MunchkinWorks

I gave in and joined the beta to test out the Vector Fill Tool (but also very happy to see Brushes finally have their names displayed underneath AND don't get deselected when I modify them on the go)
So the drawing on the left was made in 2.0 with filled in shapes. For the drawing on the right I started off with vector lineart and then used the Vector Fill Tool with a couple of adjustments.
 

 
 
However, I had to convert the lineart into shapes for the Vector Fill tool to properly work. I later figured out it was because most lines didn't overlap so it didn't identify any space to fill in.
 
Would it be possible to include a tolerance slider for cases where the lines are very close but not quite overlapping? Or is that not possible?

I gave in and joined the beta to test out the Vector Fill Tool (but also very happy to see Brushes finally have their names displayed underneath AND don't get deselected when I modify them on the go)
So the drawing on the left was made in 2.0 with filled in shapes. For the drawing on the right I started off with vector lineart and then used the Vector Fill Tool with a couple of adjustments.
 

 
 
However, I had to convert the lineart into shapes for the Vector Fill tool to properly work. I later figured out it was because most lines didn't overlap so it didn't identify any space to fill in.
 
Would it be possible to include a tolerance slider for cases where the lines are very close but not quite overlapping? Or is that not possible?

Not surprised. Especially if they want to keep up against Adobe. We can only hope these are AI tools that'll help and assist artists, designers and photographers and not prompt-to-image with questionable training databases.
Or they're waiting until the hype dies a little so they won't get as much backlash as everyone else got (see deviantart, artstation, even adobe firefly).
But man, I agree with your sentiment. "An AI has given me 30 variations" is going to be the new "my cousin's son can do this for free"

Not surprised. Especially if they want to keep up against Adobe. We can only hope these are AI tools that'll help and assist artists, designers and photographers and not prompt-to-image with questionable training databases.
Or they're waiting until the hype dies a little so they won't get as much backlash as everyone else got (see deviantart, artstation, even adobe firefly).
But man, I agree with your sentiment. "An AI has given me 30 variations" is going to be the new "my cousin's son can do this for free"

I know at the moment you can't 100% protect your art against AI theft, be it automated or purposeful, but if you can add in a little something extra to make it a little bit harder for AI theft to happen, it still helps. It's the difference between stealing an object that's just sitting there vs having to lockpick a safe to get the object inside: theft may still happen, it will just take a bit longer and be harder to achieve.
I don't want to hear about the whole "if you don't want your art stolen, don't post it online" sad argument. More than often those thieves are lucky they live in different countries and are mostly anonymous online, and that hiring a lawyer is expensive and not within the reach of many artists (who are often the main victims, sometimes even minors). For many artists having their work posted in public is a way to attract commissions and jobs, and they should not have to worry about it being stolen and used in crappy mass printed notebooks, enefftees or AI training without permission.

So it's not 100% but we can still make it harder to happen. Invasive watermarks aren't pretty but still help, so having something like a watermark tool in Export mode to create a pattern out of saved assets automatically, or automatically watermark every single artboard in the same position, size and transparency would be neat so you don't need to turn the watermark layer on and off when you want to export the clean version to show to a client.
Noise filters like Glaze uses could also help in making the images useless for AI training. Are there methods of going around this? Yes, but takes extra steps.

Also, and in my personal opinion, if Affinity were to deliver something like this, even if it's only a small help against theft and may not even do much in the end, it would show that they care about the artists using their software, especially those who left other software for Affinity due to reasons. While other software and even social platforms like deviantart and artstation were quick to jump into the AI bandwagon, it would show Affinity is considering their costumers first by giving them something that will help them be less anxious about posting their work online.
Even if later they do adopt some AI assisting tools (keyword: assisting. Not text to image). I imagine it might end up being an inevitability in order to compete against Adobe and others.
 

Everyone is jumping on the AI generated images bandwagon, including Adobe. It's all fun. Except for the artists who didn't consent to have their artwork used to train datasets, as Adobe Stock doesn't even have an opt-out feature yet from what I have read so far.
What I would love to see is how my art software can help protect my artwork against AI theft. There are already experimental tools being developed like Glaze. Maybe something with the export settings on an image where I can select a type of protection: noise like Glaze uses, heavy watermark pattern, etc.
You could create these manually but I think it's more convenient if there are ready options in the export panel where you can change the level of protection.
Would the team behind Affinity be interested in providing something like this?
 

Everyone is jumping on the AI generated images bandwagon, including Adobe. It's all fun. Except for the artists who didn't consent to have their artwork used to train datasets, as Adobe Stock doesn't even have an opt-out feature yet from what I have read so far.
What I would love to see is how my art software can help protect my artwork against AI theft. There are already experimental tools being developed like Glaze. Maybe something with the export settings on an image where I can select a type of protection: noise like Glaze uses, heavy watermark pattern, etc.
You could create these manually but I think it's more convenient if there are ready options in the export panel where you can change the level of protection.
Would the team behind Affinity be interested in providing something like this?
 

Watermarks are still useful to prevent some types of theft, like being used for t-shirts without permission or used in scam portfolios. It depends on how they're applied. If it's a little thing in the corner of course it's easy to erase or crop out. But if it's a more invasive watermark over the illustration itself that's more difficult to remove, it makes them "worthless" to people trying to make a quick buck off of them behind your back.

It's what I have started doing with my illustrations posted in social media, and then I have my portfolio pdf to show to potential clients or hirers without those watermarks.

I found out early on some of my old art was used to train Stable Diffusion. And so far there is nothing I can do about it and it's annoying.
But I also do not like the idea of not posting my art online at all. Aside from work (having my concept art on artstation is literally how I got my most recent job), I like sharing silly things in my corner and cheer up or make someone laugh. Sure I could also do that in a private discord group, but what if I want to reach out to others online?
There are artists who like to share their art with the world, it's just too bad this is the current situation we're in and there are people who only see the artists' work as "data training".

I know at the moment you can't 100% protect your art against AI theft, be it automated or purposeful, but if you can add in a little something extra to make it a little bit harder for AI theft to happen, it still helps. It's the difference between stealing an object that's just sitting there vs having to lockpick a safe to get the object inside: theft may still happen, it will just take a bit longer and be harder to achieve.
I don't want to hear about the whole "if you don't want your art stolen, don't post it online" sad argument. More than often those thieves are lucky they live in different countries and are mostly anonymous online, and that hiring a lawyer is expensive and not within the reach of many artists (who are often the main victims, sometimes even minors). For many artists having their work posted in public is a way to attract commissions and jobs, and they should not have to worry about it being stolen and used in crappy mass printed notebooks, enefftees or AI training without permission.

So it's not 100% but we can still make it harder to happen. Invasive watermarks aren't pretty but still help, so having something like a watermark tool in Export mode to create a pattern out of saved assets automatically, or automatically watermark every single artboard in the same position, size and transparency would be neat so you don't need to turn the watermark layer on and off when you want to export the clean version to show to a client.
Noise filters like Glaze uses could also help in making the images useless for AI training. Are there methods of going around this? Yes, but takes extra steps.

Also, and in my personal opinion, if Affinity were to deliver something like this, even if it's only a small help against theft and may not even do much in the end, it would show that they care about the artists using their software, especially those who left other software for Affinity due to reasons. While other software and even social platforms like deviantart and artstation were quick to jump into the AI bandwagon, it would show Affinity is considering their costumers first by giving them something that will help them be less anxious about posting their work online.
Even if later they do adopt some AI assisting tools (keyword: assisting. Not text to image). I imagine it might end up being an inevitability in order to compete against Adobe and others.
 

Everyone is jumping on the AI generated images bandwagon, including Adobe. It's all fun. Except for the artists who didn't consent to have their artwork used to train datasets, as Adobe Stock doesn't even have an opt-out feature yet from what I have read so far.
What I would love to see is how my art software can help protect my artwork against AI theft. There are already experimental tools being developed like Glaze. Maybe something with the export settings on an image where I can select a type of protection: noise like Glaze uses, heavy watermark pattern, etc.
You could create these manually but I think it's more convenient if there are ready options in the export panel where you can change the level of protection.
Would the team behind Affinity be interested in providing something like this?
 

I know at the moment you can't 100% protect your art against AI theft, be it automated or purposeful, but if you can add in a little something extra to make it a little bit harder for AI theft to happen, it still helps. It's the difference between stealing an object that's just sitting there vs having to lockpick a safe to get the object inside: theft may still happen, it will just take a bit longer and be harder to achieve.
I don't want to hear about the whole "if you don't want your art stolen, don't post it online" sad argument. More than often those thieves are lucky they live in different countries and are mostly anonymous online, and that hiring a lawyer is expensive and not within the reach of many artists (who are often the main victims, sometimes even minors). For many artists having their work posted in public is a way to attract commissions and jobs, and they should not have to worry about it being stolen and used in crappy mass printed notebooks, enefftees or AI training without permission.

So it's not 100% but we can still make it harder to happen. Invasive watermarks aren't pretty but still help, so having something like a watermark tool in Export mode to create a pattern out of saved assets automatically, or automatically watermark every single artboard in the same position, size and transparency would be neat so you don't need to turn the watermark layer on and off when you want to export the clean version to show to a client.
Noise filters like Glaze uses could also help in making the images useless for AI training. Are there methods of going around this? Yes, but takes extra steps.

Also, and in my personal opinion, if Affinity were to deliver something like this, even if it's only a small help against theft and may not even do much in the end, it would show that they care about the artists using their software, especially those who left other software for Affinity due to reasons. While other software and even social platforms like deviantart and artstation were quick to jump into the AI bandwagon, it would show Affinity is considering their costumers first by giving them something that will help them be less anxious about posting their work online.
Even if later they do adopt some AI assisting tools (keyword: assisting. Not text to image). I imagine it might end up being an inevitability in order to compete against Adobe and others.
 

I gave in and joined the beta to test out the Vector Fill Tool (but also very happy to see Brushes finally have their names displayed underneath AND don't get deselected when I modify them on the go)
So the drawing on the left was made in 2.0 with filled in shapes. For the drawing on the right I started off with vector lineart and then used the Vector Fill Tool with a couple of adjustments.
 

 
 
However, I had to convert the lineart into shapes for the Vector Fill tool to properly work. I later figured out it was because most lines didn't overlap so it didn't identify any space to fill in.
 
Would it be possible to include a tolerance slider for cases where the lines are very close but not quite overlapping? Or is that not possible?

Everyone is jumping on the AI generated images bandwagon, including Adobe. It's all fun. Except for the artists who didn't consent to have their artwork used to train datasets, as Adobe Stock doesn't even have an opt-out feature yet from what I have read so far.
What I would love to see is how my art software can help protect my artwork against AI theft. There are already experimental tools being developed like Glaze. Maybe something with the export settings on an image where I can select a type of protection: noise like Glaze uses, heavy watermark pattern, etc.
You could create these manually but I think it's more convenient if there are ready options in the export panel where you can change the level of protection.
Would the team behind Affinity be interested in providing something like this?
 

There's already this script for Windows users available, maybe someone with coding knowledge could come up with an add-on?
I've also seen a kind of label that you can put on your work to make a more obvious statement, similar to the CC symbols, but I can't seem to find them again. 😟
Not entirely true though, there are ways to add »invisible« watermarks to your images. At least they are invisible to the human eye and consist of patterns that change the hue/brightness insignificantly enough that machine learning cannot properly analyse the images. 😉

Hi All,
We are pleased to make available the next update to the 2.1 beta (2.1.0.1736). This will be available for you shortly on auto-update. Below are some of the main changes in this update...
WebP and JPEG XL now available in batch export
As has been commonly requested since adding these new formats to V2, we have now made them available as batch format options in Affinity Photo.

New left swipe options on iPad layers panel
You can now access lock/unlock, rename layer and change compound type (if layer in question is a compound) by swiping left on a layer as shown below:
RPReplay_Final1680080397.mov
 
Brush panel improvements
Texture brushes in Designer persona can now be viewed in thumbnail view (i.e. you now have ability to uncheck "Show as list") Alt-Click on raster brushes now changes brush while keeping your current brush width as well as ignoring associated tool. If you just want to ignore associated tool then use shift-alt-click Auto-select
With auto select turned off you can now hold cmd (Mac/iPad) / ctrl (Windows) to temporarily turn it back on to make another selection on document.
Also note: We have encountered some problems with auto select being off with multi-page documents. For that reason it is currently disabled with a multi-page doc, we are hoping to have a fix for this soon.
Vector flood fill tool
When your bucket is loaded with a colour / fill you can now just click on any object to fill it even if it is not selected. In this case this will just fill the whole object - if you want the fill tool to take into account intersecting shapes and curves they all need to be pre-selected as before. While in the tool you can now just click on an asset or stock item to load your bucket with that bitmap texture (i.e. without having to drag drop as before). This is currently only implemented on desktop, but will be added to iPad in too in the next update. There are new controls for whether you want to add as an additional fill or replace the current fill. To be honest there is still some outstanding work which needs to be done with this, so we will talk more about this / what the expected behaviour is in the next update. A new option to "fill to visible boundaries". This means if any of the objects in your selection are obscuring any line segments from other objects, these can now optionally be ignored by the tool. In the example below - without the new option checked there are 12 possible areas you can fill to, but now you can alternatively choose to just show the 6 areas on the right. 
Crop tool
Cmd / ctrl / shift constrain modifiers are now available when in unconstrained mode as promised.
Dashed lines
We now accept zero as the 2nd and 3rd dash value to give different options, particularly when in combination with balanced lines. This example was discussed on the thread - the left option begins with a dot and when balanced dots are in the rectangle corners. The right option begins with a dash, but the 2nd "dash" can now be set to a dot (zero value) to enable dashes in the corners in this case.

Pencil double tap option for quick menu
If menu is already visible a second double tap will now dismiss it.
Rename Layers
You can now double click / tap on an artboard name to rename it!
 
Plus as usual lots of bug fixes as listed in the fix list thread!
To comment / give feedback on any of these changes please go to the relevant thread for that feature which is linked to in each of the headings above.

Thanks,
Ash

Everyone is jumping on the AI generated images bandwagon, including Adobe. It's all fun. Except for the artists who didn't consent to have their artwork used to train datasets, as Adobe Stock doesn't even have an opt-out feature yet from what I have read so far.
What I would love to see is how my art software can help protect my artwork against AI theft. There are already experimental tools being developed like Glaze. Maybe something with the export settings on an image where I can select a type of protection: noise like Glaze uses, heavy watermark pattern, etc.
You could create these manually but I think it's more convenient if there are ready options in the export panel where you can change the level of protection.
Would the team behind Affinity be interested in providing something like this?
 

Everyone is jumping on the AI generated images bandwagon, including Adobe. It's all fun. Except for the artists who didn't consent to have their artwork used to train datasets, as Adobe Stock doesn't even have an opt-out feature yet from what I have read so far.
What I would love to see is how my art software can help protect my artwork against AI theft. There are already experimental tools being developed like Glaze. Maybe something with the export settings on an image where I can select a type of protection: noise like Glaze uses, heavy watermark pattern, etc.
You could create these manually but I think it's more convenient if there are ready options in the export panel where you can change the level of protection.
Would the team behind Affinity be interested in providing something like this?
 

Everyone is jumping on the AI generated images bandwagon, including Adobe. It's all fun. Except for the artists who didn't consent to have their artwork used to train datasets, as Adobe Stock doesn't even have an opt-out feature yet from what I have read so far.
What I would love to see is how my art software can help protect my artwork against AI theft. There are already experimental tools being developed like Glaze. Maybe something with the export settings on an image where I can select a type of protection: noise like Glaze uses, heavy watermark pattern, etc.
You could create these manually but I think it's more convenient if there are ready options in the export panel where you can change the level of protection.
Would the team behind Affinity be interested in providing something like this?
 

Everyone is jumping on the AI generated images bandwagon, including Adobe. It's all fun. Except for the artists who didn't consent to have their artwork used to train datasets, as Adobe Stock doesn't even have an opt-out feature yet from what I have read so far.
What I would love to see is how my art software can help protect my artwork against AI theft. There are already experimental tools being developed like Glaze. Maybe something with the export settings on an image where I can select a type of protection: noise like Glaze uses, heavy watermark pattern, etc.
You could create these manually but I think it's more convenient if there are ready options in the export panel where you can change the level of protection.
Would the team behind Affinity be interested in providing something like this?
 

Everyone is jumping on the AI generated images bandwagon, including Adobe. It's all fun. Except for the artists who didn't consent to have their artwork used to train datasets, as Adobe Stock doesn't even have an opt-out feature yet from what I have read so far.
What I would love to see is how my art software can help protect my artwork against AI theft. There are already experimental tools being developed like Glaze. Maybe something with the export settings on an image where I can select a type of protection: noise like Glaze uses, heavy watermark pattern, etc.
You could create these manually but I think it's more convenient if there are ready options in the export panel where you can change the level of protection.
Would the team behind Affinity be interested in providing something like this?
 

I gave in and joined the beta to test out the Vector Fill Tool (but also very happy to see Brushes finally have their names displayed underneath AND don't get deselected when I modify them on the go)
So the drawing on the left was made in 2.0 with filled in shapes. For the drawing on the right I started off with vector lineart and then used the Vector Fill Tool with a couple of adjustments.
 

 
 
However, I had to convert the lineart into shapes for the Vector Fill tool to properly work. I later figured out it was because most lines didn't overlap so it didn't identify any space to fill in.
 
Would it be possible to include a tolerance slider for cases where the lines are very close but not quite overlapping? Or is that not possible?

Hi,
i tested the improvements in beta 2.1.0.1730. This tool is getting better and better and now works more like expected👍👍👍👍👍 Thanks 🥰

2023-03-17_beta-2.1.0.1730_vector-fill-test.mp4 Even editable text and shapes and groups are respected. I guess it works best if the area of interest has no shapes in the background, so the flood will be stopped only by the enclosing (open) lines. Otherwise you have to fill the inner areas one by one and combine them at the end with boolean add to get a single shape.
One option i guess will be added in the future would be that the tool also takes in account the thickness of the vector lines. At the moment one has to convert the contours to get an even more complex fill. Would be nice to get this in a single shot without losing the editable bezier lines.
But so far this is really impressive.
By the way 😏 While testing with the grouped lines i thought it would be nice to have some kind of additional boolean montage mode that maintains all open lines (boolean add) but dynamically converts the contours to areas. This would have had the wanted effect in the lower example. But the beziers would still be editable.
At the moment in a montage all open lines are dynamically converted to closed shapes to have only areas in the boolean operations:

I gave in and joined the beta to test out the Vector Fill Tool (but also very happy to see Brushes finally have their names displayed underneath AND don't get deselected when I modify them on the go)
So the drawing on the left was made in 2.0 with filled in shapes. For the drawing on the right I started off with vector lineart and then used the Vector Fill Tool with a couple of adjustments.
 

 
 
However, I had to convert the lineart into shapes for the Vector Fill tool to properly work. I later figured out it was because most lines didn't overlap so it didn't identify any space to fill in.
 
Would it be possible to include a tolerance slider for cases where the lines are very close but not quite overlapping? Or is that not possible?

I gave in and joined the beta to test out the Vector Fill Tool (but also very happy to see Brushes finally have their names displayed underneath AND don't get deselected when I modify them on the go)
So the drawing on the left was made in 2.0 with filled in shapes. For the drawing on the right I started off with vector lineart and then used the Vector Fill Tool with a couple of adjustments.
 

 
 
However, I had to convert the lineart into shapes for the Vector Fill tool to properly work. I later figured out it was because most lines didn't overlap so it didn't identify any space to fill in.
 
Would it be possible to include a tolerance slider for cases where the lines are very close but not quite overlapping? Or is that not possible?

I gave in and joined the beta to test out the Vector Fill Tool (but also very happy to see Brushes finally have their names displayed underneath AND don't get deselected when I modify them on the go)
So the drawing on the left was made in 2.0 with filled in shapes. For the drawing on the right I started off with vector lineart and then used the Vector Fill Tool with a couple of adjustments.
 

 
 
However, I had to convert the lineart into shapes for the Vector Fill tool to properly work. I later figured out it was because most lines didn't overlap so it didn't identify any space to fill in.
 
Would it be possible to include a tolerance slider for cases where the lines are very close but not quite overlapping? Or is that not possible?