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Hi all,
I'm considering buying Designer but one thing that I can't find is if there is a way to fill an object using vector or patterns. I only find gradients and bitmap.
I know we can duplicate an object to create hand made pattern but I can't then edit the repetitions like if is a bitmap fill.
Cheers,
Juan

Hi All,
When much of the world went into lockdown last year we put a few things in place to try to offer some support to the creative community. In the big scheme of things they were fairly small gestures I guess, but we were quite overwhelmed by the positive feedback we received about it.
In particular the 90-day trial of all our apps provided a big help for people who may have lost access to their normal tools through their work or university, and offering a deep 50% discount on our apps was also greatly appreciated.
We reverted back to our normal trial length and pricing as those initial restrictions eased and the situation felt like it was improving. However here in the UK we are back in full national lockdown and in many countries restrictions are tight and livelihoods continue being severely affected as we deal with the second wave of this virus. For that reason, we have decided to re-introduce both our 90-day trial and 50% discount on all our apps and digital content (unfortunately the relatively small margins we have on workbooks means we cannot offer the discount on those). We have also reset the 90-day trial so anyone who took advantage of it before can do so again.
The thoughts of all of us at Serif remain with everyone affected by this crisis and we wish you all the best.
Ash

Hi all,
I'm considering buying Designer but one thing that I can't find is if there is a way to fill an object using vector or patterns. I only find gradients and bitmap.
I know we can duplicate an object to create hand made pattern but I can't then edit the repetitions like if is a bitmap fill.
Cheers,
Juan

Added Mitre Limit to Contour Tool I praised Serif for repairing the Contour Tool. It really works well in this beta. Although I still miss the option scale with object. Please add this button and it will be really fun. This option is also missing from the Corner Tool.

From 3 pm GMT on Thursday 24th December 2020 until 9 am GMT Monday 4th January 2021 the Serif company is officially closed. There will be some light coverage of the support channels during these 12 days, but most staff are taking time off whilst the offices are closed. Customer Service and Technical Support tickets will take priority and queries about bugs and beta builds will be picked up in the New Year. Unusually, the way the year has panned out a number of staff have not been on holiday for obvious reasons so some are also taking annual holiday now before this company closure, and so it is fair to say that from this week there will be fewer staff here on the forums. 
Please bear with us if you contact us during this time and potentially for a short time after the annual closure, whist we deal with any backlog.
Thank you in advance for your patience and we will make every effort to address your queries in the shortest time-frame possible.

Hi all,
I'm considering buying Designer but one thing that I can't find is if there is a way to fill an object using vector or patterns. I only find gradients and bitmap.
I know we can duplicate an object to create hand made pattern but I can't then edit the repetitions like if is a bitmap fill.
Cheers,
Juan

I open DXF in PhotoLine and save it in some other format that Designer can open.

There IS a workaround however I add my voice to getting a colour range selection tool too as I know that Serif would make an awesome one.
What you can do is a little long-winded but can work well.
1) Duplicate (Apple / Command J) the layer you're wanting to make a selection on.
2) Add an HSL adjustment layer to the newly copied layer.
3) Use the tools in there to select the colour range you want.
4) Change the colour using the Hue Shift and Saturation Shift sliders radically!
When you have a good 'selection' change this layers blending mode to Difference.
Add Black & White and Levels adjustment layers above those two layers and adjust so you get closer to the result you're after. You can then use Edit->Copy Merged then Edit->Paste to get one pixel layer with everything in and then use the paint brush in overlay mode to help speed things up there a bit.
You should then end up with a black and white image which you can use as a mask for your image.
I know, I know, a fairly convoluted process for something which would be great if it were built-in so hopefully Serif will add something like this in the future. Would definitely be greatly appreciated.
Hope that helps a bit in the meantime though. Once you have done it a few times then it's a fairly quick process.
Best wishes,
Mark
 

I use the Select Color Range tool in PS almost daily.  The limitations in the AP Select Sampled Color tool makes it frustratingly useless in my applications. I would like these features added:
Add or subtract from selection with additional clicks on the image.
Additional options for viewing selection beyond marching ants, e.g., overlay, black on white, etc.

I open DXF in PhotoLine and save it in some other format that Designer can open.

Hi MEB,
Thank you for your reply. Although symbols are a very powerful feature is not what I would need to accomplish the task.
I work as 3D visualizer and sometimes I get from clients ready render where I need to put e.g. on a wall lines simulating wood panels, and here I would need a vector fill with the ability to change the size exactly like the Bitmap in the fill tool behave. I'm aware of the Procedural texture available in Photo beta, but I would love to have the vector power of that feature over Designer.
PhotoLine has this feature where the user can add/create any pattern and the objects will fill with it in a extremely easy way. Maybe it worth for you to check it out, because I'm an Serif products sucker
Could this topic be moved to feature request?

Hi all,
I'm considering buying Designer but one thing that I can't find is if there is a way to fill an object using vector or patterns. I only find gradients and bitmap.
I know we can duplicate an object to create hand made pattern but I can't then edit the repetitions like if is a bitmap fill.
Cheers,
Juan

Hi MEB,
Thank you for your reply. Although symbols are a very powerful feature is not what I would need to accomplish the task.
I work as 3D visualizer and sometimes I get from clients ready render where I need to put e.g. on a wall lines simulating wood panels, and here I would need a vector fill with the ability to change the size exactly like the Bitmap in the fill tool behave. I'm aware of the Procedural texture available in Photo beta, but I would love to have the vector power of that feature over Designer.
PhotoLine has this feature where the user can add/create any pattern and the objects will fill with it in a extremely easy way. Maybe it worth for you to check it out, because I'm an Serif products sucker
Could this topic be moved to feature request?

Click here to download the latest beta
Status: Customer Beta
Purpose: Features, Improvements, Fixes
Requirements: A valid product key (for Affinity Store purchases), or an installation of the full retail version from the Microsoft Store

As this is a beta it is 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, including the total loss of any documents. We hope you enjoy the latest build, and as always, if you've got any problems, please don't hesitate to post a new thread in this forum and we'll get back to you as soon as we can. Thanks once again for your continued feedback. 

If you have a general question about the software, please head over to the Questions Forum, or if you have any suggestions, please head over to the Feature Requests forum.
Changes
Added missing "My account" button Added new samples to the welcome screen Added anti-aliasing blend option  Added "Find in Layers Panel" menu item Changed default for "Show Selection in Layers Panel" to be on (and renamed to "Auto-scroll to show selection in Layers Panel") Fixed incorrect attribute bits in exported 32-bit TGA Allow downloads to be cancelled, and changed auto-download to be off by default Fixed PDF export converting RGB bitmaps to CMYK if the original document had the bitmap's working profile Improved PDF import of tinted colour comparison for registration colours Improved Assets drag and drop from Explorer Added Ctrl+RightMouse to display tree of objects Improved ABR import 1.9.0.852 release notes

Click here to download the latest beta
Status: Customer Beta
Purpose: New features, performance, fixes
Requirements: A valid product key (for Affinity Store purchases), or an installation of the full retail version from the Microsoft Store

As this is a beta it is 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, including the total loss of any documents. We hope you enjoy the latest build, and as always, if you've got any problems, please don't hesitate to post a new thread in this forum and we'll get back to you as soon as we can. Thanks once again for your continued feedback. 

If you have a general question about the software, please head over to the Questions Forum, or if you have any suggestions, please head over to the Feature Requests forum.
Changes
Fixed Ctrl Reset not removing Assets  Fixed crash when editing a macro with no document open Added Combined Raster & Vector benchmark  Added placement policy Added missing baseline menu options Fixed blending issues with Live Filters Added support for 12bit mono TIFFs Added Pattern Layers Added Live Liquify Fixed pressing Backspace during Freehand Selection Tool (Polygonal mode) deleting the layer, rather than the last node Fixed Develop Persona Crop Tool rotation producing artifacts Fixed Focus Merge always creating 96DPI documents (now uses DPI and metadata from first source image) Fixed Live Projection artifacts in 32-bit documents Fixed cancelling Crop Tool not doing anything Added anti-aliasing blend option  Added "Find in Layers Panel" menu item Changed default for "Show Selection in Layers Panel" to be on (and renamed to "Auto-scroll to show selection in Layers Panel") Fixed incorrect attribute bits in exported 32-bit TGA Allow downloads to be cancelled, and changed auto-download to be off by default Fixed PDF export converting RGB bitmaps to CMYK if the original document had the bitmap's working profile Improved PDF import of tinted colour comparison for registration colours Improved Assets drag and drop from Explorer Added Ctrl+RightMouse to display tree of objects Improved ABR import 1.9.0.852 release notes

The stock panel is nice but I often face difficulty judging the photo in smaller size. 

Further to the last screen recording, thought I'd do another detailing symbols placed inside a data merge layout to simulate vector patterns - for me, it's loads more powerful than the new pattern in photo as I like to work with vectors (although I've not used the very latest beta yet) it also works with photos and brushes
Screen_Grab_2020-11-26_at_09_06_41.mov

Jowday, it looks like a similar technical issue ... but we also should discuss your photopgraphy topics 🙂 (LMAO)

Sorry David P I posted the wrong link at the beginning of my post about the technique - here is the link that features a couple of screen captures which explain how to setup the data merge cells and the work around for drawing overlaps: 
I realised in the above links I have guides switched off which makes it a little harder to illustrate the technique, so I've just done another grab 
Screen_Grab_2020-11-16_at_14_30_24.mov

Click here to download the latest beta
Status: Customer Beta
Purpose: Features, Improvements, Fixes
Requirements: A valid product key (for Affinity Store purchases), or an installation of the full retail version from the Microsoft Store

As this is a beta it is 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, including the total loss of any documents. We hope you enjoy the latest build, and as always, if you've got any problems, please don't hesitate to post a new thread in this forum and we'll get back to you as soon as we can. Thanks once again for your continued feedback. 

If you have a general question about the software, please head over to the Questions Forum, or if you have any suggestions, please head over to the Feature Requests forum.
Changes
Improvements to Affinity store registration and download Fixed crash when quitting the app from the Enter Product Key dialog Add auto-updating linked resources Opening a template from File>Open or Drag and drop will now open it as untitled Fixed Filter Effect dialog to enable the use of Global Colours Fixed crash during raster brushing with hardware acceleration enabled Fixed crash when starting a document with hardware acceleration enabled, but with unsupported GPU Fixed New Document Dialog to prevent multiple selections in Presets 1.9.0.834 release notes

Click here to download the latest beta
Status: Customer Beta
Purpose: New features, performance, fixes
Requirements: A valid product key (for Affinity Store purchases), or an installation of the full retail version from the Microsoft Store

As this is a beta it is 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, including the total loss of any documents. We hope you enjoy the latest build, and as always, if you've got any problems, please don't hesitate to post a new thread in this forum and we'll get back to you as soon as we can. Thanks once again for your continued feedback. 

If you have a general question about the software, please head over to the Questions Forum, or if you have any suggestions, please head over to the Feature Requests forum.
Changes
Fixed Develop Persona Overlay Paint Brush not accumulating Improved colours in EOS R5 CR3 files Changed Adjustments panel LUT category to be displayed in list mode Fixed Adjustments panel right click not showing cell selection highlight Improvements to Affinity store registration and download Fixed crash when quitting the app from the Enter Product Key dialog  Add auto-updating linked resources Opening a template from File>Open or Drag and drop will now open it as untitled Fixed Filter Effect dialog to enable the use of Global Colours Fixed crash during raster brushing with hardware acceleration enabled Fixed crash when starting a document with hardware acceleration enabled, but with unsupported GPU Fixed New Document Dialog to prevent multiple selections in Presets 1.9.0.834 release notes

Click here to download the latest beta
Status: Customer Beta
Purpose: Features, Improvements, Fixes
Requirements: A valid product key (for Affinity Store purchases), or an installation of the full retail version from the Microsoft Store

As this is a beta it is 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, including the total loss of any documents. We hope you enjoy the latest build, and as always, if you've got any problems, please don't hesitate to post a new thread in this forum and we'll get back to you as soon as we can. Thanks once again for your continued feedback. 

If you have a general question about the software, please head over to the Questions Forum, or if you have any suggestions, please head over to the Feature Requests forum.
Changes
Enable hardware by default, but restrict it to Windows 10.0.19041 (May 2020), and GPUs that support Direct3D 12 Feature Level 12.0 and above (see https://affin.co/WinGPU for further information). Added Save as Package Added ability to open package files Improvements to application registration and content syncing Improved Studio Presets management Fixed import of some PSD files ignoring the alpha channel Fixed ALT+MouseWheel causing the menubar to highlight Fixed crash when resizing canvas  Fixed Alignment toolbar buttons always being disabled Fixed several bugs relating to using pixel layers as children in symbols 1.9.0.820 release notes

Click here to download the latest beta
Status: Customer Beta
Purpose: New features, performance, fixes
Requirements: A valid product key (for Affinity Store purchases), or an installation of the full retail version from the Microsoft Store

As this is a beta it is 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, including the total loss of any documents. We hope you enjoy the latest build, and as always, if you've got any problems, please don't hesitate to post a new thread in this forum and we'll get back to you as soon as we can. Thanks once again for your continued feedback. 

If you have a general question about the software, please head over to the Questions Forum, or if you have any suggestions, please head over to the Feature Requests forum.
Changes
Enable hardware by default, but restrict it to Windows 10.0.19041 (May 2020), and GPUs that support Direct3D 12 Feature Level 12.0 and above (see https://affin.co/WinGPU for further information). Fixed crash when resizing canvas or applying a crop Added ability to open package files Improvements to application registration and content syncing Improved Studio Presets management Fixed import of some PSD files ignoring the alpha channel Fixed ALT+MouseWheel causing the menubar to highlight Fixed crash when resizing canvas  Fixed Alignment toolbar buttons always being disabled 1.9.0.820 release notes

Ha! I was talking about mesh warps with Ash yesterday! We'll see....

Click here to download the latest beta
Status: Customer Beta
Purpose: New features, performance, fixes
Requirements: A valid product key (for Affinity Store purchases), or an installation of the full retail version from the Microsoft Store

As this is a beta it is 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, including the total loss of any documents. We hope you enjoy the latest build, and as always, if you've got any problems, please don't hesitate to post a new thread in this forum and we'll get back to you as soon as we can. Thanks once again for your continued feedback. 

If you have a general question about the software, please head over to the Questions Forum, or if you have any suggestions, please head over to the Feature Requests forum.
Fixes
Added initial support for hardware acceleration (must be enabled in Preferences | Performance, "Enable OpenCL compute acceleration") Added benchmark capability (Help | Benchmark) Added Text on Path Added more filter support for masks / adjustments / spare channels (Add Noise, Perlin Noise, etc.) Added ability to edit a spare channel in the Channels panel to edit it like a layer (single click the channel) Improved Blend modes to work on “alpha only” layers (masks, adjustments, live filters, etc.) Added a new Divide blend mode Added "Create from centre" for the Elliptical Marquee tool Added ability to snap to the bounds of the pixel selection Added ability to create brushes from the current pixel selection with one click 1.8.5.703 release notes