zenmom

I'm with cjezell on this one. On general merits, the metric system is better than the imperial system (inches etc). But I grew up with the imperial system. I've got a good feel for how big, say, 3 inches or 2 feet is, and I don't have that same "feel" for centimeters. So in order to have it display in my preferred measurement system, I have to manually change the file's dimensions to inches EVERY SINGLE TIME. Surely it wouldn't be that hard to add a feature to the program that would allow you to set a global measurement default (to inches, or pixels, or whatever). Yes, templates & pre-sets can be used as workarounds, but I'd still prefer a "set it and forget it" solution.

Hello! I'm Marcia Morrison. I've been using Affinity Photo (and then Photo 2) for several years now, and have been happy with it. Now I'm trying to learn how to use Affinity Designer 2, and feel totally at sea. My current conundrum is this: I've got a photograph of a sign, it's a little skewed or warped (I'm not sure of the correct term), and I want to straighten it out. In Photo I can do this with no problem, but I want to learn how to do this in Designer, which appears to be a different procedure. So, I created a new file, using a photo I cropped in Affinity Photo 2, and then brought into Designer 2. But when I try to follow instructions on how to use the perspective tool, all I get is one "handle", rather than several, and nothing happens when I try to drag that handle. Should I have created the Designer 2 file using a different file type than *.afphoto? The instructions say to choose 2 points on a line to establish the type of perspective. I understand the theory (art history classes long ago), but how do I create the line? And then how do I place 2 points on it? I'm just barely a beginner here with Designer, and a lot of the instructions assume I know how to do the first steps, when I have no idea what they consist of. Any advice would be gratefully received, including whether or not this is the right area of the forum to post these questions. Thanks!

Thank you for your various advice. The need to rasterize something that had originally come from Affinity Photo wasn't clear to me, and in my case was the solution to the Perspective option being grayed out. So, thanks!

Ah! Well, I expect to catch up with v2 shortly after Christmas, so that will eliminate this kind of mismatch. Thanks for letting me know. M.

Dear R C-R and Mark L, Thanks for your replies. I don't think Document Setup is what I'm looking for in this case. I used the Document Setup screen to set the basic parameters for my project, but I'm not sure how that affects editing one specific object (and not the document as a whole). The Transform panel looks like exactly what I'd been seeking, but when I pop down the Window menu, I don't see an item called Transform. I've attached a screen shot below for reference. However, some rummaging through the area to the right of the document window revealed it as one of those tabs (panels?). So, Yay! Huge help to be able to specify size & position exactly! I'll be back when I trip over the next thing I don't understand. Much thanks, M.

Dear Collective Wisdom, here's my next question: I've got an object. It's just a smidge too short. So I looked up resizing. This is what I found: "From the Document menu, select Resize Document. Ensure the Resample option is switched on. Enter your new document dimensions in the Size boxes—left box for width, right box for height. To resize the width and height independently, click the lock icon (to unlock) between the Size boxes." Seems straightforward enough, but I don't see the Document menu. That word isn't on the basic Mac menu bar across the top of the screen. I don't see it as one of the formatting panels to the right of my document. Another article mentioned some controls in the lower right corner. I don't see them either. (The various formatting panels go all the way to the bottom of the window.) I can grab a corner of my object and drag (constrained or unconstrained), but sometimes, as in this case, I'd like to see a box where I can type in an exact measurement, and that's the part I haven't been able to find yet. I'll add that although the discussions on different types of "resizing" are interesting (resampling etc), in this particular case I need a real-world dimension to match some labels I'll be printing, once I get this Affinity Design document tweaked. So right now scalability isn't a concern for me - being able to enter a specific real-world measurement is. Looking forward to your reply, Marcia Morrison in Salem, Massachusetts

Thanks! I checked each aspect. The layers were all enabled. They were all within the visible canvas area. BUT! The stroke line was set to 0. Ah HA! Set it to something greater than zero, and the rounded rectangles appeared! On to the next challenge. Will post again when I come to the inevitable next puzzlement. M.

Dear Collective Wisdom, Affinity Photo has served me well for several years. Today I decided to try what I thought would be a simple project in Affinity Designer, but I've run into a very basic problem. I want to create a 6" x 4" document that contains 14 rounded rectangles, arranged in 2 rows of 7 each. So... I created the document in the specified size - check. Discovered how to set margins, did that - check. Created a rounded rectangle in the specified size - check. Tried to duplicate the rounded rectangle... hm. The document appears to recognize the additional rounded rectangles. To my surprise each one is on a different layer. I can get used to that. But the crucial problem is that I can't see them all at the same time. I watched the following tutorial, which seems clear enough. I can go through the steps, but I still can't see the additional copies of my object. What am I missing here? Regards, Marcia Morrison in Salem, Massachusetts

I had the same problem. Going to View > Show Toolbar (in the Affinity Photo menu bar) did the trick! Thanks.

Dear Collective Wisdom, I'm back with another cropping question. I've got an image (of a towel rod, this time) that I've rotated so the bar is horizontal. I might even apply a little perspective correction. Looks good so far! Then I want to crop the image... and the bounding box for cropping has rotated along with the image. I wish to crop it so the edges are parallel (or at right angles to) the now-straightened image. I searched the forum archives, but I didn't see anything that was an obvious answer to this problem. Granted, I might have missed something, but also some of the questions & answers were from several years ago, and Affinity Photo might have had a few changes since then. Thanks in advance for any advice on how to solve this quandry.

Thank you! Exactly what I needed to know!

I'm not even sure what to call this. I'm not a beginner with Affinity Photo, but I'm not an expert. I transfer my iPhone photos to my desktop Mac, crop them, use the photograpic distortion filter, resize them with no trouble. But if I crop the photo before I use the photographic distortion tool, the rectangle with the handles is sized for the photo *before* it was cropped. I then have to zoom out, and out, until I can see all the handles. If I save the Affinity file, close it, and then re-open it, the problem goes away. But is there a way to re-set that distortion filter frame (or whatever you call it) without closing & re-opening the file? My screenshots: #1 - I've got a file, xfer'd from my iPhone. #2 - I rotate the file, no problem. #3 - I only want the watch face, so I crop the file. #4 - Then I want to adjust the perspective (Filters > Distort > Perspective). But where did the handles to the left go? #5 - I zoom out several times until I can see all the handles. Then I can adjust perspective to my heart's content. But my question is... why does it do this? (And what do you call that thing with the handles, anyway?) TIA for any advice.

I'm glad to find this thread, b/c I also have this question. My need isn't as critical as Miss Daisy's, but I still would like to be able to change the default to inches instead of pixels. I grew up with inches in the U.S., and even though I know centimeters or pixels or cubits are better choices for objects or images or arks, I still don't have the same feel for how big "x" number of pixels is vs. "x" number of inches. I want to make inches the default, and then switch to pixels if necessary, instead of the other way around. Now that I know how to display the Context toolbar, that's an easy way to change units of measurement. P.S. I know it'd be a good idea to get a better "feel" for pixels, but I'm not a graphic designer so am not working with these things every day. So the task of training myself on that is on the list, but below the dotted line where my time runs out.

Thanks! It worked! Thank you, MEB, for your post from 2017. I'm using Affinity Photo on my desktop iMac, but the advice quoted below worked perfectly. It was exactly what I needed to know to get a clean file without all the extra canvas around the edges. "Select all layers directly from the Layers panel, then copy to the clipboard, finally use the command File ▸ New From Clipboard command to create a new document retaining the original layer's hierarchy."

I see that the last post was in 2018. I'm hoping that eventually I'll be able to re-set the default value to inches for *every* document I open in Affinity Photo. Any progress on this?

Thanks Toltec, solved my problem!

Thank you. MEB! It's 3 years later, but I just came across your post b/c I had a similar Affinity Photo question. It worked! I went to Filters > Colors > Erase White Paper, and it worked! Thank you for solving my question, and it's so easy! I'm going to make a note of this one; I'm sure I'll be using it again.

Thanks to fde101 for the reminder that all I have to do to change grid 0,0 position is to drag the upper left corner of the ruler. I'll add that finding the "grid and snapping axis" window was also helpful. I'd gone to that window before, but had not selected "Show axis editing handles". With that selected, I was able to do more fine tuning for my grid. I'm glad to see "Lock Guides" has been added. I was going nuts trying to select an item to move it, and winding up moving a nearby guide line instead. Thanks!

Dear Collective Wisdom, I'm on Affinity Designer beta v1.7.0.4. I installed AD beta v1.7 because one of the new features is a way to re-position the grid. I tried it (it worked! yay!), but now I can't remember how I did it (should've written myself a note). In the attached file, the "0,0" point is in the upper left corner of the art board. However, in this drawing I'd like to put the horizontal "0" point at the center. That'd help me see at a glance whether horizontal lines were winding up where they should. TIA for help refreshing my memory on this. basement next try.afdesign

I had a similar problem. I'm using Affinity Designer customer beta 1.7.0.4 on an iMac. When I selected a text background color by picking a swatch that appeared to be white, it showed up on my monitor as a cream color. After reading the above detailed suggestions (thanks!), most of my settings were the same as the above screen captures. However, I clicked on the menu item File and then selected Document Setup. The first item, Type, was set to Print and in the image above it showed as Web. So I changed mine to Web. That seemed to do the trick. There's another factor here also. I found that the layer I thought was on top, wasn't. That wouldn't affect the background color, but it did affect whether or not the white background color "blotted out" the portion of the element beneath it. Straightening that out helped in another instance.

Thanks for the answers, will work on remembering this. How do I get rid of the pixel mask? Will start from scratch on 2nd floor drawing...

I'm a new-ish Affinity Designer user, and I love it! But I need help sorting out some mysteries, as described below. I've attached my file, "house plat 1st floor". On my house plan, there's an odd section in the upper outline, in the heavier line above and to the right of the label "David's kitchen". What's going on? I tried a couple things to fix it, but was unsuccessful. In some places the heavier outline is straight, and in others it's more "freehand" looking. I'm gradually getting more control over drawing lines, but are there any tips on how to always have straight lines when you want them? And finally... Since the building is bilaterally symmetrical, I drew the rooms on the right side. Then I copied the right side, pasted, flipped the pasted image, and lined it up to match the right side. Voila! Rooms now appear on the left side also. But now I'm getting odd behavior because half of the artboard seems to have cloned itself, which I didn't expect. Is there any way to fix this? I was assuming the artboard was just the workspace, but maybe it's something else? That's enough for now. TIA for any advice. [Note: I worked on this file in the Affinity Designer 1.7 customer beta. I posted these questions here b/c I don't think they're beta-related, but feel free to move the post if I'm mistaken.] house plat 1st floor.afdesign

Aha! Yes, I have purchased and am using Affinity Designer. Rummaged for my original product key, plugged it in, the beta is now up & running. Thanks so much for your help.

Dear MEB, Thanks for the link, I was able to download & install the Designer Customer Beta (1.7.0.4) for Mac. However, when I went to open it, I got the following message: "To participate in the beta you need to install Affinity Designer Beta from the Mac App Store, or have a valid product key." The Mac App Store has the regular release, but not the beta. Do I need a product key, and if so, where might I find one? TIA for your assistance.

Hokusai, thank you for mentioning that the function is available in the latest Designer Beta. However, when I look at the website, I see the Publisher Beta but no mention of a Designer Beta. Do you know how I could access & download a Designer beta? TIA for any info.