GraviolaB17

About this topic, in another post somebody suggested this:
Export Indesign files into PDF (I suggest max resolution). Open the PDF in Affinity Designer. Save it in Affinity Designer format. Then open it from Affinity Publisher. It work quite well... not perfect, but a good way to work on ID files into Publisher.

Affinity Designer for iPad hasn't been released yet, but it should have the same minimum specification as Affinity Photo for iPad. This means that it won't work on anything older than an iPad Air 2.
 
https://affinity.serif.com/photo/ipad/

Well remind that you can also setup the noise level when assigning colors or fills in AD. Further there are also already available 80's fonts (just one example here) etc.

 

GraviolaB17,
 
Reading your last post, and looking at the examples shown on spoongraphics, and sites linked w. the examples, I see that what you want to do is not only in part to emulate the neon, chrome, flare & perspective grid features of 80's mid-range CG. You also want styles that were from very limited color ranges, simple geometric shapes, and low quality scans.
 
Looking over the examples, I note how limited the color palettes are for the most part. My recollection of old tools was that one would might up a palette with 64 levels of grey, red, blue and green. Or perhaps levels of blue, for the sky part of the reflection, and 128 of orange brown for ground. All dither everything for a visual mixing that might approximate 1028 colors.
 
 
Example from AD, noisy gradients posterized, slightly blurred and exported as 8 bit .gif. Maybe a little too noisy, not slick enough for an 80's gloss, tho' not to far away from non-disco graphics of the time.
 

 
As an analogy, you are trying to get a contemporary car to handle like one that is maybe 50+ years old. Rear wheel drive, no steel belted radial tires, suspension is coil and leaf springs, no power steering, no automatic transmission, and power breaks that grab and cause skidding. Maybe an 8 track stereo for listening to music until someone smashed a window, and stole it.
 
 
 
 

@GraviolaB17
It may not be what you want to do, but seeing how you are working in Designer and it doesn't have the same pixel tools as in Photo, perhaps you can trace the play text with the Pen Tool and create new text of a vector object. If you do decide to do this, I can give you a little tip. You do not have trace all the outside edges (for the most part). For the D, for example, just trace the D with one line (stroke). Then increase your stroke size to match the largest width region of the D and then change your stroke profiling. Then you can expand your stroke. For some regions, such as the square regions, you will need to add additional shapes to your path with booleans. Working with strokes won't match the text completely, but it will work in your advantage.

Hi GraviolaB17,
Regarding the lens flare picture with a black background it will remain black where there's no layers/objects/data below it (because there's nothing to blend with). I see how this can be an issue,
To work around this, draw a rectangle with the same dimensions as your document/canvas (choose the colour that's more convenient for you - it can be white if you want) and place this layer on the bottom of the layer's stack in the Layers panel - the black from the lens flare image should now become all transparent.
 
Out of curiosity if you don't mind: If you are using Affinity Designer to create 80's text effects/work why are you using pixel selections/working with raster tools when you can create it using vector tools? You can still use raster images (like the lens flare image) for certain effects but mostly of the text/gradients are easier to manipulate and adjust if you use vector objects.

I was replying to your question from the post quoted above, where you mentioned AP but these selection types in the Freehand Selection Tool were already added to the latest version in Affinity Designer as well.
 
I'm checking your other thread and video...

Yes, there's a similar tool to Photoshop lasso's tool in Affinity Photo - it's called Freehand Selection Tool and it performs three "types" of selections: Freehand, Polygonal and Magnetic. Check the screenshot below for reference.
 

Try to enable this feature.

Yes, "Freehand Selection Tool" in combination with SHIFT for straight lines, works great, but what we need more is Magnetic Lasso Tool.

Hello,
The polygon lasso tool would be extremely helpful in difficult areas where there are hardly differences in the colour.
The pen tool is also able to create a selection in "polygon mode ", but:
When the first selection is ready, it is not possible to add further selections.
Or is this possible?
Video Tutorials about the selection methods would be helpful.
Ciao

"I thought there were some way to "crop out" some things from an image and remove the background."
 
 
The selection brush tool in the Pixel Persona works very well. Use that to select the area you want, or don't want.

 
If it is set to Snap to Edges, it works like the magic wand tool. It might take a few seconds, depending on the background. Change the size of the brush to suit,
 
Here I selected the background, ready to delete, took two or three clicks.
 
You can use Refine Edges to er, refine the edges.

and put on a background,

 
A few seconds work in Designer. Obviously need a bit of fine tuning in refine edges, but you get the idea.

The first is probably the polygone-lasso-tool to make selections and then the gradient tool is used to add fills. In AD on the pixel persona there is the freehand selection tool which should allow to do similar selections. The gradient tool is in AD instead on the draw persona.
For the second one the star/lense flares, just make sure these have transparent backgrounds (PNG, GIF) when you apply/use such things.

Yes, use the gradient tool for the strokes.
 
AFAIK, photoshop has a lens flare tool. GIMP also has one, tho' it doesn't have many parameters. (During the late 80's, early 90s, 3D software went nuts w. lens flares. It was an attempt to make artificial images look more natural by introducing an artifact that most photographers considered a flaw that happened as a side effect to the camera internal structure. ) I know that if you are bringing in a .png with transparency you can get just the light markings and loose the background.

With 1.6 recently released, I would like to propose ideas for the next (or a further future) release. This is of course a lot to implement, but this topic is meant to share individual ideas that could possibly be added. Of course, that is all up to Serif. I was trying to think of features not actually in any other vector drawing program (with the exception of the last) but could still come very handy. This is what I came up with. I hope you like them.    Gap Tool Painting over a stroke region of a shape will hide the stroke of that region. It works similar to a mask. You can add and remove part of an erased region (Add and Subtract modes), but it will keep the fill as remained, and it will keep the strokes with the proper end caps. (This tool only works with strokes.) Just like the Gradient and Transparency Tools, this editing can be removed at any time.   There is a way to currently do something similar, but it is does not have the same advantages.     Track Tool This is another idea to add changes to a “region” of a stroke. This tool comes with a list of line presets (wavy, hairy, bubbly, zigzags). By brushing over a region of a stroke, that region of the line will update to that preset. This doesn’t just show two line presets on the same line, but it shows them forming as the fill stays in the boundaries. There is also a slider to adjust the distance. And changing the stroke pressure would adjust the size. This would be good for smooth water with a ripple effect in one spot.   Parallel Tool This tool looks like a horizontal line with two small vertical lines on the ends. You must select at least two objects in order to use it. It will calculate the distance between the shapes followed by a slider to adjust the distance. While changing the distance, the shapes will either get closer or get pushed away. If three or more objects which are different distances are used, they will automatically be realigned. This tool would come in a “Space” mode and a “Trim” mode. The Trim Mode would adjust the distance by trimming the shapes, and not pushing them away or further. Of course, you would not be able to increase the trim pass the default shape size. (The different shapes must have a parallel region in order for this tool to be used. In doing so, the tool will adjust the distance from that parallel angle.)   Auto Color Studio This is the idea to introduce a new tab that shows all colors of objects selected. By changing a color through that tab changes all selected shapes that use that color. For this, you can change the color from either that selection, or the whole document, but it must be the "exact" color properties.   A feature in TVPaint gave me this idea.    

It looks nice... I am intrigued about its "automatic line correction" (I am suspecting it mostly makes it behave more similar to a Wacom, not also allowing extra smoothing (varying the range) like the Affinity's feature provide). This both could be good or bad...I mean, sometimes, you need to be able to work without any stabilization of the line. Indeed, the more you get adapted to your specific tablet, the more often you disable it, or like me, just reduce it a lot. Still, stabilization is really important.  For long straight lines or perfect large curves is really valuable, even essential. (I am speaking of software stabilization. First time I read about this as a hardware feature, other than of course, the fact that tablets tend to improve this matter internally.) . XP-Pen emerged as a Wacom alternative, mostly for Cintiq (or it got its fame mostly for that)  . One critic all alternatives across all brands have is that they produce more wobble/jitter in the line than Wacom's. Well... There is people complaining about it with some of the newest wacoms. And showing it in videos. Although that could be faulty models, or magnetic noise, hard to know , so, today, is a bit of a gamble in any case. It did shock me to se s ome units producing that, as I've only have great experiences with Wacom models (since Intuos 1, Graphire, Volitio, etc)  I only can say the Intuos Pro tablets I have currently in the 4 (oldie, I know) range (XL, and a Small) they definitely don't jitter. (have not upgraded due to not real need, and as I only enjoy working in large sizes (expensive))
 
That said... if this stabilization by hardware what does is compensate the jitter so usual in most alternative brands (I have not tested XP-Pen, probably it does not have any jitter at all. And if it had any, you can ALWAYS compensate it with Affinity's software feature for line smoothing. So, yeah, don't worry.    )  , it could be very welcome. I sadly cannot give you a better hint, as I don't own one, despite how cheap it is ! In a 10 minutes test I'd be able to tell you better.... So I can only tell you what I suspect (as a sort of advanced user of the matter)... It seems they have made a considerable effort in improving their pen technology. Indeed, they could be innovating more than the other alternatives competitors. So, that's definitely a plus. Only a test (and better, doing it with some real life scenarios) could be more concluding. 

I typically wouldn't risk it with this small size range, but hey, price in this brand tend to be more than amazing, specially considering that is even cheaper -usually on Amazon- than the Wacom's Small, while it is, if I checked well, larger than the Medium...!  So, yep, it is, perhaps, a very good purchase. 
 
In any case. I'm 100% sure it will allow you to draw ! . The only debate is if a Wacom here would have been better in raw quality (not taking price in consideration) . But, unless is for pixel art or exclusively photo retouch (no illustration, comic or other form of art planned), to me a Small size is so much worse than a Medium (also if it is a Wacom), that if the only chance is a Wacom's Small, definitely then I'd opt for this tablet.   And who knows..! Maybe it is even amazing. I'm very curious about their hardware line smoothing. If you feel in the mood to tell us about how it goes as long as you go using it a bit, I'd be interested to know. I'd be millionaire if I charged 1 $ per every time someone has asked me about an ultra cheap tablet for drawing (cheaper than Wacom).
 
Enjoy it ! 
 
 
 
 
 

Thank You so much for your answer!

I read alot and researched and came up with This one from XP-PEN called XP-PEN Star 03:
http://www.xp-pen.com/goods/show/id/9.html

 

The 1st tute can all be done in Designer. The 2nd, not quite. 
 
The 70s-80s style JPEGs are something Desginer could do. There was a thread some time ago about neon grid landscapes. I dabbled a bit with it, and it is really pretty easy.
 
The matte design stuff is probably a bit beyond what would be easy in Designer.
 
 
Of course, having Photo would be fine. But they are both extensive programs. Took me about 3 mos to get comfortable w. Designer. While there are some things Photo does that are not hard to use right away, I figure I have a couple of hundred hours of practice  till I can work smoothly. Still in the phase of, "Now, where was that tool again?" "Which parameter needed adjustment to do..."
 

Took a quick look at the 3 videos you linked to…
 
There is nothing in the first two that you could not do in an identical manner in Designer.
The third one uses some filters and 3rd party plugins that are not available in Designer, however you could achieve the same effect via a slightly different workflow.
 
Again looking at the linked images, I don't see anything that you could not achieve in Designer. Some tasks may be a little easier or quicker in Photo.
 
Still if you have some money burning a hole in your pocket, then spending it on Photo, and supporting the development of great software is fine by me

They are licensed for the particular apps they are included with, so no not really, sorry. 
Glad you got it working 

Been a while since I checked, but all I know is that there has been a large technological jump in the pen and tablets from Wacom. So, as a lot of people buy the models from Amazon, and sometimes those are older models, I recommend to double check to ensure you get a model from this latest generation. My opinion about tablet size: medium / large is ideal. If one is serious, doing illustration or digital painting that does require line accuracy. "Digital painting" like with oils and acrylics can do well with a medium size, IMO, if you are sure you are never going to do inking, line art, comic drawing . However, medium or even small for only some brush retouches in photo editing,if that's the only use,  could be just fine. If actually want to paint, I always recommend as best the Intuos Large, if possible the paper edition, as can allow you to ink traditionally, very easily and integrate it digitally, having advantages of both worlds. Today I am already too used to my fully digital workflow, though.  
 
If it is for drawing, I know I cannot recommend the small size. I have the Intuos Small, and used at companies several versions of the non-profesional line of small size, too, in several product generations. Not recommended. You can do stuff, and certainly, pixel-art or photo retouch could do, but dor painting and drawing I very much would only consider medium or Large. (there's no Large in the non pro line, you need to go for Large with the Intuos pro.) Draw, Art, etc, are just the same product with or without touch gestures, and with one software or another offered as bundle. My opinion: At that size, touch features are far from critical, as you can distribute in a decent desktop space, the tablet, your mouse, and keyboard. Which I keep hearing from colleagues that they keep needing it, no matter how many side function buttons are provided in the tablet.  I can't remember, but I believe draw comes only in small size.  
 
Size is important (no jokes...) below certain measure, because is lost too much accuracy/control.(While bigger than L, not that practical (again, plz no jokes... ) , is more cumbersome and more problem to organize your work space).  Indeed, before purchasing a small sized Intuos, I'd recommend in that very case to go for another brand's model which is medium size. But you will find in too many cases more jitter/wobble, driver issues, or etc. So, I keep recommending a "medium" size intuos, of the pro line or Art or whatever, but at least medium size, to draw/illustrate. And while I believe there's too much of a jump in cost towards a cintiq (a device with which I am only able to work a limited number of hours per day), an intuos Large is not that expensive for all what it offers, and its immense durability if treated carefully ( I say so because I've seen people putting so much pressure in a tablet while drawing that no tablet on earth would survive without scratches. And this varies a lot from one artist to another. ), and being a very well rounded, mayire and perfected product. IMO is the professional device, being a great balance in cost and quality. Ideal in an studio, where money is no problem, I'd prefer to have both, an intuos Large, and a Cintiq 27 QHD. So, not saying one of these is bad or anything...(only that I can't stand drawing on screens 8 hours, not even quite less)
 
IMO, the smaller the size, the more that you will need to depend on stabilization/line averaging features in your painting software applications. While these features are a solution to a problem: Is best if the problem comes minimized or non existent (not happening yet, tablets are not as accurate/fast/etc as your hand and hand-brain connection) in the purchased hardware. For this reason, I've lately become not very friend of: alternative brands (while I actually was), or even a MS Surface: every model it produces it still produces a lot of jitter/wobble (check those slow diagonal tests, jitter is horrid, yet....) in every test done. No way... So, IMO, among best purchases, to me clearly it can be done in all Wacom's gamma, almost for every budget, maybe not the very lowest, though (you can find some alternative, much bigger for 70 bucks...I am almost certain you will get jitter, though. But for 70 -50 bucks, hey... and because I believe that other than photo retouch(and maybe "pixel-art"), a "small" has way less use, anyway).  The minimal in Wacom, for me is the Art one at medium size, I can't go back to Small, not even if given as a gift.  I admit that for a student, or somebody doing this as a light hobby, not planning on wasting any money (i can tell you literally almost every hobby costs more money than the single purchase of a good drawing tablet. ) the medium size of the low cost ("Intuos" instead of Intuos Pro) line in Wacom seems quite ok.  
 
I say only this : If you can purchase the Large (L) model, you would get IMO a really great product for drawing, and allowing serious work with much more control and accuracy, this also translates to speed in production, and more comfort (more pleasant experience! ). I know for sure I wouldn't go for medium after trying almost every possible size. I use XL, and I realize this can be a bit too big, even for me. But is smooth and accurate as no other tablet that I had before (including a Cintiq 12WX). I even prefer it to an iPad Pro, even while the iPad Pro pen technology is probably better (in the aspects that I really care), but that is why is so important the canvas size in a tablet  for actually drawing. So much that a probably superior tracking and rate, a winner in parallax (compared to the Wacom's pen-display tablets) , a such natural behavior Pencil experience, gets defeated by the tiny tablet surface size. IMO is best for sketching, indeed.... It is still great for many illustrators, but imo, not a device for everyone or every  possible use in illustration. While I can say so about an Intuos Large.  And even this would be not totally accurate, as a total newcomer to digital illustration (a traditional painter or traditional comic artist) will find more natural a pen-display, even a cintiq alternative. But this whole advice is for people at least having got slightly used to handle any sort of non screen based drawing tablet, at school, a friend's or family member house, etc. (most people out there interested in drawing, thse days). Still, the hand-screen coordination is not so hard to learn with classic tablets.
 
Art Rage ? good, indeed. Very. Specially good if you are after of natural media finishing look in your work. But IMO is a specialized use tool (I tend to prefer general work horses allowing me to draw (ie, Affinity Photo, PhotoShop, and seems Krita is slowly going there, too, including or perfecting general editing features. )). Performance wise, not so happy, but it does work fine.  Pretty usable, not sure if it'd do fine with some huge resolution files of my work using a ton of layers. (I believe the free edition had limits with layers, or no layers) . IMO, a very nice tool to have, (I have used quite the free versions, but plan on purchasing it as an add-on in my "arsenal") but I would not have it as only app, is not a general package, imo, but a great painting specialized tool. You need something complete for image works, like Affinity Photo or PS. You need it sooner or later.  But I am a friend of having tools installed that do great in specific areas. A project can suffer many imports/exports in my day by day, so many that is not a big issue (from my POV), now. 

I don't have gesture functions in my old Intuos 4 XL. Don't need it, IMO. is nice, but IMO, not a key thing (and quite a few apps get messed up with it, or directly don't support it). I zoom with mouse wheel (some ppl prefer the Intuos Pro Ring, I use that one for brush size, just a preference) as I do so anyway as well with 3D software, all the time, and I need the mouse for too many things, so, one hand is always using both wacom pen and mouse, I have as an automatic thing in my brain for that, I even don't notice, by now. Keyboard to one side while I draw, but some people have an Ergotron arm for the keyboard and another for the tablet (or one for 1 of those, only). Dunno, is too much money.
 
Even in the times that I have it (a large sum of money to throw), I have this POV with hardware: Whether is the times I am at a company and then drawing at home is only as a hobby or earning some extra bucks, or if I am as a full time freelancer, it needs to be sustainable. Unless you earn one grand per week with this activity alone, needing to replace software and hardware of the top higher costs makes no sense. So, for me being sth maintainable, is sth that I can replace easily ANY month, independently  of being it a bad or good month. And so that I don't loose so much money in the tools. That said also because I have quite a good monitor, a hardware calibrator, books, software (big global cost)....So, purchases are IMO best done if you buy the most functional and higher quality stuff at a reasonable price. Again, if you earn 4k bucks a month, no reason for not having a cintiq QHD, AND a intuos large (I've drawn in cintiq, and I personally get tired in my 12 hours drawing day), mounted with Ergotron arms, an Eizo or high level Nec monitor, hardware calibrator (imo, both calibrator and a good monitor are a must in many cases...),  etc, etc.  So, is a very personal approach of each person, but even having the money, an Intuos medium or Intuos pro L size are GREAT options (specially the large). For people not having drawn *ever* before with a tablet, cintiq or cintiq alternatives are easier. But IMO is now better to wait to some even more improves (they are getting better fast) to the cintiq alternatives (Cintiqs are very mature), if you want them for serious work. (they are pretty fine if you ensure through checking and testing already, with heavy usage in some of those models, that with stabilization features in your painting software, you can overcome the wobble for your particular type of work. I would not bet on that in my case.... (that said: I ink with stabilization ON, often -not always- ))

The new "cheap" line from Wacom (intuos) have more functions in the tablet and pen than the small ones that I used back in 2001 (and all years later. Been using tablets since 1990), and by then, I used a small size one (A6) for all the 2D work and drawings for several commercial games. So, is not like it does not work at all, I am just saying, the difference is HUGE, even between a medium and small size, way better with "Large".
 
PD: So, one of the important conclusions : using a Cntiq 24HD or 27 QHD is great (funnily enough, for some of us is less pleasant/comfortable than having a screen (a professional monitor carefully chosen and calibrated) at a bigger distance using a Wacom Intuos Pro L), using an iPad Pro is also very nice, as IMHO, (at that size you are very limited, tho, is a pity, as at larger sizes it could easily beat Wacom), but I can consider a Wacom Intuos Large as a standard high quality tablet for drawing, illustration.  Some art styles are pretty fine as well with a medium size, be it Intuos or Intuos Pro. For a total beginner, or very casual hobby stuff: Intuos Art, but medium size, all the way.
 
Note : I am not related in any way one could imagine with Wacom (have been very fan of other brands alternatives till very recently, indeed) , neither with Serif. I say things  about this just how I know them from my experience (and so, my conclusions vary in time). When I like or dislike a product, I just say it, obviously I have no gain at all in this. or I'd have my own Youtube Channel, lol.
 
Will fix typos later, srry, need to rush now... hope serves for raw information, for now, before that purchase....
EDITED (Sep, 7th, 12:24 GMT) : Fixed many typos, re-wrote a lot of stuff making no sense due to the speed at which it was written.


 

Did you try to change the language in edit>preferences>general? That seems to have helped most, including me.
regards, Frank

I think we will be able to resolve this to serve up the feed programmatically at our end, without any need to patch the software. I'm alone in the office now, so please try again tomorrow (afternoon) and I think that all the people not able to see the welcome pages WILL be able to thenn
 
I was simply trying to help you guys tonight, but as this must be frustrating I suggest you wait for wait for us to fix this our end tomorrow, thank you (ALL) for your help so far and I suggest that you now wait until we post back that we think it has been fixed.

No, it didn't work. I give up! Life is too short

There is no 'magic wand' tool in Affinity Designer. For raster image work (bitmaps & pixel based layers) you really need Affinity Photo, which has many tools more like those in Photoshop, including a 'magic wand' tool called the "Flood Select Tool" in AP.