dizeyner

John G, I know this thread is several years old but I sure do not see a response that solved yours or my problem. I do not know if you ever got an answer anywhere else that helped you resolve your issue. What I do is export a page from the PNG (after first ungrouping ANYTHIING and converting text to paths) to FXG. You can actually save out the data from ALL of your pages but the result is a file with everything lumped together in one file. Can be tedious to wade through. Anyway, after exporting to FXG you then have to make a new illustrator file and PLACE that fxg file into it. The result will have saved most if not all of your styles and kept most if not all editable vectors. Save the ai file and this can be now be opened with affinity designer and resaved. Its not beautiful. A few things are might get bitmapped...this usually happens if anything is grouped. IF your text does not contain styles then you do not need to convert to paths. It will remain editable. Just make sure when you save the imported FXG as an illustrator file to check include PDF. if you don't you got nothing but text messages telling you that illustrator saved this file out without PDF. totally weird. Sometimes you can copy and paste from fireworks to illustrator and skip the FXG step. I think it depends what version of illustrator you have? All affinity needs to do to make me happy is support pages. Doesnt have to be fireworks proprietary. Its the function that I want! "pages" are no different than illustrators multiple artboards. But I want them stackable so I can flip though the pages when Im working on iterative changes for a tight comparison. I defo want the ability to share a single item to multiple pages. It should be doable regardless of adobe proprietary nonsense. Its called reinventing the wheel. Imagine when wheels were all wooden and what if the inventor of the automobile had said -well we have to use wooden wheels because thats all the standard is. Or imagine him saying we cant have rubber wheels because no one will tell us how they are made. You better believe they invented their own rubber. reinvent the wheel. and do it better. Thats my two bits.

Im still looking for an alternative to fireworks pages. Here is why, you can put multiple iterations on each page. every item lined up precisely. this is not just about web products. Also for example nail polish design. All the colors vary but all the highlights MUST be in the exact same position. Cant do this with anything other than fireworks that I know of. Also with fireworks pages we could "share" an item across all the pages. So, I could lay down that highlight that I knew I wanted on every nail color but instead of it pasted on 22 pages its pasted on 1. I just spent 2 hours saving out 22 pages of nail color including variations I was playing with regard to designs. like flowers painted on some and testing out placement. to do this had to convert to FXG. place in illustrator and then open the illustrator file in affinity designer. Files are editable but in 22 separate files. this does not let me flip through all the pages with a click like I did with fireworks. Best of my knowledge no other software program out there where you can do that. Illustrator as "art boards" but these are side by side. Not stacked. So not flippable. any affinity product coming at all ever that can do this kind of productivity? and if not any other thing? Currently to use latest fireworks adobe insists users must rent ALL of their software. thats pretty expensive. If illustrator can do "artboards" side by side this means its not beyond scope of imagination to have pages in anything. AND shared items. Affinity?

I purchased both of my affinity programs from the apple app store. I didnt realize that would mean I had no way to register my applications with the actual developer. For example, I just bought one of the books and that let me create an account. There is a place to download software you own. I cant do that if I ever get another computer. because affinity doesnt have a way for me to register the apps I purchased via apple app store. What if the app store ever goes defunct or stops holding hands with affinity? Then Im out in the cold. Id prefer some way to register my software with the company. Maybe in a future updates add a link in the software that lets people like me register with you and then we are not locked into the app store for updates? If there is a way to register with you please let me know. App store does not give us product keys. It just "knows" based on our accounts with them what we paid for. I guess I feel less secure having to go back to apple app store instead of the sofware developer because I have watched things go defunct. Not common. But it happens.

Love affinity, however, can anyone suggest a workaround when your work is all in fireworks files containing pages and shared layers? I own affinity photo and designer, but both lose the pages and opens my pngs as one flat file. Maybe another interim bit of software that can do it until affinity is able? In a real pickle as my newest imac can not open my older adobe fireworks software. Not Im left to subscribe to adobe to open them and save all the pages out as layered PSDs. Not only is this tedious but if I have to subscribe to adobe it kinda renders affinity moot and I really want to keep up with affinity. I LOVE AFFINITY! help, please? I dont have publisher...maybe it can open pngs that contain shared layers and pages?

Im using affinity designer and I can't figure out where the eraser tool is. I have an image pasted on one of my layers and I want to be able to erase a portion of the image. also, In photoshop you can use a free form lasso to select part of an area and then delete it. I cant figure out how to do that in Affinity designer.

Is there a way to make the UI larger? its hard to see all the teeny tiny tools and if I could just enlarge em a bit it would make it so much easier to see.

Appending: I believe what I am looking for is called Mesh Warp and or Perspective Warp. But I cant find tutorials on how to do it. Specfically I have found the items in the tool bar but I need more control. like adding nodes so I can tweak what I am pushing and pulling with finer control. Im sure Im looking right at it but I DONT SEE IT.

Thanks Callum.

I just purchased Affinity Photo and wanted to view one of the sample files which we are offered when we start the software. Im however not getting any of the sample files. I soon as I click to download it for viewing the cloud turns to a red X. Can we get the files to view somewhere else, a tutorial somewhere? Katherine

In my PSD file I have applied a pattern overlay. When I open the file in Affinity Designer the layer for the pattern overlay FX is there but the pattern has been dropped. Is there a way to keep it from getting dumped? Is it retained in Affinity Photo? Do not have that program so not sure how much it might be like pshop. really hope I dont have to go to affinity photo and then back to affinity design. I was really hoping affinity designer was going to make it easier NOT to have to use two programs like Ive often had to do between FW and pshop. ideas?

Im in process of trying to move away from photoshop and into affinity designer and have just run into a snafu. My file, containing several layers, also contains an FX pattern overly. Its getting dropped out when I open the file. Be nice not only to keep my color gradients and other FX but also to keep the patterns that are applied.

that helped. TY. but as for the cheat sheets they only work if you speak the same "language". for example, nothing on those cheat sheets says to "recenter canvas" hit "cmd 0".

when I start a new document its centered just fine. but its not full size and when I go to the menu to show full size it snaps everything to the left and UNDER the frame such that my work is unable to be worked on. This actually happens all the time. I select something and BAMM I loose my canvas position. even if I close the window so that its smaller than the image there are no scroll bars that will let me move back and forth. and I cant find a way to RESET my canvas position to center. Honestly who on earth would want their canvas to suddenly or default to locking like this? I accidently found a way to get it back to center before but the UI is not intuitive. Im committed to this program but Im finding the difference in cultural terminology a bit frustrating. for example I tried searching for "center canvas", "center workspace" among other things and came up with nothng related in the help system or the manual. arrggghhh...help. how do I reset this and is there a way to FORCE the program to default to centering the canvas in the work window and LEAVE it that way unless I choose otherwise? Please see my image so you can see what happened while I was working. On the left size there is another 1-2 inches of space that you cant see on the other side of the apple.

I think this is a bug so Ive entered it under bugs just in case. however, in the event its not a bug and just a hard to use UI I thought Id post here to see if anyone can tell me why I would not be able to feather a selected vector. Please see the image. I created an oval, selected it and then wanted to feather. first of all this is a simple thing that is normally not hidden under a submenu in other applications I use so I really had to hunt for where "feather" was buried. after finding it was not happy to find it was also greyed out as was almost everything else. but then this is not the only problem Ive been having with the application. I have not put the following items in the bug catcher yet but thinking maybe Id query folks to see if you had same experiences. when I opened this file which has a lot of layers by dbl clicking from the folder on my computer many of the layers were not in the layers menu. yet, if I close the file and then opened it from inside affinity design the layers were all there. in addition when I select an item in the layers menu SOMETIMES I can "copy" and "paste" the item and sometimes I have to first elect to "duplicate" instead. After duplicating the ability to copy and paste returns. this is no constant but random. Please see attached for feathering issue.

Is there a clone stamp tool? Im using affinity designer and can not find it.

Im using affinity designer and coming from adobe fireworks. Im making a human skin for some of my 3D games and want to clone an area and blend it over or into an area that doesnt match. FW has a clone tool. you set the area you want to clone and then "paint" for lack of a better word with that selection over the area you want to change. I looked at the guide and searched but cant find this tool in designer. I think maybe its in the affinity photo program but Im not really wanting to purchase a second tool to do this task if I can help it. one of the reasons for leaving adobe is because with the abandonment of fireworks Ive gotta go to more than one tool. okay thats tmi. anyway...just wanted to know if this is in designer and where its hiding. "healing" would be a plus but I could make do without that as long as I can find clone. cheers!

thats a bit helpful. I have a super large high rez image that I pasted into my screen rez workspace and of course that led to freakish large image way bigger than work space. So I thought, Id really love to select the image... and have it be constrained as i scales down. It didnt seem to contrain with or without shift. so I thought there must be something I have to select to force it to constrain. It would be great to be able to scale by percentage...as in literally have the abillity to select "scale percentage" and "keep contrainsts" then type in say 50 in a percent box. It sounds like your saying if I literally enter -=50% then it will reduce 50%? Ill try that. and Ill try not using the shift key...but I could swear I tried that. lol. thanks for your time.

I love the videos. but is there a searchable manual? the videos are great but when I forget how something is done I need something I can quickly search and refresh my memory without going back to watching the whole tut. I DO need the video tut for learning. LOVE that you do this. just need somekinda quick reference and maybe what would really be great is some kinda keyword reference? for example you use "nodes" instead of points for the editable parts of a vector. Theres a few other things you say differently than what Im used to and Im happy to adapt...just think some kinda quick glance chart or something as a refresher would be awesome. maybe you have that already..just point me to it! Thanks!

Is there a way to blend the edge of one bitmap into another? Attaching a photo in which you can see two layers. Id like to blend..soften the edge of the one into the other. In FW i would have done this in various ways from clipping the edge with a feathered selection to cloning and or adding a vector with feathered edges to "paint" and smooth that way. I suppose I can do all of that with affinity but I figure as Im learning I might as well see if there is a better way to do it. smudge it? not even sure what keywords would correlate. hope the image helps show the edges I want to Smooth" out. thanks for your time!

IM having the hardest time trying to decipher how affinity does things. and the videos are not helpful if you have to keep going back and watching the whole thing just to find the one thing you forgot...and the HELP in the app never seems to return my search terms. this is probably cultural difference in terminology. maybe. so Im hoping there is some manual that I could flip open and scan or search with my PDF reader, ANYTHING??? it does nothing the same as my previous adobe tools with regard to UI placement of tools or keywords. Im okay with that totally...but its becoming painful trying to guess what things are called. Right now I cant figure out how to edit a point on a vector. IN adobe you click the point you want to edit and if you hold down a certain key you can pull out the strings or bars that allow you to adjust the curve related to that point. I cant figure it out. HeLp please point me to a good guide. thank you.

Using Affinity designer...and wondering where there might be basic filter effects like overlay, screen, or multiply for example. I might be imagining things but I defo thought the app had these things but I cant find them. I suspect its just that Im so used to adobe products that its just not where I am used to finding it. and maybe its right in front of my face?

I cant for the life of me figure out how to scale an image proportionately or by entering numbers as I would do in FW or PS. is it buried somewhere??? also when I try to scale using the selection tool it does not scale proportionately. not even if I hold down the shift key. I tried using the HELP system in Affinity but using the keyword SCALE or RESIZE seems to return nothing at all related to what Im looking for. In addition its difficult to tell from the videos which one handles the basic tools. I found a way to scale proportionately the other day by stumbling around but I dont remember how I did it.

Appending to add an image showing other methods for going from fireworks to Affinity. I think saving as a PSD and then opening in Affinity was the least painful. I was surprised to find the vectors remained editable. You have to save one page at a time though. SVG allows exporting all pages to files at one time. Everything remained editable...just not always desireable to look upon. I so wish I could just open my PNG from fireworks in all its glory. I mean if you can open a "proprietary" PSD why not a "propriety" Fireworks PNG. Just my two bits. I sure HOPE affinity can create an apple as I did in Fireworks. Click image to view larger. all Image rights reserved. You may not use them under any conditions.

Here's how to save your valuable Fireworks Assets, preserve editable vectors, keep the content on alternate pages from completely disappearing, or having to be painfully saved out as separate files. You may desire to save all your FW PAGES out as individual files preserving layers instead of choosing to include them all in one file. Before proceeding please note I have not tried this with PAGES that have "shared" layers. SO your mileage may vary. My testing so far only includes FW files with multiple layers, groups and pages. None of which was shared across pages. Open your fireworks file and for best results make sure EVERYTHING on every layer and every page is UNGROUPED, UNLOCKED and VISIBLE. Convert text to paths IF you need to preserve the styles and effects applied to text. If you do not the text may remain editable when you open in Illustrator but it will have lost the styles and colors applied and be a weird pale green color. EXPORT the file as "FXG and Images" Select ALL PAGES from the Menu before clicking on "save". Open illustrator C5 or newer. Create a NEW Illustrator document. PLACE the FXG file you saved out from FW into the new document. EVERY page from the original FW file is present but now everything is now on one "page". You have lost individual pages--but at least everything is there and you can add artboards or pages to affinity and move items over to additional pages or artboards. Not as neat as your FW pages were but better than nothing. And considering all Affinity has to offer its a small price to pay. NEXT Go to the layers panel and make sure everything that can be ungrouped is UNGROUPED, UNLOCKED, and NOT Hidden. If you have not already converted text to paths do it now as editable text will not be preserved when you open the file in Affinity Design. RESAVE AS an Illustrator CS5 or better .ai file. UNcheck "compression" before you save. OPEN the .ai file in Affinity. DONT FREAK OUT. The thumbnail preview will look scary but its all okay. Just click to open the file. Viola. Every vector is there and editable. Though you may have to yet again UNGROUP if you neglected to do this in any of the steps above. Not all of your styles or effects will have been preserved in the vectors. At least you havent lost everything. And wont have to start from scratch. Select individual vector items and you can ADD their styles in Affinitys style panel for use in other projects. NOTE: you might ask why cant I just save out as .ai from FW. Well the problem there is that FW only saves out as an ancient version of Illustrator 8 and nothing is preserved when the file is opened in Affinity. You can also save from illustrator as an EPS and open that in Affinity. I don't like using EPS as the colors "shift" noticeably and the quality of the graphics dont seem to be as well preserved as when you go from Fireworks to FXG and then to Illustrator and back out as C25 .ai or better.

Apparently one can use an extension to export styles as CSS. That said, Ive never heard of an application beng able to import CSS unless the app was made for web development. I wonder if affinity will never be able to import .aco photoshop styles, or, more importantly to me, fireworks .stl files, what about importing .css. Here is the thing no one ever considers..increasingly we work with teams globally and with different software applications. I for example have worked with people in australia and india just to name two. Sometimes they might have photoshop but not fireworks or the other way around, or neither. and so Id have to either spec out every single detail or create every single asset or export in a way that another member of the team could work on assets. it would be great to have tools that dont limit everyone on the team to having the same exact software. You cant do that if you cant even share basic assets like color swatches and styles. just food for thought.