Dazmondo77

Lagarto, I will try that next time.

I am not knocking Affinity products. I actually have found them quite useful, and they do things that I could never get done otherwise with ID/AI.... but some of the things that should be straight forward are not.

I think what I will do next time is make duplicate copies, I think it really gets hung up on multiple copies of a pdf in a document.

Thanks for all the input. 

I am optimistic and I think they will get it done at some point. Good thing is they aren't even in the radar of most printshops/design houses so they can mature the product some more. I used ID 1, 1.5
 

PDFs come from everywhere in my shop. I need to be able to make folding panels go quickly, next job is on deck! 

Here is the thing, it's a great tool, if they get these small things ironed out, it's gonna be a dragon slayer, and I want it to work. I have a job that is a two (2) color item, done in Illustrator, never to do size with bleed always has to be fit in. I would spend a lot of time fixing it in Acrobat/Illustrator/ID. I get it done in a few minutes now... It's a great program.

@lenogre I agree. I've put a lot more attention and focus on learning and testing vectorstyler the last year. They have the crucial features missing in affinity designer and have been more responsive to input and frequently release updates. Where vectorstyler is lacking, affinity offers enough to make designer and vectorstyler a solid one two punch that can replace illustrator. I still want to see affinity take over and do well

Missing features are in VectorStyler, the best companion of Affinity Designer.

It may be that the contour tool isn't showing up in your tools panel, which I though was a bug exclusive to Mojave. if that's the case, you'll need to add it manually (like I did) go to main menu - View - near to the bottom - Customise Tools - and add the missing Contour tool
 

Yes VectorStyler does have a clunky user experience, but I've had nearly seven years of workarounds with Designer, just to do taken for granted stuff that was standard 25 years ago in Freehand - I've already used Vectorstyler on a few Vector jobs then got them into publisher for output - I'd love to be able to work solely in Affinity but we may never get these missing basics and VectorStyler has a near complete toolset, I don't want to use it, but I don't want to wait another seven years before Serif lets us know where it's heading

I started with Freehand 7 in 96 which did everything I needed it to 25 years ago, and back in 2014 saw Designer as a shining light as it showed so much promise, looking at all the missing basics planned back then, I thought within a couple of years I'd at least get similar basic functionality as freehand - now we're approaching 7 years from release and I just want to get work done, which is ultra frustrating as Designer is a brilliant beast - brilliant we recently got select same and contour tool but it took 6 years - 
Now at the point - wish someone could find the grave of Freehand and do a super Frankenstein job on it (no subscription)- massive shame Adobe got it hands on it.
Yes I know missing basic features aren't everything, you only have to use VectorStyler to realise how good the Affinity user interface is, I'm just tired of the workarounds on workarounds to get functionality I was getting 25 years ago with Freehand
Also some of us need to print CMYK to CMYK devices!?!?!? 
(Vincent Price type voice) 'O' RISE GREAT FREEHAND' 
Moan moan eff-in moan😕
Sorry guys woke in a mood realise the team are doing all they can to achieve - just getting stuff off my chest

Damn right
But seven years is a long time to tolerate temporary workarounds especially when in 1.9 those workarounds now need further workarounds because of a recent colour bug....
Moan moan waffle blah......😶

Whoa! Problem solved. And yes I agree it could be simplified. But now that I understand the process I am loving it.
Huge thanks to Lagarto, Dazmondo77 and thank you to everyone who contributed to this thread.
Converting a pixel layer to an image resource is something I would never have arrived at on my own. Thanks again!

My main way of doing this is to group the duplicated gaussian blur or item with outer shadow then set the group (which only contains the blur) to multiply and output  PDF/X-4 - the trick is that the item with FX always needs to be in a group for the multiply to the group to work correct as overprint - also important is with the drop shadow method is to click on the shadow colour in the outer shadow layer FX panel, and even if it's already set to 100% K, just move the slider a notch then back to 100% and you should notice the swatch change (see attached 1.58 in the timeline)
SpotShad.mov If for some reason this fails to work, my other workaround for this is now easier in 1.9 + which is to rasterise your gaussian blur or duplicated item with outer shadow, right click on the now rasterised shadow, and roll down to convert to image resource, now click on the 'K only' button which is now available then set to multiply, output  PDF/X-4

I can totally agree. It just makes sense. Another advantage of having this feature is that you can export individual pages as PDF's for the client to review or for the printer to print (some printers want individual pages, not spreads). If all 7 pages are on a single "page" as it has to be done currently in AP that is not possible.

Doing some more testing and experimenting with this. Posting here for possible insights and posterity.
Panel 1 is my Publisher file
Panel 2 is the spot color channel of the generated PDF
Panel 3 is that PDF opened in Designer, with the shadow components "pulled" to the right the show what has happened to them.
On Panel 2, you can see the obvious issue of the drop shadow knocking out the background rather than overprinting. Possible solutions are presented in the comments above and I've tried all with varying success.
On Panel 3 you can see some weird failures/successes. The most egregious to me is that a native AFPhoto file placed in what amounts to the same piece of software, produces the bizarre white box!
 

Hello Affinity.
 I would like to propose a new document grid. Is there a chance to add a perspective grid, making it easier to create drawings using perspective? This grid was introduced in ArtRage 5 and it is very useful.
For now, I created this grid by hand:  Designia_Perspective_Grid.afassets
 
Best Regards
 

 

 

 

 
 

I would add that it would be great if the grid parameters could be edited. This is how it looks in ArtRage, you can set the grid density, transparency, angle and convergent point of perspective.
 

 

Here is a quick example of using the proposed grid..      

Yeah it's cool example, perspective grid tool is very useful

So... How is this coming along? I have a drawing made in AD that combines and subtracts a couple of ellipses and has some outlines. It's been expanded twice. The result is thousands of nodes in the outside outline. Totally un-editable. Manual reduce is inefficient and often inaccurate.
I wonder how hard it is to add a reduce nodes feature. CorelDraw 3, about 25 years ago, did this quite well enough and had a slider to choose the reduction/accuracy ratio. It's been requested 6 years ago. Is it really that hard?
 
I can't fathom how anyone using lines can do without it...

It’s been almost 4 years now for what I would consider a basic but essential feature. Any update on this topic?

Totally agree. Love working in designer, but I have been waiting very patiently for some of these 'discussed' features for quite some time now (some from 2014- 2015). Especially some sort of vector non-destructive distortion tools especially for type and general vector distortion. I'm hoping that some of these much requested features will be part of the 2.0 lineup...

I agree! Puppet warp is basic function for complitly migrate from PH to AP.

Hi theste,
Welcome to Affinity Forums.
The brushes are still in development. Not all features are implemented yet. Just give us some time and we will get there :)

I know this was posted a while ago, but I have been thinking about it ever since and wanted to submit some kind of reply to it.
Firstly, I do thank you for the consideration of asking. As blatant as it may be, there is a modicum of respect in requesting charity, especially since there's a good chance that you've since acquired my work (and the work of others) for no cost anyway.
To answer your question, no, it wouldn't cost me much to hand over my work to you for free. However, I don't think, you've considered what it might cost you.
See, the one thing I can't build or sell is the same thing that actually makes my tools function- which is your effort.  Effort is the price of creativity, and one which cannot be acquire freely. My brushes will never make you good, creative, or produce successful work- that burden is entirely on you and your own tenacity.
Consider the insubstantial price of the brushes as a small ante on your willingness. Because I dare say, if the effort to cover that cost is too great...then the mountains you need to climb in a life of creative pursuit will be insurmountable.
I am certain this is not what you wanted to read, but I think it's more valuable than anything I can sell you. Know that if you do desire to climb those mountains, I am in your corner and rooting for you- I hope my tools can stand as a testament to that.
Regards,
-J

Yes. I would greatly need this too. I still use Adobe Acrobat Pro CS6 (Adobe Acrobat X 10.1.16) on a regular basis to analyse PDFs generated from Affinity products.
This is one of the reasons I'm stuck with macOS Mojave. Once I have to leave it behind I only can try to virtualise it (color management is no fun there) or buy the perpetual Adobe Acrobat licence 475 € +VAT or the Callas pdfToolbox 500 € +VAT (which provides the preflight engine for Adobe) 
Affinity generally generates better PDFs than Adobe, which is no excuse because half the problems are bigger ones if undetected.

The roadmap was great tool that gave hope and worked as a push for new users to invest time in learning the apps, with a future vision of a basic set of functions that would allow the ability to take a job from concept to completion - but another few months and it's seven years since Designers release and still the same void + workarounds - VectorStyler was released last week with a complete set of functions, (although not as pleasurable to use as Affinity) - I'm now seriously considering investing time in learning VS so I can just crack on with producing real vector artwork without a load of workarounds

Don't apologize for asking for these missing tools. They aren't features but rather expected basics.