Medical Officer Bones

While the grid manager is a darn fine thing Affinity, unfortunately it is not quite up to the task for easily creating columnar layout grids with automatic and or controllable margins. I agree with CSJ: it would be super handy to have these additional options.

Your proposal is interesting - it sounds a lot like the 3d system ClipStudio has. I suppose a work-around is to do the 3d sketching in Google SketchUp, and import the (flattened) result into Designer. Thinking about this, I think it would be difficult for the Affinity devs to compete with SketchUp's ease of use and simplicity of building 3d objects. It would be preferable to be able to load a 3d environment/object built in SketchUp into a 3d reference layer in Designer - one which can be freely orbited, panned, and zoomed. Similar to ClipStudio.

Unfortunately, I don't think Designer has that option - ideally Designer would allow us to turn off anti-aliasing for a document, but that is not possible. Instead, you can control the aliasing in the layer panel: select the shape, and click the small cog wheel icon at the top right to open the blend options. In the blend options click the "coverage map" button, and drag either the left or right node respectively up or down to remove anti-aliasing. It is not a perfect solution, but it should at least help you output aliased graphics for your client. More info here : https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/4172-turn-off-antialiasing/

Affinity Photo and Designer both work with decimal points internally as far as I am aware. That's probably the underlying cause.

I agree that the current export options are too limited for a good designer<-->developer workflow. I looked at Designer's and Photo's roadmaps, but this does not seem to be mentioned in either. When you are working in a company within a team that requires you to adjust to their workflow, than I am afraid you will have to switch (at least temporarily until Affinity figures this out) to Photoshop. Perhaps you can do your main work in Affinity, and export to Photoshop and finish up in there? It's too bad the Affinity devs haven't responded yet to your thread. It would be good to know whether this is going to be addressed at all or not. Ideally I would like to see something like Specctr implemented: https://specctr.com/cloud/home You could use Photoshop and Specctr to finish your work before handing it to your colleagues. I don't think it is wise to stubbornly hold on to a tool that works against you and takes more time to complete your work. I found that by combining tools things can be done faster and more efficiently.

I love the assistants in Krita. Would be nice to have in Photo. Krita's assistants can be combined as well. https://docs.krita.org/Painting_With_Assistants

I too would like to see a Linux version of various Windows and Mac apps, but with the current low user numbers (compared to Windows and Mac), it is probably just not worth the effort and time for the involved software companies. Although this is an unfortunate situation for Linux users, we also have to be realistic. Alternatively, as a Linux user you can have access to "professional level" image editing by running either an older Photoshop version or PhotoLine through WINE.

Useless. Jpeg is an ancient file format, and is terrible in comparison with newer formats such as WebP. WebP should have replaced Jpeg by now, if it were not for political games between browser vendors. I wish Affinity Designer would support WebP export by now: I mean, I can place WebP files, but not export them!!! What is the use then? If Designer can import WebP, then allow export too.

This is one of the things I keep running into. I open an SVG, and I just want to save the changes to the same SVG file without having to go through the same export process. Is there really no way to bypass the export dialog somehow? It is extremely cumbersome. For me it's a workflow stopper (even though I set a quick access folder temporarily, it is still slow and inefficient). (Windows version) Other design applications I work with are able to save over an exported version directly. It seems like such a basic workflow approach.

If you are on Linux, and you need a good UI design tool with artboards support, give Figma a wirl. Also, Gravit seems pretty good too for a vector app - combine both, and you can work on Linux. Although both will be browser-based, and you will have to be online. Then again, this enables you to switch seamlessly between machines, and share work with your colleagues. Figma has a nice collaboration mode as well. https://www.figma.com https://gravit.io

Not possible yet: Photo does not offer a similar function as Smart Objects. The developers mentioned that a similar feature will be implemented at some point. Not sure when, though.

Perhaps try Gravit instead? https://gravit.io The tools are quite good. Inspired by the old Freehand. Runs in the browser, so works on a Chromebook. If you need an inexpensive solution with access to pretty good design software on the road, you could also install Linux on a Chromebook as dual boot, and run Inkscape, Krita, Scribus, and so on. http://fieldguide.gizmodo.com/how-to-run-linux-on-a-chromebook-1785016045

It is great to hear linked layers will be implemented at some point. Photoline? I'll look into that, sounds interesting as a comparison.

The OP has a different mindset, coming from 3d applications, and that creates a bit of confusion here, I believe. 3D applications are generally way more flexible how assets are organized, compared to 2d graphics software - they need to be. I think what the OP means by clones: duplicate any layer and the duplicate remains 'linked' to the original layer any change to the original layer changes the linked clone(s) any transformation of the original layer also affects the linked clone(s) use linked clones to mask other layers In 3d applications linked instances (duplicates, clones, copies, etc.) are a default option. They are incredibly useful to have. In graphic design software the concept of 'symbols' is generally used instead. 3D objects instancing and symbols are similar concepts, but not the same - far from it. It depends on any given situation whether one or the other method works best. For example, the OP wants to re-use a text layer as a cloned layer that masks a texture or other objects. Symbols aren't that helpful in this situation. Ideally Designer/Photo would allow us to create a live clone of the text layer, and re-use it as a mask somehow. As far as I am aware, the type of layer instancing the OP refers to is possible with smart objects in Photoshop. I no longer work with Photoshop, but I do know that smart objects can be used as clipping masks. Krita offers cloned layers - and although those cannot be used as layer masks, it is possible to create clipping layers again. Looks like this: Any change to the original text layer will cascade those changes in the layer stack. And only Krita will cascade transformations through all the clones - no other 2d layer-based software is able to pull this off (I think). The drawback to this method is that, in order to transform a cloned instance, a transform mask must be applied to that instanced layer. Anyway, I really hope that at least Photo will get live cloned layers functionality at some point. Smart objects are great to have, but cloning layers just works better in many cases. Having both would be the best. Photoshop's way is not always the best way.

@MEB Are proper vector patterns on the roadmap at all? Seems like a pretty fundamental feature to have in vector illustration.

And don't forget that Fusion is also a free download, and available for Mac in case you need professional level compositing with animation and 3d integration. Do realize that the free versions of both Resolve and Fusion have a limit of 4K (UHD) resolution. But that should not be an issue for anyone outside of professional circles. It's amazing these tools are available for free.

It also depends on the type of animation you aim for. If it is merely to be used to combine frames into a GIF, Dragonframe, Moho, Toonboom, OpenToonz are 'somewhat' overkill, right? And there are simple ways to add functionality in MacOsX to automate the conversion of a bunch of images to a GIF animation, for example: https://jacobsalmela.com/2015/11/02/make-animated-gifs-in-os-x-with-a-right-click/

+1 Davinci Resolve. But do realize that Resolve is industry standard professional grade colour grading software, and it may prove to be rather intimidating to users accustomed to iMovie or Windows MovieMaker. Also, it requires good hardware. Having said this, I also use Resolve for my video editing purposes. It rocks.

A gradient will always cause banding if the two values are too close and the width of the element is too wide to accommodate a smooth transition. The OP's gradient example must transition from [33,33,33] to [56,56,56] - a value shift of 23 over a width of about 480px---> each value shift takes up 21px. And that results in visible banding. Gdenby mentions that our eyes will notice the banding (more than a 0.05 value/intensity shift occurs). Working in 16bpc often prevents this from occurring, but the end result generally must be converted to 8bit per channel. The only solution that works to mitigate these banding issues is to apply some dithering between steps or apply noise to the overall gradient in the 8bit version. Here is an example of how dithering applied between each step considerably visually reduces the banding. Zoom in to make out the dithering. (do not attempt to view this file within the context of a white background - our eyes adjust to the white, and it is difficult to compare the two! Open in Photo instead) And exacerbating the matter is banding caused by low-quality screens with a limited colour gamut. When working with SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) the banding ought to be prevented by the browser's built-in dithering/anti-aliasing algorithms. Unfortunately, it depends on the browser and the operating system whether this actually is applied or not. For example, the above gradient displays with bands in Firefox Developer for me, while it looks fine in both Opera and Chrome. (I am on Windows, btw.) I read that OSX may introduce bands in Chrome. In a nutshell, SVG may not be the solution you are looking for if banding is to be avoided altogether - it depends on the OS and browser in my experience.

Well, in that case things will become rather difficult - I mean, I would suggest either Animate CC or After Effects, but both are not available on the Mac App Store either... ;) Most of some of the best animation applications (commercial and free/open source) are not available on the Mac App Store, you know.

Why not just prepare your frames in Designer/Photo, and import into Krita? Krita has excellent stop-frame animation. And works without problems on Macs now.

To be more precise, the dark blending is caused by working in a non-linear gamma RGB space. Working in linear colour space solves this. The trouble is that, while technically correct, to our eyes it looks too bright - that is why a non-linear gamma curve is applied to adjust. Unfortunately, this also affects the blending between certain colours, and causes the darkening. Most image editors do not compensate for this (Photoshop does when activating that gamma option in the preferences). Learn more about this here: Most image editors do not compensate for this (Photoshop does when activating that gamma option in the preferences).