AuthorAuthor

"Deep mole" was an unsuccessful play on all the spy stuff going on these days, sorry! "Bait and wait" would have been a better term. If a trial you're locked into "eats" your previous version, this is known in consumer circles as "bad" May I throw out an alternative: Digital Film Tools 55mm lens effects? I got this ages ago, and it installed under Win10 fine, although I don't have a lot of high hopes of finding future versions. The product seems to have been split in two, half video filters and half Photoshop now. Meps! Filter Forge is my new fave f0or texture creation. It doesn't do a whole lot for photo enhancement, except for a preset called Pseudo HDR, actually a watercolor-type filter the likes of which I've not seen before! Example:

Thanks for that, Ben. It will surely be useful in my work. The vector programs I've used to date allow snapping of nodes, but not their handles, to other objects. My Best, Gary

I love the new, more robust UI that was sorely lacking when Nikon was stewarding the Collection. I see now, though, that the free collection might have been a "deep mole" to get you to buy the next, not free version. I'm on the Google giveaway and holding. Show me improvements I can't live without. My 2¢, Gary

Nice, guy. Just the other day, met him in the Steno pool. I said, "Hi, Fenation!" He said that pun sucked, but it was fast.

Niko! Loved him in Win 3 to develop mousing skills!

Guilty as charged, Constable. I will print a retraction. In 12 pt. Stempel Garamond—the only true version of the Claude Garamont renderings of the Eighteenth Century, September 15th, 14:00 Eastern Standard Military Time. Full justification, dead leading, verso pages only. Happy?

Most certainly an exaggeration, Alfred! An attempt at humour. Let me revise, "I used PageMaker so long ago, it has arthritis..." Really! I've imported 99% of my user group newsletters into InDesign, but am mostly flummoxed with the 8.3 naming limitations in Windows 3.1! GARYBOU.TON

I jumped ship at PSCS 5; after looking at 6, I didn't notice a significant difference to bother. InDesign is fine, after being forced into it when it killed off Adlus PageMaker in 1585. It's overkill; too much I have no use for, including the system overhead. g

Thank you for being one of the five people who can be called "readers" . Seriously, perhaps my advice wasn't spot on. MikeW knows his desktop publishing like no other, while I have a firm grasp of what a desktop is. It's a mistake to get into digital imaging without knowing the relevant difference between raster (bitmap) and vector graphics. And the difference between resizing and resampling. Vector graphics are resolution independent—this usually means you can print a vector graphic, and make a bitmap copy of it to any size you like, and there is no blurring or jagged edges. Bitmaps are resolution dependent. The size of the graphic measure in real world units (inches, mms ) is inversely proportional to an image's resolution (how many color unit make up the image per measurement unit). Small example: if you rescale (resize) a picture that's 4" × 4" and is 300 pixels per inch—to twice its original size, the image will look exactly the same, except it will be exact;ly half its original perceived size. Better example: If you zoom in too much to an image in Affinity Photo, the pixels (the building blocks of the image) become painfully evident—unless you're really into 1970s video games. It's because bitmap images by their very construction, are dependent on the resolution to which they were created or resized.

Hi MacCesar, and Mike— The problem is the way you're seeing an equation here, and it as to do with real world measurements. Let's say as per your example, you have a Designer document open. You're busted right there! How large is the document, in physical measurements? Remember in school that you can't solve for c, without both a +b. I tend to live in the past, like 9th grade, sorry! Your measurement of resolution makes sense out of the other two units. Say you're bragging over a new car, "Oh, you wouldn't believe this Bad Boy: It goes from 0 to 140 in 5 seconds!" I'm not impressed because there is no value for the numerator Yeah, okay we might presume the idiot (for speeding!) was traveling 140 miles per hour, but you always need to be explicit in Math. Math is unforgiving. The non-presumptuous, but stupid friend might figure the car goes 140 inches per hour, or 3 furlongs, or it might go around the diameter of a fresh pizza in an hour. Okay, I've heard all kinds of fractional; terms from samples/inch—I'm an Ugly American and I use inches; use ml or whatever is convenient for you— to dots per inch which is never the same as printed dots per inch so avoid this physical measurement. Bored yet? I thought so, so here comes "the real deal" that I couldn't possibly write into the forum! The book from which this chapter was pulled is not for sale anymore, therefore I don't collect royalties, therefore rights revert to the Author. Author contracts spell out this sort of stuff. Just click here, seeing as it's just a tinch too large—even optimized for the forum server to take it Next best thing is Dropbox here My Best, Gary

Just an uneducated thought. It's beyond me—literally; I'm not an engineer— how vector drawing programs such as Xara Designer and CorelDRAW, and Inkscape, too, can load about 3× as fast as other programs that use the same system fonts. Might the speed issue be because some programs don't read the metrics, but only the binary info, upon launch?

+10 on auto-parsing installed fonts. Might I suggest this be done on loading the OS? Then we could get coffee during boot rather than trying to begin the day's work.

More or less like our American Congress is during recess. And when not during recess.

Excellent idea; I'm building a folder right now! Many thanks, Gary

Hi Make— Drops caps were just an example, not the best one, admittedly I find, after due deliberation and actually experimenting before complaining here (!) that the Assets palette fits the bill for adding re-occurring elements. For me, however, I will need to keep the UI Light under Preferences, because it's hard to see a saved element that is all black. Thanks again! Gary

Oh, I'm being patient, mind you! I just want everything ASAP!

Well. Yeah. That's about as useful as a cup of decaf. Seriously, this isn't a new technology for drawing software. Even the Open Source Inkscape features a cube tool whose result can be set and reset at any perspective, and subsequent 3D boxes adhere to the same vanishing point as the first in the document. Which is hardly thrilling until you notice that they make a good template for text and other shapes. Bucket list? Please? Please?

I have a request that might be best for all products, including APub. CorelDRAW has had a Symbols Manager and an Insert Character palette for years, and like a pasteboard, it's a great way to quickly add an element that is reused a lot, somewhat like MS-Word's Insert Special.Example? You have copied an ornamental cap, and want to use it as a drop cap over and over again In DRAW, more or less, you drag the symbol off a palette to add it to, the document. If I've exlained this satisfactorily, is this do-able down the road? TIA, Gary

I'll do that, thanks! One of the worst things a new member can do is to post all over the place. Thanks again for the heads up!

All right; let me get relevant here : This applies to Designer, Photo and APub when it eventually hits the streets. The right-click context menu is not contextual. It displays the same options when, let's say the Pen tool, and the Node tool are selected, as so: Here's a screen snag of the drawing program I've been using for the past 20 years: This just makes sense, doesn't it? Let's just suppose I'm working in APub right now, I've got the Text tool highlighting several words If I right-click, I'd love (expect) options for rEVERSE cASE, Title Case, lowercase, and so on. If I right-click on a ruler, I'd expect to be offered Units, Zeroing the ruler, Create Decimal tabs, not exactly what I'm suggest, but do you understand what I wish for? More power out of an existing feature. TIA & My Best, Gary Bouton [Author Author]

I'd say if we are indeed off-topic: who cares? There are forums all around us that are graphics-oriented and they are waning. Seriously; tolerance and a sense of humour will make the Affinity boards thrive. And yes, magazines are published, and in a way diskettes contain data, similar to magazines, QED not off-topic! BTW, everyone: If you're a mom, Happy Mother's Day. And if you are the product of a mom, or have a mom, wish them a happy day. And because this forum contains carefully laid out content, I'm just self-publishing here... I'm really stretching it, aren't I?

Ah, I recall when they'd put a floppy in a magazine! I became a SharWare/FreeWare/VirusWare (!), and ShovelWare junkie! Then along came data CDs. I have a basement full of them. Someone at a tech forum suggested that they make reflective, shiny, really ugly Christmas tree ornaments. Let's see how long the thumb drive can hang in their before bleeding edge makes it a curiosity.