pyxelles

I'd like to request an eraser tool like the one found in Clip Studio Paint for vector curves.

I am trying to create a seamless pattern in Affinity Designer. However, when I got to place my tiles (squares with pattern inside) next to one another I end up with very thin white lines between the tiles even though they are placed exactly next to one another. Is there a way to get rid of these lines? Some articles I have read mention anti aliasing being a problem, but I cannot find a place to switch this off in Affinity Designer. Any help would be much appreciated.

Oh wow, thanks for raising this as I having been having the same frustrating issue and was trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong. I'm also using ADfor print on demand and even though I export high resolution PNGs @300 dpi, when I upload my designs on t-shirts on Teespring and Redbubble, the images look OK only at 100% scale but rapidly appear more low res and blurry with jagged edges when scaled down to meet the dimension requirements of each apparel (by the time you get to 50%, it’s barely legible at a distance) and the fonts also appear fuzzy not crisp and sharp. 
When I compare my images (for print) to those of other designers on the POD platforms their images appear much sharper and even their  smaller fonts are more legible than my large fonts. No matter what I do (I export at 300dpi) my images look low res when scaled down, which is strange because isn't this supposed to happen when you scale up instead?
This appears to be an ongoing issue with AD. I’ve seen so many complaints about this since 2014! So many people using Affinity Designer have complained about this and it's not because people don't know what they are doing! People who use Adobe illustrator have sharper images because AI has the anti-aliasing feature which is switched off prior to exporting and this ensures that the images are crisp with smooth edges. 
I don't know why ADaren't sorting this out when so many people have complained- asking now to turn of ANTI-ALIASING. AD say the solution is to do with coverage maps but I don’t yet understand it and it appears complicated. Why can’t they just add this anti-aliasing feature? or put out a detailed tutorial explaining this map coverage stuff, showing an example of a text design exported to a Print on Demand platform and tested on several apparel with different dimension requirements. This will help a lot of us out while they sort this out. This person also posted this issue on another thread with clear images. https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/114272-how-does-anti-aliasing-work-on-affinity-designer/

I have frustrations with Designer. Auto-trace, Line/shape blend, direct single line segment selection, Vector image brush and warp/perspective.

In illustrator, there's an outline pointer that allows you to work directly on line segments with copy and paste. This is quite handy. But instead of having a different pointer, we could have a new persona for line work.
This persona could have (when they're available) the bitmap auto-trace, line/shape blend and knife tool and anything that we may need only occasionally. And it wouldn't clutter up the existing design persona, which is very elegantly arranged. It would also save you having more than one pointer (illustrator had three the last time I used it).

The vector image brush like Inkscapes (although I would prefer Illustrator's random duplication) and warp could be added to the existing design persona without much detriment to its elegance. 

Hey guys! I just got Affinity Designer as it was recommended to me by my Graphic Design teacher because I personally could not afford to keep an Illustrator and Photoshop subscription. Anyways, I'm enjoying what I see, and so far this program is exactly how I imagined it, it's a sort-of compact Illustrator program which I absolutely adore. However, there seems to be only workarounds on how to warp basic shapes in Designer. This saddens me because a lot of small tweaking to designs comes from basic warp/distortion, and it becomes rather tedious using another program to do said small tweaks! I hope this post gets enough traction as I believe this is ESSENTIAL to Design Work. I can only imagine how people do graffiti without a drawing pad on here! 
 
If this feature were implemented, I'd imagine it to work similar to how Adobe Illustrator warps through adjustable bars like how Affinity adjusts stroke values, OR something a bit more Dynamic like Photoshop's Perspective Warp. 
 

maybe I'm missing it, but is there an option to open a JPEG, or bitmap image
and trace,or convert it to a vector file for further editing? If not there should be one, it would be a great option. even if it had only a few modes like black and white, and 5 color
it would make me convince me to convert from adobe illustrator

Turning Anti-Aliasing Off. When will this frankly basic feature be introduced?
I'm a big fan of Affinity Designer, and use it exclusively. Unfortunately, as a T-Shirt Designer, I'm really in need of a quick turn anti-aliasing off option, as anti-aliasing can lead to an unsightly white border around the edges of designs printed on black garments. I've heard that PhotoShop has this capability in the form of a simple check button. So far, all the suggestions have been to apply 'Coverage' adjustments to every single layer. Frankly this is a little tedious. I can't find anything online explaining how the coverage parameter works in Affinity. I've seen someone posting about this in 2015, and was wondering if we are any closer to a workaround that does not require a Guru level of technical knowledge to implement. If there isn't yet, perhaps it could be included in the next update of Affinity? Thanks in advance for your replies.

I know I've suggested a similar feature, but all this talk of smoothing curves brought this up in my mind; in addition to a tool to smooth a curve, Affinity Designer should also have the opposite.  I am of course referring to Midpoint Displacement, which would allow illustrators to make non-uniform curves more easily than having to draw each node individually.
 

 
Being able to smooth curves is indeed important, but as it is, it's really hard to produce a line that doesn't look uniform, and a roughening tool to add pseudorandom midpoint displacement would make illustrating much less time-consuming.

Thanks for letting me know. I really hope this becomes a feature in future, as at the moment, the work around is a bit of a struggle.

Hello. I'm attempting to upload art made in Affinity Designer to Teespring. I export as a PNG, Resample: Bilinear and don't resize the image larger when creating my listing. After creating the listing, the preview looks pixelated. Other shops don't have this pixelation problem on their product pages. I'm concerned about the quality of the shirt. Their design tips say to turn off anti-aliasing in Illustrator. Can I achieve a similar result in Designer to prevent pixilation of a printed product? I see an export option for nearest neighbor but I don't fully understand this or if it will allow my design to be printed with high quality. The artwork are vectors and they are only pixelated when uploaded to the shop. What would you suggest?

Hi. I'm working on a logo, and I'm running into problems with the Subtract function. 
1) I've attached a picture of what the finished product SHOULD look like.
2) If I remove the black background, you can see the black mustache looking thing (hiding the bottom of the sun). I'm trying to subtract that from the sun object so that this logo to be on any color background and look good.
3) So I have my sun object OVER the mustache and I hit Subtract and...
4) This happens. 😢 In fact, this also happens when I hit Add or Xor or Intersect. Both of objects just disappear.

Hi BlueOcean21
Looked at your hint about the repper.app.
If you want to a pattern creating app/program
check out the following.
PaintstormStudio (PC /iPad)
Paintstorm Studio has a symmetry mode that works the same way
as in the repper.app, as far as I can see.
The function can be found under Edit > Kaleidoscope.
And PaintstormStudio has way more paint possibilities, is a reallycool
drawing application. Works well on an iPad, i own it.
 
BlackInk (only PC)
BlackInk in the new Version have now a very flexibel
nodes based layer system, where you can make all
kind of symmetrys and also with perspective.
Here a Video:
BlackInk Nodes Layer
 
iOrnament Pro (ipad)
IOrnament its also very flexibel an it transform
your stroke in many symmetrys its hard to descripe
but i recommend to take a look at this
Look from 8:00 on in this video to see what i mean:
iOrnament symmetries
 
And at last, if you want this in Affinity Designer
take a very close look on Symbols in Affinity Designer,
its also very flexible to create all kind of patterns. Its also
a little hard to describe. As Affinity has a Pixel Persona
you can use both vector and bitmap drawings and Photos
with Symbols, it is very overseen.
Here some videos, but this is only 5% of the possibilities:
Symmetrie with symbols
 
 
If you have further questions. Dont be to shy to ask.
greetings
2ddpainter

I don't get it either, it's ridiculous. I thought the knife tool was a basic necessity for any graphic design software. The boolean operations can't be used in every situation where the knife tool would just do. Besides, I feel the boolean operations must have functionality issues as there times when I select the desired objects to either add or subtract etc and the boolean buttons are simply greyed out!

Yes please, add seamless pattern function to affinity designer. And possibility to save it as a pattern swatch in Studio panel

I agree there is a workaround-though symbols are a tedious workaround. If I just need to show the repeated pattern duplicating the symbol approach works (and can be saved as a template to save some time)
Where Symbols and the status quo falls short for me is when I have to apply that symbol pattern to an object.  Say I’ve made a pattern for a textile design. I can show a rectilinear sample of the repeated pattern, but It is harder and more steps to show it on a t-shirt/dress/etc.  currently I make to make mask of the t-short vector object after I set up the symbols in a sep layer.  With the patter making tool  (like in Illustrator), I can take that symbol (pattern swatch) and just apply it as a fill to the object. This saves so much time.   ( I also use this function a lot when I set up halftone layers for use in screen printing)
Symbols are close but not quite there yet for pattern fills.  So I am def a +1 to this request. 

So, a symbol library feature exactly as in Sketch, where you can import libraries with symbols which will automatically update if the original library file is edited. The SKETCH implementation is flawless and it would surely speed up the workflow where multiple persons work on the same project.

It would be very useful to have functions to select the same:
 
Color fill stroke (color / width) Appearance To quickly select all your outlines, or background element in 1 color. 
Speed is everything.  :)

It's not a matter of taste, it's a fact. I've learnt how to use symbols and templates in AD and It is a workaround. AI has the pattern making tool and it's straight forward- Object, pattern make. Not only will it create your pattern in seconds, you can go in an edit the symmetry, orientation, sizes, repeat type. This is a feature in AI not a workaround. It appears one is having to do a lot of workarounds in AD to compensate for the absence of: the warp tool, vectorizing tool, curved text, pattern  tool, knife tool etc.
It appears people have been requesting for the pattern fill tool for years now. I use symbols for now but when I watch tutorials with Illustrator using the pattern tool where you can change the orientation, symmetry, and repeat type of the patterns, I feel envious of AI users!

It's not a matter of taste, it's a fact. I've learnt how to use symbols and templates in AD and It is a workaround. AI has the pattern making tool and it's straight forward- Object, pattern make. Not only will it create your pattern in seconds, you can go in an edit the symmetry, orientation, sizes, repeat type. This is a feature in AI not a workaround. It appears one is having to do a lot of workarounds in AD to compensate for the absence of: the warp tool, vectorizing tool, curved text, pattern  tool, knife tool etc.
It appears people have been requesting for the pattern fill tool for years now. I use symbols for now but when I watch tutorials with Illustrator using the pattern tool where you can change the orientation, symmetry, and repeat type of the patterns, I feel envious of AI users!

Knife tool????...

Recently I came across Photopea. Runs in browser: NO INSTALL needed (there is even Chrome app to run locally without Internet access), it is FREE and you have the WARP functionality with a bunch of STYLES to choose from (arc, bulge, flag, shell, ...). Those are forms with handles for fine tuning. Since the option is a little bit hidden, I give you a quick guide:
1) All paths MUST be on one layer (take a closer look especially after importing SVG from AD - you should  merge layers if necessary)
2) Select the layer with move tool (all paths are now inside bounding box)
3) Click on the square handle in the MIDDLE of the bounding box
4) Click the WARP button from the upper toolbar (second from top)
5) Select STYLE from the same upper toolbar and shape your paths
6) Save as SVG and import back into AD
Don't be afraid of the pixel-like strokes in Photopea - those are regular paths.
I have nothing in common with Photopea - just helping AD community with workarounds. On another hand AD staff should bring this basic vector tool asap since this workflow sucks.
Hope it helps.
Petr

LOL, I actually forgot about Adobe until I had a need for a Distortion, Warp, or Perspective distort for a vector project I am working on.  I never realized I would miss them that much. I am very surprised that Serif has not incorporated these features by now. 

Any Distortion, Warp, or Perspective distort features soon?  This year?  Any date release?  I need to know if I need to change apps.
What is everyone else doing to get around not having Distortion or Perspective distorts in Affinity Designer?
Any tips?
 
 
 

Hi. Vectorize a photo with Affinity Designer. Is it possible to break a jpg image to vectors? How is it possible? Thank you.

I miss the pattern tool in Illustrator. +1