tonyrambler

Hi Nathan, no just using Designer 2.04. Waiting for the full 2.1. I haven't come across the issue in Photo v2, although I use it a lot, probably because I rarely do that kind of work in it. Same with Publisher v2.

I've seen this mentioned for Photo and Publisher on other threads. Working in Designer, centre of object rotation is sometimes relocating itself a short or long (or massive) distance from the real centre, even when placed back there with snapping on. Don't know if I can reproduce it (will try) but it is often enough to be very annoying. Only solved by restarting the app. Trying to find the centre—sometimes way off the document area—has made me wish there was a "return to centre of object" button for the toolbar, as on a big screen the small crosshair is hard to find out in the weeds. This is of course a separate issue to the bug.

Re: the other suggestions: Regarding Select All, Ungroup All etc., I just tried that now and on this image it is a big job. Ungroup All only ungroups the top level groups each time, and this pic has multiple nests up to 6 deep all over it—possibly over a hundred of them—which remain grouped, so I'd have to dig into each nest and Ungroup All over and over again…………………………… nah. Thanks all.

Thanks (old) Bruce. Select Object has just solved it, in fact. I'd overlooked both Select XYZ features completely (haven't kept up with all the features…) so thanks. The answer for this one piece seems to be 3138 objects. For some reason it won't respond to Select Vector Layers or Curves at all but it will happily select all Transparent Objects. Thankfully, every single layer has transparency except the background colour rectangle. Tony

Is there a way to display or discover the total number of layers in a Designer image? This would include all of those concealed in groups as well as those that are separate. Tony

Thanks everyone for the continued inputs. I will be looking at the earlier replies in more detail when I have some free time. For clarity, all of my work using (Logical) And mode was always in Draw, not PhotoPaint, as my work was all vector based. FirstDefence—yes, those are something like I was producing, but always in Draw. None of the Affinity modes replicate the effect, including Multiply. RichardMH, I think I see what you are getting at. I have actually done a couple of pieces where I mimicked the approximate effect by combining shapes and things like that, but it's a very tiresome workaround and it doesn't provide the organic variations of the blending modes. Thanks. Tony

Hi NMF, thanks for those details. I'll look at Apply Image later when I have some clear-headed time. I searched what I could find on CDraw blend modes but can't find a definition of how And or Or work, only found Xor on one forum. I'm not even certain that Draw still includes And. As you can imagine, it's also a very frustrating search term to have to use. It's almost impossible to search for in any specific way, so I've had to look for complete docs on blend modes but can't find the formula listed. Thank you for your suggestions.

I was using it in Corel Draw for shapes with gradient fills. Often the shapes were just rectangles over the entire area of the design, as it was the gradients I wanted. Here's a portion of one example. This is two overlaid gradient filled rectangles, one radial and the other (probably) conical, blended using And. Ignore the star effect, it is just the background colouration effect that's important. I haven't found a way to recreate this yet without Draw.

This is a very technical question and a very long shot, and I am not necessarily mathematical enough to understand a technical answer! Back when I used Corel Draw there were three blend modes I haven't seen elsewhere: And, Or and Xor. I did many pieces of work using the And mode for a particular effect. My question is, does a tool such as Procedural Texture allow the creation of such a custom blend mode (or to mimic it) and how would something such as the And calculation be formulated? I haven't yet found anything explaining the nuts and bolts of the And mode in Draw. I see things written about And gates, such as the equation is Y=A.B but I don't know how this relates to creating the solution. Anybody clued up on this kind of thing? Thanks!

Hi, maybe I'm missing something— is it possible to constrain the direction of movement of warp controls using snapping or shift key or etc.? Also seem unable to use arrow keys with/without shift to move warp control points (only the whole object). It seems that the movement is aways unconstrained regardless of any modifiers or snapping settings, so tricky for getting symmetrical quads/meshes etc. Hope this is clear. Thanks.

Bumped anyway. It might be a waste of time but it isn't a waste of very much time, after all. Serif—love your apps, use them most days, please add ColourChecker support as it is absolutely essential for a serious photo app. There, my work here is done and it only took a moment.

I'd like to bump this thread up again, as this is still an important missing feature in Photo 2.0.

Hi jweitzel, Thanks for your response. I think the Affinity suite is remarkable and I agree that it is unfairly criticised by some on here. It wouldn't surprise me if there was some incentive for certain other corporations to muddy the waters a bit on the forum. It happens everywhere else where market share is involved, after all. Ah well. This macro complaint isn't such a big deal but the code needs fixing and also it's a bit clunky in its design even when it works. Personally, I love the Affinity Suite. I used the StudioLink integration exhaustively on one very large project (a 300 page illustrated book) for several weeks with totally consistent smoothness and speed and almost zero glitches, all in one chameleon-like book/photo/vector window the whole time. It was a total pleasure to use. The Famous Industry Standard apps never gave this kind of ability. I think the whole suite is great. It doesn't have to be perfect, as long as they continue to listen.

Similar issue here with macros not playing, also Photo 2.0 DIY Macro for luminosity layers runs sometimes and then other times doesn't at all. No notable differences in images (I'm batch scanning many small colour & bw photos, all the same spec when being edited.) I do agree that the interface isn't very intuitive. When I first clicked on the macro in the Library it did nothing. I turns out this is what you do, but it just didn't work that time. Having to "Edit Macro" and then press play worked that time but doesn't always (again, a bit unintuitive). Any clues?

That's very helpful, thanks. I hadn't explored the left hand tool bar of the Develop persona at all. I use Photo as much as possible but occasionally there's still something useful (and maybe basic) that hasn't appeared yet. Best wishes.

Hi David, perhaps you know the answer to my next issue with using the above technique in Photo— In Photoshop's Levels dialog there are black, grey and white pickers. I cannot find an equivalent in any of Photo's adjustment dialogs. Am I missing something simple? Tony

Thanks David, that was it—I just wasn't seeing them and thought the same control was supposed to apply to the new ones too!

Hello, I am trying to replicate a technique used in Photoshop for white balancing which uses three separate Info sampler targets, one for black, one for white (using a Threshold effect layer) and a third using a grey layer blended using Difference mode. It's very useful. See here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ePolCqBLZM I cannot get Photo to maintain multiple info sampler points, even if I use the Info dropdown to Add New Sampler. Any target simply replaces the previous one, no matter what. The exception is that I can set one RGB and another CMYK simultaneously but that's no use. Can anyone set me right on this? Tony

Hello all, I am building a 300 page book and the TOC needs additions that are not covered by simply including certain styles automatically—eg., there are section headings that need to go in but not all of them and I need to add them manually. I am trying to recreate the page number placement on the additional, manual entries but I can't seem to find a formatting option that lines everything up properly with the auto-generated page number column. Tabs don't do it, neither does force justification (as far as I can tell.) I hope this makes sense and I'd appreciate any clues.

Thanks, it was there all along.

Hi all, I am laying out a substantial (250+) page book in Publisher—my first go at using it seriously (old hand at Designer & Corel Draw, some experience of inDesign but nothing this big). My question is about including a "Justified Left" paragraph setting in all body text. I have my body text styling set, but there only seems to be spacing % tweaks under the "Justification" section in Text Styles. There is also the "Paragraph" Studio panel, which has a drop down for each text style just under the row of Justification icons, but I can't find a way to actually make a justification choice apply full time as part of a text style. Any ideas please?

Hi again David, that's a great way to add a precise colour. If I change the blend mode to Colour it gives a good shade to the existing colours. Depending on the image I can set the in-point on the blend to 25% or less and then use the number keys to easily tweak the opacity of the layer to fine-tune the effects. I'd still like to see the conventional adjustment layers having more precise access to the colour palettes in the future, as it seems a bit odd not to be able to work with the same precision as the main colour studio. Hey ho. Anyway, thanks David—that's really helpful! EDIT: if anyone does know some way to use precise colours with the Selective Colour, Colour Balance and Split Toning adjustment layer sliders, I'd still love to find out!

Thanks David, I have been using that, mainly with the Gradient Map but it hadn't occurred to me to just use a solid colour. That would be a lot less fiddly, for sure. I'll give it a go and see how usable it is. To be continued…

Hi all, I am exploring various colour grading methods in Photo. What I want to do is to take a particular precise colour—either chosen via the ink dropper or input as a specific (hex etc.) code—and to dial that into the shadows or the highlights as part of a very controlled colour palette when toning a photograph. I have been using Selective Colour, Colour Balance, Split Toning and Gradient Maps. The only one that seems to give me access to precise coded colours is Gradient Maps, but that is the most awkward to use for applying to just one part of the tonal range, eg. shadows. It's also very slow and cumbersome compared to the other tools. The other tools offer far easier selection of high/mid/shadow target areas but they seem to be limited to simple colour sliders which cannot interact with the ink dropper and nor can I input a colour code for precise setting. Anyone have an answer to this one please? Thanks!

Also having the same issue. Typing font name in menu crashes the app. Seems to be every time now, so I have stopped doing it and I'm scrolling instead, as I need to finish the job! Running 1.8.1 on Mojave Can reproduce. The crash report you mention, is that the Apple one or is there an Affinity one somewhere? Let me know details if you want me to send you anything else. P.S. just over 500 fonts installed, and I use Font Book to manage them (or not manage—that's definitely too many!) P.P.S. I have found all versions of Designer to be pretty much 100% stable before this issue in 1.8.1.