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- S -

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Everything posted by - S -

  1. The problem isn't an Affinity Photo problem, but an Adobe problem, due to Adobe not providing an official Windows File Explorer codec for Photoshop PSD files (hence the 3rd party links in Post 2). It's been like it for a long, long time, probably at least 10 years off the top of my head, maybe even since CS1 days. Therefore it's unlikely that Adobe will be providing an official 64-bit Windows codec for PSD files anytime soon. Adobe's stance was basically 'Tough luck', the lovely company that they are... If you only use Affinity Photo and therefore don't need to exchange layered files between other non-Affinity programs for editing, instead of saving as PSD files, you can save files as TIFF files (with 'Save Affinity Layers' ticked in the export dialogue). If you open those in another editing program though, the layers will be flattened (hence why unfortunately you still need to use PSD if you want to exchange layered files between other programs for editing).
  2. I think Bicubic would be a better default than Lanczos. Whilst Lanczos 3 Separable may provide slightly sharper images than Bicubic, if the image has plain areas such as a plain blue sky, it's more susceptible to introducing artifacts. For this reason I think Bicubic would be the safer 'all-rounder' default setting because there's not much difference between Lanczos 3 Separable and Bicubic, but it has the benefit of playing nicer with parts of images without much detail.
  3. Why should Apple decide. If I'm based in the UK and am purchasing software directly from a UK software company, why should I be subjected to Apple's crooked exchange rates? 50 US Dollars does not equal 49 British Pounds. I presume Apple can't force companies to distribute the Mac versions of their software exclusively through the Mac App Store. Why can't Serif distribute Mac versions directly from their own site as well? That way purchasers worldwide (not just the UK, but Australia, Norway, etc.) aren't forced to use Apple's anti-consumer exchange rates.
  4. What's happened to the pricing of Affinity Photo? The normal price has been $49.99 or £39.99. Today it is $49.99 or £48.99. Last I checked, Serif is a UK company right?
  5. Retreat to the forest Robin of Loxley, before The Serif of Nottingham catches you.
  6. I think it's more than 150 to 1. Just a small difference... :) Adobe = 14154 employees (Source: Adobe Systems Investor Relations Data Sheet from 2016) Serif = 90 employees (Source: Nottingham Post article from 2016)
  7. Yeah, Photoshop brushes have more settings, therefore there's not a lot you can do about that until Serif are in a position to add more. I think the main problem you'll have with the video is for the second brush he uses a 'Color Burn' mode and depth setting for the texture, which obviously Affinity Photo doesn't have. It's usually the missing texture and dual brush settings that have been problematic for me when I've been trying to replicate a brush. For something like clouds, it's maybe be better using clouds from another photo anyway, rather than using a brush. Either directly or make a stock image with transparency that you can re-use. However, if you want to use brushes I've attached a couple of brushes that are similar to the ones in the vid, which you can play around with and hopefully get what you're trying to achieve. Brushes (1.9MB Zip File): Cloud.zip (file no longer available)
  8. The equivalent of Filter > Other > Offset in Photoshop, is Filters > Distort > Affine in Affinity Photo. Instead of 500px, use 50% instead. Here's the Affine Filter video: https://vimeo.com/134838293
  9. 1) Go to Edit > Preferences > Miscellaneous > Click 'Reset Object Styles' 2) Close Affinity Photo and re-open it I'm not sure how to keep all your own Styles you've added to the default category before resetting it though. I have a separate category for my own Styles so I can export/import them separately, but if you've added them to the default category there doesn't appear to be a way to move Styles between categories without adding a new category and going through them manually one by one and adding them to the new category.
  10. The triangle colour selectors that move around drive me nuts too, lol. The circular colour selectors with the fixed square in the middle are OK, as the square stays fixed. Therefore when selecting a darker colour for example, regardless of hue it's always 'down and to the left' for a darker, less saturated colour. To keep your sanity, change the colour picker to 'Boxes' as per MEB's post. :) Here's the 'Boxes' selector next to the Clip Studio Paint wheel.
  11. Yeah, they're pretty close. Here's the 1000px X 1000px straight crops as well in case you're interested. I also added a note to the end of the previous post about the view quality settings just as you posted your reply. Affinity Photo Size: 1000 X 1000 (straight crop) Resample: Lanczos 3 Separable Quality: 85 Embed Metadata Off File Size: 205KB (210,451 bytes) Pic (Direct Image Link): --------------------------------------- Adobe Photoshop CS4 Size: 1000 X 1000 (straight crop) Resample: Bicubic Sharper Quality: 65 Embed Metadata already off in 'Save For Web' File Size: 206KB (211,211 bytes) Pic (Direct Image Link): ---------------------------------------
  12. I'm not sure about Photoshop Elements as I only have Photoshop, however I've just used Photoshop to resize your car pic and these were the settings I used to get more-or-less the same image quality/file size. Affinity Photo Size: 1333 X 1000 Resample: Lanczos 3 Separable Quality: 85 Embed Metadata Off File Size: 334KB (342,383 bytes) Pic (Direct Image Link): --------------------------------------- Adobe Photoshop CS4 Size: 1333 X 1000 Resample: Bicubic Sharper Quality: 65 Embed Metadata already off in 'Save For Web' File Size: 334KB (342,786 bytes) Pic (Direct Image Link): --------------------------------------- For the record I also tried Affinity Photo Bilinear with a quality setting of 88 (which made a 352KB file), but it's noticeably softer than the above two, so I'm not entirely sure why that's the default Affinity resampling method rather than say Bicubic or Lanczos 3 Separable. Also, although it shouldn't affect your smaller photos, it may be worth going to Edit > Preferences > Performance, and changing the View Quality setting from 'Nearest Neighbour' to 'Bilinear (Best Quality)'. It's set to 'Nearest Neighbour' by default, which displays jaggy edges in Affinity Photo when a larger image is displayed smaller than 100% (it doesn't affect the export quality, only viewing in Affinity).
  13. I would also like to know this. I've been creating brushes in Affinity Photo, however I've noticed that there are certain features missing compared to Photoshop. Things like 'Initial Direction', Foreground/Background jitter, texture settings, etc. just aren't there, which would explain why a few people have had problems importing some Photoshop brushes. I'm new to Affinity Photo, so maybe there's a way that I'm not aware of, but the closest I've managed to get to jittering between two colours is by manipulating the Hue Jitter 'Ramp', as shown in the below screenshot. However, this doesn't use your background colour at all, all it does is offset the Hue of your main colour around the colour wheel by a certain percentage. Therefore it's not a real solution, I just thought I'd share it until someone else comes along. Screenshot: NB: In the screenshot the left side of the ramp is at 100%, however it should be at 0%, as it's the same. Like this:
  14. What's the best way to clone/heal on an image that isn't fully opaque? For example, if I wanted to remove the splat from the attached file. I can use the Inpainting Brush tool as it preserves transparency, however depending on the image the inpainting tool doesn't always work, so I'm looking for a way to manually choose the clone source (for example with the Clone Brush tool, the Healing Brush tool or the Patch tool). However, those tools multiply the transparency making the cloned area darker.
  15. I've been using Affinity Photo extensively for almost a month now and I like it a lot, both the software itself and the company. This got me thinking about the upcoming Affinity Publisher. Desktop Publishing software has never really been on my radar, however looking at a couple of PagePlus video's it shows editing PDF documents and creating ebooks too. Therefore, unless I'm missing something, if it could export in a Word Processor file format is there a reason why Affinity Publisher couldn't be used as a Word Processor as well? So, the feature request is to allow Affinity Publisher to both open and export documents in Open Document Text format (*.odt) too.
  16. I'm not sure whether your attached pic is showing the brush on a canvas at 100% view, or a small canvas blown up to greater than 100% view. However, 12 X 6 px is pretty small, therefore if you increase the brush size it will need to guess the extra pixels hence the blurry brush. So, when you create a PNG for a brush nozzle, make it much bigger (Affinity Photo brushes go up to 4096px X 4096px). I don't know why the ratio is changing when you change the brush size, as I haven't seen that before. Maybe make sure all the settings in the 'Dynamics' tab are set to 'None' in case what you're seeing is actually jitter.
  17. Using that method, if you have a 500px X 500px seamless tile and you want to fill a 5250px X 3500px canvas, how do you set it so that the texture is used at exactly 100% the original size without any scaling?
  18. I'm not familiar with UV mapping for 3D objects, however when I was looking for a way to do it for normal 2D images, I didn't get on with using the gradient tool set to bitmap because it doesn't tell you when your texture is at 100% actual size. I found you had to just drag and guess, which I didn't like. Sooo... Alternative Method 1: What I ended up doing instead was a pretty crude method of copy and paste, but using a really useful feature in Affinity Photo called 'Power Duplicate', where you can duplicate an object multiple times and it will automatically offset it for you. There's a video HERE for Affinity Designer demonstrating 'Power Duplicate', but it works in Affinity Photo too. 1) Copy & Paste the tileable texture on a new layer 2) Press V (for the Move tool) 3) Press CTRL + J (Or Layer > Duplicate) 4) Move the tileable texture right so it snaps (green bar) to the right of the previous tile 5) Press CTRL + J and keep pressing CTRL + J until it fills the entire row Once one row is done, you can repeat the same process, but with the entire row to fill the rest of the document. 6) Hold the Shift key and select all the tiles in the first row 7) Press CTRL + J (Or Layer > Duplicate) 8) Move the tileable texture row down so it snaps (green bar) to the bottom of the previous row 9) Press CTRL + J and keep pressing CTRL + J until it fills the entire canvas Then group them. 10) Select all those layers (Shift click top and bottom layers) and group them together (CTRL + G) and then rasterise the group 11) You can then add a layer mask and use normal layer masking techniques to hide/show the texture In the real scenario I was creating a paper texture, but for this post I'll use simple black and white stripes as it's easier to see what's happening. Alternative Method 2: An alternative method is to use your texture with a brush. Although this will be more tailored towards greyscale textures. 1) Go to the Brushes Pane, under 'Basic' Brushes double-click the large hard round brush to open the brush properties, then click the 'Duplicate' button at the bottom. Close the properties box. 2) Go to the duplicate brush you just created at the bottom of the brushes list, double-click it to open the brush properties 3) In the 'General' tab, make sure Accumulation/Hardness/Flow are all set to 100% 4) In the 'Dynamics' tab, make sure everything it set to 'None' 5) In the 'Texture' tab, click 'Set Texture' and load your tileable texture 6) Set the 'Mode' to 'Final'. Close the properties box. 7) Select the brush tool, adjust the brush size and start painting with the brush. But you need to be careful to paint in one go, if you lift the mouse button and draw again, it will draw darker over the previous stroke. Screenshot:
  19. Most modern software such image viewer apps now use the 'Date Taken' field from the metadata as the primary field, particularly when automatically organising user photos. Although they will fall back to the Date File Created, Date File Modified and Date File Accessed fields, those fields have always been an unreliable mess. In Affinity Photo, if an image came from a camera for example, the 'Date Taken' field in the metadata is already populated from the original file. However, if you create a new file in Affinity Photo and save it, Affinity Photo doesn't populate the 'Date Taken' field. Therefore, this request is for Affinity products to populate the 'Date Taken' (and 'Program Name') fields in the metadata when new files are saved for the first time. Image attached.
  20. In all honesty I don't use .afphoto for anything, as it's not a widely recognised file format. I use the following three main file formats: TIFF (With Affinity Layers) - This is the main working file format I use. It saves layers, live adjustment layers, etc. and the file can also be opened in virtually any other software (albeit flattened), the file metadata is displayed properly in Windows File Explorer, etc.. TIFF (Flattened) - This is the format I save as when I'm finished. I don't usually keep layers, not due to file size so much, but more for long term file preservation. A flattened 24-bit TIFF is a widely recognised archival format and probably the best format for long term file compatibility. I'm not a professional user and so once I'm done with an image I almost never go back and make adjustments again, therefore for me personally although TIFF (With Affinity Layers) will likely be fine too, I stick with what I know. PSD - This is the format I use if I need to transfer a layered file between multiple applications (such as Clip Studio Paint). Although, it's worth keeping in mind that when saving as PSD you lose some of the Affinity Photo specific functions (for example, a Gaussian Blur Live Adjustment Filter will be rasterised).
  21. Yeah, I noticed the same thing. You have to drag the mask up slightly to make the Mask clip to the pixel layer first (shorter horizontal blue line) for it to work. If you just draw a selection and click the 'Mask Layer' button, it won't allow you to just add the 'Gaussian Blur Live Filter' under the mask as a clipping layer. Another thing you may have noticed. If you make a selection and then click the 'Add Mask' button, the mask bounding box will be the same size as the canvas. So when you then blur the mask, because the mask is the same size as the canvas, as you start to increase the radius of the Gaussian Blur Live Filter you'll notice that it'll start to make the edges of the image transparent too. To prevent this, don't make the selection first, but do it this way instead: 1) Select the top layer and press the 'Mask Layer' button to create an empty mask for that layer 2) Drag the mask up slightly to make the Mask clip to the pixel/image layer (shorter horizontal blue line) 3) Make your selection 4) Press Shift + F5 (or Edit > Fill) to open the fill dialogue box and then fill the selection with black 5) Deselect selection (CTRL + D) 6) Add the Gaussian Blur Live Filter This way, the bounding box is just around your selection, not the entire canvas.
  22. It may be worth giving more details on what you are trying to blur, as there could already be a way to achieve what you're trying to do. For example, if you're trying to blur all the contents inside the mask (or outside depending on colour), you can create a Gaussian Blur Live Filter and drag it onto the square mask layer icon so that it nests below it. Screenshot: If you're trying to blur just the edges so you can adjust the amount of feathering again later (like the Photoshop 'Feather' slider in the Masks Panel), you can create a Gaussian Blur Live Filter and drag it under the mask as a clipping mask. Screenshot: Although the above two screenshots look similar, the way the two middle layers are nested make a big difference to how the layers act. For more info, see the below "Clipping vs Masking" video about using the different blue nesting bars when dragging layers. https://vimeo.com/168186956 Finally, if you view just the black and white mask layer by Alt + Clicking the mask thumbnail, Affinity Photo behaves a bit different to Photoshop. The black and white mask itself won't show as being blurred even though it's affected by the Gaussian Blur Live Filter. However, you can still paint on the mask layer with a black or white brush or make another selection on the mask layer and fill it with black or white and the live filter will still apply to it. Although not particularly intuitive, with some filters it's possible to go further than the 100px slider scale by dragging on the canvas instead. More details in the below video: https://vimeo.com/187632201
  23. Yeah, I welcome this too. Along with the ability to add more randomness to the 'Perlin Noise' filter (like the 'Difference Clouds' filter).
  24. According to the Affinity help page, it will prompt you if there's an update available: Link: https://affinity.store/en-gb/help/
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