Lorox

Hi Alfred, thanks for reminding me! I actually missed that option as it seems to be available only in the Swatches palette (correct me if I'm wrong!). That being said it strikes me as being one of the inconsistencies which we still find in the Affinity UI – why on earth should I just look (only) there? (As it is related to the object itself or as such and not to the way (sliders, wheel or swatches) I assign colour to fills and strokes) I just see that you can actually set the Blend modes differently in the Appearance panel – but somehow setting just the stroke to Erase doesn't seem to work anyway. (Other blend mode work fine, though). As of now it's so easy to miss those (useful) options for setting things as they tend to be scattered over different panels – I wish this could be "unified" and made more logical in the future.

I think it would be quite helpful in some design situations if you you could independently use different transparency settings for the stroke and the fill of one and the same object: say a fill in Multiply mode with 60% opacity and simultaneously a stroke of a certain thickness that's set to Erase mode (or Colour with 80% opacity – or whatever). While you could of course achieve the same visual results with multiple stacked copies of an object which are just set differently each it will obviously get cumbersome quickly when you want to easily transform something that's visually appearing as one object but actually is a stack of several ones. If I remember right, you can do these independent settings in InDesign and Illustrator – so it shouldn't be rocket science after all. Lest I forget: Independent settings of this kind (plus ones for transformations) woud be highly appreciated as well for additional strokes and fills of an object which have been added via the Appearance panel.

Thanks MEB, I think I figured that out by now, but – to me at least – it's irritating nevertheless. And well, with vector masks you can actually do some interesting things when you add the "Erase" mode to the equation – as I seem to have found out. However there always seems to be some sort of very thin visible "seam" on the edges of the area where objects set to "Erase" border to those of regular visibility. This effectively lets me hesitate to use the feature so far... Maybe I have to try again but with v1.5 I think these "seams" even made their way into exported pixel formats. This seemed to indicate that these artefacts weren't just display glitches but rendering problems on an object basis.

Yeah, obviously selecting the Node Tool serves the purpose as well (as does selecting Rectangle, Circle (or whatever) or the Pen Tool). And well, after editing you have to save a new gradient swatch as you haven't actually been editing the old one. Accordingly there's no automatic change in objects having the old one assigned unless they have been selected first (which in complex illustrations may be quite a cumbersome task...). And yes, it wasn't all perfect with AI and ID (and I generally do love working in Designer, Photo and Publisher), but especially in terms of ergonomics the guys at Adobe got a lot of things right over the years. Speaking of this it strikes me every time as quite annoying in the Affinity Apps when I have to use the context menu e.g. only to just rename a colour swatch or a palette. Why can't we just double click on the name like we can (and always could) in the Layers Palette? This is so inconsistent in terms of UI and really deserves to be changed. Often it's in the small things, what makes you really comfortable using this or that app. Another example: I think that Inkscape has – its several known shortcomings set aside – a lot of really interesting features for a vector graphics app but the UI – to me at least – is some kind of an "ubercomplex" nightmare and accordingly I tend to avoid using it if I don't necessarily have to (e.g. for image tracing as Designer still hasn't got that feature).

atomic, I'm completely with you here – I don't know why, but even as an experienced user of many desktop design apps over more than 20 years I find myself struggling, too, with some aspects of the way the Affinity apps handle masking. How I wanted to continue: What on earth is so difficult to implement here, that for a start I cannot simply create or assign a mask (or mask layer or whatever you may call it) to any object, group or layer and then paint with black and white (or grey, for that) on that mask (or put greyscale objects on that mask) with the simple effect that "white reveals, black conceals" as it has been for ages by now??? Any idiot can understand that after doing it twice, I'd say. Masking in Affinity, however, it obviously doesn't matter at all which colour you use while painting in a mask – ANY colour will conceal and you have change tools (to the Eraser Tool) to reveal parts you have accidentally hidden/concealed. This is SO unergonomic! BUT: All of a sudden – as I try to check again – it works exactly as you should expect!!! WTF is going on here? So: create an object, choose "Mask Layer" (button at the bottom of the Layers Panel) and you get a mask below the object where you can paint with black to conceal and overpaint with white to reveal again! Obviously this mask it's strictly some kind of a Pixel Layer and you cannot put any vector objects on it like you can in Illustrator (but then again you can't paint with pixels in Illustrator...). So you might say it's not better or worse as in Illustrator but just different... On the other hand: Where it gets weird IMHO is when you put another vector object above the one you want to mask and choose "Mask to below" via the context menu of the topmost object: quite contrary to at least my expectations what remains visible is just the overlapping area of the two objects and not what's NOT covered by the object you wanted to use to mask (partially hide) the object below with (intuitively I'd expect it to work exactly the other way round). And the colour of that top object doesn't matter at all... (Its transparency – if it's got some – does, however!) So if you want to hide/mask something by using vector objects you're forced to think not: "What do I want to hide?" but "What shall remain visible?" and then create the necessary objects accordingly... Anyway, some aspects still don't feel quite natural to me and I can only hope I'll really wrap my mind around it one day...

Hi dominik, at first I thought this different behaviour might be because I was in Designer and you apparently in Photo. However, if I switch to Photo (on Mac) it's exactly as I wrote before: there's nothing in that ”Fill" area in the context tool bar before I select some vector tool to which a fill (of any kind) might be applied. In Photo I could – on a pixel layer – just create the gradient I clicked on before, but why should I do so BEFORE having it edited to my needs? Maybe this is handled differently on Windows after all?

I'm currently working on a project where gradients play an important role and I feel the necessity to change and adjust gradients repeatedly while I go along. However, once a gradient swatch has been added to a colour palette this particular swatch can't be edited and you have to go for all the colours separately that make up the gradient in question. You're just a bit lucky if you have at least used global colours for this but anyway the given/original gradient swatch won't change according to the edits you've done. Obviously, when you have used these global colours in more than one gradient but only actually want to edit the colours of one of them you're going to run into trouble, anyway... The only solution IMHO would be allowing global gradient swatches "as such" where your edits will happen on (just) the gradient itself and the colours are not sort "drawn" from elsewhere (meaning the global colours). When you use some global colour within a global gradient it should be detached from its original (which remains global as before on a solid colour basis) or – so to speak – should lose its "globalness" once it is used inside a global(!) gradient as the latter will take over the global aspect – now as a property of the gradient not of the colour as such) Once you begin to think about it, it actually might get a bit tricky, but I guess it should be feasible, as I don't remember having any of these problems when working in Illustrator or InDesign...

Why doesn't this work??? Obviously it is not possible to edit a gradient fill swatch once it's been added to – say – a document palette because by ”Edit Fill“ you can just access a single solid colour (via slider, wheel or swatches) whereas a gradient is obviously/necessarily made up of at least two solid colours! The fact that this specific swatch is actually a gradient is totally ignored by the app when you choose "Edit Fill". This – unfortunately – means that a gradient fill swatch can never be a global swatch, even if it's been originally been created using global colours as stops within the gradient. Now: you CAN actually edit the global colours which make up the gradient in question and the gradient will change accordingly with any OBJECT it has been applied to formerly BUT the swatch of that original gradient (edited now via its defining colous having been edited) will NOT change in the palette. So you can't quickly apply the updated gradient to another object – you don't have a new/edited gradient swatch in the palette but the old/original one will persist. I don't remember having any of these annoying difficulties in InDesign or Illustrator and it sort of hurts me when my new favourite apps behave so strangely...

I tried this but the gradient is actually loaded in the gradient tool's context tool bar only when e.g. the Rectangle tool or the Pen tool is selected afterwards. Until then you won't have anything popping up to edit. Sadly so, I'd say. This is quite annoying!

Although the thread started with all objects in question being selected I'd really think a better way would be to allow gradient fills being global. Being able to globally edit a gradient fill swatch and having the changes applied to all objects having that fill while not having to be selected themselves would be extremely helpful. As of now you seemingly can't edit/update a given gradient fill swatch that's already in a palette as it is not global by default and you cannot make it global by any means. On the other hand I'd think that when you have created some gradient (and put the "My wonderful sunset" swatch into your palette) it's quite obvious that you might want to make some edits to it later and have all objects carrying that swatch/gradient updated automatically (without first having to select them all). Wishing this were possible isn't that exotic, isn't it?

Being able to sub-group colours in any swatches palette would be extremely helpful – I strongly support this feature request! Breaking it all down into separate palettes (which of course is possible) just doesn't do the trick ergonomically. And well, as it's been said almost 2 years ago: I actually do feel like this is as valid a request now with v1.9 as it has been then. It IS still cumbersome and clumsy in a general way compared to what other apps (especially Illustrator and InDesign) have been offering for years now.

The problem discussed here had been annoying me quite a bit but I just discovered that there actually is a „Delete Unused Styles" in version 1.9.2 – how cool is that? Now that's been solved I'd think we need a corresponding option for the Colour Palette as well...

If I remember correctly (it's been some time ago) the printing service which has been doing a lot of my print jobs once stated that they actually and specifically don't want to have any colour profiles embedded in the PDFs they receive for printing... They will just take for granted that you create the PDFs according to their specs (including the use of – say – ISOcoatedv2_300% profile for PDF export) and then print accordingly. Which especially means there will be no CMYK to CMYK conversion taking place within their workflow. The PDF just stays "as is“. So leaving the profile embedding option unticked while exporting may in fact be a good idea (though it may depend on the print service's actual workflow eventually).

Hi Mike, it's just a thought – as you say, but it's a thought I had myself as well some time ago (maybe at the time of version 1.5 of the Affinity Apps and before Publisher). It sort seemed to make sense for me to not bloat the apps with a ton of features that maybe a majority of ”standard“ users would never need but to open up the apps to 3rd party developers who could then offer special modules/plugins to cover the needs of designers/users specializing in certain fields where there's a demand for some advanced features which aren't necessarily needed by the average user. Back then I had in mind the interesting and possibly quite useful addons/plugins which Astute Graphics were/are offering for Adobe Illustrator. I thought that being able to add some functionlity of that kind to Affinity Designer via some PlugIn – only for those who really need it (and would be willing to pay for it, too, of course) – would actually be quite nice! Given that, additionally, there are quite a lot of Photoshop plugins which unfortunately (for technical reasons I'm not knowing enough of) don't work in Affinity Photo, it may well be that once the Affinity Apps have a broad enough user base those developers might also consider to make their products work in AP eventually. Looking at what is going on with brushes, textures etc. I feel some movement towards Affinity from various 3rd party developers which seems to indicate that the apps (or rather their users) are taken seriously by those who formerly only catered to Adobe apps and users. I find this quite encouraging.

Sure, man! That's one aspect – possibly not the most important one, though, on a larger scale...

Hi Mike, this post of yours seems very considerate and I hadn't thought about it that way before. I guess that there a quite a few different reasons why present and (hopefully) future Affinity Users might welcome scripting abilities and which of these reasons might possibly be worthwile enough for Serif to really go for it. As they are in it for business and not primarily to please designers by offering them nice features which may be fun to play around it's only natural that any development costs must be evaluated against (estimated) returns from future sales once these functions are implemented and draw new users to the Affinity applications. So which users or which group of users do you target at a certain point in an app's evolution? Maybe at present they're targeting other users or groups of users to broaden their base in the creative community – and actually not primarily those who'd be most happy with scripting and automation abilities? Being a freelance grapic designer I'd value scripting more or less for the creative and experimental possibilities it might offer (having e.g. loved Scriptographer with Adobe Illustrator). If I was running some bigger publishing business, doing comprehensive magazines, catalogs etc. I might very well have other, completely different preferences as to how scripting is brought to use in a daily workflow and the importance of those capabilities would certainly be judged on a very different scale. That being said, I do hope that Serif will judge wisely how to use their resources and choose the proper strategies to keep their existing users and constantly win over new ones with features that are most needed by large enough key groups at the time given. In my opinion – even if there certainly are some things in any of the apps which do deserve to be improved or added – they have done a great job so far and it was something that's been bitterly needed to establish a viable professional alternative to the basic Adobe Design apps.

Hi, as it's been a while I'm unfortunately not quite sure anymore what I exactly did... However, one the one hand I remember I did some test runs using different settings for exporting my PDFs. On the other hand I tried to make sure I was using the desired CMYK colour profile right from the start in any of my documents. Last but not least I deleted that ”Greys“ pallette which came with Publisher as those greys (including the Black within that pallette) weren't just ”K greys“ but actually ”rich“ greys made of percentages of all the CMYK colours – especially the „Black“ therein caused problems as it also was a ”rich“ CMYK-Black. After deleting the old one set up a new ”Greys“ application pallette which is made of a 100% K Black and corresponding shades of that ”proper“ Black. So far this has worked for me, but I tend to be cautious and always check my PDFs for printing services on another computer that still got Acrobat Pro running...

Yes, I do use Affinity Publisher* for new projects (beginning with smaller jobs, however). I plan to use InDesign (still CS5) only for updating legacy stuff which has been created in InDesign (if it doesn't seem really worthwile to migrate the files to Publisher via IDML export from ID) or if I'm forced to exchange design files on some collaboration with others who cannot deal with Publisher files. * meaning: of course I also use Designer and Photo as well but the final output will be via Publisher. Not turning to Adobe Illustrator again seems hardest for me, as the program has so many features I'm still missing with Affinity Designer – some special ones but also a few I consider quite essential for a professional vector graphics program (like Image Tracing or creating Blends between two vector objects). And well, there still are some features in Photoshop (even CS5) as well, which Affinity Photo doesn't offer... But you got to think positive: the Affinity apps are not even version 2 and you already can do so much! As to PDF files for print you just have to be careful and take your time to find the right settings that will work with your printing service. It definitely helps if you have access to Acrobat Pro to preflight check your PDFs before sending them off. There is a topic on this forum in connection with this: That being said I can assure you that you CAN output print ready PDFs for commercial printing from Publisher. I've done so and the results were absolutely OK! However, as I said: take your time, doublecheck you PDFs with Acrobat Pro or another suitable app (there aren't many, though...) and possibly already take some precautions while still working on your files in Publisher (e.g. be sure to always use 100% K Black for type rather than "rich" RGB black...) I'd say it's all worth the effort, if it gets you out of Adobe's fangs eventually...

Wenn nicht gar ausgedehnt (extended)...

Is this still an issue? As I have set all the Affinity Apps’ UI to English some time ago to be more in tune with most tutorials (which tend to be in English most often) I actually didn't think of it anymore... Nevertheless I'm completely with you here: this is a serious issue – not only for convenience – but for the very practical and important reasons you mention. It's absolutely unnerving. Truth be said I‘ve actually never experienced something like it with any other design program I've worked with in 30 years! So if this strangeness is still there it has to be amended immediatly as it is a true pain in the a** for any serious designer (and typographer) who is working with a localized non-English version of the apps.

Not only the tool (from the Toolbar) but something like the (vector-)"Effects" (Filters; from the Menubar) in AI, as well! The „Effects“ in Designer are just those standard pixel effects like Drop Shadow etc. (which are certainly useful, nevertheless) but nothing like the (supposedly) scripting based vector „Effects“ (as opposed to „Filters“ which Illustrator has – i.e. ”Roughen“, ”Scribble“ etc.). I'd be very happy indeed, if something like that could find its way into Affinity Designer. Maybe, however (I'm no expert at this), this is sort of related to the question of scripting which is being discussed elsewhere in this forum?

Please, please, add a gradient mesh tool in Designer with version 2 – even Inkscape being open source has it... My concern actually isn't so much about opening AI files with gradient mesh objects in Designer, but rather being able to design from scratch in Designer using this valuable tool.

Well... so IF they added that feature, PDF Checkpoint might actually be useful for me. Guess I'll wait then before giving it a try...

As I do use a Mac I may actually do give it a try – thanks for pointing me to PDF Checkpoint's print preview functions (which I wasn't sure about). As it is I didn't find explicit info or screenshots for this on their product website – so I sort of concluded that maybe they (surprisingly) didn't care so much about it... 😥

I'm not so sure about that: considering my own needs as a graphic designer who sends PDFs to print services every now and then, I generally and primarily just need to check my PDFs in regard to correct colour separation, ink coverage and overprintig. For this purpose PACKZVIEW seems to be absolutely sufficient and easy to use, too. Judging from the info on their website PDF Checkpoint is actually quite comprehensive and may offer a lot more than what I (and probably other ussers, too) need on a regular basis. The advanced features of PDF Checkpoint – e.g. like converting colour profiles in PDFs etc. – may, however, be be extremely useful, when you come across problems in your PDFs hat you cannot solve by just going back to Publisher, changing a colour and/or some setting there and then exporting the PDF again.