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2989 reacted to walt.farrell in Twisted Brush Toolbar
Perhaps: https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/store/product/twisted-brushes/
Which links to: https://affinityspotlight.com/article/twisted-brushes-the-new-affinity-brush-collection-by-neil-ladkin/
@Twilight35: Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums. That video was created using Affinity on the iPad, I think, which has a different interface than the desktop apps, and includes that bar along the bottom. If that's not what you're talking about, please provide more information.
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2989 reacted to AnnieW in Brush Factory 1 - free Textured Intensity Brushes
Last november I published a set of Textured Intensity Brushes on this forum by the cryptic name of CTSR Lines (which makes sense to no one but me). Those brushes have repeating patterns. When creating the brushes I encountered some problems with patterns getting squished and such.
I created some more brushes in a second set and came across an additional quirk (which offset values to use for pixel perfect pattern alignment?). So although it’s just a few months ago, it’s time for a revised set. Time to rename my brush making into something else too. I figured out a much faster way to produce large sets of brushes, cutting out a lot of unnecessary steps, so I rename my series Brush Factory.
So here’s the set again.
Renamed Aspect ratio of 1 in the source file to prevent distortion of the patterns Patterns repeated 3 times in source to prevent issues with repetitions This is new: adjusted the offset values to 80 and 159,4 to have the repetitions align perfectly The Pointy and Round brush families are repeating, the Stripey families are stretched. The brushes all contain a centred line (in 3 widths, S, M and L) and repeating shapes and stripes above or above and below. The brushes with stuff above the line, but not under are therefore not vertically centred on the stroke. In the Stripey families I added 3 lines with a different center point. Those 3 are symmetrical, the extra version is vertically centred on the whole stroke.
Source of (almost all) of the patterns is a 240*240px image. This is a rather small image, so in wide lines, the edges of the pattern blur. I’ve created the patterns as a vector drawing, feel free to ask for a brush from a larger source (less blurry) if you need one. @StuartRc says helpful things about the size of sources in this post:
https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/64287-creating-vector-brushes/
When using these brushes on a tightly curving curve or a sharp corner they of course do deform. Experiment with the brush setting for Corners and the Stroke Cap to find the best solution for your project.
The attached .zip file contains a PDF with examples and nine brushes files to import into Affinity Designer.
Brush Factory 1.zip
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2989 reacted to MEB in Filter Gallery and Artistic Filters?
Hi artfulnotes,
Welcome to Affinity Forums
Currently Affinity Photo doesn't have any artistic filters. We do intend to add them later in a future version. There's however a few Topaz plugins that work inside Topaz Studio (also supported as a plugin in Affinity Photo) that may interest you (it also work as an independent app) - check it out here .
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2989 reacted to D. Main in Vector/pattern fill
Patrick Connor: As I have said to forum users here before you should buy the software for the features that the program already has and not the ones it doesn't.
I've hesitated reentering this discussion, but I was disappointed in Patrick's reply above.
Indeed, I bought Affinity Designer because it did what I needed - EXTREMELY AND PROFESSIONALLY WELL.
However, my project and MY Customer requirements change. Now a large body of work that I am committed to requires such a feature.
I was surprised when a prior incarnation (Serif Draw) and even freeware have this feature that I thought vector graphics software should have. My bad - I agree.
So, I went to the forum to look for workarounds (which are really bad and don't work for me) and to express to Affinity my (and others' apparently growing desire) to have this feature.
As others' have put it - for years, not a peep either way from Affinity. So this means to me as a Customer - that this forum is not to assist Customers nor to gauge Customer's needs. Thus, I like others, are purchasing alternative software - Its a free market. And this is a free market pressure for Affinity.
Nuff said. No need for any more comment... from me.
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2989 reacted to ra.skill in Vector/pattern fill
I must say it looks fantastic! With a lot more functionality over AD. Thanks for sharing. The Ui looks a little cleaner and clearer too, nice!
But I don't really want to fork out more money to support my Affinity suite when I might just return to Adobe anyway. If vectorstyler offered a complete suite I might think about it more.
Got my fingers crossed for Affinity 2.0.... unless I give up before then.
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2989 reacted to D. Main in Vector/pattern fill
My frustration here is that it appears that Affinity keeps addressing things either enterprise users like or that are easy to implement - rather than implementing something BASIC TO THE NEEDS OF MANY USERS. ('So it becomes less relevant that AI and even Inkscape!!!)
RE an earlier comment re Affinity's likelihood of continuing to ignore this ISSUE: I ask myself and Affinity - what use is this forum to users, if Affinity ignores, doesn't answer, or doesn't care about its content?
I'm deciding, like some here apparently, that we can hear of better products (that meet our needs) and switch. I'm now using VectorStyler. If it ends up meeting all my needs, I'll no longer be an Affinity Designer promoter like I used to do.
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2989 got a reaction from ra.skill in Vector/pattern fill
AFFINITY - Can we Please get an Official word, here and now, on this forum on When we will get the ALL Important Vector fill !
Will it be in the next release ?
Are you actually working on it ?
I have always wondered, Why has Serif never sent a Questionnaire with the top 20 requests that people want, that we - Your paying customers, Need from your software?
It would give you a roadmap of what to work on next, not just what you think we want or what is hip/cool with the other engineers at Serif. In the 25+ years I have used Serif products, You have never done basic marketing and asked your customers what type of design we use, the industry we work in, the jobs we use your programs for, and the things we need added. I find that astounding. And why do some of your MUCH older products have features that your new Software is sorely lacking? You obviously had the Skills and Technology Years ago to produce these features, So where are they ?
You have this superb forum, people have asked for YEARS for things (like Vector Fills) and yet they never seam to appear.
Why not?
I (and I am sure many others), Look forward to your reply.
Thank You.
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2989 reacted to Comet in Vector/pattern fill
I do not consider myself a "super-pro" user but this one feature in particular, vector fills, is so fundamental and essential for what I do mainly, which is drawing plans (not an outlandish use?) that I reluctantly can't commit to swapping to the products from Adobe.
That this basic feature has not been added yet to what is in other respects a very mature product frankly astounds me, and turns what could otherwise be a solidly professional product into a mere toy.
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2989 reacted to D. Main in Vector/pattern fill
I should have added to my last comment - this issue is exacerbated by the absence of any information or care from Affinity. I really do love the Affinity Suite... but I gotta do my job with tools tat meet my needs. (Affinity - even if you say "No plans to ever address. Not a priority compared to other Users' requirements", that would be better than silence.)
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2989 reacted to aizome in Vector/pattern fill
I'd add a +1 to the need for vector/pattern fill for me but honestly, I'm going back to Adobe. I design for print, creating items that will be scaled by the client. Lack of vector capability kills Designer stone-dead for my work. Bitmap images are totally inadequate; having to pay more than Designer itself for an add-on doesn't cut it: put the basic functionality in the software and charge us more for something that actually works.
I spent *two hours* today searching for instructions to create vector fills because I could not believe something marketed as design software (as opposed to web design software) would not have this feature.
The Designer forum is full of requests for vector fill and other fundamental functionalities; every time I find a fundamental feature^1 is missing (the ability to designate layers as non-printing at the time they're created; the ability to lock layers to prevent search and other functions operating on those layers; the ability to create greyscale artwork that does not have 'rich black' creeping into it somewhere) I find other people reported the lack, often years ago, and have been begging you to add it ever since.
yeah, I'm a bit annoyed. I've invested several weeks in Designer. Each time I found an issue I began by thinking it was my bad, that I should RTFM. And almost every time I RTFM or ask for help I find the feature has been broken or missing for years.
^1: This leaves aside other less significant issues: why is there no 'find/change font' for those of us producing artwork that contains text? Why does the eyedropper not correctly copy *all* the attributes of one item to another? etc.
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2989 got a reaction from aizome in Vector/pattern fill
AFFINITY - Can we Please get an Official word, here and now, on this forum on When we will get the ALL Important Vector fill !
Will it be in the next release ?
Are you actually working on it ?
I have always wondered, Why has Serif never sent a Questionnaire with the top 20 requests that people want, that we - Your paying customers, Need from your software?
It would give you a roadmap of what to work on next, not just what you think we want or what is hip/cool with the other engineers at Serif. In the 25+ years I have used Serif products, You have never done basic marketing and asked your customers what type of design we use, the industry we work in, the jobs we use your programs for, and the things we need added. I find that astounding. And why do some of your MUCH older products have features that your new Software is sorely lacking? You obviously had the Skills and Technology Years ago to produce these features, So where are they ?
You have this superb forum, people have asked for YEARS for things (like Vector Fills) and yet they never seam to appear.
Why not?
I (and I am sure many others), Look forward to your reply.
Thank You.
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2989 reacted to Ben in Sneak peeks for 1.7
Steady on. Not a great way to motivate us.
Priorities doesn't necessary just mean what we think is important, but also what things have to be done in a certain order, and whether those things collectively also are more important than other features which need attention. It is also a balance of how much work is actually involved in what might appear to be a small feature.
I have just spent months refactoring a lot of our internal tools in order to facilitate faster future development and enabling editing features across tools. This was a big task, but the few changes and additions I have made off the back of this have already demonstrated that this was time well spent. Now, as a user you will have no idea of the scale of the work involved in changing our internal framework while preserving the current functionality of our tools.
Software development is a fluid beast. Only as our code base expanded did it become clear that things could be achieved in a different/better way. Due to a lot of commitments already made, the changes I wanted to make got pushed back a number of times. I have now made them, and 1.7 will come with some significant additions - though the scale of work to implement them might still not be obvious to the end user.
This thread is to show a raft of new (hopefully innovative) features that are in the pipeline, and you are accusing us of pretty much doing nothing to improve the software...!? All of these additions will achieve 99% of the use cases that have been thrown up (while not tying you to a very limiting grid based drawing method) - the only exception being the ONE use case where you want to be able to easily replicate sets of curves built previously using known grid positions for handles. (If I am missing the other use cases, you will have to explain them individually). AND, I have already made many comments as to why this feature will conflict with our current tool usage, but I think I have even said that we will try and add it. So what is the problem? You are not going to be getting 1.7 Beta just yet anyway, so why is this turning into a rant? We have heard your request, and while I would personally argue that placing curve handles on grid produces a very limited artistic scope, I will accept it is the way you like to work.
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2989 got a reaction from dominik in Vector/pattern fill
AFFINITY - Can we Please get an Official word, here and now, on this forum on When we will get the ALL Important Vector fill !
Will it be in the next release ?
Are you actually working on it ?
I have always wondered, Why has Serif never sent a Questionnaire with the top 20 requests that people want, that we - Your paying customers, Need from your software?
It would give you a roadmap of what to work on next, not just what you think we want or what is hip/cool with the other engineers at Serif. In the 25+ years I have used Serif products, You have never done basic marketing and asked your customers what type of design we use, the industry we work in, the jobs we use your programs for, and the things we need added. I find that astounding. And why do some of your MUCH older products have features that your new Software is sorely lacking? You obviously had the Skills and Technology Years ago to produce these features, So where are they ?
You have this superb forum, people have asked for YEARS for things (like Vector Fills) and yet they never seam to appear.
Why not?
I (and I am sure many others), Look forward to your reply.
Thank You.
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2989 reacted to debraspicher in Vector/pattern fill
Pattern fill is painfully missing. It should be a feature added before 2.0. It is crucial for web design mock-ups. I have done the Symbol+power duplicate for making a theme/UI elements that are static size and it works OK but unnecessarily time consuming for higher res images. It is not at all practical for images/UI elements that need constant resizing during experimentation. I use the bitmap when I can, but haven't found a way to get it to set at 1x1 fill (original size)... Instead I have to manually scale to what feels right and that's not showing the "real world" usage of that image. It's useful in other aspects, but not this particular use case.
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2989 reacted to toltec in Please Bring Web Plus Back!
Web Plus is a Serif product. It would be best to go to the correct website
http://www.serif.com/index.aspx
and click on the Legacy Range option.
or https://community.serif.com
Personally I agree with you. I liked Web Plus
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2989 reacted to redred in Please Bring Web Plus Back!
Please, bring Web Plus software back!
Thank you.
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2989 reacted to Boldlinedesign in Vector/pattern fill
I don't think anyone was expecting we'd be waiting close to a decade to get standard features in Affinity Designer. Illustrator and Corel for example, have had pretty solid complete vector apps going back even further and it was easy to get spoiled with that. We didn't always know the tools we would soon "need" until they were released in an annual update. Today we/Affinity have the benefit of hindsight and seeing what tools worked best and what were simply "shiny trinkets" Adobe added to sell more upgrades.
I've been an Affinity fan since around 2015 and have always seen the potential and hoped for it to be the answer for those unwilling to overpay with a subscription for bloated Adobe software. Much like a car without gauges installed still functions as a car, Affinity has "functioned" as a vector app for so many years in this way and has seemed more interested in the "paint job" (account registration to share assets across multiple devices, ability to zoom in and edit 10,000 layers without lag, etc) than making sure it has the basic necessities first. I have high hopes that between 1.10 and 2.0, however many iterations there end up being, that we get those essentials - the things all of us have been endlessly clamoring for - text warp, vector eraser, vector trace, blog brush equivalent, 100% vector brushes, smooth tool, vector symmetry to name a few. I am wondering if many of these are already being developed behind the scenes in anticipation for a big 2.0 rollout. I'm hoping the speed and efficiency updates of the most recent update were done in preparation for 2.0 and all the tools requested.
Using Vectorstyler over the last two years has really opened my eyes to what a powerful vector app can do. The sheer number of options, controls, tools and customization of the app may scare novices but will amaze veteran vector designers. The more I've used it for professional work, the more options and customized workflows I can create - the higher the bar of expectations for a professional vector app have gone. It needs more work and polishing to be sure - but the groundwork already laid has made me rethink my vector workflow and temper my expectations for Designer. I don't ever see Designer being on the same level of Vectorstyler in terms of sheer vector power. Rather, Designer is becoming the vector app that compliments it's Publisher and Photo siblings - the niche of Affinity is the trinity that can/will soon do what a majority of typical users want. Vectorstyler to me, is not competition or an "either-or" choice but an additional tool for those who need more power and options for their vector work.
I don't anticipate Affinity will ever get Designer to the level Vectorstyler is at in terms of sheer vector control and tools - I don't think that is their goal. Equally, I don't see Vectorstyler getting into a pixel persona or building a complimentary raster app and publisher app. Just as I use specialized apps for my vector tracing (Vector Magic) and my halftone vectors (Vectoraster), I can see specific uses for Designer and still other uses for Vectorstyler to help me achieve my ideal workflow.
Because of Vectorstyler, I'm more at peace with the snail-speed update pace of Affinity. I'm still bothered some that things have taken this long - but it's no longer forcing me to cling to my copy of Adobe CS6
Just my thoughts
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2989 reacted to David.P in Vector/pattern fill
While we wait for Affinity to finally introduce a vector pattern fill feature, attached are a few hatches that can be used to fill shapes or enclosed areas, particularly using Inkscape.
These are true tiled hatches, consisting of one line segment and it's bounding rectangle only, which then are tiled to fill any area.
Sadly, Affinity Designer doesn't even seem to support such (externally created) vector fill patterns.
The issue of seamless vector fills seems to be a bit tricky, as it also has been planned for years in the SVG standard, but still hasn't been implemented.
Inkscape Vector Crosshatch Template.svg
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2989 reacted to Comet in Vector/pattern fill
Then why isn't the functionality built directly into Affinity Designer, if the code is already written?
There's no way that people are going to switch backwards and forwards between Affinity Publisher and Affinity Designer to do something that should be a basic built-in function within Affinity Designer. Get real!
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2989 reacted to Jeremy Bohn in Destructive Crop
Yes, I'd like a destructive crop as well. There are many times when I just need to crop a file down to a specific size. Often times there's just stuff, or even white space, outside of my selection that is unneeded. I miss Photoshop's ability to Crop to Selection.
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2989 reacted to Anjux3 in Destructive Crop
I could really use a destructive crop method that can be triggered by shortcuts for processing large numbers of files. I know that many people would say that having a non-destructive crop is better...just not in all circumstances.
Here's the scenario.I am managing a hundreds of photos of students for our school database. The photos are all rapidly taken with lots of extraneous background and very poor centring. They are also just too big in file size and bloat the database if loaded as taken (yes I know, better source photos would be great, taken at a lower resolution...yes we have tried to train the staff)
This was possible in photoshop with a selection and a series of shortcuts:
Rectangular selection (based on a ratio) Crop (user defined key strokes) Image size (Shift-Command I) Save at a lower resolution (Command S and offered at save time) In photoshop I managed about 200 files in about 25 minutes.
This would take hours in Affinity - batch won't work because this would require the same selection to be made each time.
What do you think? I know others miss this too...
As a second best, the ability to click-drag to expand the crop selection (ie expand from centre not at edge or corner) would be very welcome
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2989 reacted to IanfaeAiberdeen in Image Size - reduction and resampling option choice
I'm coming over to Affinity Photo from Photoshop and hit a problem which I had to resolve quickly - that meant reverting to Photoshop because I know how to do it.
I regularly require reduced copies of photographs for websites, and with Photoshop I do this with Save For Web and Devices, using Bicubic Sharper as the resampling method. This option isn't available in Affinity Photo, which offers Nearest Neighbour, Bicubic, Bilinear, Lanczos 3 (separable) and Lanczos 3 (non-separable). I was in a hurry to do one in Affinity Photo, so accepted the default Nearest Neighbour, which produced a dreadful result, full of artefacts even saving as a JPEG 100% quality. I don't normally save in JPEG format (I prefer PNG) but it was a quick fix to replace a file uploaded from my iPad using a crappy (free) resize app which does only JPEG. It was quicker to open the photograph in Photoshop and do it there than to experiment with different settings or even consult the help system, so that job is done.
Coming back to the problem, I find that here is zero information in the Affinity Photo help system (that I could find) explaining the different resampling methods and which is best for what kind of resizing. Wikipedia is not a great help, the article on Lanczos resampling being mathematical rather than practical. I have a degree in Physics and the maths isn't a problem, but it's no help in deciding on the most effective method for image reduction for the web. It appears that the Lanczos method introduces ringing artefacts which may give the illusion of sharper edges than bicubic, so one of these methods may be similar to Photoshop's 'bicubic sharper', which I find acceptable for reductions down to 300-400 pixels wide.
Can someone explain in simple language which of the methods is most appropriate for my needs? I have a feeling that it is probably one of the Lanczos 3 methods or bicubic but it would be nice to know the ins and outs of each method.
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2989 reacted to wstewl in problem adding .eps graphics from artboard to Assets
I have several .eps files that refuse to be added to an Asset category after they are dragged and dropped into an artboard and are displaying properly. A small window opens and says: "Assets cannot contain embedded documents". I am not aware of anything aside from the vector flourish that is displayed on an artboard, that might be embedded in the .eps file. What am I doing wrong? Two example .eps files attached.
swirl-floral-vector-design-element-shape_mywLEG.eps
retro-flourish-elements-vector-design_XJ_UVG.eps
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2989 reacted to Kuttyjoe in DrawPlus brush feature for Designer
Yeah I was kind of alluding to the fact that the brush stroke is kinda sorta selected, but not in a way that is actually useful. If you hold the option key, you can see the path and nodes on the brush stroke. That would seem to indicate that it is indeed selected. But in order to act on that selection, like change the brush type on that line, you have to keep holding the option key. Which is weird.
Regarding synchronizing defaults, I don't really see how that relates to what I've said. It's not something you can do on the fly while drawing or painting. With Serif DrawPlus, it's like dipping a brush in ink and immediately acquiring that ink color and making the next stroke. Designer doesn't appear to be made to do anything like this. DrawPlus is such a unique program and it's just unfortunate to see Designer lose some of it's strongest and most unique features. This stuff is where it truly had an advantage over Illustrator and other programs.
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2989 reacted to SunRiseMoon in Affinity Photo - Saving the Workspace?
Thanks Gabe.
Der Grund ist ganz einfach. Für die Fotobearbeitung benötige ich bestimmte Panels, die also aktiviert sind. Für spezielle Aufgaben aktiviere ich manchmal zusätzlich andere Panele . Ist die Bearbeitung dieses Bilds beendet, wäre ein "Restore" meines gewohnten UIs optimal, das ginge jedoch nur, wenn ich mein eingerichtetes UI unter einem Namen abgespeichert hätte. Eigentlich ist es bei vielen Programmen möglich, mehrere UIs einzurichten und je nach Aufgabe unter dem jeweils gewählten Namen wieder herzustellen. Das vermisse ich bei AP.
Beste Grüße
Peter
The reason is quite simple. For the photo editing I need certain panels, which are activated. For special tasks I sometimes activate other panels as well. If the editing of this image is finished, a "Restore" of my usual UI would be optimal, but that would only work, if I had saved my usually UI under a given name. Actually it is possible with many programs to set up several UIs and depending on the task to restore under the chosen name. I miss that option at AP.
Best regards
Peter
