[List of some third party vectorization & tracing tools]

It's extremely niche, but I've used Rasterbator (  https://rasterbator.net/  ) for several large-scale projects.

[Affinity Photo: Fine tuning rotation jitter and problems when using shift modifier for horizontal/vertical lines]

1 minute ago, iconoclast said:

You could create guidelines for the tiles or simply use a grid.

👍Yep, that's what I figured:

5 minutes ago, veles said:

This brush setting in combination with grid snapping should get me close enough to what I'm looking for.

 

[Affinity Photo: Fine tuning rotation jitter and problems when using shift modifier for horizontal/vertical lines]

22 hours ago, PaulEC said:

What makes the Photoshop version right and the AP version "unusable"?

The placement of the tiles looks too rigid and artificial in my AP example.

22 hours ago, iconoclast said:

That the start point of the second line is connected with the end point of the first line may be caused by that you hold the Shift key. If you click on one point and then click on another, holding Shift, you will get a straight line, as far as I remember. So click without holding Shift to start the second line.

Doing it the way you suggested works, but because I'm using positional jitter and the tiles are not supposed to touch or overlap this involves a lot of trial and error. I have to make hundreds of rows of these tiles and creating them this way would be too time consuming.

5 hours ago, LeeThorpe said:

Hi Veles,

Something like the following settings should allow you to achieve your aim. 

Note the blue bar on the rotation setting, you can see range of rotation for which the randomness of rotation occurs. If you turn reduce the jitter value, you can preview the rotation for setting your range.

Lee.

Result:

 

 

Thank you very much. This is exactly what I was looking for. I'll experiment with this setting.

This brush setting in combination with grid snapping should get me close enough to what I'm looking for. Now I just have to figure out how to use grid snapping for horizontal lines 😅.

[Affinity Photo: Fine tuning rotation jitter and problems when using shift modifier for horizontal/vertical lines]

I'm trying to create this in AP:

I made this in PS with four parallel, horizontal lines, using a basic, square brush with minimal angle jitter and moderate shape and size jitter. Very basic.

The goal is to create subtle variations that will make the arrangement of the rectangles appear handmade and not mechanic.

 

This is the closest I could get to it in AP:

Obviously, this is unusable for my purposes. I'm wondering if I just don't know how to adjust the brush settings to achieve the desired effect.

 

Here are the brush settings I used:

 

The problems I've encountered:

1. The 'Rotation Jitter' setting doesn't seem to do anything on its own. It looks like it has to be combined with 'Rotation'; however, when combined with 'Rotation' everything is either rotated in only one direction or the angle variation is too great.

2. I'm either using it wrong or the shift modifier is glitching when used in combination with the brush tool for straight vertical and horizontal lines.

I've tried: click>shift+drag, shift+click+drag, shift>click+drag. None of the key combinations work correctly and the closest result is this:

For some reason Affinity insist on connecting the end of the fist line with the beginning of the subsequent one.

I don't see a shift key modifier option under the 'Brush Tool' in the 'Keyboard Shortcuts' menu, so it's possible that, technically, this function isn't available in AP.

 

Any suggestions and workarounds are welcome.

I'm on Windows and using a mouse but have access to a drawing tablet.

[In the style of AI-generated Art (a bit of Role Reversal here)]

I like it. It reminds me a bit of Dave McKean's illustrations.

[Is there a quick way to use multiple repeating patterns in a single-layer workflow?]

On 8/15/2022 at 5:17 AM, Callum said:

Hi Veles,

Unfortunately I don't think there is any way for your workflow to work as efficiently in Affinity due to the lack of a fill tool that allows for filling with patterns etc. The closest work around you'd be able to get to this would be following a workflow similar to the one seen in the below video.

https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/tutorials/photo/desktop/video/392237161/

Thanks
C

Thank you very much for your help.

[Is there a quick way to use multiple repeating patterns in a single-layer workflow?]

I make quick rough concept sketches. The emphasis is on speed using keyboard shortcuts, quickly switching between patterns, and working in a single layer. Here is an extremely simplified example of what this might entail.

 

It took me approximately 30 seconds to do this in a single Photoshop layer. I'd like to know if this workflow is possible in Affinity Photo? The only way I know how to do this in Affinity Photo takes a lot longer and it requires several layers involving multiple steps per pattern:

1. select areas to be filled

2. create a fill layer

3. navigate through the menu to the file with the desired pattern

4. apply the pattern

5. deselect

6. merge down

7. repeat 1-6 for each pattern

Another problem that adds a lot of unnecessary steps is a glitch that swaps foreground and background colors every time I switch tools. Having to constantly undo the resulting mistakes and fight to use the selected color is frustrating and time consuming. Is there a way to fix this?

[Copy-paste/cut-paste of a selection made in a pixel layer doesn't work.]

3 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Check the Layers panel and make sure the layer says (Pixel). It sounds like you probably have an (Image) layer instead, and you'll need to Rasterize it before you can work on the individual pixels.

That was the problem. Thank you very much.  I apologize if this sounds stupid, but what's the difference? I had no idea there was such thing as an image layer. I just assumed the layer was automatically named that way.

[Copy-paste/cut-paste of a selection made in a pixel layer doesn't work.]

When I attempt to cut out or make a copy of a selection from a pixel layer, the selection is ignored and the entire layer gets copied/cut. The problem persists with all selection tools and with both keyboard shortcuts (ctrl+x, ctrl+c, ctrl+v) and clicking on the "Cut"/"Copy" and "Paste" options from the File menu. The problem is present in Photo as well as in Designer's pixel persona. The only workaround is to copy the layer, make the selection, invert the selection and erase the parts that are not needed. Very frustrating. Is there any way to fix this?

[Designer - Snapping to L-shaped and C-shaped Objects]

Hi there. I've owned this software for quite some time, but this is my first post here.

I'm importing multiple objects from different files and arranging them in a specific way. They are created to fit together so that there's equal spacing between and around each object (think Mondrian's work). I thought this would be incredibly quick and easy to do, but I'm completely stumped. Here is a simplified representation of what I'm trying to accomplish. For greater clarity I've included only a small number of objects. Normally, the entire page would be completely filled.

I need to line up the sides marked with red, keeping the spacing between objects consistent throughout the document--approximation of the final result is shown in the black rectangle. The problem I've encountered is that snapping and measurements features seem to only work on nodes that are on the bounding boxes. There is no way to line up anything with the nodes marked with green. I can't get anything to snap to them. If I create a new object I can use those nodes as the starting point and the cursor will snap to them but, as mentioned, I'm not creating new objects. I will have pages filled with these objects, so using the transform panel would be too time consuming. I've tried every combination of options in the snapping panel but nothing seems to be working. In summary: how do I line up objects with the nodes that are not on the bounding boxes, and how do I measure the distance from an object to the lines converging in such a node?