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Herbert123

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Everything posted by Herbert123

  1. The colour mode does not seem to matter. I tested this in 8bpc and 16bpc. OneByOne is correct in stating that it depends on the zoom level as well - a higher zoom level increases the mesh division. But it never goes away completely. I have included a sample file. bevel.afdesign
  2. FastStone is terrible at optimizing PNG files. If you are on Windows, there is only one PNG optimization tool you will currently need (nothing else comes close to the level of control and optimization options): Color Quantizer. Forget the rest (and that includes command line tools like optipng). It is worth installing a virtual machine for on a Mac! The dithering options, the quality mask brush, which allows you to mask areas of which the colours must be preserved (essential to have this level of control when dealing with images such as the Buddha here with very small areas of custom colours), indexed colour control, the option to set an arbitrary number of colours beyond 256, and the simple GUI all make it stand out from any other PNG optimization tool. Also comes with a nice trim option and an impressive list of resampling algorithms to scale down images. (Mitchel-Netravali and Catmull-Rom are the best for this type of sharp edged line art - better than anything either Photoshop or Affinity have on offer.) And it is free. No need to install it: it is a single executable, and portable. I can no longer imagine doing any png optimization without it. http://x128.ho.ua/color-quantizer.html I was able to get the Buddha sample down to 67.3kb with no visual difference by running it through CQ. See the attachment. And that was a quick job - spending a little more time on this, I got it down to ~62kb.
  3. It is actually far worse than that: try drawing ten, twenty strokes quickly one after another: Affinity Designer cannot keep up at all. Strokes become lines at some point.
  4. Create an A4 document. Create a new layer. Switch to the vector brush tool. Any settings you like. Begin drawing multiple strokes quickly one after another. Result: Affinity cannot keep up at all. Every stroke takes a second to redraw on the screen. Impossible to draw quickly freehand in AD.
  5. Please compare the below embossed circles. I am aware that Photoshop handles this particular example even (far!) worse, but Affinity Designer also suffers from rendering issues when the embossing effect is set to no softening at all. The left version is done in Photoline, the right in Affinity. Also notice how Affinity Designer fades the overall saturation of the fill colour. These rendering artefacts occur when a custom curve is applied. Softening is not an option, since that would also soften the edges in the center. In short, unacceptable for real-world usage. I am unsure whether the Mac version suffers from the same problems?
  6. Yes, I too have noticed extreme tearing and lagging of elements that have gradients and other effects applied to them. When I zoom out to a small thumbnail the lagging and tearing is markedly reduced or no longer there. Interestingly enough, even just drawing a circle will result is abysmal looking tearing - Affinity Designer cannot keep up with the movements at all. Similar objects and elements do not lag in Photoline or Xara at all. Photoline does not 'cheat' either: all effects are applied in real-time. My machine is pretty old. I do, however, experience similar draw update issues in InkScape. Perhaps a similar drawing library is used by the developers? Windows 7 64bit, 48gb RAM, I7 920@3.6Ghz, Revodrive X3 PCI SSD Raid, Nvidia GTX 590 3GB
  7. Ideally a ppi based solution should be implemented. Blender does it best: a simple ppi value which seamlessly scales the GUI up and down. And an additional retina screen switch which doubles the pixel resolution of screen widgets (such as the grid). And this is a real-time effect. Additionally, the mouse can be used to scale specific panels independently (hold down the ctrl key with the middle mouse button). It really is the best and most flexible solution, and it is a shame 99% of existing software opts for fixed breakpoints instead.
  8. The newer Photoshop specific plugins rely completely on Photoshop's architecture, and those will NEVER EVER work in other applications. Regular Photoshop compatible 8bf plugins will generally work in other image editors which support these older Photoshop plugins. For example, the NIK collection works without a hitch in Photoline, PaintShop Pro, and indeed Affinity. I do agree with you that Affinity ought to provide a way to work with external executables. Photoline has a round-trip option to send a layer or the entire file to any third-party application, with several interchange formats. Send a layer to Krita, work on it, save the edits, and when switching back to Photoline all the changes are automatically applied. Super handy.
  9. OpenTOonz! In the same league as ToonBoom, and recently got open-sourced. It supports vector animation (favours it, actually), and even sports excellent bitmap to vector conversion. It's free, and I love it for 2d animation. Mind, OT's workflow may require some acclimatization. Worth it, though. OpenTOonz is a serious production-level animation package - used by Studio Ghibli and the makers of Futurama. Also works well with Anime Studio, Krita, and ClipStudio. OT supports SVG import - although it depends on the complexity of the artwork how well this will work. I find importing high-res easter versions, and converting those to vectors in OT may work better in those cases. https://opentoonz.github.io/e/index.html Forum: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!categories/opentoonz_en Tips worksheet: https://workflowy.com/s/JtI13Zub8a# Manual: http://www.toonz.com/cgi-shl/download/71H/Toonz%20Harlequin%2071%20User%20Guide.pdf Many video tutorials have become available: vimeo.com/brundlethwaite/videos https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-t3I3gSAsZWsCvsxUkBZRA
  10. For comparison, this is what Photoline produces after importing that rectangle and saving it: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?> <!-- Created with PhotoLine 19.90B1 (www.pl32.com) --> <!DOCTYPE svg PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD SVG 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/1.1/DTD/svg11.dtd"> <svg width="1024" height="1024" viewBox="0 0 1024 1024" version="1.1" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <g id="Rect2"> <path stroke-width="4" fill="#4ba6fc" stroke="#203b87" d="M10 2 L114 2 C118 2 122 6 122 10 L122 34 C122 38 118 42 114 42 L10 42 C6 42 2 38 2 34 L2 10 C2 6 6 2 10 2 Z"/> </g> </svg> And after re-positioning: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?> <!-- Created with PhotoLine 19.90B1 (www.pl32.com) --> <!DOCTYPE svg PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD SVG 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/1.1/DTD/svg11.dtd"> <svg width="1024" height="1024" viewBox="0 0 1024 1024" version="1.1" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <g id="Rect2" transform="matrix(1 0 0 1 155 113)"> <path transform="matrix(1 0 0 1 -155 -113)" stroke-width="4" fill="#4ba6fc" stroke="#203b87" d="M165 115 L269 115 C273 115 277 119 277 123 L277 147 C277 151 273 155 269 155 L165 155 C161 155 157 151 157 147 L157 123 C157 119 161 115 165 115 Z"/> </g> </svg> Not that bad. Obviously, Inkscape does it best: it keeps the rounded borders 'live", and applies the ry and rx attributes properly. By the way, is it possible to assign a custom id label to objects in Affinity when exporting to SVG? In Photoline a layer or layer group's name sets the id attribute. Must we group those objects in Affinity?
  11. It really is too bad that developing in Photo is destructive. Photoshop, Photoline, and others offer non-destructive RAW processing. An alternative workflow would be to use an external RAW developer (Lightroom, RawTherapee, etc.) which create sidecar files, and then place the result as a linked asset in Photoshop or Photoline. Then when the original file is edited, PH and PL can update the content of that external linked layer. But Affinity Photo does not support linked file layers either. Which means no solution, other than re-doing the work again if changes are required in the RAW processing.
  12. Yup, very handy at times to have. Also have a look at Photoline's version, which includes a square optionl. And Inkscape has a nice version too.
  13. No biggie. I can do my vector traces in Photoline, Inkscape, and (the newly open sourced) OpenToonz. OpenToonz actually does a very good job: although it might seem a bit overkill to use Studio Ghibli's animation production tool to trace artwork :-P What is quite unique about OpenToonz is that it can output the single paths as well as the full outlined trace. This allows me to change the drawing intent of the paths easily in illustration software, which is pretty neat.
  14. Adobe abused the TIFF format by introducing "layered" tiffs, which are basically a PSD wrapped in a TIFF container. No luck there either. Blame Adobe. The best you can do is to convert unsupported features to rasterized layers, save as a PSD, and test.
  15. Inkscape a dark interface? Since when? I am running version 0.91, and the GUI is as bright as can be.
  16. Smart objects allow for external files to be embedded, and for elements to be cloned. They can also be used to organize work quite effectively. States of SOs can be controlled via properties, making it simple to re-use GUI elements, for example. A function for instancing layers which update in real-time while the source is edited in-place would be very welcome as well (something Photoshop is lacking, but Photoline and Krita do feature). And Affinity is not nearly as non-destructive as it could be: in Photo text is rasterized the moment anything but a perspective filter is applied as a distortion. RAW processing is destructive. Liquify is destructive. Then again, smart objects in Photoshop can be a real pain to use - a simple instancing method for layers would go a long way. Best: accommodate both: 1) external and embedded SOs/placeholder layers, and 2) instanced layers or symbols, so the user may choose between each approach depending on the situation (Photoline allows for this, for example). Perhaps Affinity Publisher/Layout will be the solution?
  17. Ah, what a shame. I had hoped for a more non-destructive workflow (especially seeing AP is the latest kid on the block). Hopefully this will improve in the future. About (6): is this a bug? Why wouldn't the layer stack display the embedded layers? It makes this (very useful) workflow untenable. Will this be fixed in a future release? Thanks for the answers.
  18. I have been using Affinity Photo at work for a while now, and I have a couple of questions as to a non-destructive workflow. It is pretty good so far, although the overall workflow feels a tad destructive to me. I am used to both Photoshop and Photoline. 1) after developing a RAW file in the Developer Persona, the changes are applied to it destructively, correct? In Photoshop we have the smart object approach to keep things "live", and in Photoline the RAW file is inserted as a regular layer in the layer stack, with live adjustments and settings. Any way to work non-destructive so as to keep the RAW processing live? 2) similarly, is it possible to non-destructively use the liquify persona? In Photoshop we again have smart objects to accomplish this, and in Photoline the liquify tool adds a liquify layer which can be edited directly at all times (even possible to add as many liquify layers as you like, and stack those). 3) after typing text, or creating a vector shape, when I apply a mesh warp or perspective tool edit, the layer is converted to pixels, and I can no longer edit the text. Other effects and distortions also rasterize the text layers. Is there a way to avoid this, and keep the text live? 4) embedded and linked placeholder layers (PL) or smart objects (PH) are missing in Photo. Clipping layers can use smart objects in Photoshop, making it possible to re-use these masks (not very elegant, though). In Photoline and Krita it is possible to clone layers, and re-use them in the layer stack. I am wondering whether a similar feature (SOs and/or virtual layers) is planned at some point? Especially external linked placeholder layers are very useful - when used in combination with non-destructive tools. 5) no fill patterns in Photo yet? 6) I noticed it is possible to have masks within masks, and apply live effects to these masks. The trouble is, once these layer masks are dropped on a layer, the embedded masks and effect layers become inaccessible: the layer stack hides them, and seemingly there is no method to twirl down the contents. Is a setting available to gain access to these embedded layers? Thanks.
  19. Btw, most of those examples were saved as JPG files. Bad choice for vector/illustration work - always use PNG for that. JPG is notoriously destructive for vector artwork. Here is the first PNG version reduced to 50% with a bit of sharpening before, Catmul-Rom down-scaling in Photoline, and a bit of sharpening again. The result would have been better if I had had access to a high resolution version or a pdf to convert. http://oi65.tinypic.com/119cbk9.jpg
  20. Illustrator web export is quite terrible as well for this type of work. I found that the best way to maintain good sharpness is to export the artwork at a much higher resolution (typically around 2000 pixels width and/or height), and then use Catmull-Rom interpolation to down-sample to web size. I have done a LOT of testing with Illustrator and Photoshop a couple of years ago to find the best workflow to maintain the best quality of vector artwork at lower resolutions. My finding is very simple: NEVER output vector artwork intended for low resolution directly to the intended lower resolution straight out of your design app. ALWAYS output at a much higher resolution, and downsample with Catmull-Rom for the best result. Unfortunately, Adobe and Affinity products do not support this down-sampling method (nor do they support mitchell-natravali, which also results in good downsampling), and you will have to look elsewhere for this. One option is ImageMagick, but it does require the use of the terminal/command line. Photoline does support these two down-sampling algorithms out of the box, which is what I use for this type of work. And you may have to sharpen the result a bit to bring up the contrast for sharp edges (such as small text). Here is an article which compares the various sampling algorithms. Quite informative read. https://pixinsight.com/doc/docs/InterpolationAlgorithms/InterpolationAlgorithms.html
  21. Oops, I did initially add C4d to the list, but closed the window during typing, and forgot to add it the second time. There are others as well. I left out the hobbyist products (Daz Studio, Poser, etc.)
  22. What would be the point? The 3d animation market is already saturated with a long list of incredibly capable software: Max, Maya, Blender, Modo, Lightwave, FormZ, Houdini, EIAS, Shade 3D, etc. And aside from these many other lower level applications exist.
  23. I wish AP would have an option to clone/instantiate layers (including layer masks), and recycle these in the layer stack, which means a change to the source (original) mask cascades in realtime throughout the project. Or have a way to group multiple adjustment layers into one "super" adjustment layer, and one ;ayer mask would affect them all at once. I really miss these options when I return to Affinity Photo at work (I use Photoline at home, and it has these two options).
  24. Krita (open source digital painting) by far outpaces Photoshop in regards to brush engine and overall artistic tools. There is just no comparison. The Mac version is getting better lately, so if you are looking for powerful digital painting tools, look no further. Even HDR painting is supported, symmetry painting, seamless texture painting, and so on, and so forth. Quite amazing it is open source, and free software. I use this and nothing else to paint digitally with nowadays. https://krita.org/ Get the latest build for El Capitan here (includes animation!): https://krita.org/item/krita-2-9-11-and-the-second-3-0-alpha-build/
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