gdenby

This has me wondering what is going on. I tried working with some large files. The biggest was an 80 Mb .tiff at 1200 dpi. I ran it thru Elements, Affinity Photo, GIMP, and Apple's Preview. Resized to 300 dpi, and saved out with the largest dimension at 4500. .Jpg compression at no less than 80%, again around 85%. Elements did produce the smallest file, about 700K. Affinity came in at 1, GIMP at 1.7, and Preview at 1.9. I did this w. a few other large files that were already .jpg, but at 72 dpi, and saved at a higher quality. That resulted in files that were again roughly the same size. I will add the caveat that I don't do much photo/image processing, and fumble around some. But I think I was performing the same actions across the various applications. I did notice that some apps were less efficient that others, and/or embed proprietary data in the files. I use a freeware called ImageOptim that strips those out, or re-encodes the image better. With the exception of GIMP, all the files could be made somewhat smaller, averaging a 10% size reduction.

I can't give you a list of instructions at this point. I've only used Photo enough to start being familiar w. the interface. Consider what I offer as being somewhat sketchy. Photo, like Photoshop Elements, has a batch processor routine. I would suppose from your requirements that the batch processor in CS4 was mostly identical to the one in Elements, which I've used for years. It will do what you want. Affinity's does not have a dpi setting that I have found. Also, the included macros don't include any for the "quick fix" adjustments that Elements have. I've only recorded 1 macro using Affinity. I was easy enough, so I suppose you could put one together that would change the dpi to 300, and run the auto adjustments options. As far as I can tell, Affinity by default saves .jpg files at maximum quality. At the size you specify, they would be large, almost certainly more than 1 Mb. Looking at some images I have sitting around that have the same dimensions, at high quality, not maximum, they are around 3 Mb. By design, the .jpg format is "lossy." It throws out information, more as the quality settings are stepped down. At maximum, the losses are nominally not visible to ordinary eye sight. But once the setting are below high quality the blocky, streaky artifacts begin to appear, and the color starts distorting. I did a couple of tests, and I think you might be able to get images that are decent at 85% quality, and within the 1Mb limit. FWIW, Affinities batch processor was more than 3 times faster w. the same images as Elements 11. Also, the file sizes were smaller. If you have the time, in the long run you will be able to do a lot more w. Affinity than Elements. Also, I've noticed that many people who have used Adobe's products for years tend to have problems adapting to how Serif's apps get the same things done.

Designer's boolean operations, such as subtract, etc. work w. closed shapes. What is happening is that when you try to subtract an open line, the software tries to close the line. What you need to do is select the line, and w. the node tool, create 2 new nodes where the line should then be broken. Those can then be selected one after another, each time using the "break line" widget. After the line is broken at those 2 points, there will be 3 curves shown in the layer panel. Delete the one that isn't needed. Messages indicate that there will be a knofe tool in the future to make this easier.

It may be an Apple related problem. I just got an iPad, and had all sorts of problems getting into both the App store, and the iCloud from the iPad. I'm not sure which of the hoops I jumped thru that worked, but along the way I had to re-establish my account credentials to link to those services. Among the problems was that they wanted to use 2 factor verification by way of a cell phone, which I don't have. Alternatively, there would be the option to restore your old mac's user account via a time machine restore, or use Migration Assistant. Check this link: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204350

Thanks, wasn't the best solution. I also spent some more time working back and forth with GIMP and Inkscape. Was able to come up w. something closer to the original image, but as much work, maybe more. I'd love to know how the original images line edges had so many standard ogee curves. Any rate, an interesting exercise.

If you look closely at the strokes, you can see areas that are both very regular, and others where the troughs and peaks are shifted slightly. My guess is that there was a lot of hand work involved. I've used the Illustrator pucker and bloat tools a little, and the results I got tended to be much larger. So here's an approach. It is somewhat time consuming. Chose an appropriate font, and give it a fairly thick stroke. Convert to curves. Slightly flex any straight lines. Expand the stroke. Pictured, the slightly distorted with strokes expanded., showing the nodes. I spent a few minutes deleting some of the clusters of nodes. Reduced the number by at least 1/4. Then, began warping the arcs between the nodes.. Results after 5 minutes. Whole shape probably would have taken close to 1/2 hr, which seems too much. I suppose w. some practice, I might come up with a slightly safter method.

Yes, Photo is well suited for that.

Why not ask infinite painter to export files that Affinity can use?

Hi Sharkey, I think the real question is how to make the templates for online publishing. Either Ap or Ad will make .svg files that can be embedded in a web page (just did one now), but what you are being asked to do is create the web page. The Affinity apps are for making content that can be placed in web pages. Not making the pages themselves. The client is asking for web page development, not image content. Years ago, web page coding was fairly simple. These days, can be massively complex. Perhaps suggest to the client that they find someone doing web site design, and you'd be happy to create the images.

For the overly thick strokes, you need to select those layers. Some of the strokes in your file seem to be 8 pt! Open the group in the layers panel. Command/Windows key will allow selections of layers that are not directly above /below in the layer hierarchy. Switch to the node tool. In the stroke dialogue, set whatever thickness seems right. They will all change together.

"So in reality, you do not have only a straight line, but also the dot you because you had to create a "last clicked point" in order to create a straigth line. That is useless, because it is not clean and accurate for drawing or painting - especially when your drawings are mainly (perspective) sketching. Look at Krita, and see their Line-tool. You will know what I and many other drawing/painting/sketching users mean by that." Ah, I see. Yes, upon close inspection I see that Affinity Photo (and Photoshop elements, which I have) does make an initial dot, and then starts a stroke over that, and the initial dot can sometimes be seen. The Krita line tool appears to record a path, and then lays the brush on that. I think I recall Photoshop, or perhaps Corel having a feature which was stroke to path, which back when I used them was a 2 step operation. At this point Affinity doesn't, tho' there have been a few requests. The closest approximation I know about it Designer's vector brush, which stretches a bitmap along a path. But w/o subsequent adjustment, doesn't make straight paths, being a freehand tool.

Quick node handle adjustment. The semi-circle arc is mostly defined by a long vertical handle. The top and bottom nodes only need small handles, but the straight end nodes need handles that approach the top and bottom nodes.

If you are trying to make cards, invitations, and other similar graphics, Designer is very well suited. As toltec mentioned, it is a complex full featured application. It is very responsive, so is fun to use and experiment. Some things it does very easily, others, with a little practice, become almost as easy.

In the screen shot, it shows you are using node tool. Ermm, that doesn't work on layers. Switch to the select tool at the top of the tools icon column, key "v". Then command "a" all. Then, command "g" group. Done.

I must be missing something here. I don't have any current experience w. Photoshop. I found this youtube vid. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lt7uzDf9Bu0 It is from a couple of years ago. I don't know if things have changed. What is being shown is pretty much identical to what I can do in both Affinity Photo and Designer. Click anywhere, shift down and click any place else. I have a cross hair cursor to show both points. Continue to hold down shift, and proceed from one point to the next, as shown in the vid.

Ahh, I'm using the Mac beta, so it might be a bug. 2 things to mention. Neither Photo or Designer at core are paint programs. I've used Krita a few times, and it is remarkably good. Clearly made entirely to emulate traditional media. I think my stroking was at a normal speed for me. But I don't "paint" much anymore. My hands really are super clumsy at this point, so "natural" is not really an option for me. Also very frustrating, as I used to paint portraits for a living. My drawing tended to relate to the now passé style of "photo-realism" and rather fussy traditional academic work.

I'm using a Huion 1409, which does not have as fine a pressure control as the Wacom, I'm also rather arthritic, and don't have very fine control pf my fingers. Here's examples of what I get. First, in Photo: Next, in Designer, where many of the strokes are from the vector brush with the controller set to pressure. Most get some taper. It seems to me that the response has something to do w. the basic brush shape. Some of the vector lines were harder for me to work w. I do have size jitter set up around 80%

AFAIK, the 2 are the same. From my readings here, there are some problems based on the Windows version. There have been reports of slowness. Obviously, each version has specific ways of working w. the UI and getting to the system resources. But the base functions are supposed to be the same. As I mentioned, in Designer, I haven't had much trouble selecting areas w. similar colors. And even less w. Photo. But I have no experience in using Fireworks for at least 15 years, so have no idea how the selection process compares in terms of ease of use.

Um, I don't do much work w. pixels, but I know that AD's selection brush will do a pretty good job of selecting color areas. Just started using AP, and the selection tools there for pixels are a lot more subtle. Seems fairly workable to me with only a small amount of practice. While I hadn't done much w. graphics for the preceding 5 - 7 years, I do know that it took me some time to unlearn what I was habitually doing and figure out how the Affinity software did the same things I was used to in Corel Draw, or Photoshop, etc.

Wow. MEB, that's cool. Works even if the stroke has square or butt ends.

You may be able to make what you want by changing the pressure curve on pen strokes. Attached, a stroke with varied width, all the way down to a seeming break. The stroke, the stroke filled w. a gradient, and then that w transparency added.

At this point, Affinity vector brushes are bitmaps stretched/sized along a vector curve. They are not vector objects blended on an underlying path.

Oops, the problem with relying on spell check when assuming one typed the right word. Good correction.

Here's some help. Back around 2000, well before the CS live paint was introduced, I was doing something similar. Easiest and cheapest thing to do, draw what you want as a B&W tiff. Make it tidy. Use an autotrace tool to convert it to vectors. Lots of cheap or free ones for that today. Then, back them, into AI, or CD. And lots and lots of tweaking. At this point, AD does a better job w. the tweaking, and 45 whole shapes really isn't all that much. I didn't often have access to a scanner, so drawing on paper was not an option most times. BTW, my elder daughter and her husband do tattoos for a living. They would love to have AD, because any part of the CS subscription is more than they can expect to pay during slow times.

While Affinity calls both a line that encloses no space, and a rectangle that does curves, it can only add, subtract, etc the shapes that enclose an area. Individual lines can be joined and closed with the not tool, but it is kind of laborious. To do what it appears you want to do, just use the pen tool to draw the triangle. With snapping on, draw the other shape so the relevant points are on top of the triangle's. 9 clicks. Group them, and use them as you like.