CartoonMike

Or a separate floating palette, like a Reference Image palette. It would display image(s) or a folder of images. There could be a next/previous navigation, zoom and panning controls in it. It would work just like a floating palette, be able to be resized or collapsed like the others. It could work like the media browser -- drag and drop images or folders on it.. 
 
Manga Studio has a feature like this named "Sub View Palette" (gotta love the sublime surreal naming of things in Manga Studio!). It's a great feature that allows me to load up reference images, so my characters stay "on model." It's implemented in MS as a app-wide thing, the images that are loaded up (have to load up images one at a time) and will remain the same until deleted in the viewer for all new documents.
 
If it was document-specific, different documents having their own images in the reference image palette, it would be so much more useful.

File this under One For the Holidays: Spooky Hallowe'en photos:
 
http://abduzeedo.com/eerie-halloween-photography?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+abduzeedo+%28Abduzeedo+Feed%29
 
While not a resource, per se, it has many photos, graphics and calligraphy sets that pop up weekly. It's in my newsfeed and I'm very rarely disappointed in abduzeedo's content. Sometimes there's nothing better than to take five and gawk at some pretty pictures. :)

Okay all, here's what I've been up to: it's 35 pages, almost 100 images, tutorial on beginning to use Affinity Designer. It one of my "In Action" tutorials, where we start right off creating new documents and learn all kinds of stuff along the way. It's not just a "How to do this" tutorial, it's a "How to do this because..." tutorial. Sometimes it's good to get the whys of things as much as the how. Hopefully, this tutorial begins to do it.
 
Here's the link to the box folder where all the files live:
 
https://app.box.com/s/gltgu7u2wscuxxra1e1y
 
It contains the PDF and PNG file and the ZIP file, which contains the pdf and png, incase somebody doesn't like to download ZIP files from an unknown source.
 
this tutorial was written for newbies, but old-hands at Vector apps may find it good.
 
I"ll be working on finishing it as the week progresses, but I gotta get working on my comics. Daddy's gotta make money.
 
 
Any comments or such, post 'em here or send me an message via this board. 
 
thanks!
 
 

@Galfaille -- I went back and reread and followed the instructions in that part of the tutorial, and it is Subtract that I used to get the final shape. For the shape, we want the triangle to cut away from the pupil of the eye. I may add one more page to this, as I do go kinda fast on that part and I'd rather have a longer explanation than to be vague. Many thanks for that catch, shows me where things need to be clearer.
 
Thanks so much for the comments. I try to keep my tutorials informal and relaxed (for the most part), as I am  s o  tired of tutorials that are oh-so-serious. I feel that being relaxed is a better state of mind to learn. 

+1
 
Pulling out guides should be one of those "tool-agnostic" operations. If I'm working on an drawing, using the pen tool, I may want to pull out some guides quickly. Currently I have to switch to the move tool and then pull out the guide and switch back to the pen. A bit disruptive in that it interrupts the workflow. 

And I found out (prob. this was hidden somewhere, as I haven't had time to read the help files) when adding files to a panorama, I just added a bunch of files (divisible by 3, since I scanned each page in 3 passes) and AP stitched 'em up in the intended page. Meaning that AP "knew" that files 10,11 & 12 was the same page and that 13,14 & 15 was a different page. TL:DR version -- I was able to stitch 28 pages in 3 "sets" of Panoramas in under 20 minutes. That includes applying the Panoramama and saving the file with its proper name. Before AP this would be a near all-day effort! Keep in mind that the scans were letter sized at 600 dpi and AP just handled it without a hitch. I'm basically a day ahead of schedule thanks to this amazing (to me) feature. Thanks AP developers!

Status: Beta Release
Purpose: New features, fixes
Requirements: Purchased Affinity Designer
Mac App Store: Not Submitted
Download: Here
 
This is the first beta of a substantial change to our codebase and as much as we have tried to ensure the quality of the code, it should be considered to be not suitable for production use. This means that you should not attempt to use it for commercial purposes or for any other activity that may be adversely affected by the application failing. In addition it is definitely worth noting that files created in Affinity 1.6 may not open in 1.5 so always make a copy of your important documents before opening them in 1.6 to ensure you do not accidentally overwrite them and are unable to open them in your 1.5 version.
 
To use this beta, simply download the file from the link given above and double-click on the file to open the installer. Follow the instructions to install the beta version. The beta sits alongside the Mac App Store version and will not interfere with it.
 
Fixes/Improvements:
First and foremost, the 1.6 version is mainly about: Light UI! (go to Preferences->User Interface) Improved view pan/zoom performance and new pixel-differencing pixel shader Improved performance with large documents New font chooser dropdown with recents, used fonts and favourites New Glyph browser Stroke stabiliser for all pencil and brush tools Align to key items (first/last selected) Text frame vertical alignment options Fit frame to text (double-click on bottom centre handle). Transform panel uses the rotation centre Scale/shear can now be performed about rotation centre Double-click now resets shape handles and rotate/shear handles Many PDF export improvements including vector export of multi-stop gradients Numerous bug fixes and stability improvements

Exactly. It's about being different. Adding the necessary features isn't the same as adding them a certain way. If Designer added the Gradient Tool to function like Illustrator's, it would be a large fall back. It's about finding the easiest methods and not just adding features because they need to be added, and to find the right approach will take time and patience.

Alien BitMaps Styles Version 1.0
Included are 32 Styles with Premium Seamless RGB bitmaps of 600x600 pixels at 72 pixels/inch.
Had to split these up.... 



Alien BitMaps Styles Version 1.0 1 of 2.afstyles.zip
Alien BitMaps Styles Version 1.0 2 of 2.afstyles.zip


Please Visit My FaceBook Page Reaching 4000 members:
Affinity Designer and Photo Group   (Join the Group)
 
AND
 
 Kotaku Designs  (Please like)

 
Best Regards, William Mabey  Thursday, March 23, 2017 3:09 PM  
 

Affinity Photo 1.6.6 is now available on the Mac App Store.
 
Affinity Photo 1.5.2 update now available on the Mac App Store
 
Fixes include
Fixed RAW / HDR on macOS 10.7, 10.8. Improved reliability of automatic lens corrections. Fixed some cosmetic stepper issues in Tone Mapping. Fixed a frequency separation crash in 32bit mode. Allow PSD import to skip over ‘psdM’ blocks. Fixed Undo Brush crashes. Fixed issues which could make the Library fail to load. Fixed a potential crash-on-close bug. Fixed a TIFF issue which was preventing people from working on existing documents, or loading some TIFF files properly. Fixed spelling issue that inserted the correctly spelt world without deleting the incorrect word. Numerous other stability improvements and fixes. Many thanks,
Team Affinity
 

Affinity Designer 1.6.0 update now available on the Mac App Store
 
Affinity Designer 1.5.5 update now available on the Mac App Store
 
Fixes include
Reduce unwanted screen updates that caused visual artefacts when moving artboards around. Resolved issue with pixel layers inside symbols which are then transformed. Controversial change to pixel documents: 100% view now maps document pixels directly to screen pixels. If you have a retina Mac you will now see 100% view showing a pixel in the document on each pixel on your display. Wireframe view mode now allows the user to select locked items by click or marquee. Basically, if you're in wireframe view and you can see it, you can now click it to select it. This makes wireframe view much more useful for toggling on/off to select specific items in the document. With rulers visible and a high-frequency input device such as a pen tablet (or a mouse in macOS Sierra) the rulers would make the document update very slowly, this has been resolved. SVG export of gradients is now more compatible with QuickLook. Stability fixes for text. Fixed bug applying OpenType contextual rules. Fix for crashes with 32bit documents on Lion and Mountain Lion. Fix for right-clicking a text object in the Text tool failing to select the current word if the user is over the caret. Improved PSD import/export of HSL adjustments. Improved PSD import of fill layers with empty stroke masks and also parse line origination data. Import badly-formed PSD files created by Marmoset. Fix for occasional crash with embedded documents. PDF export fix for Overprint flag which was not getting unset at certain times, leading to items unintentionally overprinting. Fix for system chime noise when holding Cmd+Alt+Space. Fix for layers panel showing incorrect document information when changing from Separated window mode to normal mode if multiple documents are open. Fix for some images opening and saying they are 1dpi. Numerous other stability improvements and fixes.  
Many thanks,
Team Affinity

Affinity Animator could be amazing, better than a bloated Affinity Designer IMO.

These Brushes have been updated into new and more comprehensive sets
New versions are located here:
Dots
Hatching
I just wanted to share some of the brushes that I ave been using for re-creating #intober(wod prompt:twelve) in Affinity Designer and Photo 

First set of Texture Brushes originally created in Sketchbook Pro for the fantastic #INKTOBER Challenge in 2016 (http://mrjakeparker.com/inktober)
01 Texture Brush Pack.zip
Texture Brush Pack 01_2.afdesign

Hi All
 
Finally! completed the first artwork originally for #INKTOBER 2016 (Twelve) and then recreated in Affinity Designer/Photo   and now looking forward to the next one!.
 
Original file size 600mm (300dpi)
12 additional 250x310mm (300dpi) for each creature 
 
 

Hi bento
 
Just for a bit further information, if you have Force Pixel Alignment on, but turn off move by whole pixel, any objects you have that are off slightly will automatically snap to whole pixels when moved. With move by whole pixel enabled, moving the objects literally adds 1 to the whole pixel value rather than snapping it to a full pixel first.
 
Cheers

As I wrote before I do not consider Isolation Mode a true improvement but something that was imposed to our workflows by Ai since there it is the only way to deal with complex stuff.
Since I switched to Sketch for UI projects I never missed it.
 
In any case the more options the better, so I will appreciate such an update in the future.
 
About the long list, today there is no more need to scroll: the layer can be selected and brought to top on Layers Panel automatically once you select on canvas. Yes, Isolation Mode is is still one click far but ux now is a bit better...  :)

I feel a dose of reality is warranted here.
Freehand never had an isolation mode like the one in Illustrator. It was possible to convert groups of objects to symbols, and edit a symbol in a new window. Not comparable to Illustrator's isolation mode - similar to Flash and Photoshop's smart objects, though. But quite useless for editing within context.
  Freehand's layer palette is terrible. Other organization tools in Freehand are antiquated. The way many tools work in Freehand  - frustrating. The GUI slow and cumbersome to work with in comparison with modern software. Let's avoid the "olden times were the best" syndrome. Freehand is a relic - granted, some nicely implemented base tools, but for the rest - blah.
  Frankly, I dislike Illustrator's isolation mode. Inadvertently double-clicking any group, and BAM! the rest of the design is faded out. This happened to me when working under the pressure of a deadlines all the time. Personally, I turned it off in the preferences. But then again, I really did not like working in Illustrator in the first place, and prefer other tools now. As mentioned, the layer panel is a mess. The workflow laggy and slow - unless expanded with plugins.
  IF the Affinity Designer developers ever decide to add an isolation mode like the one in Illustrator, PLEASE make sure it can be turned off. Not all of us are enamoured by Illustrator's implementation of this mode. I very much dislike the rest of my design faded out.
  In one of the vector/bitmap applications I use, working with groups is quite elegantly solved: two selection modes are available, and one of these allows for entering groups with two clicks. Selections occur within the group itself - dragging a selection marquee will only select the objects in the active group. And no need to fade out the rest of the design.

Exiting a group in that application merely consists of a single click outside the group. It will then select the next parent level. No need for pointless double-clicks.

Nor do I see any reason to fade out the rest of the design when editing a symbol. I'd like to see the actual effect and overall colour changes when editing symbols. If the need exists to focus on the contents of a symbol without being distracted by the design it is used in, opening the symbol in its own window works better anyway. And for complex designs it will provide a definite speed boost as well.
  Simple commands to enter and exit a group work just as well in my opinion.
  The same application I mentioned above allows for a smart object type workflow as well. Aside from symbols, I think smart objects would be far more useful to organize complex work with compared to an isolation mode.
  I do completely agree that Affinity Designer's current selection tools must be expanded, and allow us to work within groups only. I do not think Illustrator's isolation mode is the best approach. I believe Illustrator's isolation mode was conceived to deal with live paint mode in the first place? Let's not make the same mistakes Illustrator made. Isolation mode is a patch to deal with Illustator's less-then-ideal workflow and layers.
  The existing selection tools can be expanded easily with a group work mode. And add shortcut keys to enter and exit groups quickly with the keyboard.

It doesn't mean "Commit" for Affinity, either. Editing text is simply not an action that needs to be committed for us. Indeed, one of the things I dislike about Adobe apps is how simple actions become all modal, and need to be either cancelled or committed before you can go back to doing normal things like saving the document. Having to do that interrupts my flow. I don't see the benefit. If you made an edit you regret, undo it. I don't see the point of this tentative state where you've made the edit but have the option to abandon it, when the Command History is right there and will let you wind back as far as you like.
 
ESC does in fact mean "Cancel", "Leave" or "Stop" for Affinity. With the Text tools, pressing it once ends the text editing mode so you can use shortcuts, and pressing it a second time clears the object selection. I think of both as steps in "backing out" or "stop editing this object", so ESC fits nicely.
 
I'm sorry if this messes with your muscle memory, but Affinity is not a clone of Adobe. We have our own vision which we think is better. I hope you persist, because you will get used to it over time.

Sometimes, when it is grey and windy outside, all you want to do is curl up with a good book.
 

hi dkx88
 
If you go into preferences > User Interface there should be the options 'Show Lines in poins' above 'Show text in points'. If you untick these then stroke and text height will be show in the units your document is currently using.
 
For the decimals in the font size, this is the conversion from point into pixels at the document's current DPI eg 29.2px is 7pt @ 300 DPI. A print size document defaults to 300DPI where as web is usually 72DPI so the different in DPI is going to change how may pixels make up one point. If you convert the document to 72DPI the font size uses whole integers for pixels as 1px = 1pt
 
Cheers

Hello guys!
 
This is Jixie Bubblegum, a quick character I made last night using Designer and my Texturizer Pro brushes. Hope you dig!
 

The Ice Cream Rave Van...January Blues so needed a dose of Neon cheer this week.

Hi there everyone :)
 
I am very happy to have completed a winter illustration entirely in Affinity Designer using a Wacom Cintiq Pro 13. I have been experimenting with Designer in my spare time in order to try out a few ideas combining vectors with texture brushes. This one was done in designer 1.5 and I have to say it has treated me very well as I progressed towards making the piece work as a whole.
 
I do quite like clean shapes with a painterly/texured feel to them, and so with this one I feel that I am moving in the right direction at last. The project was sketched out from scratch and colour completed in Designer with a resolution of 5500x5500px.
 
My main takeaway I belive was to be patient util I could start getting a good feel for the paint performance in relation to zoom level. Also, being able to customise and set up custom brushes for my liking and to match previous experience for a more traditional illustrative approach. For brushes I started out with the Daub concept brushes pack but ended up picking them appart and to set up my own in the end :)
 
It would be great to hear about your experiences and feedback in general towards using affinity designer in illustration based workflow :)
 
 

um…it’s not by Adobe?

It would be nice if the mod team consider splitting up this subforum in three: AP Gallery, AD Gallery, and something called How it's made (totally inspired by the Discovery Channel :P ), with the first two solely a showcase, and the latter an in-depth subforum. There has been a call earlier to create AP and AD subforums, especially for the help/support, and I really hope the mod team consider this one as well.