BennyD

It's easy for someone who never needed 1-bit depth to overlook just how incredibly powerful, practical and ubiquitous 1-bit images are. Affinity should support that in, out and through.
It is quite literally "digital imaging 101".

@Andy Somerfield  some more details regarding that statement would be great. Until now it's really hard if not impossible to understand why there shouldn't be 1Bit support in AF photo and AF publisher. I mean waiting for it would be ok. There are other priorities for sure.  But to dismiss it completely? Seriously?

We are pleased to make available the next update to the 2.1 beta. This is 2.1.0.1713 on macOS and iPad, and 2.1.0.1714 on Windows. This should now be available for you on auto-update.
Below are some of the main changes:
Cross references added to Affinity Publisher
This much requested feature is now available to test in Affinity Publisher. More details are here.
Style picker added to all iPad apps
The new style picker feature which was added to desktop apps in 2.0 has now been made available in the iPad versions. More details are here.
Auto-select options added to Designer and Publisher (+ iPad)
The auto-select options allowing you to turn auto select off when in move tool have now been made available in Designer and Publisher (it was previously only available in Affinity Photo). We have also added these options to all iPad versions. More details are here.
Crop Tool
Remembering previous setting has been disabled for an unconstrained crop. You can now resize crop by dragging anywhere on edge of the crop bounding box, rather than needing to specifically drag on a handle. Guides
Double clicking on a guide will now open the guides manager, as well as giving focus to that guide in the dialog. Assets
Added Expand / Collapse all to the burger menu of panel to quick expand / collapse all sub categories Search bar available in your add-on listing
A new quick way to filter or search any of your add on content - more info here.
 
Plus various bug fixes as listed in the fix list thread.
 

Bump on this, trying to export SVG to use in Tinkercad and the sizing is WAY off. 
A 51mm wide selected shape in Affinity, export selected only (one single vector shape, filled gray, no outlines). Imports into TC at 88.709 mm wide, also opens in AI at the same scale. A sizing factor of 1.7393921569 (so random it almost seems like RNG), and i cant figure out a proper scale factor. 
Oddly enough if you copy paste your vectors into illustrator directly from AFD, they paste in at actual size. So you can just save out your SVGs from AI, which is fine if you have access to Abobe like I do through work. I'm guessing inkscape would work too, but I haven't tested it.
Shouldn't need the middleman, though. 
Saving out to EPS also saves proper vector sizes. 
 

I have found a workaround, of sorts: 
1. Set up the document units to pixels, and use pixel measurements in place of millimetres, e.g. if desired size is 100mm, make object 100px. 
2. Export the document using the export option in the file menu, select 'SVG (for web)'. Click 'More' for extra options. 
3.  Deselect 'Set viewBox'  and select 'Add line breaks'. Export the file. 
4. Open the SVG file in a text/code editor and locate this line: 
<svg width="100px" height="100px" version="1.1" 5. Change the 'px' units to 'mm'. Save the document. 
6. Open the modified document in your desired software. 
This works with the software I have tested it with. 

I'm too F**king old for that. I would buy this program anyway and others too. Because people like to have new features and improvements. And this approach model pisses me off and pushes me off. (If that's true) and I wonder if I should buy it. Seriously. Affinity do not break my heart and make notification ASAP

@Brian_JOnly I don't remember all the files I opened... at least where should be some sort of info from Affinity... right? or i just miss something. 

Hey @loukash, sorry I didn't want to be aggressive. Yes, I feel annoyed and that's what I wanted to signalize as well as that i don't understand what the motivation is not to focus on bug fixing.

And by the way thanks again for summarizing the workflow. I've learned the best way for me is to export the channels as PNG and fill them in Publisher with the spot color. But again, all this is quirky and could be done real better.
 
 

Hey @loukash, sorry I didn't want to be aggressive. Yes, I feel annoyed and that's what I wanted to signalize as well as that i don't understand what the motivation is not to focus on bug fixing.

And by the way thanks again for summarizing the workflow. I've learned the best way for me is to export the channels as PNG and fill them in Publisher with the spot color. But again, all this is quirky and could be done real better.
 
 

@Gabe@MattP@Andy SomerfieldV2 is out and one of the first things I tried out is to look, if you took your professional customers serious… and I was disappointed.
Why is it so hard to admit that this problem here is a severe bug which prevents people who work in the printing industry from making the switch. At the moment I still cannot rely on your software, because the whole color management and spot color handling is still a big mess. 
😢
Cheers
Benny

There's a Bug from V1 which made it's way into V2, too. If you try to export PDFs with Spot Colors in Photo V2, the colors are converted into CMYK.
 
 
It's described detailed under the link above but here the short version: 

For my understanding it should work also like this, but doesn't
Create new CMYK document.  Create two Pixel layers Select top Pixel layer Load selection for first spot color from spare channel Select first spot/global color from document pallette Choose »Fill with Primary Color« from »Edit« menu Repeat for second Pixel layer for spot color two Export as PDF-X Have a PDF with Spot-Color Channel
Yes, this needs to be fixed one and for all.
 

Hi @BennyD,
This issue is currently logged with the developers, the issue has been previously updated to reflect that it's affecting V2, and i've bumped the issue with your report.

As far as I can tell, there’s still no support for 1bit crisp bitmaps on v2 Affinity for the iPad. Can anyone confirm if the desktop version has it?
Kind regards.

This is a useful Potrace GUI web app since there isn't decent Potorace GUI app for Windows.
Potrace is for black/white only but well works for logos/text.
https://svgco.de/

Affinity will support Javascript and also have a 'C' based API binding interface that people can use to write plugins. We will also have the ability to create UI to support their scripts and plugins with dialogs and panels. 
We have a team developing this but the amount of work is very large so unfortunately users will need to be patient.

I am just starting to use Affinity software. I haven't been doing much that needed my adobe skills/software for a long while. What I've found thus far is that there are things I love about Affinity that are "better" than adobe and things that I miss in the Adobe tools. I appreciate Affinity's conundrum as well. Their software must be similar enough that people will want to switch and yet they have a chance to address some of the sloppy, stupid stuff in the Adobe line...
Ok, so having said that, it is hard to believe this thread goes back to 2018 and custom spreads hasn't been implemented. Seems like a minor/medium addition considering all the basic functionality is already there. It is true there are work arounds, but they are a pain.

I'm kinda blown away with the lack of understanding of global layers. Coming from Indesign, it's natural to add text and graphic in separate layers that I can turn on and off with a simple click.
Sometimes I just want to work with text, and can lock the graphic elements so I don't accidentally select them. This was a crucial tool for me in Indesign. Sometimes I want to create a right to left layout. Sometimes I want to create a printer friendly version. Sometimes I just want to lock the column headline or page borders, or just hide them (which I can do today with master page layers). I tried adding layers in the master pages, but I can't add page specific frames to that layer, so it's useless. If I can only toggle the frames on the actual master page, it's kinda useless. I tried using separate layers on each page, but it's just a hassle to set ut up on every single page, and it's not useful if I only got one graphic element per page.

Possibly good news:
From: https://aecmag.com/technology/serif-affinity-for-aec-firms/

Hey, good news! So, it is upcoming...

smart summary 🥰
+1 !

Mmmh… in artschool, silkscreen and Riso are back for some time now in the "young" ones for small press publication. And even when working with tech printing for luxury watchmakers with CMYK + 1 or 2 spots inks, the ability to add some supercrisp 1200dpi bitmap at 1-bit is still super handy, especially when you're working with trapping that let the original artworks remain crisp. So yeah, Affinity, I'm an independent graphic designer and image production tech for more than 25 years, and I truly believe 1-bit is still super useful. The recent update of Affinity Photo with some better channel option is going into the right direction but for highly efficient and professional works sadly the whole Affinity suite is not ready yet despite all the magnificent features.
It's lacking:
- the ability to work with true 1-bit bitmap, with the ability to spot colorizing
- the ability to properly assign overprints and knockouts.
- the ability create spot colours channels with transparency options in order to emulate some opaque inks like metallic ones and blend them with standard offset transparent ones.
- the ability to preview channels one by one before exporting to a PDF in order to spot some eventual problem with overprints or knockouts.
- a true Acrobat Pro PDF like software in the suite in order to check trap inks, etc.
- the ability to scripts all the app in the Suite in order to automate some crucial professional workflow.
 
Well… 7 years after I've bought the first beta of Affinity Designer, I still hope and believe you can do it. It's almost there.
 
Thanks.

I would say the answer is that Serif aren't terribly interested in supporting us crusty, old-tech types stuck in the slowly dying ink-on-paper past. It's pretty clear they're focused on digital-only workflows. I'm sure it's a far larger, far more lucrative market that we relatively few remaining print folk so I don't know that I can blame them per se. Still, it would have been nice to have an actual, viable third option instead of just the globe-swallowing Rent-Seeking Empire of A and the fading glory of the once-dominant Land of Q.

It’s as simple as this:
1-bit images get processed as linework (along with everything vector.)
8-bit images get processed as continuous tone.
A RIP will render the linework data at the max resolution of the device, and the continuous tone data gets downsampled to 300dpi and halftone screened. Then everything is trapped and output.
So to answer your question: the plates would be wrong. The 1200dpi 8-bit data would get downsampled to 300dpi and added to the CT data, and the trapping would be bad based on that data.
And ”K only” doesn’t address the issue of having a 2-color job, with a scanned signature supposed to output in 1 PMS color and the body copy supposed to output in another PMS color.
Right now I’m lucky that I only have 1-color jobs and can use the PNG workaround. For a true production-worthy product, this is unacceptable.

My renewal time for Adobe CC is due next month and yet again I find myself having to shell out again simply because Affinity Publisher does not offer multi-page layouts beyond two pages. This is such an integral part of my work and many many other judging by the previous comments. I've been through all three packages (Publisher, Designer and Photo) and they offer absolutely everything I need that would allow me to jump ship from Adobe to Affinity but the lack of multi-page layouts prevents this. I've heard about workarounds by setting page sizes to encapsulate the size of a required multi-page layout but when it comes to exporting and distributing pdfs via the web, clients demand they are able to view and print pages separately which the above workaround would prevent. No offence intended but the omission of this feature is simply short-sighted especially when its clear from forum comments that it so desired by designers. I do hope you will include this feature in a near future upgrade.

There's no question about it: Global Layers are essential for any professional or even semi-professional workflow. If some guys here want to sell us Master Pages as a replacement for Global Layers, the only reason is that there are no Global Layers in Publisher.