hannah

Hehe Cp3,
I think if you want a real looking effect you have to use AfD and AfP after to retouch (for the shadow-effect of the paper and how it effects the engravings)...
LEFT
In AfD I have used a very thin line, gaussian-blur effect to make it visually disappear, outer-shadow-effect as lightening (because you can change the direction) and outer-glow for the darker part to give "substance". it's too blurry in my example, but that is adjustable within the different effects.
RIGHT
Same thin line but with Bevel/Emboss effect + outer-shadow-effect as lightening.
I attached my AfD-file for you, if you'd like to go down that road.
 
However, it seems that it requires some heavy retouching in AfP afterwards, to partially remove the effect/play with transparancy...
Hope that helps you at least a little bit.
engraving.afdesign

thanks for this clever work-around while we wait for proper implementation of bleed preview.

Hi Lilouka,
Welcome to Affinity Forums
Bleed previews (on canvas) will come in a future update. Meanwhile you can use a rectangle (with a thin stroke, no fill) with the dimensions of your document + the bleed area and place it over the document to help you visualise the boundaries of the bleed area. You may need to go to menu View ▸ View Mode and uncheck/untick Clip to Canvas (on non-artboard based documents) to be able to view the rectangle stroke outside the canvas. For artboard based documents (Affinity Designer only) just make sure the rectangle layer is outside the respective artboard layer in the Layers panel.

Here is a clean template to make a mandala in a super simple way.
Just open the file, select the layer "Draw the Mandala here", start to draw and have fun !
Mandala template 12.afdesign

Hi guys! I've been working on this template file to create social media branding material for my clients. 
I've managed to create a single file with multiple artboards (each one with it's export presets) ready for use.
You are welcome to delete the ones that you will not use (so you don't generate empty files on export).
 
It also includes flat icons from each platform just in case you might need them.
 
It's updated for 2017 according to this data from Social Sprout.
 
Hope you find it as useful as me.
 
Leave a comment if you like/use it. If you are going to post it anywhere else, please add the proper credits
 
Thanks!
social-media-templates.afdesign

Just the rust styles (grunge rust textures):
 

   
The old rusty compressed styles file:
rust-textures.afstyles.zip

So, I fell in love with Affinity after about an hour of playing with it. I bought it and started bringing my favorite assets over from Photoshop and Illustrator, including some styles I have been using for years on my web projects. I thought perhaps others could use them too, so here they are with a bonus set of sticker styles.
 
Enjoy if they're of interest to you. 
 
UPDATE: New version 2.0! This time the gradients and strokes are tool editable. No more trips to the Effects Panel. This gives better and easier control of the styles.
 
BONUS: By request, 4 atmosphere styles. Included is the AD file with all styles applied for you to play with. Will likely only open in the latest beta. Sorry.
 
BONUS: Dream Metals styles! Aluminum, Gold, and Copper.


 
Find these and more at https://dscape-llc.com/affinity
 
 
 
 
 

yesssss, i need that too!
I start to be afraid, when my designs in ADe become more complex and I have to select averything that looks the same by hand...

Hi kazoulay
 
There are a few options. Here are two.
 
1. Go Select > Tonal Range > Select Shadows to select the black, and then press delete. Make sure it is a pixel layer (rasterised), not an image layer.
 
2. Use blend ranges (the little cog on the layers panel.

 
 

 
If you drag this point from the top to the bottom, it makes the black transparent. 
 
Edit. As carl123 mentioned, you might get grey outlines left behind around the edges, so move the point down and then to the right to eliminate them. 
 

 

Once you have rotated it use the mirror options to flip

For all who don’t want to read the whole “manual”

Affinity Photo Help: Layer blend ranges

Hi hello coccus,
Welcome to Affinity Forums
Major product upgrades (i.e. from version 1.x to v2.x) are paid. Regular updates (v 1.7, 1.8, 1.9 etc) are free. So if you buy it now you only have to pay for an upgrade when we launch v2.0. If you decide to not upgrade you can continue using the version you already own (as long as the OS supports it).

ohhhhhhh, I know that! took me so long to find out. I have to check and will come back here. promise. short answer you have to set your key-shorts yourself but the places are tricky to find. give me some minutes...

you guys are incredible!
and yessss, @αℓƒяє∂ and @Oval, Layer blend ranges!!!! Whaaam, x-height-font-sizing and this magic was exactly what I was looking for in the first place!

AHHHHHH, nice!!!! didn't know that i can set the x-height of the font like that (you have to use the character-panel, not the transform panel). great!
Seems I have reached todays THANKS-award-limit, but I'll do tomorrow. great!

I missed that! Could you tell me what you mean by x-height?
Do you mean adjusting x and y coordinates and height and width via the transform panel? (didn't improve results for me)
 And what's the blend gamma slider?? (couldn't find anything when searching the help-menu). thanks!
(I am not ignoring resampling, but it comes later.)

Some relevant links and information that may help others understand and troubleshoot.
https://www.w3.org/TR/SVG/coords.html
https://www.w3.org/TR/SVG2/coords.html
SVG settings on File > Export...
For PDF, SVG and EPS file formats:
Rasterize—select an option for rasterizing design elements which are unsupported by the file format. Select from the pop-up menu: Nothing—no elements within the design are rasterized on export, therefore unsupported elements are not included in the exported file. Everything—all elements within the design are rasterized for a resulting exported file which perfectly matches your original design. Unsupported properties—only unsupported elements are rasterized in the exported file. Downsample images—select whether to downsample raster images within the design. Above—if this set DPI is exceeded by raster design elements, those elements will be rasterized down to this set DPI. This option is dependent on the Downsample images option being active. Use document resolution—ensures the export is the same DPI as the current project's setting. Use DPI—overrides the current project's resolution setting for the export. The exported image's DPI is set using the adjacent input box Allow JPEG compression—when selected, rasterized design elements will be compressed to decrease exported file size. If this option is off, rasterized design elements will be exported as uncompressed. For SVG file format:
Export text as curves—when selected, the text in the resulting file will be drawn as curves (therefore displaying precisely as intended, even if viewed on a device without the used fonts installed). However, this option will increase file size, and text won't be editable as text or available to "text to speech" in other apps. If this option is off, text will be exported as text and the viewing device will need the used fonts installed for it to be viewed correctly. Longer text spans—when selected, text is placed relative to previous lines of text (therefore producing smaller file sizes and simpler file structures). If this option is off, text is placed with absolute coordinates. Use hex colours—when selected, colours in the exported file are expressed as RGB Hex values (therefore reducing file size but less human-readable). If this option is off, colours are exported as standard RGB values. Flatten transforms—when selected, transformed objects are 'fixed' in the exported file. This allows for the file to be viewed more accurately across applications. If this option is off, objects remain dynamically transformed to allow for more flexible editing. Use tile patterns—when selected, rasterized areas may be converted to a vector shape with a filled bitmap to give smoother, sharper edges. However, this might not be supported by some apps. If this option is off, objects will exist as singular elements within the exported file. Set viewBox—when selected, the exported file includes coordinates and dimensions which define the view box of the image. If this option is off, no view box data is included in the exported file. The export area is used to define the view box. Add line breaks—when selected, the code in the exported file will be optimized for human viewing and reading. If this option is off, the image will be exported with code on a single line which will make the file size significantly smaller. For SVG and EPS file formats:
(Use) Relative coordinates—when selected, objects in the exported file have relative positions for maximum editability. If this option is off, object positions are fixed to create a file which is optimized for viewing.  

"Merge all windows" is not the same thing as just going back to non-separated mode. To revert to non-separated mode,  just select "Separated Mode" from the Windows menu again to uncheck it. Your toolbars, Studio panels, & the document window should be returned to their former non-separated mode positions & sizes. If you had more than one document open in separate windows, they should appear as separate tabs in the unified document window.

ok, i do follow and like your way of explaining though it seems we might be on same page but in a different book.
In my world a screenshot is a one-to-one visual replica of how my device is interpreting and therefor showing me all the tags and markups and attributes. 
Let's say you make a screenshot of a website, everything but the browser-menu and address-bar. Then you open this image again in a browser. What do you see?
If you don't look at the URL and you don't use your mouse (trying to click "a button" or the "scrollbar"), can you tell, just by the look of it, that it's just a screenshot?
I dare say, you can't tell the difference between the real website and the screenshot until you try to "interact" with a screenshot and feel stupid. So the bottom line is simple: A pixel is a pixel is a pixel.

you can keep taking my words apart, but you never "see" any tags, or attributes or markups, just their interpretation. All you see are colored pixels in a given density.
You talk about "What is" and I care, but more interesting for me is what "I see".
 

Thank you all for your help and patience, I really appreciate it!!!
@ firstdefence / CSS Text Overlay : 
Good idea, I will definitely try it the css-way, as it would save me time and hassle in the long run. Would you also know an easy way to make this happen as an mouse-over-effect, using the onmouseover? Also thanks for introducing the svg-graphics to me.
@ owenr / sharpness of screenshot:
Yes, sorry, I got tricked by my screen-resolution and was posting before double-checking the situation. Reality is a bitch.
@ Oval / wtf am I missing:
Hahahaha, nice summery. Text-size, kerning, line-height etc. are definitely crucial!
@ R C-R / Pixels ain't text:
Yes, I can accept that, hahaha. But when you say "it isn't really text, just some of the pixels in that image" than I say, that "real text" on a screen is also represented to me as pixels, right? It's the method used of representing and the anti-aliasing; it's the underlying rules, together with the resolution of my device what determines the visual result. By taking screenshots of html-texts and zooming in on them, I come to understand, that there must be some kind of rule, that the baseline of the font and the top of straight font-characters like "z"  are always rendered crisp (no grey pixels underneath and above the letter). A job well done in my opinion, as it makes fonts appear sharper even if there is lots of blur in between.
So I took a screenshot here on this page of the word "would". When I put the word right next to it in AfP, I have to play around with 0.1pt-adjustments of size, kerning, etc. to achieve a similarly good result. I can get close, but at the top of the "w" and the "u" there is a line of grey pixels I can't suppress. So in my opinion the anti-aliasing method used by AfP is somewhat "low-contrast".
Ok, I am splitting hairs here; It's not what I wanted. I was just hoping to be able to adjust the anti-alias method used by AfP...
 
However, thank you very much for your time, I have learned a lot!
 
 

i know that. I am aware that the image of a bird isn't a bird. but what i mean is, that once all the attributes for a text are set and I want to see it, then I have to look at it through a media (a screen or a piece of paper). And there, every program, device, app, browser, printer has a finite amount of dots/pixels per inch to represent the text to me. Those pixels have to decide whether they wanna be white or black or grey. And I say, the baseline of a text is the edge/beginning of all straight characters and I'd like the app to recognize this too and help me out a bit.
By carefully adjusting the size and position of the text in AfP i got   m u c h   b e t t e r    results!
best practice for me was :
1. turn force-pixel-alignment and move-by-whole-pixels on (if the font is well designed that should help Affinity establish a crisp baseline, something that i probably haven't done in the fist place, causing problems that where hard to adjust later on)
2. write a "zZ" with artistic Text tool (baseline should be sharp)
3. turn force-pixel-alignment and move-by-whole-pixels off
4. adjust size (using the top right adjustment corner) until the top of the "zZ" is also crisp
5. turn force-pixel-alignment and move-by-whole-pixels on again and write your text

I finally solved my problem via css: https://www.androphyne.com/spectacles/

because the zigzag in your file isn't exactly symmetrical. If you mirror the 2nd piece, the two parts match and moreover when closing the beautiful thing, the beginning would meet the end perfectly.

Thanks! I blame @firstdefence (& my own laziness) for that -- I stole borrowed his ZIGZAG TEXTURE zigzag group from his original chunky monkey file for my Wacky Daffy file.