Patrick Connor

We agree that you may wish to set your effects up in pts or whatever, and I have made a bug report, as you should be able to type any other units into those pix based fields in the effects UI (you already can type other units in the Windows version).
 
As for the suggestion of the effect UI reporting in document units, a suggestions have also been added independently into the database.

Hi,
 
Pixel Tool's brush outline feels to bee incorrectly offset by a half a pixel to the right and a half a pixel to the bottom direction on the screen, because you need only to slightly touch a pixel with the brush outline's top and left edge, and the color will get aplied to those pixels, whilst on the other hand you have to almost fully encompas the pixels to the right and to the bottom directions to get them coloured. 
 
To better show what I mean:
 
1. Create a custom grid 1px X 1px.
2. Turn pixel alignment on. 
3. Disable "Show brush preview" in Preferences - this will make it more apparent
4. Increase the si brush size to something like 4px and zoom in so you can see the pixel grid 
5. Apply the brush by positioning the brush outline according to the attached image and you will see what I mean.
 
Regards,
 
Matej
 

I just want to chime in on this topic as something that is highly annoying.  
Is there a way to set a preference to allow users to save in the location that the file was opened?
This would save a lot of time in my workflow.
 
John

Hi Mr Lucky,
 
Would it be possible for you to provide the file that is having this issue? This will allow me to investigate this further for you :)
 
C

Hi Sharkey, two methods spring to mind:
 
1) Use the crop tool to increase your canvas to the size you want and apply it, or use Resize Canvas from the Image menu. The space around your image will of course be transparent at this point. Go to Layer - New Fill Layer and it will create a pure solid layer using the colour in your primary colour slot (usually white). Just drag this layer underneath your image layer and you're done.
 
2) Kind of the same thing, really, but you can create a new document from File - New and either use a page preset or punch in your desired dimensions. You can choose to have a solid white fill for the background (uncheck Use Transparent Background). Then just copy & paste your image onto the new document. Don't forget you can turn on snapping (the red and white magnet icon) to ensure it's lined up dead centre.
 
[Edit] Forgot to mention, but if you're copy/pasting your image, don't forget to flatten it first so it includes any additional layer work.
 
 
The tutorial MEB linked above is another method but it doesn't approach it by resizing the canvas; instead, it uses a clipping mask to crop into the image (probably not what you're after!), the benefit being that you can easily resize the border and change its aspect ratio.

As a user who experimented a lot with vector graphics over the years, I find it might be helpful for others for me to share the differences between Illustrator, DrawPlus, Designer, and CorelDraw. A lot of you might be unfamiliar with one or more of the programs. There are things I like about each and things I do not like. Onur has decided to help out in giving me background to CorelDraw since that is one I am unfamiliar with.
 
I will explain why I prefer certain programs and why I don't prefer them with the features that I find most or partially helpful. Here are 26 I came up with.
 
Last Updated (1/27/2017)
____________________________________________________________________________________________
 
 
Flood Fills
Being able to add fills to unclosed shapes (overlapping regions)
Illustrator: Yes, but fills cannot be added to weight variations, brush strokes, or effects DrawPlus: Yes Designer: No CorelDRAW: Yes Artboard Tool
The overall canvas which can be resized manually or multiplied
Illustrator: Yes DrawPlus: No Designer: Yes CorelDRAW: Yes Nested Layers
Layers that can be expanded to reveal the paths within
Illustrator: Yes, but sublayers will cause each layer to be expanded when the file is open (CC1 & below) DrawPlus: Yes, but sublayers cannot be added, and paths and groups cannot be hidden or locked Designer: Yes CorelDRAW: Yes Pencil Path Continuation
Being able to continue a path from its end point with the pencil tool
Illustrator: Yes, but sharp corners or sensitive handling will cause the shape to delete or change form DrawPlus: Yes Designer: No, but it will be added in 1.6 CorelDRAW: Yes Fast Loading Effects
Effects such as inner and outer glows, shadows, feathers, and blurs
Illustrator: No, They take far too long to load depending on the amount (sometimes 5 minutes) DrawPlus: Yes Designer: Yes CorelDRAW: Yes Image Tracer
Converting a picture into vector artwork
Illustrator: Yes, but it takes far too long to load depending on the size (sometimes 5 minutes) DrawPlus: Yes Designer: No CorelDRAW: Yes Rounding Single Corners
Creating round corners to a single corner as oppose to all corners of a shape
Illustrator: Yes, (Updated) DrawPlus: No Designer: Yes CorelDRAW: Yes, but not as simple as Designer Transparency Tool
Adding a fade effect to objects
Illustrator: No, but there is one for InDesign? DrawPlus: Yes, but it only works on single objects or groups Designer: Yes CorelDRAW: Yes Fill/Stroke Switcher
Switching the color of your stroke to your fill or fill to your stroke
Illustrator: Yes DrawPlus: No Designer: Yes CorelDRAW: No Pixel Tools and Layers
Having pixel tools and layers available
Illustrator: No DrawPlus: No Designer: Yes CorelDRAW: No Pasting Inside
Being able to paste clipboard selections into objects
Illustrator: Yes (Updated) DrawPlus: Yes (Updated) Designer: Yes CorelDRAW: Yes Replicate Tool
Being able to make duplicates of an object by resizing its bounding box
Illustrator: No DrawPlus: Yes Designer: No, but a replicate feature will be added to 1.6 CorelDRAW: No Customizable Vector Patterns
Ability to change the size, rotation, and skew form of a pattern fill while its selected
Illustrator: No DrawPlus: Yes Designer: No CorelDRAW: No B-Splines
Creating B-spline curves enabling the nodes to be in an outer fenced area
Illustrator: No, not in CS6 and below at least DrawPlus: Yes Designer: No, but it has the Smart Curve Pen Tool CorelDRAW: Yes (Updated) Smooth Gradients
Having to easily create gradients, then rotate and resize them easily
Illustrator: No, You must use the Gradient panel resulting B/W first, then adjusting it is not user friendly DrawPlus: Yes Designer: Yes CorelDRAW: Yes Smooth Type on Path
Having to easily create type on a path, and then being change the path's size or shape
Illustrator: No, Changing the size and shape was made a lot more difficult than they needed to be DrawPlus: Yes Designer: Yes CorelDRAW: Yes Over 1,000,000% Zoom
Able to zoom into your drawing over 1,000,000% zoom size
Illustrator: No DrawPlus:  No Designer: Yes CorelDRAW: No Pixel Preview
See what your vector drawing would like like in pixels
Illustrator: Yes (Updated) DrawPlus:  No Designer: Yes CorelDRAW: Yes Realistic Brush Presets
Brush presets that that look natural
Illustrator: No, there are several brush presets, but they are all flat DrawPlus:  Yes Designer: Yes CorelDRAW: No Lots of Shape Tools
Having a variety of shape presets to choose from
Illustrator: No, a total of 6 in the latest version, and live shapes weren't introduced until CC DrawPlus:  Yes Designer: Yes, and excellent manipulation for the cog tool CorelDRAW: Yes Redraw Paths
Able to redraw a selected stroke
Illustrator: Yes, but it can change the form that was not altered DrawPlus:  Yes, but it can be tricky to figure out Designer: No CorelDRAW: No Indicators
Indications of which tool, swatch, path, or other options are selected
Illustrator: Yes DrawPlus:  Yes/No, no indication on swatches, paths, or effects Designer: Yes/No, dark indications on tools are hard to see with the dark background CorelDRAW: Yes Eyedropper on Select
Copying a color while an object is selected to change the selected object to that color
Illustrator: Yes DrawPlus:  No Designer: Yes, but it cannot copy the other properties CorelDRAW: Yes Vector Eraser Tools
A tool that erases vector objects and maintains its quality
Illustrator: Yes, but it changes the shape's proportion DrawPlus:  Yes Designer: No, but there is a pixel eraser tool CorelDRAW: Yes 3D Extrusion
Turning flat objects into 3D objects, and then rotating them in a 3D perspective
Illustrator: Yes DrawPlus:  Yes Designer: No CorelDRAW: Yes Full Boundary Selections
When objects are selected with a complete close from its selection box and not partially selected
Illustrator: No DrawPlus: Yes Designer: Yes, and partial selections can be used as well if adjusted in the preferences CorelDRAW: Yes   
If this is very helpful to people, then I will update this list as progress moves forward. I hope this helps.

Hello I am a huge fan of both affinity designer and photos, and own both of them! I just wanted to share some of the work that I have done using the new symbols tool in the Affinity Designer beta. When I got into sacred geometry mandala illustrations, I used smart layers inside photoshop. In the last month, I've recreated some of my past works and created new designs using the new betas.
 
I'd love to thank all their development teams for creating such incredible and intuitive vector applications. You allow me to effortlessly create designs in Designer and quickly export them to Photos to add nice image/gradient masks and effects before submitting the final render.
 
Here's some of the works I've created. I have them all on my Instagram as well (@garetmckinley).
 
 
 

Status: Beta Release
Purpose: Fixes, improvements
Requirements: Purchased Affinity Photo
Mac App Store: Not Submitted
Download: 1.5 Beta 5 Here
 
This is an early beta of a substantial change to our codebase and as much as we have tried to ensure the quality of the code, it should be considered to be not suitable for production use. This means that you should not attempt to use it for commercial purposes or for any other activity in which you may be adversely affected by the application failing. In addition it is definitely worth noting that files created in Affinity 1.5 cannot be opened in 1.4 so always make a copy of your important documents before opening them in 1.5 to ensure you do not accidentally overwrite them and are unable to open them in your 1.4 version.
 
To use this beta, simply download the file from the link given above and double-click on the file to open the installer. Follow the instructions to install the beta version. The beta sits alongside the Mac App Store version and will not interfere with it.
 
Improvements & Fixes
 
- Improved focus merge - better results, faster processing and much faster "Sources" panel interactions. [Thanks to TheLostVertex]
- OpenColorIO support for 32-bit documents. You can now configure an an .ocio profile in preferences. - OpenEXR documents will now be converted to scene_linear on load - if the filename contains a valid OCIO colour space (the inverse applies when you export). - New OpenColorIO adjustment layer. - New options in 32-bit Preview panel - including hardware accelerated OpenColorIO display transforms. - New options in the Curves adjustments - allows you to specify the input range (handy in 32-bit documents). - New histogram options - allows you to specify the input range (handy in 32-bit documents). - The colour picker can now pick 32-bit unbounded, scene referred colours. - Recorded macros can now have their arguments marked as "visible" (eye icon). When playing back the macro, the user can interact with the arguments as if using a normal filter. - Macro library panel has been completely reworked (drag-drop, rename, etc.) - The macro recorder can now record interactions in the layers panel. [Thanks to MBd] - Improved Tone Mapping preset panel. - Most blend modes now work in 32-bit. - Completely rewritten our RAW metadata mining code. [Thanks to Goughy] - Fixed issues with 16bit PSD files. - Fixed various issues whereby documents would seem modified when they should not be. - Fixed crashes with a number of Live Filters. - Fix for Colour Picker Tool in macOS Sierra. - Fix for double-clicking the selected row in the Layers Panel causing the incorrect behaviour. - PDF export fixes (transparency usage and clipping issues) - hopefully also made CorelDraw-compatible PDFs. - SVG export fix for exporting transformed images. - Artistic Text creation is now more like the Mac App Store version. - Allow Pen Tool and Shape Tool to reinitialise the original mouse down position mid-drag by holding down Space. - Performance improvement for Node Tool when selecting an object with a large number of nodes. - Fix for SMB share issues. - Numerous other performance and stability improvements. - New splash screen!   We still have a lot to do before 1.5 can enter the RC phase - aside from improving all the new features, we aim to improve certain aspects of existing features as well as implementing Polygonal Selection Tool, Magnetic Selection Tool and Layer Linking. More to come..   Thanks again for taking the time to use this beta!   Affinity Photo Team     :ph34r:

In a document with artboards, it would be nice if I could create an object linked to an specific artboard (like a proxy object). This object would not be editable (only in size) and any edition to the linked artboard would be instantly update in the object.
The only way to do this now is to create a document only containing the desired artboard and placing it in another document.

It is no longer needed as added and removed fonts are automatically detected, so no refresh button required.

Er, why would you want to do that?

Er, why would you want to do that?

I personally find a Ribbon interface an impediment to productivity. To say I dislike a ribbon interface is too kind.

Just a quick update on the CorelDRAW issue - I can see that DPX8's PDF-1.7 files will load into Corel so that's useful info. Thanks to everyone who has helped with this so far. I'm going to see if we can tweak the export options to get things moving. :)

Hello, I do a lot of focus stacking, mostly with Zerene Stacker. So I would like to give my impressions of the focus merge functionality.
 
First, the stacking method looks a lot like Zerene's pmax method, or Helicon's Method C. But I do notice that Affinity is generating a depth map during the stacking sequence. Also there appears to be less noise and less increase in contrast that Zerene's pmax. Can the Affinity team elaborate on how they are stacking images? (Zerene method documentation: http://www.zerenesystems.com/cms/stacker/docs/howtouseit#dmap_versus_pmax HeliconDocumentation: http://www.heliconsoft.com/helicon-focus-main-parameters/ ) On to testing!
 
Running on a 27" 3.4ghz i7 iMac with 24gb ram.
 
First test: 53 images, 6000x4000 16 bit uncompressed tiffs (each 144mb)
Zerene Dmap: Completed 0:08:30
Zerene Pmax: Completed 0:03:51(ran directly after Dmap, so I believe alignment was cached). Fresh project with no previous alignment: Completed 0:05:32
Affinity Photo: Completed 0:05:50
 
So I stepped up the next test to see how it scaled(not well).
 
Second test:  283 images, 6000x4000 16 bit uncompressed tiffs (each 144mb)
Zerene Pmax: Completed in 0:28:00 Zerene used a peak of 12.8gb of memory, 0gb swap.
Affinity Photo: Completed in 1:35:00 Affinity Photo used 27gb memory and 8.7gb swap during image load and alignment, and 4gb memory with 3gb swap used during all of the"focus merge" progress bar, according to activity monitor.
 
During stacking, Zerene would make full use all CPU cores. Affinity photo would use very little cpu during image loading and alignment, and about 50-60% utilization during the "focus merge" progress bar. I think the way Affinity Photo handles loading images and aligning them can be optimized a lot more. Most of the time for Affinity Photo was spent loading the images(before the "aligning" progress bar appeared). 
 
Retouching in Affinity Photo feels much slower than Zerene. Switching source images seems to take a longer time. But much worse than that, scrolling the sources windows hangs, and gives a spinning beach ball for several seconds each time you attempt to scroll through it. Having the ability to paint from source images onto layers is great, but the performance is truly terrible. When scrolling through a list takes 10-20 second PER ATTEMPT, I dont think this feature is practically usable in beta 4. Speeding up loading of source files and fixing the scroll behavior seems like the most needed improvement for the Focus Merging feature.
 
Comparing images from the 283 image stack, there are some noticeable differences.  I choose this set of images because I did not feel like Zerene did a great job with it, and my camera sensor was particularly dirty. Affinity photo shows halos around edges some, and the alignment looks like it is warped compared to Zerene. Dust patterns are very different between Zerene's Pmax and Affinity Photo, so it does seem like Affinity is stacking with some other method. Noise is noticeably lower with Affinity Photo. Contrast and color is also generally a little better than Zerene's Pmax. However in multiple test images Affinity photo renders spots that should be the darkest parts of the image as being much brighter than it should be. (See the attached images, and notice the dark section in the Zerene image vs the pinkish section in the Affinity image.) Overall I think Zerene renders the subject truer to life, mainly due to the much better alignment. The warping in the Affinity image is very noticeable in some parts of the image. 
 
Finally, a word on nomenclature and me being an idiot. The first time I went to run the 283 image stack, I had accidentally used the option "New Stack" rather than "New Focus Merge". This lead to about an hour and a half of nothing happening before I decided to abort the operation. I only realized what I had done later, because the "Stack" dialog has a dropdown menu for how to align the images, and the "Focus Merge" dialog does not. Normally I, and I think most people, refer to this operation as focus stacking, so it was a mistake of habit and not paying attention. But it would be nice if the dialogs were a little more distinct to help prevent such user error. 
 
Overall, Focus merge works pretty well I think. It certainly has a lot of potential. I would summarize my suggested improvements as such:
 
-Add some UI feedback while images are loading into memory(it just looks like it is hanging until it gets to alignment)
-Add alignment options in the Focus Merge dialog. It looks like it is doing perspective alignment? I believe a lot of images would benefit from only scale/rotate/translate
-Improve memory management and loading for images, I am assuming this is the biggest performance slow down
-Fix long load times for selecting source images
-Fix hang when scrolling in the source panel
-Fix issue with darkest part of of image being light and washed out(if this is actually a bug, and not a limitation of the stacking method)
-Make Focus Merge dialog more distinct from the Stack dialog...to help with people being stupid and tired like me :)
 
I hope this feed back helps you guys. I look forward to seeing any improvements made. Also, if larger test stacks would help you guys in development, I would be happy to provide test images if needed. 
 
EDIT: I just tested selecting source images again, and the delay for selecting the image wasnt very bad at all, ~1sec. So either it was worse when testing it before, or I was exaggerating in my mind how it felt for some reason. Scrolling the source images with the scroll bar is still as described though. From clicking to scroll, till the source panel becomes responsive again, it takes no less than 10 seconds.

Wallis45,
 
Welcome to the Serif Affinity Forums.
 
It's no problem feel free to discuss taste and your opinions are valued. A lighter UI is not on the roadmap for version 1 of either Affinity Designer or Affinity Photo. Please see this (very old and very long!) thread.

Hey!
 
I just started using Affinity Designer (win beta) over Fireworks about a week ago. Thus far I absolutely love it and everything I've wanted to do has followed a similar logic to how things work in FW, which makes the transition quite easy.
 
Today I ran in to the first situation where I can't seem to figure out how to do something as well (or better) than in Fireworks. That is to export a circular logo in transparent PNG-8 form optimized as well as I did all the time with Fireworks, without having jagged edges / antialiasing issues with the logo. 
 
I've attached all the files of my tests below. I did try many other more specific settings with Affinity too, trying to find a good solution but I can't seem to figure out how to get the same results as I do with FW.
 
Original file:  27,6 KB
Fireworks export PNG-8:  13,2 KB
Affinity export PNG-24:  29,9 KB
Affinity export PNG-8, with jagged edges:  12,9 KB
 
For web purposes this is a big enough difference that I need to disturb my workflow and jump back to Fireworks to do these types of things. I'm hoping someone has more experience with this sort of thing in Affinity and can give me a solution that can reach the same filesize as FW without those jagged edges that I seem to get when exporting PNG-8 from Affinity Designer.
 
Anyone? :)

Roberto1972,
 
This is a programming change to have alternative set(s) of UI. Simply changing the background colour to a light one does not make for a good look. Although they are on transparent backgrounds, many that look great on a dark background look poor on a lighter background. We will need to make new graphics for many of the icons.
 
This is something that we would want to do in-house, for consistency reasons (it's amazing to me how the designers use one colour or line thickness throughout the whole set of icons to give a cohesive look and feel) and for copyright reasons.
 
This will happen but other features are taking priority at the moment.
 
A long shot yes, but no thank you, but a very kind offer none the less.

Just testing Affinity Designer.


pencil.afdesign

my fist try on AD on windows, realy love the app.
having some trouble to get the chrome right.
any suggestions?
gitaar.svg

A small clip (video) about the development of a book cover design. Of course, all  works were made with Affinity Photo / Designer. Best greetings to Nottingham :)
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLoYqZOZ3bw
 
 

Affinity Designer Vector Graphic
 
http://b-bertuleit.de/luna-2/
 
Here are other Luna works, in pure vector - damn pixel! :P
 
http://b-bertuleit.de/luna-3-reflections/
 
http://b-bertuleit.de/luna-d-ray-2/

Hey, 
 
these are my first tries in Designer. Great software thought. Hope you enjoy.
 
Cheers,
Martin.
 

 

100% vector