Dazzler

Sorry Carl, hate to disagree, but I wouldn't do this - it's inaccurate, and will take you a heck of a lot longer. Wrong tool for the job! The blur brush tool is really for specific case uses, such as softening a tiny detail on a photo - it's not really for large scale even softness. Using Gaussian blur gives a much cleaner and very consistent result. Same goes for the burn-in / dodge tools. They are tools that mimick traditional media before there were much better ways of doing things in the digital realm. If you want to burn-in / dodge make an adjustment layer and use the brush on the mask, that way you get control over where the effect is applied, as well as control over the amount of affect even after you've applied it. If you try and do the same using the dodge / burn-in tools you are destroying your original picture and the only way to go back is to hit the history and undo, not a very good way of working. I know a lot of people struggle with masking and adjustment layers with masks etc, but it really is worth the effort to learn how it all works, as it'll save you so much time in the long run, and you'll find you'll hardly ever need to use the history to undo stuff. Everything just stays much more adjustable.

They are just basic tests - new document A4 in every case. Anyway, I'll leave it up to you guys to run your own tests at a more scientific level. The MipMaps sound a likely culprit, but I would've thought they would be generated upon loading rather than stored as part of the file? or is that too inefficient? I suppose in the grand scheme of things with a massive document using a lot of images etc these sort of file size differences are kind of irrelevant.

I did save the embedded files as new differently named files each time in my original tests. And the clicking the embed button was the only action performed in each case. In any case, the fact is that using an identical process there is a massive difference between file sizes of the document when the images are placed at different sizes. This is utterly surprising to me (as someone who has written some basic software in the past, so have a mild understanding of the sort of things that might be happening), considering the fact that the images are non-destructive.

You think the history may be having an affect here Walt? Just done from scratch - using same image and brand new document each individual test. linked 856kb, embedded 6.89mb with image placed by clicking the top left point of the page (no resize or positioning) linked 399kb, embedded 1.84mb with image placed then reduced to 10% of it's dimension, then placed at 0,0 on page. It would be really interesting to know what's happening here ... if there are any Affinity staff available for comment? I'm sure there is a logical reason for this. *Additional Note: opening a non-embedded file, clicking the embed then saving out gives identical results to doing it from scratch in this case so I don't think anything else is having any effect on my previous tests.

Actually it's pretty much the same in either software. Create an oval shape using the oval shape tool. In Photo you can use the gaussian blur live filter on it to get the softness, in designer you use the fx gaussian blur. Then use the rasterise the mask on that oval layer and it will mask anything on the layers below. Then export as a PNG with transparency in order for that to work on the web.

Which software are you in Patrick?

Oh yes, so you do! My mistake!

Interestingly, I've done some tests, and to my surprise the .afpub document size does indeed change it's filesize based on how big or small the image is placed on the page. I'm going to put this down to the thumbnail that gets saved along with the file. My tests show that using a single placed (linked) image (identical image in each case):- 634kb for a bog standard placed image that takes up the middle portion of an a4 page 391kb for a tiny speck of an image just visible in the thumbnail (maybe 5 pixels width in the thumbnail) 1.02mb for a full page image 968kb for the same full page image slide across to show a different part of the image (less details there). The last two results I think show that this must be based on the thumbnail and the amount of detail showing in that, however that does seem a lot of extra filesize difference for a thumbnail - if I saved that thumbnail as a jpeg I would expect it to be no more than about 25 - 30 kb, so I can only assume that the thumbnail image is either larger than I can display on my computer file browser, or that it's not being compressed. But if it's not being compressed you'd expect the two thumbnails to be exactly the same file size? Now, embedding the image with exactly the same placement as the previous ( I opened the same files clicked the embed in the resource manager, then saved back out) I get in the same order as before 6.94 mb (I expected extra file size here) 1.75 mb (This totally doesn't reflect the same additional file size as the first example - why not? This looks more like it's just added the jpeg file size in, which would seem logical but doesn't explain the amount of extra file size in the first example) 7.07 mb 7.00 mb The image I placed in was 4032x3024 pixels (1.35mb jpeg file) very boring picture out of our office window! If I export this image to a tiff file I get 8.90mb. So that may very well blow my thumbnail theory. Very interesting! This may be irrelevant to the original conversation if we're talking about exporting files to pdf etc.

Oh and for filling the edges you can use select > alpha range > select partially transparent. Then use edit > inpaint. Alternatively, you can just fill the selection with a solid colour, again in the edit menu > fill with primary colour.

It sounds to me like you are using the tool you always used to use but have it on the wrong Mode - if you have it on source mode then it won't change anything in the image you are looking at. So once you've loaded you image, choose live filters - perpspective, then make sure the mode is set to destination (not source), then move the corner point and the image should distort as you drag it. Hopefully that's it!

It looks like Photo to me, as you have the marching ants. So once you have your selection made, use CTRL+J or CMD+J on Mac to make the sleection into a layer. You can then deselect and move that layer around separate to everything else. However, you'll still have the flower on the original layer, so you'll need to erase it (or paint over it, maybe using the infill painting tool) from that layer otherwise you'll get a duplicate flower in your image.

You're not holding shift down when you drag the corner are you? That causes it to do an unconstrained resize which will stretch it.

You may be able to do this by printing to a pdf rather than exporting to a pdf. I can do it in a quick test using the 'Microsoft Print to PDF' printer choice (I'm on on Windows). On that print driver there is an option called Model where you can select N-Up. Then I can set the printer driver to do the 2 pages etc with crops marks etc and it prints to a pdf file. Took me a little bit of messing around to line it up properly with the print area etc.

This may depend on the t-shirt printing process. To do it properly the white would need to be specified as a 'special' colour so that it does actually get printed. If you think about printing onto paper the white doesn't actually get printed but left unprinted. So trying to print the same just switching to black paper results in nothing. There are different methods of printing onto T-Shirts, the best is probably screen printing, but many of the digital t-shirt prints I've seen are basically printed onto a special paper then transferred onto the t-shirt (which actually takes the white background with it whether you like it or not!). That was the process we used to use at a company I used to work for. It was basically printed on a colour copier in reverse then ironed onto the t-shirt using a hot press. If that's the process this company is using then you may have to think again about the design and include the white bg, or actually put a black background on the design (which will probably look different to the t-shirt colour when transferred). Not ideal for what you are trying to do. I hope that explains the situation a little bit. A discussion with the printer may help you further if that's possible.

I've just noticed if you make a text frame, add some text, then select the fill tool (the one you'd use for gradients from the tool palette) the text frame is shown to have shrunk around the text, which would explain the way it exports. It's obviously either an oversight, or it hasn't really been designed to be holding the colour in that way.

Ok, didn't spot that. Yes, it seems to be an issue with rectangles that have been changed to a text shape. I'm now getting the same issue. Personally, I'd recommend using a separate background shape, it's a lot more convenient, and makes editing a lot easier. Keep any text shapes transparent. Once you've converted a shape to a frame it makes it hard (if at all possible?) to change the background color again, as the text then picks up the fill colour rather than the shape.

How have you created that? I tried to do the same and got the entire strip. It may be worth making sure the text layer is nested in the rectangle layer first in the layers palette?

That works, although it feels really strange. Nice that you can scale objects and the other objects kind of slide along to absorb the space. Also reordering is possible by dragging the the objects along the line.

I don't understand how this would be possible. If you have anything non-destructive then it has to have it's original source available, so you won't gain any savings in file size? If you resample the source then you are destroying the original. If you try to keep both then surely you can at best only get an increase in file size, even if it is just some additional sample resolution settings that are added. If you export to PDF then you get to choose resolution at that point and it resamples the images to that resolution, but obviously that's not non-destructive and not the same as saving as an .afpub file. Maybe I'm misunderstanding?

Nice! Although not quite as retro as Spectrum 512 for the Atari ST with it's wopping 512Kb of RAM... https://images.app.goo.gl/w4YL4fZ3g2urfK8V9 I remember making some graphics in that (pixel by pixel) and then recording it onto a VHS tape for my college lecturer to be able to see because there was no other way of my outputting it in colour at the time.

I remember that WOW factor! ...and V4 added History too. Working on the earlier versions of Photoshop were a lot more challenging, requiring a lot of thought about HOW to do things, rather than just looking for the feature, pressing a button and it happen. If I remember correctly V1 didn't even have layers! I can't even imagine working with that now. What I like about Affinity products is the fact they've gone back to the start, looked at the core processes and improved some of that basic functionality.

Well, to be honest those type of filters don't tend to be great and only give a pseudo paint effect... give Dynamic Auto Painter a spin and you'll see what I mean, I doubt you'll find an equivalent quality from any other software, it's easily the best I've seen for what it does, but then it's not trying to be anything it isn't - it's just for converting photos to look like they've been made with traditional media, and it does actually paint the picture for you (you can sit and watch it doing it which is fascinating). The right tools for the right job and all that ... I actually wouldn't want to see AF Photo getting bulked up with filters like that. You could probably set up macros to achieve some of those sort of things. Early memories of using Photo**op early versions before they had those filters come flooding back where you had to be smart with the channels etc. to achieve effects like drop shadow, and chrome etc.). For example, if you wanted a pencil drawing type effect in AF Photo you could use the 'detect edges' followed by a layer > invert, then use levels/curves to get the strength of stroke and remove the lighter greys etc. You could spend some time setting this up as a macro then you'd have a one button pencil tool. Oil painting is gonna be a lot tougher but I'm sure it's probably achievable to some extent. Macros are great for these sort of things.

Thanks for confirming!

It's this bit in the guidelines about prohibited content? any advertising or soliciting including, without limitation, advertisements, store announcements, for sale or trade, coupons, sales, consultants, and eBay postings links to any other commercial website or store, although moderators may use their discretion references to any other website or store in any way that is believed to be solely for advertising It's a bit ambiguous I know , so I'll take a risk being that I'm not advertising this for my own benefit in any way and I'm generally very pro Affinity! ... the software I was talking about is Dynamic Auto Painter by Mediachance ... it's a little hidden gem of a product that I discovered a few years ago.

If I want to get painterly effects such as oil paints, watercolour, chalks etc. I normally use a dedicated bit of software (which I can't name due to forum rules) for that which does an amazing job, and completely automated (a google search may well bring up this product by a lesser-known graphics company, it doesn't cost the earth but it's more expensive that any of the affinity products). You can achieve fairly convincing painting effects in tools like Affinity, but it requires a lot of work on your part, but you do have ultimate control by doing so. Sometimes it's worth all the extra effort. You would need to spend some time learning the way the brushes are set up so you can tailor them to suit what you are doing for the best results. Also, I'd recommend getting a pen tablet to get the extra control needed to make it look more natural.