Frank Jonen

Hello,
 
one thing has been on my mind lately. Designer would be the supreme vector program in the marketplace if it would take on a few features from the font creation softwares:
 
1. If user wishes, multiple handles from multiple nodes are selectable and movable without moving the unselected node(s):

 
2. Handles could be moved by the user with arrow keys, just as selected nodes are movable now:

 
3. There is an option that user can move a node (which has handles) but the position of the handles does not move:

 
These things would make the vectoring terrifyingly more usable.

Cheers,
 
Markku

It just lets you move a point, not extend from that point on to a new node. Two different things.
One is a move operation, the other generates a new bezier node / line point at a specified distance and angle.

It just lets you move a point, not extend from that point on to a new node. Two different things.
One is a move operation, the other generates a new bezier node / line point at a specified distance and angle.

After having used the 32-bit modes almost exclusively now since we had them available I noticed some issues with OCIO configurations and maintaining them.
What I'm suggesting is a more global config file. I've attached a YAML example. YAML because it's easy to read, duplicate and modify. It can be easily exchanged when working in groups. Download project config from Shotgun, merge with own config and use it right away.
 
Affinity currently has a config switcher that doesn't switch configs. This way it would work and it would be easy for the user to manage.
 
The ICC part is for Affinity to determine which profile is used for converting OCIO data to ICC data for delivery use to devices and services that don't use OCIO (print shops for example).
 
 
ocio affinity.yaml

Not sure if I am missing something but is there a way to specify the height and width in pixels or inches for the crop tool? 

Today I went through Affinity Designer scouring for pre-press tools, there were none. No separations, no channel view. Only the workaround to freeze all layers in Affinity Photo and export each CMYK+ channel separately. Bit of a surprise. But since there's nothing there, here's what I wished were there. That and a decent printing dialogue. For the print simulation, I used to recommend Substance Designer (setup) + Marmoset Toolbag (presentation) for a while now. Not anymore though because I always end up doing the work.  -_-
 
 
Scope: A new persona for all apps to address basic pre-press that are currently unaddressed.
 
Views: Toggle between several views for dedicated control options on each task. Some views can be combined to get a better idea about the end result. Noted with [separate] when one stands alone.
Overprint Check View
Show realistic rendering of how the overprint will look based on selected profiles for ink, printer (optional, based on PPD) and paper. Tools: Range Selector: Like a mix of UPoint + drag and move, for fixing and optimising ink trapping (live dilate/erode on vector and bitmaps). Coverage meter: Show where the ink coverage exceeds or meets 100% with a heat map overlay. A range selector then can be used to lower the ink as: lower total, lower c/m/y/k/+. Buttons could  be used to control that: e.g.: [c] [m] [y] [k] for working on magenta and yellow at the same time. Output Image: Render the simulation output of a whole document to an image (or PDF for multi-page) Font Trapper: Local overrides on font trappings that didn't turn out as planned in the style and colour settings.
  Print Simulation
A simple simulation for base paper types and the ability to create custom ones (folder with absorption values, reflectance and a texture image for example) would be great to give clients a feel for it before someone has to spend money. Tools: Moveable light source: (useful for checking special inks, embossing/debossing, foil stamping and UV coats) Review light: Choose between a set of standard review lights (e.g. Just Normlicht LED proofstation) to judge the print under various lighting conditions and help avoid ambiguous colour situations (like that dress). Output Image: Render the simulation output of a whole document to an image (or PDF for multi-page)
  Separation View [separate]
View all separations in a gallery view with an option to overlay them to check whether they can be optimised further or whether they work as planned (how is the yellow faring with the black? Did the overprints turn out as desired in the OC view? Are all special ink channels present correctly?) Tools: Drag overlay: Drag a sheet onto another to see their interaction in the printing context. Print separations: Print dialog allowing output of separations on a standard laser printer. This allows for a final manual check and also is of sufficient quality for a lot of silk screen printers out there. Export to PDF: Save all/active/selected artboards/pages in separations to a multipage PDF ready for lightjet ripping

What do you think about adding GLSL shaders? I love that option in Hexels. It enables users to create features that not a lot of others need and don't warrant a full-on plug-in. 
 
Character Panel
Can you add a "Fonts in Document" option in the list? It would list all fonts used in the current document (even when freshly opened). That way you can hit the ground running when adding to a document from someone else.
 
Also, can you make an interim update to get that Character panel out there sooner? It's absolutely brilliant.
 
So fun, I was typing the first letters of a font's name going 'will that finally wor… whoa!' Full search in the character panel. NICE!
 
 
Glyph Browser
Good idea to have that separate from the current selected font. It'd be great though to have an on/off button to toggle between that and the currently selected font (in the character panel).  It'd be cool to be able to drag a glyph from the glyph browser and have it auto generate an 'artistic text tool' object populated with the dragged glyph.  
Any news on support for colour fonts?
 
Oh yeah and LEVELS effect layer doesn't work anymore. It's an omen I say! Affinity Photo wants a new one :) 

Brush stabilising  :D
It'd be nice to have these settings closer to the brush's use. Something floatable or a pie menu around the cursor lime Modo or the Autodesk sketching tools.
Window mode. Maybe range mode would be an easier to understand term. 
 
Cropping tool
Still doesn't constrain. Should behave like resizing an item.

What do you think about adding GLSL shaders? I love that option in Hexels. It enables users to create features that not a lot of others need and don't warrant a full-on plug-in. 
 
Character Panel
Can you add a "Fonts in Document" option in the list? It would list all fonts used in the current document (even when freshly opened). That way you can hit the ground running when adding to a document from someone else.
 
Also, can you make an interim update to get that Character panel out there sooner? It's absolutely brilliant.
 
So fun, I was typing the first letters of a font's name going 'will that finally wor… whoa!' Full search in the character panel. NICE!
 
 
Glyph Browser
Good idea to have that separate from the current selected font. It'd be great though to have an on/off button to toggle between that and the currently selected font (in the character panel).  It'd be cool to be able to drag a glyph from the glyph browser and have it auto generate an 'artistic text tool' object populated with the dragged glyph.  
Any news on support for colour fonts?
 
Oh yeah and LEVELS effect layer doesn't work anymore. It's an omen I say! Affinity Photo wants a new one :) 

Good to see the new version coming, thanks.
 
What would be cool is to reduce drastically the size on the disk of the application. You told once the engine of the software was kind of duplicated multiple times for each color space or something like this if remember well. That would be nice to optimize the size now.
 
Something I would love to see like velarde, is an improved raw tool, as good as camera raw. For now I still use darktable which is way better.
 
Also, the merge to HDR works quite fine for creating fake hdrs (=> tone mapping is the real term, before marketing department stole the term hdr),
what would be awesome is to have a true hdr compiler that generates 32 bit pictures with multiple exposure and zero tone mapping, that can be used as dome light texture for cgi.
What would be extremely cool too, is the possibility to use the hdr merger AND the image stitching algorithms at the same time (to replace what PTgui does actually).
 
And as usual, a wish for a linux version..  I know you don't care but that would put affinity in the hands of those that creates the biggest movies and more...
 
I know I'm asking a lot, but I just want affinity to be the ultimate 2d software :)
 
Best

Ah right there's that. I rarely look that far up the screen when working so I haven't noticed. I guess I just figured devs don't put important stuff away from focus areas anyway. Especially when it's so blurry you can hardly read it.
 
The "used" category seems to be what I'm after. No idea why it isn't in the characters panel where it belongs. Makes no sense to just have it in that blurry mess tucked away up top.
 
 
 
 

What do you think about adding GLSL shaders? I love that option in Hexels. It enables users to create features that not a lot of others need and don't warrant a full-on plug-in. 
 
Character Panel
Can you add a "Fonts in Document" option in the list? It would list all fonts used in the current document (even when freshly opened). That way you can hit the ground running when adding to a document from someone else.
 
Also, can you make an interim update to get that Character panel out there sooner? It's absolutely brilliant.
 
So fun, I was typing the first letters of a font's name going 'will that finally wor… whoa!' Full search in the character panel. NICE!
 
 
Glyph Browser
Good idea to have that separate from the current selected font. It'd be great though to have an on/off button to toggle between that and the currently selected font (in the character panel).  It'd be cool to be able to drag a glyph from the glyph browser and have it auto generate an 'artistic text tool' object populated with the dragged glyph.  
Any news on support for colour fonts?
 
Oh yeah and LEVELS effect layer doesn't work anymore. It's an omen I say! Affinity Photo wants a new one :) 

What do you think about adding GLSL shaders? I love that option in Hexels. It enables users to create features that not a lot of others need and don't warrant a full-on plug-in. 
 
Character Panel
Can you add a "Fonts in Document" option in the list? It would list all fonts used in the current document (even when freshly opened). That way you can hit the ground running when adding to a document from someone else.
 
Also, can you make an interim update to get that Character panel out there sooner? It's absolutely brilliant.
 
So fun, I was typing the first letters of a font's name going 'will that finally wor… whoa!' Full search in the character panel. NICE!
 
 
Glyph Browser
Good idea to have that separate from the current selected font. It'd be great though to have an on/off button to toggle between that and the currently selected font (in the character panel).  It'd be cool to be able to drag a glyph from the glyph browser and have it auto generate an 'artistic text tool' object populated with the dragged glyph.  
Any news on support for colour fonts?
 
Oh yeah and LEVELS effect layer doesn't work anymore. It's an omen I say! Affinity Photo wants a new one :) 

What do you think about adding GLSL shaders? I love that option in Hexels. It enables users to create features that not a lot of others need and don't warrant a full-on plug-in. 
 
Character Panel
Can you add a "Fonts in Document" option in the list? It would list all fonts used in the current document (even when freshly opened). That way you can hit the ground running when adding to a document from someone else.
 
Also, can you make an interim update to get that Character panel out there sooner? It's absolutely brilliant.
 
So fun, I was typing the first letters of a font's name going 'will that finally wor… whoa!' Full search in the character panel. NICE!
 
 
Glyph Browser
Good idea to have that separate from the current selected font. It'd be great though to have an on/off button to toggle between that and the currently selected font (in the character panel).  It'd be cool to be able to drag a glyph from the glyph browser and have it auto generate an 'artistic text tool' object populated with the dragged glyph.  
Any news on support for colour fonts?
 
Oh yeah and LEVELS effect layer doesn't work anymore. It's an omen I say! Affinity Photo wants a new one :) 

Hi geronimo,
The Clip Canvas  and Unclip Canvas commands perform different functions that the ones you are expecting.
Clip Canvas removes the unwanted (unused areas) of the canvas, so for example if there empty's space around you objects, Affinity will fit the canvas to encompass just the area used by the current objects. Unclip Canvas does the opposite: it enlarges the canvas to encompass all layer data including the parts that currently lay outside the canvas area or that were hidden by a crop.
 
In your example however the object is bigger than the canvas so when you use Clip to canvas it ends up enlarging the document as well to encompass/fit the whole layer.
Basically it's the size of the objects/layers that dictate how the canvas will be adapted and not the other way around.

It's as if it could be such a time saver but all you end up doing is trying Clip Canvas, realising it doesn't do what you expect it to do, doing Unclip Canvas, realising it definitely isn't what you want it to do, then just doing things manually.
 
 
An example here... I've got a white background that's far bigger than the actual canvas.
 
I clip canvas. Affinity decides it should increase the size of the canvas. I know this because the canvas shape is now completely different.
 
So I edit, undo. I unclip canvas. Looks the same.
 
Is someone taking the p***?!
 
 
Me: I'll crop! 
AD: Nope. I'm still hiding shit.
Me: I'll marque and inverse!
AD: I'll delete the whole f**** layer,
 
AHGHHH!H!H!HH!H!!!!
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
Yeh if you could a Clip tool that does what 90% of the community actually expects Clip to do, that would be great. How many people actually use it for said purpose?

I think YUV/YIQ/YCbCr (and to an extent LAB) would essentially cover the Kelvin Temperature and Tint system. I'm not sure how useful RGBW would be for keying, but it would certainly be interesting to test that.
 
Affinity already supports multiple masks being combined non-destructively and applying Curves to masks works as well, that's already a step better than Photoshop. However, the mask system is extremely quirky. When adding Curves, it doesn't auto select the Alpha channel in the channel drop down, mask layers ignore blend modes (so the only mode you have available is essentially Multiply), layer effects like Blur are ignored, changing Opacity of Mask layers has the opposite effect of what you'd expect, and so on.
 
You can in fact even add effect layers like Gaussian Blur to masks, but it doesn't work while the mask is applied to a layer. You have to first drag the mask out so it is a root-level layer, then nest a blur effect inside them, and then drag them back onto the layer you want to apply them to. It works, but it then hides the nested effect in the layers panel. To edit the parameters, you need to drag the mask out again and then re-apply it to the layer.
 
Of course node-based compositing would make a lot of things much easier and solve the long-standing Photoshop issue of keeping lots of duplicated layers around, but I don't expect this fundamental approach to change any time soon. You could use Symbols, but I fear that might make things even more confusing. I would be happy already if the current quirks were worked out. That being said, I do like how flame offers a layer-based node (Action) inside a node-based system (Batch) so you essentially get the best of both worlds.

It'd be great if additional selector modes were available. RGB, LAB and CMYK.
BTW Resolve does have an RGB qualifier.
 
A really cool option would be to have less common representations like RGBW (RGB with white column), Munsell, and Kelvin. Especially if you could combine keys like the stack tool combines images.
 
To be useful the output needs to be a dynamic mask that you can assign to a couple of tools though. Easy to do in a node graph, not so trivial in a layer stack. 

It'd be great if the OCIO node would support the OCIO family attribute to organise spaces where they belong.
That way we wouldn't have to scroll through the contract of San Venganza every time but could quickly pick the category and see all relevant spaces at a glance.
 
Similar to how you support FontBook categories.
 
Big plus would be to recognise the roles attribute as well.

Look at how Resolve handles it. Then look at FilmLight's Prelight. A median of those would be great. 

As per the title - non-destructive tone-mapping would be fantastic.

Once again back to the free Gimp for seamless textures. as well as edge detect. Both suck in AP and AD. affine is too convoluted. Too many steps for a good result. in Gimp one click( maybe two) and you have a seamless texture. the edge detect has some choices unlike the bare minimum in AD AP. Come on guys you can't do better than the free gimp why not check their filters (code).
Rant over returning you to your other posts.

guess how much better this would be in a node based environment  :wub:
https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/15873-coming-2016-32bit-hdr-editing-sneak-preview/?p=81085

Dumb as in "bare bones" nothing but the lines and their dimensions in real world scale. Nothing "smart" added like resolution, scaling etc.

YESSS!
 
Take a look at yEd http://www.yworks.com. That's what I currently use for diagramming. I've tried a bunch of tools, but either they were too low on features or too involved to get something done quickly that also looked bearable. I often need to quickly swap stuff around in a hierarchy and export again. Often while on a call.
 
Something that works a bit like yEd (just with easier, balanced in/out-forking) would be ace. Also remember how pretty the noodles in Shake looked? That was either a two-spline joint or auto-beziers. Something auto-pretty is always a plus.