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Posts posted by iconoclast
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Just now, walt.farrell said:
Using Run as Administrator is simpler, and works for most users
Maybe you are right, but for me it didn't work. Every time I started one of the apps, I had to install the goodies from Serif again. That wasn't really simple. To copy this file to the folders took me a few minutes, and now it works as it should.
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You don't really need much tech know how. Try the following. It is for windows and it worked for me.
QuoteIf you want to have enduring access to the additional stuff from Affinity (Assets, Brushes, Fonts...), copy this config-file to the following path: C:\Users\YourName\AppData\Roaming\Affinity\Photo\1.0\ or, if your apps are from the Microsoft Store: C:\Users\YourName\AppData\Roaming\Affinity\Photo\1.0(Store)\ (for the other apps, replace "Photo" by "Publisher" or "Designer").
AppData is a hidden folder, so if you haven't already done it, you need to make it visible in the Explorer. Click on "View" on the top of the Explorer and set a hook at something like "Hidden Elements" or so on the right side (don't know how it is called in english. Then the folder "AppData" should appear.
If you start your apps after that, you should be able to sign in/register.
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One additional tip: in the free plugin G'MIC, there is a filter called "Color Presets", under the category "Colors", with a huge amount of very good LUTs. The only disadvantage is that they are no Live Filters, so destructive. G'MIC is very recommendable anyway. It offers more than 500 additional filters of different kinds.
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Inspired by this Photoshop-tutorial I found the following workflow for what I call „Pseudo Halftones“. Not really Halftones, but a nice raster effect, I think. Maybe someone likes it too.
1. At first I created a pattern for the halftone raster. It is only a radial gradient from opaque black in the center of a square document, to transparent black (0%) on the edge of the document. Then I duplicated the layer four times and placed each duplicate on the four corners of the document. Finally I exported the document (you find the result attached to this thread and also some line patterns).
2. Then I created a New Round Brush. I opened the panel for the Brush Settings and adjusted the brush „Size“ under „General“ and the „Size Jitter“ under „Dynamics“. Under „Texture“ I added my pattern as „Base Texture“. You can adjust its size with the „Scale“ slider, if necessary. The „Mode“ should be set to „Final“ (you find the resulting brushes as attachments to this thread).
3. I loaded an image into Photo. Then I clicked „Add Pixel Layer“ on the bottom right of the „Layers“ panel and filled the layer with white. Then I applied the blend mode "Colour Dodge" to the white layer. After that, I painted with my new brush on that white layer.
The result is nearly the halftone effect we wanted. But we should finish with adjusting the „Brightness and Contrast“ (or „Levels“ or „Curves“, if you like), to get clearer and sharper dots. So I dragged the „Brightness“ slider to the left and the „Contrast“ to the right, to get more contrast. Check it out to find the values you like. This contrast adjustment will only work if the layer has a white background. That is why I filled it.

Pseudo-Halftone-Dots.

Vertical lines.

Dots and diagonal lines in combination.

With a grungy texture from Texture Labs.
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Instead of trying LUTs (predefined color settings), you could also f.e. try a Gradient Map. Because that is one of the filters I use most to create LUTs. In this filter, there are basically three points on a bar. The left side of the bar represents the dark pixels of the image, the right the light pixels, the middle the middletones. So if you f.e. set the left point to red, the shadows will become red. Just try it and you will see. You can also add some more points. And every point can get the color you want. And you can refine the effect by using blend modes and the opacity slider.
Or you could use the HSL filter. With it, you can interchange colors, darken or lighten them and give them more or less saturation.
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In the meantime, you could take a look at the layer effects. You find them at the bottom of the Layers panel ("FX"). Check them out. Possibly you will find an idea what to do with it.
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GIMP doesn't offer autotracing. But you could try Inkscape. It's free and Opensource, and it has a function called "Trace Bitmap" in the "Path" menu. That works pretty good.
You should download Inkscape from its original website inkscape.org. Some other websites that offer Inkscape spread malware. Especially the german top domains are often occupied by criminals. For example audicity.de.
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Good to read that. By the way, I often drag stuff I want to use as assets from the file manager into the Assets panel. Also that works pretty fine. At least on Windows.
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What happens if you add your logo via the burger menu to the assets panel and drag it to the document then from there?
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29 minutes ago, Darla Bethea said:
Okay so in other words leading on affinity is useless. lol seriously?
I've never seen this before. So, I use the "leading override" instead of leading.
One more question then, where is the "auto" you speak of for leading override? I must be missing that somewhere.
I'm an old bird - I come from quark, and now indesign for many years. This is the very stuff that scares me from quitting my adobe membership
When leading doesn't change anything. No matter what number you insert. It just sits there.
It shouldn't matter if there is a hard return or not. Thank you for all your help!!!!!
Have you tried to change the value of "Leading Override" in the Character panel? It seems that the Leading Override is dominant to the Leading of the Paragraphs panel. If you set the Leading Override in the Character Panel to Auto, the leading can be adjusted with the Leading in the Paragraph panel.
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2 hours ago, ESPR said:
have been using G'MIC for ages - great filter !
but sadly it distorts the whole image, not just the edges, like the PS filter does
What "edges" do you mean? Don't remember exactly what Photoshop's "Ripples" filter does, but GMIC's filter distorts the selected layer, not the whole image.
And I can't see a difference between the effect of the Equation filter in the video and the Ripples filter of G'MIC. Both are destructive, but the one of G'MIC is a little more intuitive and easier, I think.
An alternative could possibly be G'MIC's "Water" filter.
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If you use Affinity Photo on Windows, you can also give the free G'MIC plugin a try. There is a Ripples filter in the Deformations category. And more than 500 other filters for nearly all needs.
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If I understand right what I see in your video, you can only move guides with the Move tool. That's the normal behaviour, I think. Also in my desktop version in Windows 10, guides can only be moved with the move tool or the guides manager. To remove guidelines, drag them back into the rulers.
It would cause conflicts if you could drag guides with the Node tool, because if you want to move nodes, possibly a guideline could be in the way. As far as I remember it is the same in other apps.
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Hi Daz8!
This is a bug. I had this problem too, but it is easy to solve the problem. Look at this solution for Windows 10. Think it will work also for Windows 11.
QuoteIf you want to have enduring access to the additional stuff from Affinity (Assets, Brushes, Fonts...), copy this config-file to the following path: C:\Users\YourName\AppData\Roaming\Affinity\Photo\1.0\ or, if your apps are from the Microsoft Store: C:\Users\YourName\AppData\Roaming\Affinity\Photo\1.0(Store)\ (for the other apps, replace "Photo" by "Publisher" or "Designer").
AppData is a hidden folder, so if you haven't already done it, you need to make it visible in the Explorer. Click on "View" on the top of the Explorer and set a hook at something like "Hidden Elements" or so on the right side (don't know how it is called in english. Then the folder "AppData" should appear.
If you start your apps after that, you should be able to sign in/register.
Here is a link to the full thread about this issue.
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Hi Bynah!
This is a case for the "Affinity Support & Questions" section, not for "Ressources". I think an admin will move this thread in the next hours.
What "Wrap Style" did you choose? I can't see that one is selected. I think, in this case it should be "Tight" or "Edge".
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12 hours ago, William Overington said:
Thank you for that link, I was not aware of that.
I have not been on the computer for a couple of hours but I had been thinking of what symbols to use, and I had remembered that triangles were used for some alchemical symbols so I had decided to look them up so as to avoid using any symbols that might already be in use for alchemical symbols.
Where I was intending to look is the following.
https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U1F700.pdf
and some are in this block
https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U2600.pdf
There are some notes on PDF page 56 of the following document.
https://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode14.0.0/ch22.pdf
The file is 657 kilobytes
I found that downloading to local storage and opening in Adobe Reader allows easier access to PDF page 56 rather than online using a web browser.
William
These old symbols from alchemie, astrology, metallurgy and so on play with analogies and suggested relationships. For example the metal iron (one of the seven metals in the perception of the ancients) is associated with the color red, because of the color of rust. And because of this it is associated with the antique god and its associated planet Mars and the element fire. It is an extensive system of interrelated beliefs. For example there is also a theory about 7 body fluids and related temperaments, that are likewise related to the 7 metals and planets and so on (the fluid related to iron is blood, and the temperament, the choleric). Even these weird ancient ideas once were the mother soil our modern sciences evolved from, they are of course funny bullshit from our today's point of view. Nonetheless they are a complex system of a sort of language that still has its impact in literature and arts. For example in fairy tales, fantasy, horror stories, even science fiction, and so on. For example "Lord of the Rings" is full of symbolic of that kind.
If you take a look at the symbols, you will notice that they are composed of certain shapes, like triangles, circles and semicircles, crosses, points... that appear in different compositions. I think also the usage of this shapes in different composings is meant to show relationships. But it is very complex and very difficult to understand it from our modern perspective.
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11 hours ago, Chroma said:
UPDATE: I found out how to add the macro file here, but I'm not sure how to use it...
Open the Library Studio Panel (you'll find it in the "View" menu under "Studio"). In german it's called "Bibliothek", so I think it will be called "Library" in english. In this panel you should find the Macro if you added it right. Open it's category and click on it. That should make it do its work.
Edit: Macros don't belong to the "Assets" panel. You have to import it into the "Library" panel. For recording your own Macros, there is also a "Macros" panel. But to execute Macros, you need the "Library".
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@William Overington
An idea. Are you familiar to alchemical symbols? Possibly they could help you to find a way to symbolize smells.
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3 hours ago, walt.farrell said:
Brian said they'd downloaded the items. So it's not the problem you're thinking of.
Additionally, any purchased items are available from the website even if you can't sign in to the application.
I'm not really sure about his problem, but I had downloaded the items too, after I could sign in. But as I started the apps next time, I was signed out and had again no access to the items. Even the Assets panels were empty. This was solved after I copied the config-file into the app folders.
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2 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:
What items?
You don't use Open for many of them, but most come with installation instructions; did you look at them? (Many users seem to miss them; they're usually located below the purchased items in the list.)
As far as I remember (I had the same problem) the items are only accessible if you are signed in, because of the bug. And you can't sign in durable because of the bug. This problem was solved in my case after I copied the config-file into the Affinity-App-Folder and signed in.
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1 minute ago, walt.farrell said:
Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums.
First: What application are you using? The Font Manager is only in Publisher.
Next: Why do you think it's in the File menu? It's in the Document menu in Publisher.
I think he means the font menu. That is placed below the File menu.
It will only become visible if you activate a text tool. The bar below the menu bar is the context bar. All that is displayed in that bar appears related to the selected tool.
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12 minutes ago, William Overington said:
I produced designs for fifteen colours. Where a heraldry hatching existed I usually applied that, for example, vertical lines for red, horizontal lines for blue. I did not copy the heraldic black design.
The designs are shown on page 4 of the following document. The colour indicating design is at the right hand side of the designs.
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/localizable_sentences_the_novel_chapter_005.pdf
I have also added designs for a few other colours but not applied them yet.
William
It's an interesting project. The problem I see is that the recipients will have to learn a lot to be able to read the coded colors. Vertical lines for red and horizontal lines for blue seem natural, but for other colors it is not that obvious what hatches could stand for it. So it will become a complex sort of language if you create hatches for more and more nuances, I'm afraid.
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1 minute ago, thomaso said:
You have forgotten the aspect of frequency (flow, diligence, "no flux, no prize" / "ohne Fleiß kein Preis"). It is obviously a condition of "great" art that it is not unique in the way that it frequently changes style to create different, new styles during an artist's lifetime. Instead, it requires excessive repetition of a particular style to become interesting to the art market. If an artist lacks continuity in style, the chances of being judged "great" shrink massively, while frequent repetition of a style increases the production of commercial objects of "consistent quality" in the eyes of the market.
Gerhard Richter is a good example of this. Although he initially painted in a variety of styles, he achieved his current role as the most expensive living artist with his continuously smudged paintings, created by smearing paint with a squeegee in the width of the canvas . Technically rather undemanding and by no means unique, it is rather the continuous persistence that accounts for success - which now also makes exceptions to the technique, such as the single, stained glass window of purely square pixels in rather random colors, seem particularly valuable.
That's a very good point and has always been a problem for me, I must confess. I never really wanted to have a certain style, because I always conceived it as a limitation. But during the years it became clearer and clearer to me that people demand something of a reliable state - as I do too. Never found a solution for this problem.
Otherwise I find it very interesting to see how artists develop and improve their style. For example if I compare the early Asterix-Comics with the later ones. Or Tintin. Some of the Tintin-Comics became facelifted years later. It's really interesting to compare the drawings. And even the story telling became riper. The same of course f.e. with the early Rembrandt and his later work and other artists. Or someone like HR Giger. That is very interesting to see.

Gradient Tool Too Small, Cannot Detach Gradient Properties Editor
in Pre-V2 Archive of Affinity on Desktop Questions (macOS and Windows)
Posted
I think it is a matter of taste and habit. If you would have a bigger GUI-panel for the gradients, it would sometimes be in the way, and you would have to close it, to get rid of it and to reopen it, if you need it again. I know that from other apps. In Affinity you have this small dropdown panel that doesn't need much space, but you can also set, move and recolor color points directly on your image. For me this is a good solution.