open an SVG and see whitespace surrounding the vector content. I know I can click the Document setup button in Affinity to shrink the artwork/artboard area to the dimensions of the artwork, but it's fiddly. It would be wonder to have a one-click means of shrinking the artboard to the artwork size. Thanks.
  23. JDW
    To avoid complete and utter confusion on my part, I prefer to view this Raster-vs-Vector talk in terms of what I can draw and how that drawn object will look "at any size, regardless of printer resolution." And in that way of thinking, any object (effects or no) which I draw in AD which prints perfectly smooth all the time, regardless of printer, and regardless of how big I resize it, is in my mind "essentially a Vector." (If you act like a Vector, stink like a Vector, eat like a Vector, you must be a Vector, even if that label may technically be incorrect.) But you seem to be saying that once I draw a rectangle in AD and then apply a Stroke EFFECT (which everyone is calling "Raster"), even though AndyS said it would print perfect even at 10kdpi (which is amazing), you are saying, "Well, it only will print beautifully at 10kDPI if your AD document was set to 10kdpi." Is that right? In that case, we would have to set our AD documents to 10kdpi ("DPI" field in the "Dimensions" section in the New Document dialog)? Saying it yet another way, if I draw a rectangle and apply a Stroke Effect to it, then export that as, say, an SVG, that Stroke Effect's resolution would be fixed to whatever the DPI setting is of the AD document? Or would the Stroke Effect be stripped away when exported as an SVG because SVG is a Vector format? With Illustrator, I don't have this confusion, even in cases where I apply a Drop Shadow EFFECT to a Vector because I know how the Document Raster Effects Settings work in Illustrator. But since I am new to AD, and hope AD can ultimately be a replacement for Illustrator, I am still trying to get my head around this talk of Lines vs Strokes (Effect Rasters vs Vectors). Again, your kind patience, understanding, and hand-holding is appreciated.
  24. JDW
    It doesn't matter so much to me anymore as per AndyS's info: In other words, "Rasters" in AD aren't really Rasters at all insofar as they (as per AndyS, anyway) print like Vectors. In my book of definitions, a classic RASTER is a FIXED-DPI BITMAP. As such, AndyS's explanation describes a VECTOR more than it does a Raster. As a result, if one wishes to call one Vector "ABC" and another Vector "XYZ," who cares? Now if someone wishes to argue that AD "Effects" are indeed NOT Vectors, then one would need to argue against what AndyS said previously.
  25. JDW
    Thank you both for the detailed explanations.
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