j.king

I apologize if I have missed this info. Is there a way to create a new brush stroke that is actually a vector that I can then expand and further edit? I'm trying to create a brush stroke that has the appearance of a hand-drawn line with varying thicknesses. See attached example. I created this stroke by first drawing a relatively long bumpy line, then exporting as PNG with the white shape over black background. This is the instruction I found for creating "vector" brushes, but the stroke remains an image file and will not expand to become a vector shape. What am I missing?

Thanks guys. Next chance I get I will retrace my steps in creating that PDF and post details. I may have started with the PDF (for Export) preset and tweaked from there. Most likely I increased dpi to 400 as I was not liking the appearance of the elements being rasterized. What about the "don't export hidden layers" option, best to leave that un-ticked?

I've been working in AI for around 15 years. I no longer have AI at home so I jumped in with Affinity Designer a bit over a month ago. Love it so far. Though it's different than AI, it still feels very familiar. Intuitive. Just recently I used Affinity for an actual print project. The piece was a postcard with a transparent B/W image as background, a logo with white outer glow(s), some small-ish clipped elements with gradients, and some copy of course. I exported as PDF and sent to the guy who in turn uploaded it to a print site. The print site then posts a proof. I had viewed the PDF in Reader before sending and was not crazy about the way it looked zoomed in super close, but figured it should be fine when printed and viewed in hand. However, the guy uploading to the print site said the proof did not look the same as other files he'd worked with and noted that it behaved differently than any other PDF he had uploaded. It seemed to load in steps and was significantly slower. The PDF from Affinity was only around 1mb (actually a tad under). I sent the PDF to my Mac at work and opened it in AI. I then saved as PDF from AI and sent that file instead. For some reason, the PDF from AI is around 3mb. It also appeared to be better quality and it behaved as normal when uploaded to the print site. First question, why is there a difference between the two PDFs? Second, is a PDF from Affinity going to be problematic for print shops? I was hoping a PDF is a PDF is a PDF. Lastly, in Affinity's PDF dialog, is it better to tick or un-tick the "don't export layers hidden by Export persona"? Advice and/or suggestions greatly appreciated!