Medical Officer Bones

I agree with @earl_grey. Affinity doesn't allow for sufficient control over layer sampling algorithm nor (anti-)aliasing control. These issues are the source for recurring issues and requests over the years since Affinity was first released. As an example of how this may be implemented, compare with PhotoLine and Krita: In PhotoLine the layer properties allow the user to easily control: the anti-aliasing (on or off) the resampling algorithm when a layer is scaled (also used when layers are exported) pixel snapping ...for each individual layer(!). The resampling method is set for bitmap layers only (for obvious reasons). And additional resampling algorithms are available that help retain crispness of scaled-down art (CatmulRom). In Krita: Again the resampling algorithm is easily controlled. And again transformation of the OP's example results in a straight transformed pixel row. Simple and effective. It'd be great if the Affinity devs would afford Affinity users the same level of control over the resampling method. That said, I am happy to see that we now have access to a Force Off anti-aliasing option for layers in Affinity. But that behaviour should be consistently implemented throughout other actions, such as transformation. When I transform pixels like the OP's example and stretch a column of pixels in Krita and PhotoLine, the result will be a simple repetition of those pixels when stretched horizontally. (In PhotoLine anti-aliasing is best turned off to prevent anti-aliased edges.) But that doesn't happen in Affinity. It still adds strongly blurred anti-aliasing and results in that strange blurred result. That makes it almost impossible to use for scaling pixel art elements or even stretching bitmap-based GUI elements. Which once more is a good example of "close, but no cigar". I've checked tutorials online, and the vague blurred edges are apparent in images like the one here: https://www.digitalcameraworld.com/tutorials/create-a-head-turning-pixel-stretch-effect-in-the-budget-friendly-affinity-photo Notice how the band of stretched pixels blurs toward the edges. Unless I am missing something here? Does an option exist to avoid this unwanted behaviour in Affinity (Photo)?

Just for testing: also works fine in PhotoLine when anti-aliasing is turned off. Affinity doesn't do aliased very well in my experience. Perhaps it will be fixed in the future, but this issue has come up before, so...

Draw the first shape with the pen. Then activate "Add New Curve to Selected Curves Object" in the pen tool options. The next curve will be part of the same vector layer. But if you change colour of either the fill or the stroke, all shared vector objects will change colour. The behaviour that you @Sreng Pagna want isn't possible in Designer as far as I am aware. Flash and Moho work differently with vectors in that regard. In Moho and Flash multiple vector elements may exist on the same "layer" and each element may have its own stroke and fill settings. In other vector illustration software (Illustrator, Affinity Designer, VectorStyler, Inkscape, etc.) this is typically not the case: unless a vector shape is a separate object, i.e. on its own 'layer', these shapes will share the same stroke and fill settings. Animation software that works with vectors tends to work slightly different. OpenToonz also allows for multiple vector objects on the same layer while each shape is assigned its own colour settings. I suppose the "sublayers" are hidden from the user in Moho, Flash, and OpenToonz. In the end it doesn't matter: when you draw multiple shapes in multiple vector layers in Affinity Designer, export your work as SVG and import as SVG in Moho. Moho will import these as a singular vector layer (delete the bitmap layer at the bottom after import). Then continue as you did before in Moho. So the fact that Designer works with different vector object layers doesn't have any impact after import into Moho.

That's what you get when taking things too seriously. You've completely misunderstood my words. It is because I fully realize how limited our lives are and that planning only goes so far, that I live each day to the fullest I can. That I enjoy every little moment, every experience, every encounter (that includes negative ones). Anyone who knows me in my real life knows me for my unbridled optimism. And I look at the universe and the world with that same hope and optimism; and awe as if I were still a child. We don't know what we don't know. As conscious beings we are but an infinitesimal part of the whole that is the universe, a part that coalesces like a tiny vortex in a river that appears and seamlessly merges back in a infinitesimal moment, yet we still fill it through our uniqueness and influence the next moments, even if we exist but for that short moment. Being aware of this interconnection and fragility liberates one to a tremendous freedom. The world is wonderful and existence fragile. If more people would fully realize this, humanity wouldn't make such as mess. Anyhoo... Back to our regular programming 🙂 Only the future will tell us how this Canva story will unfold for Affinity. As I said, I hope for the best, and expect the worst. Affinity's continued development falls outside my tiny sphere of influence. I've purchased V1 and V2, and will purchase V3 hopefully (see what I did there?).

Of course we plan ahead. Yet expect our plans to be thwarted at every turn and hope for lady luck to deign us her favour. And doubt is our guide. All the while we take care to avoid taking ourselves too seriously, because our ending is just around the corner and our time on this tiny planet in a tiny corner in our unimaginably big and old universe represents but an infinitesimal flicker and is even quicker forgotten. So we laugh back at the gods! And learn of the purpose of the universe in a blade of grass.

Man plans, the gods laugh!

@SrPx Words are merely words. Actions will prove their value in the upcoming 1 or 2 years. Then we shall see what worth these words have. As always: hope for the best, expect the worst. Cheers!

@SallijaneG You feel that looks anywhere close to acceptable? ...how times are a-changing...

Ah yes: "pledges". Like the ones given when Zbrush was acquired by Maxon. Did not take long to conveniently forget about those after one slender release. Then full subscription. Or past pledges given by Maxon and Autodesk. Or Adobe. Or Unity... Pledges by companies mean NOTHING in contexts like this one (buyout). Where were these pledges when the buyout was announced? Right, not on their minds. The community rears up in arms in response, which is utterly predictable. Management and ex-owners of Affinity don't feel good about themselves. "People are mad with us!" "Look at all that negative publicity! Oh no!" So "pledges" are conceived and published to allay public fears of the populous. Now small part of loyal user base quiet down and help quiet down most of the unrest. "Have no fear, friends! Management has explained that there is nothing to fear! All will be well!" Two years later the first release without perpetual. And/or bloatware. And/or hardly any worthwhile updates anymore. We will see. If history taught us anything so far: these pledges mean NOTHING. Only ACTIONS. And these actions so far have been... disappointing.

@dominik We all have different needs and workflows. As long as we have alternatives to work with, it's fine. PhotoLine is not perfect: no software is. But I worry about the impoverishment in (semi-)professional image editors. While GIMP is nice for what it is, a true Blender grade open source image editor equivalent is still missing.

? Why would you use Canva for webp conversion when that can be done for free in https://squoosh.app/ ...and if you download the source code from their GitHub, Squoosh runs in a local LAMP such as Mamp or Xampp as well - basically, off-line. And you gain AVIF support! WebP can't compare to AVIF.

Canva is generally despised by design professionals. A 'dirty' word. It is a design block/template service, its design software is web-based and woefully imprecise, and it allows non-designers in business and office environments to play designer. Design professionals have to deal with the fall-out. Inconsistent company branding and communication, having to work with JPG files that are delivered to them for "final print delivery"... Designs that feel generic or all over the place. Clients have delivered Canva work to colleagues of mine, and they had to redraw and rebuild the entire designs in Illustrator. Canva acquiring Affinity is, as someone in another forum stated:

Well, Affinity always has been (and still is) a secondary app for myself. My main hub is PhotoLine. I also use Clip Studio EX and Krita. For myself I consider PhotoLine the only real alternative to Photoshop, mainly because 1bit image support is lacking in Affinity, and I need that for my work. And PhotoLine also offer a good solid set of vector editing tools. While PhotoLine doesn't support AI tools, I now use Krita with its free AI plugin to balance that out together with its painting tools (which are okay in PhotoLine, but can't compete with Krita or Affinity). Clip Studio EX I use for comic work and publication. To me PhotoLine is that Swiss knife app that holds my workflow together. And does it well. Affinity never was able to.

You are absolutely right. A more-or-less deflated demeanour. He's not feeling it. This is not a happy guy. Of course, the exact reason for his mood can't be exacted from the video alone. There is probably stuff going on in the background. He probably does feel guilty about going back on early made promises that they'd never sell out or go subscription. But hey: money talks. It takes a special type of person or company to resist money. Almost no-one will or can. So great news for the Affinity owners. Much less so for its customers. We all know where this is heading for. Ample prior examples in the industry. As for myself, I'm glad I only use Affinity as a secondary piece of design software. My workflow isn't affected much, luckily enough. V3 will be sub: that much is clear. Canva will have a detrimental impact. That much is clear too. I already experienced so many of these acquisitions and I used to feel sad and betrayed. No longer the case, because I expected this to happen at some point to Affinity. I hoped it would not. Yet expected it. Still, I wanted and hoped to be wrong.

Throwing a left-field curve ball here and mention OpenToonz. 🙂 OpenToonz features an excellent bitmap to vector conversion tool that works for both center line as well as outlined vectors. It will convert black and white and colour art, and works on multiple drawings for animations too! The result can be exported as SVG. Also handy: the built-in bitmap/scan cleanup tools make short work of cleaning up art/sketches before conversion to vectors. All for free in this open source animation software (both Windows and Mac) which is used in traditional hand-drawn animation (such as in Mary and the Witch's Flower). The only drawback is that it will take more of an initial learning effort, but it isn't that hard. https://opentoonz.github.io/e/ Tutorial:

Z80! Those were the times. I learned basic Z80 assembly language on my Amstrad CPC 6128! But quickly switched to C.

@MikeW True, I forgot. That said, a PDF file does include media size, and it is safe to assume that this document is supposed to be imported at 300ppi. At least, all the other design software does - including Affinity Publisher. At the very least Affinity Designer ought to just assume 300ppi as the intended PPI (as the others do). My opinion, of course.

@Stoney8 I imported your document in Affinity Designer 2, PhotoLine, Illustrator, and PDFExchange Editor (alternative to Acrobat). I also placed it in InDesign and Affinity Publisher 2. ALL of them tell me that your PDF's settings are: 81.28 by 101.6 centimeters at 300PPI (9600 by 12000 pixels). Or in inches: exactly 32 by 40 inch. When I import into Affinity Designer 2 it will ask for the PPI (DPI). The default "Estimate" results in a 72PPI document (which is wrong), so it should be manually set to 300PPI. As far as I can tell there are no issues. Just tell Designer 2 to import it at 300ppi. It is strange however that only Affinity Designer fails to identify the 300ppi (dpi) in your document and that we have to manually set the PPi, because none of the other applications require manual intervention. So: all good. PS in all apps the boxes remain vectors. No bitmaps in sight. 🙂

...I have to ask: are you really that surprised that your 64GB i9 is capable of exporting your ~30GB project versus the 16GB M2 Mac that crashes? Even though Apple's new memory architecture can deal somewhat with RAM shortages using its unified memory blah blah and its M2 RAM efficiency, the fact remains your M2 Mac's core RAM is seriously overtaxed by your project's memory requirements. I would actually have been amazed if Affinity would be able to finish that export on the M2 without any hitch or slowdowns! Your primary problem is very very simple: 16GB RAM doesn't cut it for the work that you need to do with it. That is the straight-forward answer to the issues that you experience. You'd need at least a 32GB M2 Mac. I speak from experience: I work with 3D files that require 64GB or more RAM. I tested with M2 Studio Macs that have 32GB installed and my files bring those 32GB M2 Macs to their knees at work. The software crashes even when I attempt to load those files. The entire MacOS crashes willy-nilly, and I had to reboot those machines several times while testing. I In short: it's not an Affinity bug as far as I can tell. It's simply the lack of memory in your M2 Mac: you need at least 32GB to work comfortably within the context of your work requirements. Apple might sing the magical wonders of its new M1/M2 memory architecture and its efficiency, but in real life severe lack of RAM means something's gotta give, either in performance or in stability, or both. Your solution would be to upgrade your M2 Mac to 32GB or more RAM. I would take it on the safe side and get a 64GB M2 Mac, because your OS, other software running, and the screen video ram gobble up parts of that 32GB as well. Unfortunately --Apple being Apple-- that means sending in your Mac for a hefty RAM upgrade price or getting a new one with more memory. Nowadays end-users cannot upgrade the RAM of their Macs anymore. 😞

Intaglio's primary export format is PDF. @Stoney8 Did you try exporting your work as PDF from Intaglio, and then opening it directly in Affinity Designer? It should maintain vectors, page size, resolution and other settings.

Original PhotoLine blend object (25 steps, from neutral grey to inner object with gradient applied: Saved as SVG in PhotoLine. SVG imported in Designer: SVG imported in InkScape: SVG imported in Figma: SVG imported in Illustrator: SVG imported in VectorStyler: VectorStyler still has issues with various SVG files that I have tested with. But I've sent them an example SVG and they are working on improving it. I've been testing VectorStyler the past week or so, and my main beef with VectorStyler so far is its slow performance compared to other design apps that I use. Editing one of the 25 shapes in the above example SVG is a smooth experience in Designer, PhotoLine, Illustrator, Figma, and even InkScape feels twice as fast as VectorStyler. Heck, even Figma (prototyping app) is absolutely smooth. But VectorStyler feels slow to work with, despite my best efforts to adjust preferences and despite turning on all the GPU performance bits. I've opened a bunch more complex art of mine in it, and it isn't a good experience at all to the extent that I can't and won't use it. All the features in the world will not help when performance lags force one to push work-arounds to keep things running at a speed that allows for a reasonable work pace... Mind: I have a pretty beefed up system with a 3080ti and 128GB ram. I've reported the performance issues to the VS developer. Based on their forum posts, it seems to be a known issue and affecting some more than others, depending on the complexity of their art. Hopefully they'll be able to improve it in the upcoming release.

Is it? I can't find any mention of 50% off on their home page.

Unfortunately for Photoshop users the 3D functionality is being phased out and is now deprecated. Which means it is only available in older versions. Besides, the old 3D rendering in Photoshop is terribly slow and the render quality a throwback to 25 years ago. Not very usable anymore. All the more reason for Adobe to remove it from Photoshop, and long overdue in my opinion. Heck, even the lighting filter no longer functions properly in current versions of Photoshop! Or panorama editing! All because of the simple facts that these features were reliant on OpenGL (a 3D API) to function. If you are serious about integrating high-quality 3d object rendering: install a proper 3d render app such as Blender. Which is free, btw. Avoid Photoshop's antiquated 3d options. Just not worth it.

It really is a shame, and the lack of proper 1bit image support is one of the primary reasons why I am unable to use either Photo or Publisher for the comic publishing and technical documentation that I work on. Publisher only needs to respect 1bit images during PDF export. But it doesn't. That alone prevents me from using Publisher. It is such a basic requirement, but alas! While the inexpensive PhotoLine (which doesn't even focus on DTP) will allow me to work with 1bit images in layers (unheard of in any other image editor, including Photoshop!) and freely combine with CMYK/RGB layers to output a multi-page PDF/X 1~4 compliant PDF file with the correct separations. I even use it to check PDFs for separation issues at times when I do not have access to Acrobat. Of course, for more intricate publishing jobs I still need InDesign.

Indeed: it is very slow to work with. I compared with Inkscape on Windows today, and although Inkscape isn't known for its performance on Windows by a long shot, Vectorstyler is even less responsive when editing objects and curves (to be fair, Inkscape's zooming in and out is dreadful compared). I find that quite surprising for a relative newly developed app; I'd think they would have a focus on performance. I'm back at work after the holidays where I have access to a Studio M2 mac and compare again. I wonder though, because if Vectorstyler's code runs that slow on Windows, it can't magically run that much faster on a different OS platform. I will test. Planning on setting up an account there and I will send them the demo file later this week. Wholeheartedly agreed! Software is merely a tool. Use the tools that suit the job and your own workflow best. For example, I would love to switch to Publisher from InDesign, but I simply cannot due to the 1bit image issues. Not an option for me: my work involves 3d and animation, and Macs aren't suitable for that workflow and software. I don't care about the OS that I am running (it is all the same to me) but about the software. For example, I have to be able to run 3Ds Max. And that is just one example. If it were up to me I would switch to Linux at home, but similar problems there. Perhaps after I get my pension? But that is still a long way off. 🙂 So Windows it is.