[Information loss when opening in Affinity from Bridge]

Am I correct in assuming that Bridge doesn't develop the image but displays a JPG preview saved along with or embedded into the RAW file and thus being developed in the camera before?

For developers' research, it may be helpful to know the camera brand & model and the image file details ... or simply get this or a similarly affected original file uploaded.

Unfortunately this blue colour shift / clipping appears to be related to a known issue with blue light. Possibly this threads contains options to solve it with your image (note, the second is from 2018 and maybe outdated):

[Rotate Document by 90°]

16 minutes ago, rfj10101 said:

50% through my free evaluation period and about 10% up the learning curve

It maybe worth to go through all menu entries … to familiarize the app with you 😉

… and to see where you got or where you could want to create a keyboard shortcut.

[Black problem in CMYK printing]

7 minutes ago, Gianni Becattini said:

However, with the color picker, black is always 0,0,0 - with the small lock open or closed.

But I suppose that the printer problem is that I have a picture and behind it a black background,

The setup is not the problem and can 'generally' be used without issues. But currently you seem to have deviating colour spaces and/or different profiles involved.

Okay, your screenshot shows a document's colour space RGB with an sRGB profile. – Is this the setting for the image source file or for the layout document or for both?

And what object does show the picker with RGB 000: the image or the Rectangle or both?

And what colour space & profile does the printer get from you? Does it have image colours converted? And does it have a profile embedded, either for the image or for the document or for both and/or does it include an output intent (PDF/X)?

20 minutes ago, Gianni Becattini said:

it is impossible to think creating (600 pages!) a special black background for every page with a hole for the images... isn't it?

Agreed, and it will not be necessary, too. – Do all the images have the same/identical black background colour definition … or do their background blacks vary across the entire layout document / pages?

[Black problem in CMYK printing]

7 minutes ago, loukash said:

… 3) flood erase the black background of your image so that it transparently floats over the K100 background shape (what I would do)

Sure you would? – It could get tricky at dark edges like these:

btw, your 4.) seems to be my 2nd.

46 minutes ago, Gianni Becattini said:

• I have a black page, obtained with black rectangle
• over i I placed a photo (see an example below).

Actually I would expect to see at least two slightly differing blacks in your APub screenshot but it looks rather like identical blacks. What is your document's colour space and what the Rectangle's black definition in the Colours Panel (with the lock disabled)? What PDF version (e.g. 1.7 or /X-4 ?) and in what colour space/profile did you send to the printer?

Also I wonder how the black background in the image was created. It looks so perfect that it might indicate it was created manually (not just shot on a black ground). If this was the case then it may indeed be an easier option to set the image's background to transparent and cause the black page background via the Rectangle object only.

p.s.: the blue device top left is missing bleed, right?

[Black problem in CMYK printing]

19 minutes ago, Gianni Becattini said:

But which could be an alternative to that? Maybe that the problem was that I have two black rectangles superimposed?

If the RGB black in the images have different values than your CMYK black Rectangle fill colour then it may result in different blacks in a PDF export.

Alternatively you could either …

… select the Rectangle layer + use the Colour Picker Tool to assign the image's black as the Rectangle's fill colour.
… increase the black background of the image file + don't use an additional Rectangle object fill colour.

 

 

 

[Simple convert from RGB to CMYK in Photos?]

5 minutes ago, wonderings said:

I am hunting around the software (v1) and cannot find this. Can someone point me in the right direction for a simple conversion to CMYK?

https://affinity.help/photo/English.lproj/index.html?page=pages/Clr/ClrProfiles.html?title=Colour management

To change your document's colour profile at any time:

1. From the Document menu, select Convert Format / ICC Profile.
2. Select a profile from the list in the dialog.
3. Click Convert.

There you can choose another profile only but also change the colour space.

[Affinity Photo - Centering inside selection]

9 minutes ago, MiWe said:

select the layer containing the red star and the layer in which you made your selection marquee.

A pixel selection is not linked to a specific layer. Thus your suggestion doesn't work but aligns to the entire layer dimension instead.

[multiple data merge layouts]

7 hours ago, anto said:

Publisher works with only one data source.

@EatMoreBacon, your topic description doesn't sound that you want to work with multiple data sources, so just in case here some more info to @anto's hint about this aspect:

[Affinity Photo - Centering inside selection]

Another workaround would simply create the selection as Rectangle object + align to its bounding box.  (without a pixel selection)

[Standard values for line / paragraph spacing?]

6 hours ago, lacerto said:

Considering the variation in real world, (…) saying that Affinity apps calculate the line spacing in a way that "other apps are supposed to be doing it" (and specifically according to OpenType specs), or that the reasons why there is variation is because of Adobe and Quark chose to ignore the typographic specs is simply just wrong.

In your FontLab screenshot the "Line gap" = 0. How come that descender and ascender overlap in your example? Wouldn't this value rather mean they slightly touch each other only, without overlapping? Or wouldn't a desired overlapping require a negative value for Line gap?

Based on which dimensions / font values does APub calculate & render the leading for Zapfino with its "default" = 100% setting?

[Wie erstelle ich meine eigene Zoomgröße in der Ansicht?]

Du kannst einfach die Einheit im Lineal umstellen. Die Einheit ist keine feste Eigenschaft eines Dokuments, sondern eine Ansichts-Einstellung (ähnlich wie der Zoom-Faktor oder die Fenstergröße). D kannst die Einheit jederzeit umstellen.

Mit Rechts-Klick auf den Schnittpunkt beider Lineale erscheint ein Menu mit den div. Einheiten zur Auswahl. Alternativ geht es auch in den Dokument-Einstellungen.

[Standard values for line / paragraph spacing?]

1 hour ago, Oufti said:

10 pt but that doesn't mean that letter has effectively a body size of 10 pt: it could well be a large 9, or 10,5 pt with a small design…  

Yes, and this is the reason why I think …
a.) the x-height should be = the selected font size
b.) any 'default' option for leading is rather confusing up to useless

15 hours ago, Benfinity said:

That said, it doesn't matter if it's "default" or "defaults", because it's been all about the Paragraph panel in the first place. And my "problem has been solved successfully!

Apart from your (luckily!) solved "problem: There is a difference in "default" (as leading option) versus "Defaults" (as object / application and [No Style] setting, unless you customized it in your Affinity):

The leading option "default" varies with font (and thus may cause a different leading if you just choose a different font without changing its size). – While the object "Defaults" is used for all newly created text frames it may get switched + saved from its factory "default" to e.g. "% Height" and thus maintaining the leading regardless of the font for every new frame.

Below: the 'default' option causes deviating leadings for different fonts – while "% Height" maintains the leading:

 

[Spellchecking - LocalDictionary - Where are learned words stored?]

5 hours ago, Eisbar said:

I added a new word to the Croatian spelling help via Publischer "learning" and then started the search as @thomaso suggested. The result: zero!

The Spotlight search in your macOS appears to be more restricted than expected or than in my 10.14. Mojave for instance.

I get an immediate search result as soon I choose "Learn Spelling" in APub for a selected word. I just "learned" 1 Turkey + 1 Finnish entry, both caused a new dictionary file in my library > spelling folder: "tr" + "fi".

Where is your general Croatian dictionary stored, maybe your custom dict file is saved in that folder, too? Or: are you sure your word was learned successfully / does APub offer to "Unlearn" if you select the word now?

[Standard values for line / paragraph spacing?]

On 11/4/2023 at 7:58 PM, MikeW said:

BTW, that part of the letter sort in your image is called the Shoulder.

Do you have an idea why this specific term is online rather hard to find in English? – While the term "shoulder" is quite spread for a certain part in a curve of some characters …

->

… your mentioned use of "shoulder" appears to me as search result only in the "The printer's dictionary of technical terms" of 1912 (archive.org).

Nevertheless, this term "shoulder" is not the term I a looking for because it excludes the letter's dimension and thus it is different to the German term "Kegel" that denotes the entire dimension of the physical block ('body'). I still would like to know the English term for the entire vertical dimension of a letter: The sum of Ascender + x-Height + Descender + Shoulder top/bottom. It appears strange that this parameter is well documented for German but nearly not for English – although metal letters had their main manufacturers probably in USA and although this dimension has been required when working with physical type in the machines.

The only explanation I can think of is that in English the searched term had been called "font size" (as hinted in the German "Schriftgrad" in one of the illustrations above) for physical letters. Whereas in digital type "font size" refers rather to the x-height only (which is roughly Ø 50% of the font size) while the font size ignores the dimensions of ascender + descender and thus "font size" (at least for digital type) also does not denote the term I am still looking for.

On 11/4/2023 at 7:58 PM, MikeW said:

I'm pretty certain Hermann Zapf wouldn't like the default Affinity Publisher uses for you Zapfino sample. It should be more open. At least that's how he designed it. That said, in practice I suspect he would opt to set the font tighter than the in-built leading,

Do I understand right that Zapfino has an in-built leading that is different to the 'default' leading in Affinity (which appears to be 100% of the font size)? If yes, is it possible without font design knowledge and tools to detect this in-built value, either from inside Affinity or by inspecting the font file without any especial application?

In my example above I selected Zapfino on purpose because of its – imho – obvious deviation between total height and useful leading, considering this font face has initially been handwritten usually with overlapping ascenders / descenders on purpose (maybe for artistic reasons or simply to spare paper). From that perspective it wouldn't make much sense to define a default or in-built leading that avoids any overlapping (different to Antiqua & Grotesk fonts).

On 11/4/2023 at 7:58 PM, MikeW said:

Application designers simply ought to use font metrics to lay down the type. But, like I said before, there ought to be a preference to set when the font designer messes up.

Isn't it technically possible or sufficient for an app (e.g. Affinity) to use just the font size, the x-height and as-/descander for instance to enable the user to handle the style parameters with the available char / par interface? Obvioulsy the app is aware of these sizes and creates an Art text bounding box in the required vertical dimension for instance.

[Spellchecking - LocalDictionary - Where are learned words stored?]

7 hours ago, Eisbar said:

However, there is still the mystery where the Croatian user-specific spelling is stored. See attached picture! I can continue to add words to the Croatian dictionary... but where is the dictionary?

Maybe you can find the related file with a system wide search for the most recent modification date (… or possibly with search for content, i.e. your custom, Croatian dictionary text).

If Spotlight doesn't work you might try FindAnyFile with its extended search parameters including a search as 'root' (though a custom dictionary should be user related).

[Standard values for line / paragraph spacing?]

2 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

I still use it from time to time.

For what cases do you use it – on old prints or on nowadays prints or on a layout screen? It may work well to count the number of lines, but does the font size or leading (10.5 – 14) indeed match for all or most or just certain digital font files?

[Standard values for line / paragraph spacing?]

51 minutes ago, MikeW said:

the term Default should mean

This "should" seems to indicate this term "default" is not really defined (as also  @Oufti's and @MikeTO's posts seem to express).

I wonder, for what goal/purpose that 'default' gets defined or set by a font designer? Like the discussed examples show, a general identical value of e.g. 120% appears sufficient as "a default". 

This 'default' leading seems to be related to the confusion that occurs with font size. I wonder how the term "size" was used in earlier, physical type setting: did they call the size of a certain font e.g. "12 pt" size – regardless of its real, physical height – or were 12 pt fonts always indeed 12 pt?

Why isn't the x-height for instance insufficient to unambiguously define a font's size, and a font's ascender + x-height + descender insufficient to define its 100% leading?

It reminds me to the physical ruler tool "typometer". As far I remember it worked to detect any font's size – regardless of its design or designer's ideas and thus to quickly get the number of lines of a text in a certain size or leading or vice versa. Nowadays I doubt it would work reliable, since 12 pt size may vary between fonts.

  -

[Standard values for line / paragraph spacing?]

1 hour ago, Benfinity said:

I then synchronized the defaults with this selection and saved the defaults thereafter.

So it appears your initial questions for "default" …

• What exactly are Affinity's default values for line and paragraph spacing
• And is there a possibility to change them (set my own desired values to be chosen as [standard])?

… referred to the application's object "Defaults" (plural s) that we may "Synchronize", "Save", "Revert" and "Factory Reset" – quite different to that odd leading values that are confusingly named 'default' by Serif / Affinity and are set via font files but discussed intensively in this thread.

1 hour ago, Benfinity said:

Btw, the German word for "leading" is "Durchschuss"

Well, this doesn't help for the initiated question what English term would be correct for leading as an opponent to line spacing – or whether the two have identical meaning.

The figures about physical letter bodies were uploaded with the hope the community would tell the English term for that pink dimension of the physical block that carries the character/glyphe (German "Kegel"), because its size, in my assumption, would be = the minimal leading and = 100 %, and thus the only useful "default" value for leading, whereas, of course, digital type does not have this physically defined dimension. Interestingly one of the figures says "Schriftgrad", imho the equivalent to English "font size", which seems to confirm the idea that 'default' leading = 100% of the font size.

Nevertheless, a "default" leading in digital font doesn't make much sense in my understanding since it is rather arbitrary (~taste) and ignores the lengths of lines (number of characters) while shorter lines (e.g. multi-column newspaper articles) may tolerate a lower value than longer lines (e.g. novels in books).

[Question about selection mode]

7 minutes ago, PeterPeterPeter said:

where can I find those "modifier key tool tips?

As mentioned,

22 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Keep an eye in the Status Bar (…)

… or in the Affinity Help interface introduction,

[Question about selection mode]

On 11/4/2023 at 1:27 PM, PeterPeterPeter said:

I can start a selection with the Lasso Tool in "add mode" too, so that should be possible with the Flood Select Tool as well dont you think?

Interestingly, starting a new selection in the "Add" mode is possible with the Flood Select Tool, too. So my previous explanation is not the true reason. I don't know for what purpose especially this selection tool gets reset to "New" in certain situations – while e.g. the Selection Brush even has no "New" mode at all.

On 11/4/2023 at 1:27 PM, PeterPeterPeter said:

Or lets say if I hold shift or strg it adds to the selection automaticly, that would be such a quality of life improvement...

Keep an eye in the Status Bar for modifier key tool tips. To me on mac it says for the Flood Select Tool to use CTRL to add (not Shift) and it works.

[Question about selection mode]

At 0:15 min your current pixel selection gets deactivated before you switch to the Paint Brush Tool. (otherwise you could paint within the currently selected areas only).

So, if you then go back to the Flood Select Tool there exists no selection that could be used to add a further selection, thus any selection is new.

Note, the Flood Select Tool always refers to specific layer content – whereas the Freehand Selection Tool is layer independent for its creation.

[Snap corner of one rectangle and another corner of another rectangle in designer?]

17 minutes ago, iconoclast said:

In my case it is the same in version 1. As I use the german translation for my GUI, the status bar says "Rechte Maustaste = Übersetzen" ("Right Mouse Key = Translate"). But that only appears if I hover over the node. And it opens the context menu if I click the node. If I hold Shift, the double cursor appears, if I hover over the node.

Same as what? I don't see any tooltip mentioning a mouse key in V1.

When Shift triggers the double cursor for you, do you mean the double arrow like this: <–> , or this same icon but doubled + rotated (actually 4x arrow cursor as in the videos above). I get the 4x arrow cursor also with no key pressed and just hovering anywhere over a selected object.

10 minutes ago, iconoclast said:

I need to hold both mouse keys at the same time to drag without scaling. That seems to work.

Quite strange. I can't get the 4x arrow cursor with two mouse keys pressed, regardless of the pressing order. (I get either the context menu or the 2x arrow scale cursor).

The right mouse key should get triggered alternatively by the CTRL key (in macOS / isn't it the same in Windows?). That's why CTRL-click (left click only) works for me.

[Are there detailed description of all Blend modes?]

Some more:

… or this mathematical view for PDF specifications:

Acrobat PDF spec _blend modes.pdf

[All Blend Modes EXPLAINED - Tutorial for Affinity Photo, Affinity Designer, and Affinity Publisher]

Or this technical / maths view for the PDF file format:

Acrobat PDF spec _blend modes.pdf

[All Blend Modes EXPLAINED - Tutorial for Affinity Photo, Affinity Designer, and Affinity Publisher]

See also: text descriptions how blend mode technically affect / effect …