affinityashh

Hello!
I have imported some brush categories into Affinity Photo - they always appear at the bottom.  I would like to change the order that they appear in because of the categories that I use the most one is at the top and the other is at the bottom.  If I add more categories, the one currently at the bottom will be hard to find, as it will be somewhere in the middle. 
I have tried the little squares at the top right of the brush menu and I can't find anything that helps. 
How can I rearrange my brush categories?
 

I agree. I'm struggling with brush work also. To me it seems that the size circle that shows the brush size seems to change depending upon whether you have the stylus button on/off. I'm expecting the circle brush size preview to show the size consitently (maximum brush size if stylus is turned on). But if I have the stylus button toggled to "on" and then change the brush size, the size circle appears to be bigger than what it showed with the stylus toggle turned off. Maybe I'm just weird in what I expect to happen.

Difficulties and Problems I'm finding:
 
Every time a brush is changed and the first re-selected it has lost any modifications just previously made. This is not good. The solution suggested of creating a new brush for each modification is just not a solution. Partly because there would need to be so many per one brush; but also because in the Brushes 'Studio' there would be no visible way to distinguish them and, although there is Rt-click option to 'Rename', individual Brushes show no names! It's probably there but I can't find how to duplicate/save any modified version? Nor how to copy/move a brush from one Category to another? Don't know if I'm missing something but, apart from the 'Basics' category: modifying 'Shape' appears to do nothing at all; similarly, changing 'Hardness' has no effect. Understandble in many cases outside of 'Basic', but why have them always so prominent, as if applicable? These things confuse. Modifying Flow seems with many brushes to reach full strength at or below 50%. And in some cases weakens as percentage is increased. (e.g DaubBristles, where with Preset Flow at 4%, anything above 25 and full black becomes dark grey. Similarly, with Drawing6 (4th in Set), Flow effect actually peaks at about 5% etc etc  
On top of this, I attach graphic showing how misleading it seems to me to offer  .abr import as a feature, when so many useful ones are in fact simply unusable.
 
For all its wealth of features, for me the frustrating struggle to perform any sort of Brushwork - drawing, painting, masking - is one of the things that makes all Affinity Photo's other qualities all but worthless.
 
With all its awards and praise, I'm clearly very much in a minority on this - so if anyone can show me where I'm mistaken, or point out solutions to the above, I would be glad to hear...
 
(Sorry if, in this Season of Goodwill, this reads as over-negative...!)

Organic Brushes Set 2 [12 packs]
 
Changes
1. 120 Organic Brushes in 12 packs of 10 Brushes
2. Hand-drawn combination Texture Brush Nozzles
3. Adjusted Brush Dynamics to make use of accumulation and flow
4. Re-named Brush Labels in each pack to comply with new set structure
5. Combined into single .zip file
6. Added PDF sample sheets for download
7. Simplified visuals, removing old brush sample images
8. Old versions remain as separate zip files
 
 
Again I hope you have fun with them!
 




 
 
New Format
OB 2 Set 1.pdf
OB Set 2 Packs 1-12.zip
 
 
Old format
Old brush sets with original labelling compiled into single list
 
TB ORGANICS-2 Pack 19.zip
TB ORGANICS-2 Pack 20.zip
TB ORGANICS-2 Pack 21.zip
TB ORGANICS-2 Pack 22.zip
TB ORGANICS-2 Pack 23.zip
TB ORGANICS-2 Pack 24.zip
TB ORGANICS-2 Pack 25.zip
TB ORGANICS-2 Pack 26.zip
TB ORGANICS-2 Pack 27.zip
TB ORGANICS-2 Pack 28.zip
TB ORGANICS-2 Pack 32.zip
TB ORGANICS-2 Pack 33.zip
 
 

Thanks MEB I really appreciate your comments :)   
 
It did take some time to put together....it was just another long day..well night! :unsure:  but I did have a lot of fun experimenting with the drawing combinations.Unfortunately I have Set 3 to work on!
 
@ MBd
Thank you for responding to my long post
I agree that the organisation of brushes and other assets needs to be looked at at some point. but is seems pointless to continue to add to a now long list of feature requests as there are still outstanding issues/bugs with current versions of the software.
 
Adding 100's of brush tools to the Brush Panel was never my intention. It was to provide a collection of resources to browse through and be selected according to requirements. I tend to save/deactivate some of the Brush Packs once I have created them. Then either import as required or copy specific brushes to a separate named category. I accept the process can be tedious; but you can only work with what you have available.
As I have spent a lot of time with brushes in AP and AD over the past few months and there are features that I could easily add to the requests…some of them have been listed below. However, I am aware from observing how this Software has rapidly evolved that the Serif Team are more than capable of identifying issues and improving functionality.
 
Brushes
Additional Footer on Brush Panel with button icon options for Duplicate Brush (or duplicate directly in menu list [alt drag maybe]) Delete Brush Add New Category [pop-up Menu] Copy selected brushes Between Category [Dropdown] Brush Editing/Texture Tab
Add Checkbox option to allow Base Texture to scale with Brush Context Bar
Add Base Texture options to Context Menu or at least add Base texture scaling and toggle option to apply and yes…..
 Brush Management (Organisation Tool) as Retrograde has also suggested in a previous post

Texture Brush Fur 
Updated 03 02 2022
Adjusted the Brush dynamics so that they perform better
Zip file contains 30 brushes (1 pack x 30)
PDF sample file added

 
TB 4 FUR Set 4-37-39.pdf
 
TB4 Fur Brushes - 0A V2.afbrushes

Hello, today I've been having fun with the Tone Mapping Persona and I wanted to share these 20 portrait presets with you.
Of course, you can use them on anything that is not a portrait, too.
 
Enjoy!
 
Antonio Santos 20 Portrait Presets.aftonemap

Hello, today I've been having fun with the Tone Mapping Persona and I wanted to share these 20 portrait presets with you.
Of course, you can use them on anything that is not a portrait, too.
 
Enjoy!
 
Antonio Santos 20 Portrait Presets.aftonemap

Hello, today I've been having fun with the Tone Mapping Persona and I wanted to share these 20 portrait presets with you.
Of course, you can use them on anything that is not a portrait, too.
 
Enjoy!
 
Antonio Santos 20 Portrait Presets.aftonemap

Hello, today I've been having fun with the Tone Mapping Persona and I wanted to share these 20 portrait presets with you.
Of course, you can use them on anything that is not a portrait, too.
 
Enjoy!
 
Antonio Santos 20 Portrait Presets.aftonemap

Hello everyone :)

Since I just really love these colours, I made this palette and I'd like to share it with you.
 
These are the colours of the Touch Twin Markers, from ShinHan Art.
I numbered and named the 204 swatches, to keep them sorted as they appear in their Colour Chart, but of course you can sort them as you want.
Hope you like them. :)
 
 

Touch Twin Markers.zip

Hello everyone :)

Since I just really love these colours, I made this palette and I'd like to share it with you.
 
These are the colours of the Touch Twin Markers, from ShinHan Art.
I numbered and named the 204 swatches, to keep them sorted as they appear in their Colour Chart, but of course you can sort them as you want.
Hope you like them. :)
 
 

Touch Twin Markers.zip

Thank you! :)

21 macros for Affinity Photos to make your photo awesome :)
Made by me
 
Download: Egor_Komarov_color_grading.afmacros
 
Examples:


 

 

 

 

 

 





 
 
Download: Egor_Komarov_color_grading.afmacros
 

Sort Swatches by Colour in the Swatches panel is good... But to be able to sort the swatches by Hue, Saturation or Lightness would be great and very useful.
 
Is this possible? Please!  :)  :)

Hello everyone :)

Since I just really love these colours, I made this palette and I'd like to share it with you.
 
These are the colours of the Touch Twin Markers, from ShinHan Art.
I numbered and named the 204 swatches, to keep them sorted as they appear in their Colour Chart, but of course you can sort them as you want.
Hope you like them. :)
 
 

Touch Twin Markers.zip

Hi asantos,
There is already a command to expand strokes (menu Layer ▸ Expand Stroke). It doesn't work with some "vector" brushes because a few of them use a raster texture (which is then stretched along the path) as the base for the brush. Those are not "truly" vector based shapes and as such cannot be expanded to vectors. The brush vector engine in Designer is not totally developed yet and should be expanded later to include more control/options over the brushes. We do intend to implement a tracing tool - it's one of the most requested features - but only if/when the dev teams are happy with the quality of the tracing results.

Hello everyone :)

Since I just really love these colours, I made this palette and I'd like to share it with you.
 
These are the colours of the Touch Twin Markers, from ShinHan Art.
I numbered and named the 204 swatches, to keep them sorted as they appear in their Colour Chart, but of course you can sort them as you want.
Hope you like them. :)
 
 

Touch Twin Markers.zip

Hi asantos,
Welcome to Affinity Forums :)
Select the object you are using to create the style, then change to the Fill Tool, go to the context toolbar and change the Type to Bitmap - a dialog will open to let you pick an image (texture). That's it. It will be applied to the object as a texture. You can use the controls on canvas to scale/stretch/rotate it, and there's a few more options in the context toolbar that may be useful (Maintain fill aspect ratio). Then create a style from the object.

Attached are a set of AD Textured Intensity brushes made from actual brushstrokes from the famed painter.

 

Usually I would not try to make strokes so literal. Nor would I borrow from such a famed source.

In that sense these strokes are a bit of a digression for me.

These are examples of brushes that use real strokes almost exactly. They carry the texture and variety of their source. Thick, skittering oil paint, and swashes of thinner oil run over uneven surfaces. 

 

I have become more and more a digital painter... but I love the texture of natural media. I find myself drawn to digital emulation of natural media. Or emulation perhaps of the texture of natural media - with a digital twist.

I have never deliberately tried to make a textured brush for such applications as Photoshop, Expression3, Synthetik Studio Artist or Affinity Designer - that looked exactly like a natural media brush stroke. 

The idea seems a little too in conflict with what makes digital art potentially its own (great) thing.

 

However. These are very nice, heavily textured oil paint strokes. Great for bold paint looks.

 

Enjoy.

CD_Monet_oilstrokes.afbrushes.zip

Ash takes a quick look at two of the new features which will be coming to Affinity Designer in version 1.5: Constraints and Symbols.
MattP also posted a small demo/preview of Symbols some time ago here.
 
If you pay attention to the first video you may also discover a highly requested feature/improvement.... :)

Both of those are pretty sweet. Going to look into them a bit further soon.
 
I found a great little app (for 7 bucks!) called Colour Constructor for digital and traditional painting colour idea generation. It works with light falling on an object that generates palette swatches from the highlights and shadows. All colour is customizable including the light colour and number of lights. Awesome resource for the painter in all of us.
 
Here's a link to a polycount article on it and the Gumroad link to buy it. I also attached a screenshot I took of my version for a quick look at the simple but pretty awesome UI.
 
http://polycount.com/discussion/154487/new-painting-tool-colour-constructor
 
https://gumroad.com/l/ColorConstructor

Very nice! Thank you! :D

Lovely, Thank you!

I'm with Paulo; this just became my default palette.  Thank you, asantos, for sharing with us.