gdenby

Stranger still. Attached, wht I get when opening the .eps test file, using the Mac default Preview app.

Hi, MagicMike912, I'm not getting any problems exporting the lion either as .png or .eps. The whole thing exports fine, w. the gradient fading away across the parts. If I change the gradient color, and make the eye and ear shape different, everything still exports OK. I don't see anything wrong w. how the file is made, or how it is exporting

Hi, dronecrasher, Is this useful to you? I don't work w. photos, yet. The above seems to be what you want. Do look over the Affinity vids by themselves. Lots of people spend huge amounts of time watching Photoshop , which has its own terminology and methods for doing much the same thing that Affinity doesdescribed by its own words and routines.

Hi, Valkyrie_221 Some beginner info to help you get started w. image editing. One comes upon 2 kinds of computer graphics most often. Vectors are one. Bit-maps are the others, which is also sometimes referred to as raster or pixel. Vectors are mathematical descriptions. Geometric shapes, wave forms, anything that can be plotted. If one is displaying vectors on a video screen, the math shapes have to be fit onto the image grid. In old video tubes, this was called rasterization. Later displays had discreet picture elements, pixels. Bit-maps refer to image data that has been placed within a grid. It is a set of samples. If the samples can be grouped in some fashion, the boundaries of the groups can be described by the map co-ordinates. Sometimes this is called tracing. Traditionally, 2D vector apps are called "draw", as in could have been made at a drafting table. Bit maps were called "paint" as in dabs placed on a canvas. A program like AP is mostly a "paint" program, in that mostly deals w. the masses of camera sensor data, and adjusts how it is portrayed both in color and place. But it also can read certain kinds of vector data, and create some. A .pdf file may have both vector and bit map data encoded into it. A .png has only bit map. Neither AP or AD has a routine for tracing a bit map. In my experience, tracing is usually a very poor approximation, and produces awkward vectors that require lots of hand work to clean up. If you are starting from poor quality images, blurred, low contrast, noisy, etc. one can try sharpening, boosting contrast, de-noising. But a trace from that may still be unusable. So back to doing it by hand. That is, connect the dots.

A quick power duplicate,

Hi, pandawid, I think the constraints feature may be of help. Check out this. Here are some examples. First, a set of columns w. text labels centered. The text is constrained to stay at the center, but not get smaller. 2nd, the columns uniformly scaled narrower. 3rd, the columns spread out, and spaced w. even distribution. ' The text size was fixed, but appears different because of the different sizes of the screen capture boxes. The process is not automatic, but there are quite a few ways to create items that are of certain proportions relative to others, and arrange them in various way quickly.

Hi, I haven't used a full version of Photoshop in years, but did use Elements up until I got the Affinity apps. I'd say Photo is more like Photoshop. Neither is specifically for digital painting/drawing, but do a good job. Both Photo and Designer share the same bit-map brush capabilities, and will use Photoshop format brushes. Photo gives more control over bit-map images. Designer has a very interesting "vector brush," which stretches/repeats a bitmap along a vector path. There are 10 day free trials for both. If you try them, I'd suggest downloading 1 first, and after half the time, down load the other so you can see how they two apps integrate. Both AD and AP files can be opened by either. And, if you are not pinching pennies, get both. I do most work in Designer, but there are somethings that need Photo.

Hi, vit0, Here is what I think is happening. You have the letter "D" converted to curves. When you break the outer line at the points you show, you should be seeing another layer listed as "curve." The perimeter portion now defines 2 sides of an area. That area inherited the colored fill from the parent shape. The new curve area shows up with the red fill from the 2 endpoints, and is placed above what is left of the original curve set. Select the new curve, and change the fill to none. Assuming there is a stroke attribute, you will see only the line along the vector. When you post, note the box at the bottom that says "Drag files here..." in order to include an attachment.

Hi, jstnhllmn, I haven't used any Adobe products since around CC1, so I can only guess at what the SkillShare tutorial is showing. Couldn't find it from some quick searches. If the problem is creating different layers of opacity making the bitmap "watercolor," dutchshader's suggestion should help But my guess is that the 2nd pic is showing how to turn a bitmap "watercolor," into vector shapes by using a auto trace tool which are then filled w. a gradient. At this point Affinity doesn't have any tool to convert the bitmap to vector.

Hi, Kimo, I'm assuming by "photorealistic" you mean highly detailed, w. consistent shading. It just takes work and practice. Lots & lots. Visit the forum section "Share your work," and look over the AD examples, There are quite a few that are very realistic. Some of the better posts show the vector framework, and there are a few down loadable files that will let you examine all of the details. To blow my own horn, here's a link to something I did about 2 years ago. As I mentioned then, it took about 6 weeks. I was just learning AD, and spent between 2 & 4 hours per day on the project. Looking back, there are lots of problems. Edges too sharp, shading too flat, etc.

But how would the stroke be exported in an .svg file? AFAIK, SVG assumes there is a center point for a fill that is determined by the vector perimeter, and that can only be determined if the shape is closed. The 1st and last nodes of the shape can be reversed, but that doesn't do anything to define inside and outside. I suppose there might be a way to create a routine that finds the the 1st and last input for line A-B = B-A, and does an XY offset for a stroke. But again, how to render that into the SVG standard, which defines inside and outside by projecting a ray from a(n) implied center to infinity.

While the "smooth" widget will sometimes remove a few nodes, AD doesn't have a curve simplifying routine as yet. The apps I've used that do will often slightly change the shape of the vector, so they can't be used when shapes that need to be closely positioned,

Hi, DianeF, Don't apply the fx to the rectangle. Select the object(s) and apply the gradient to them. Or nest the objects into the rectangle that has the gradient fx.

Hey, Stuart R! Thanks for offering the brushes. Just spent about 10 min. playing w. them, And did enjoy. I think they will be useful for more than Cretaceous illustration.

Hi, BigMike777 Check out some of the work people have posted in the "Share your work" forum section. I myself don't recall any animations posted, but there are quite a few character illustrations, and some fine scenery work for games.

Hi _Alain_, AFAIK, Designer does not yet accommodate plugins, tho' there has been mention of a scripting interface in the future. Reviewing your related question on the AI forum, I think only semi-manual methods in AD ti do something similar. Possible, but not just modifying a few parameter inputs. Note that Affinity Photo has a nice half toning filter that might work for you if you don't need vector output.

This is a known problem that involves how the rasterizing handles the transition between 2 shapes w. the same color. The work around is to add a stroke on the inside of one of the shapes w. the same color. There should be a color swatch from the fill to assign to the stroke color.

Hi, Christian, Are you using Designer or Photo? I use Designer for most of my work, and the select all and copy function work w/o any problem.

Hi, AffinityAppMan, I've been using NeoFinder for the last 18 months, or so. Thanks to your note, I'm d-loading an upgrade right now. I've been quite happy with it. Very fast. Can search and find a few files out of several 100 thousand in a few moments. I expect it will work w. the Affinity files as it does w. every other. Took about 30 seconds to build a catalog of of all my Affinity files, including .pdf documentations. More than 2000. Did a couple of finds, response was quick when I pointed to the new catalog.

Hi, MineralHillsWorkshop, I agree, better node handling, dividing lines automatically, etc would be very desirable. But mesh warp and blend are so much more desirable for me.

The presets are just conveniences for particular ends. Consider them suggestions. The file/document in the end is whatever you specify. If you want 512x512, that is what you get, no matter what the file is for in the end.

I couldn't quite tell if Chi overlapped all the strokes, but it seemed he did, and then merged them. So in the end, there were closed shapes. But from what little I know of AI, it allows a line to define areas on both sides, say a diagonal running from one corner of a rectangle to another. AD requires 2 vectors in the same place, on for each formed triangle. So, yes, more work, or at least one needs to approach the drawing process in a different way.

Hi, HDoowop, From what I've seen from people asking similar questions, it appears that the way AI structures fillable areas from merged lines has no 1 to 1 match in AD. That is, each area that he colors would have to remain a separate object. Typically, One would have a Face group. Inside that, there would be individual layers for head-phones, lips, etc. The lines of the face would be objects nested inside the face outline. AFAIK, the whole thing would not be drawn at once. Setting a pen stroke style would be done by changing the pressure curve profile in the stroke dialog. I have a style category for strokes w. different kinds of tapers and weights

Hi, heldrida, Yes, duplicate and delete what you don't want is very easy. There are other things like splitting the curves and/or self division, but they would end up being far more work.

When the shape is turned to a text path, only the shape's node info is retained to let the text flow on it. You need to duplicate the shape, and paste the copy back in with its fill and stroke.