TomHu

Are you confusing the art board with the canvas?

Affinity Photo doesn't appear to have any snapping ability to the edges of the artboard no matter how many snapping settings you turn on for some reason. But if you add guides to the very edges of all four sides of the artboard, then objects will snap to the edges of the artboard. But this is cumbersome to do in AP because the guides don't snap to the edges of the artboard either, so you have to use the Guide Management window to nudge them to the precise edges of the artboard. Also, because the guides in AP are only visible when on the visible part of the artboard, when you let go of the guide on the edge the artboard it appears to disappear, but it's actually there.

I can also draw a vector line in Photoshop and get the exact same results... Screen Recording 2018-10-11 at 1.01.24 PM.mov See how easy that was? Photoshop has the "Align Edges" option that assures vectors with straight edges are perfectly aligned to the pixel. I thought AP's "Force pixel alignment" and "Move by whole pixels" settings would work the same way, but apparently they don't. In fact, I have no idea what these settings actually do in Affinity Photo. I think they only work with pixel tools like brushes, not vectors or shapes. Also note that I am still using Photoshop CS6, which is now 18 years old. The ability to snap the edges of vector shapes to pixel borders isn't a new concept by any means.

Yes, I'm discovering that using AP for web designs or online graphics where pixel precision is necessary is a very frustrating task. It's great for photo editing, but not for layouts. So unfortunately I've decided to stick with Photoshop for now until the AP team can address this limitation. I use Photoshop 80% of the time for web design or online graphics, and 20% for photo editing. So pixel precision is extremely important to me.

All I do is select the line Shape tool, set it to pixels, make sure it's set to 1 px, then draw. I hold down the Shift key while drawing to keep the line perfectly horizontal or vertical. That's all I have to do in Photoshop. There's no screwing around with 1/2 pixels or anything like that. Here's a screen cap of me drawing two lines to show you how straightforward it is in Photoshop: Screen Recording 2018-10-09 at 3.41.30 PM.mov

I Initially thought this would be the solution, too, but then I tried the Clip Canvas option and have no idea how it decided to clip the canvas where it did. It completely ignored the marquee box. Here's what I started with: And here's the result after Clip Canvas: It didn't clip along the marquee at all. Not sure what Clip Canvas is supposed to do or how it works. Choosing "Unclip Canvas" after this did nothing at all.

Not sure what you're talking about, I don't have to do any such thing in Photoshop. When I draw a single-pixel line in Photoshop, it isn't two pixels wide and semi-transparent as happens in Affinity Photo, requiring it be moved by half a pixel.

Hi @toltec Thanks! I'm just not sure where to find this particular Gradient tool. I tried Gradient Overlay... ... and Gradient Map ... But don't see any way to choose an image to fill.

OMG, really? I have to transform every line by half a pixel just to get a single-pixel, 100% opaque line? I think I'm just going to finish this project in Photoshop, I'm really frustrated with Affinity Photo right now. Thanks for your help.

Well, Affinity Photo uses Apply and Cancel buttons on a bunch of various functions already, but it's not consistent. Oddly, pressing Enter doesn't automatically choose Apply, and pressing ESC doesn't cancel the current operation, but it should. So you're forced to click on the Apply or Cancel button if they appear for that function with no keyboard shortcut.

Thanks, I did look for a way to change the measurement type for lines, but couldn't find it before. I'm not sure what you mean by the .5 grid placement value, though. When I uncheck the "show lines in points" option, and then draw a straight 1-pixel line, it is still semi-transparent. The layer it is being drawn on has Opacity set to 100%, and the line stroke is also 100% opacity. But I keep getting a semi-transparent line for some reason. I also have "Force Pixel Alignment" and "Move by Whole Pixels" and "Snapping" set on.

I want to draw a straight line, a bit hard to do with a single-pixel brush tool. And if the line is slanted, I'd like it to be anti-aliased (but not if it's a straight horizontal or vertical line). That's why a line drawing tool would work better, but I can't get what I want from the AP line tool.

Okay, I thought this would be easy to figure out, even without the ability to use the AP Help (which doesn't work), but alas, I can't figure out how to draw a simple, solid, 100% opaque 1-pixel line in Affinity Photo. I tried the Pen tool, but it only allows me to set the width in points, which results in a semi-transparent line with anti-aliased edges. If I set the line to "1 pt" I get a relatively clean, 1-pixel line but it's semi-transparent. Not what I want! Can I set the line tool to pixels instead of points? I tried typing in "1 px" where it says "1 pt" but it just randomly changed it to "0.8 pt" when I hit Enter. Speaking of which, that interface is a bit messy. When I click inside a field there I see double of what was in that field, plus it's really hard to read due to the white text on light gray background. In Photoshop this is very easy, and I can set whether the line is drawn as a vector object, or as pixels, and I can set the line width in pixels or points. Am I not able to do something similar in Affinity Photo? How do I draw a simple, crisp, 100% opaque, 1-pixel straight line in Affinity Photo?

In Photoshop you can overlay a layer with a tiled pattern, just as you can do with a gradient fill. Is there a way to do the same in Affinity Photo?

As verysame mentioned, that won't work if I want to crop a multi-layer canvas. Also, if the background is transparent, this method ignores the areas with no pixels and I get a canvas size that will fit the image, but isn't the same size as the marquee selection.

In Photoshop I can draw a box with the marquee tool, then choose to crop the canvas to the size of the marquee. I can't find anything similar in Affinity Photo, am I missing something or is there a different way to do the same task in AP?

You're right! A page on Dynamic Guides appears in the search results for "guides," but the dedicated Guides section is missing from the search results. Also, there's no way to get back to the Home page of Help, or to do another search. Also 2: I need a magnifying glass to read that table of contents, so tiny! Thanks!

Fantastic! That's a huge help, thanks!

Okay, thanks, Lee. I'm hoping this can be fixed soon, I'm finding it a bit frustrating trying to learn all the features of Affinity Photo without having any help to reference, and having to ask some really basic questions here in the forum as a result.

Okay, ESC works, but to me using that key is counter-intuitive, it usually means to abort the process. In Photoshop if you hit ESC to get out of the text box you just created, the text box and text disappear as if you hit the Cancel button, which is more intuitive (to me, at least). If you are editing text, pressing ESC cancels just those edits. Yes, I discovered that! Kept pressing V and just getting a lot of Vs in my text box. I notice that some processes you do in AP have an Apply and Cancel button. It would be great if it that was consistent for all processes, including adding/editing text.

There's an option in Preferences that lets you choose the Tooltip display delay. It would be really nice to have the same type of setting for the measurement guides. Right now they fade in slowly, but when you're dragging the cursor across the screen quickly, the guides don't always fully appear so you may miss them until you go slowly. See the short screen cap video below for an example. AP Guides.mov Wow, not sure why the video is displaying that large, it was just a tiny part of my screen. Anyway, it would be nice if we could control how quickly those guides pop on the screen when hovering over them, I'd prefer them to be immediate myself. Thanks!

In Photoshop, when in text mode there is a checkmark next to the Type settings that you can click when you're done editing text to easily exit from text mode. How do I do this in Affinity Photo? Only way I discovered is to switch over to the pointer tool. Is that the only way to do that in AP?

Hi Dan, Okay, thanks. Actually, what would be even better is to simply maintain the current view/zoom level no matter what happens on the canvas. But being able to choose between a "default view" and the "current view" would be excellent options.

Thanks! Yes, I have upgraded to Mojave.

Thanks! Never would have figured that one out. :)