Search the Community

Is it possible to use one of my pre-made gradients from the colour palette as a gradient map? I've tried clicking, dragging, everything I can think of; but I'm stuck with the three built in gradient maps or the option to make mine again from scratch. Any ideas?

Now that I have redone all of my styles to use editable gradients, I decided why not provide just the gradients used as a palette? So here you go. Hope you enjoy it. Find this and more at https://dscape-llc.com/affinity

Hi, I'm having troubles with a small design of mine. I want to apply a gradient fade (from both sides) on a text layer. I tried this method: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5TqqrC3AOY. It works quite well, I get my faded sides of the text. But unfortunately, the colors get gradually desaturated as well. I'm attaching a screenshot, where there are 2 layers visible. One with the fade (and desaturation problem) and the other as a reference. I tried rasterising the text and then the fade works fine, the colors are preserved. But I need to keep the text as a vector. Am I doing something wrong? Could I achieve this effect on a vector text without losing color information? Thanks for any tip or advice.

I was using the beta and was pretty happy until I started looking for frequently used features from Photoshop at work and GIMP at home. Here's stuff that's missing that would help with productivty: Precision guide-making. You have a "manager" that doesn't let you manage much. It'd be nice to be able to edit the exact position of those guides (Let's say I want to quickly set up guides at 25/50/75% in percent mode or just set specific pixel values to each). Even GIMP's got this! "Pattern" layer style is also quite handy for the same reason as the "Fill" layer. [Edit] Solved or has a workaround: Move selected option for the mouse cursor. It'd be nice to be able to tap a layer and then drag an object around without having stuff that's in the way get selected. PLEASE add the option. Ability to duplicate layers between open files (and in the same position if equal size). Ability to create new alpha channels. It's handy for selections or when 3D texturing to be able to use even the A in RGBA images (or in some special cases, remove one of the channels). "Solid color" layer style like in PS (easier to edit than filling a raster layer with color, plus you needn't worry about resizing). Hopefully none of these are repeats since I didn't see them on the list. Thanks for listening!

I will use this thread for all of my future feature requests, unless my requests fit in under an already posted thread, in which case I will post/reply to that thread. If you see any requests that have already been posted somewhere or are already being worked on, let me know and I will update this thread! Requests 2016-11-24 (Affinity 1.5.0.36): A fill/flood tool for the vector part of Affinity. Ex: If clicked on an empty canvas it would create a shape of the canvas with no stroke, only a fill with the currently selected color. Seems to be worked on already, according to the roadmap! A multi-select option when editing text An option in the snapping options to affect vertices as well. Ex: When you create a rectangle and then add a node in the middle on one side and slide it, that it could snap to the middle point between those two nodes. Another nice option would be if you could make vertices (and other objects as well), snap to the straight horizontal/vertical and all of the diagonal snaps without being relative to the starting-point. Also a mirror mode would be nice. It would be a mode that lets you affect two sides of an item at the same time. An option to alter the diagonal snapping angels. This option could be visible at all times for easy access or it could be implemented in the appropriate context sensitive menus. One could use presets or input directly with desired value. If dragging an object with nodes/handles, that there would be a node/handle snap option, so that when the nodes of the dragged object come near another object's node(s), that it snaps to it. Ability to mark/manipulate two or more node/vertex handles at the same time and maybe a way to copy a node's parameters and paste them? Option to resize UI elements and the layer thumbnails. Ex: Small, medium and large. The option could reside in the "Customize Toolbar" window. When dragging layers, it would be nice if you could hold a hotkey to have layers not wanting to be group, only arranged. Also, vice versa. When arranging layers, when dragged atop one another, that the layer beneath the "grabbed" layer gets highlighted and if released, grouped. A little more margin would be nice, so that you have more space where it would group it and you would have to go more to the "top" of the layer icon to have the grabbed layer be placed above it. I don't know if it is a bug or anything, but at the moment you can't resize panels vertically, only horizontally. If it's not a bug, I would find it nice to be able to do that, at least on the layers panel. An option to be able to merge vertices when on top of each other, but also expanding this feature to be able to merge vertices; to center, to horizontal/vertical center, to left/right diagonal center, to first/last selected etc. Expanded functionality for the "Arrange" tool so that it would work on vertices. That would make arranging vertices easier. Make so that the rotation center affects the flip horizontal and vertical actions, since right now it only affects rotation origin. When you choose "None" in the color-wheel panel, it would be nice if you could press the "None" button again to get the "deleted" color back. (Right now you can use "Ctrl+Z" to get "around" this, but if you only realize you want that previous color back later, after a lot of actions, then the previously mentioned method would be superb!) Having a "swap" button whenever there is a "fill/stroke" option, in the context sensitive menus so that you don't have to look for the color-wheel. Or have "X" key actually flip the colors, not just flip between what color is selected. Can be done with "Shift+X". This will flip the colors around. Slide vertices along path. Use "ESC" to deselect text bar/editing (Can be done by "Ctrl+D") A hotkey for deleting layers. Ex: Like when a layer is selected, pressing "DEL" would delete it. Perspective scaling and warping. Seems to be worked on already, according to the roadmap! When in any menu with many check-boxes, that you could hold "Ctrl" when clicking a box to uncheck everything but the checkbox you clicked. Could be nice for the layer panel and it's visibility toggles. A "focus" hotkey, maybe on "F". Ex: If something is selected and you press "F", the screen zooms in on it and fits it to the screen's width and height. If nothing selected and the user press's "F", it fits the canvas to the window screen. Can be done, somewhat, by double-clicking on the thumbnails of layers. Although I would still think a button would speed up workflow. A button that says "Assign" and "Cancel" when in the gradient menu, since right now if you go to the gradient menu you have to click/move the "midpoint" slider in order to assign the gradient to the selected object. If you just go to the gradient menu and click outside of menu it doesn't get assigned. Also a value to set the "hardness/softness" of the blend between both colors would be nice. An option/hotkey in the "Eyedropper" to be able to select single color or whole gradient. Automatically deselect the previously selected node in the pressure customization window so that the automatically selected node doesn't fly all over the place when you go in and try to select another node without thinking. More tools to customize pressure. Ex: Ability to enter x and y values for nodes, enabling/disabling node snapping. An option in the settings menu to be able to set whether all of the layers/slices should automatically be added/checked for export or not. This could also be remedied by the "hold a button to deselect all other check-boxes" feature suggested above. Object based gradient (linear). This is a big one, but the premise would be that you could have a linear gradient "follow" the "flow/direction" of an object by manually placing points on the object to assist Affinity in knowing the "flow/direction" that the gradient should go. It would be nice if Affinity could do some own calculations and perhaps automate the procedure, but that is only if it is possible. Some kind of command to open a "transform" box/controls around the currently selected objects/vertices at any time. This way you could manipulate a group of selected vertices in various ways. Convert "Stroke" to object/solid/fill. The program could do a trace around it or something. The use for this is that I sometimes find myself doing a shape with the "Pen Tool" using only stroke to get the shape I want since it is way easier, but then I realize that I have to go to long way around since you can't make your stroke into an object. Apparently, this is already possible by going "Layer>Expand Stroke" in the top menus with the stroke selected. Thanks to member "JotHa" for telling me! The "Outline" effect doesn't currently have an option to choose whether the edges of the outline should be hard/chiseled or rounded. Would be nice with a way to change this. Some controls/attribute windows that are a digits/values could have that if you hover your mouse over the attribute's name, the cursor would turn into two arrows pointing away from each other, and if you then proceed to hold down and drag with your mouse, you could adjust the value by dragging left or right instead of having to have a slider or manually enter different values for testing. Ex: "Dash width=1", if you placed your mouse over "Dash width" and dragged, the mouse cursor would turn into two arrows pointing away from each other and you could adjust the value by dragging left or right. The gradient swatches could be displayed on the swatches page as well as on the gradients page, since having to switch to swatches just to have access to the gradients feels slow. Snap to curve option. A checkbox that enables "Curve to Curve" snapping and then curves closest to each other would snap together. An option to cut with the following way. Select a "Cut Tool" and press node one and node 2. The program will now create a cut between these two nodes. An option would decide if, when the cut is done, if it makes a gap or not between the two now separate pieces. This or a hotkey where you just have to click somewhere on a path and Affinity would cut there. A "Studio" panel where you can save symbols for later use, so you don't have to have an Affinity file where you keep a bunch of symbols. This could be separate "Studio" or be implemented into the already existing "Studio>Symbols" panel. This way you would have icons/symbols that you want to use across multiple projects, close and convenient. It could be as simple as a folder where, when clicking a "Save Selected" button, Affinity would save the selected graphic and just read them from there, showing a small preview of the items in that folder. This would make for "easy" implementation of said function and would yield users easy access and editing of saved icons/symbols. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------If you like any of the suggestions made, you can use the poll at the top to vote for the feature that sounds the most interesting/fun/useful! Just click on the numbers that corresponds to the features that you want to vote for!

bggradient.afdesign Is it possible to export a gradient from an artboard to css? Would like to export that file as a gradient. Thanks

How do I edit my gradient applied to a mask with the gradient tool without it defaulting to the grey to white? If AD/AP would remember the gradients used would be good.

Hi, I encountered an error when trying to change either color for a gradient to transparent. Here are the reproduction steps: Create a new document Select the Gradient tool Click on the color picker in the menu bar Select the Gradient tab Click on color and select the transparency icon You'll get an unhandled exception error Affinity Designer for Windows version 1.5.0.39 (beta) running on Windows 8.1 If you have any questions, I'll be glad to answer them. Kind regards, Karel

Hi, I need a precise gradient in 32-bit mode, to go from left to right. (I use it as a texture in a game - the values control some math functions over time.) The "Noise" value is set to 0 (or so I guess, because there is no numerical input). Yet still there is a visible dither. I use version 1.5.0.35. Win 7 64-bit, NVidia GTX 760, newest drivers. Oskar gradient.afphoto

So far I like what AD has to offer. I primarily use CorelDraw and when I first saw AD way back when it was Mac only. I am glad to see the transition to Windows. Inital observations 1. Conical Gradient tool AWESEOME! CorelDraw has had this for as long as I can recall. illustrator is only a cumbersome work around 2. pen and line tools good but if I may suggest a change. In order to change the still I need to draw a line first then add style or line type...it should be if I select a tool type and be able to select object before I draw for example blur blur effect or bevel. This way I can see the effects right away and not have to stop edit then continue drawing. 3. combining object in Coreldraw and illustrator the order is first or last object select. AD has it bottom object only, would it be possible to change this to an active object like in illustrator or Coreldraw?

In build 1.5.0.37 (and in 1.5.0.35) the tooltip for the Gradient Tool is just 'Gradient' instead of 'Gradient Tool'. As a side note, the Context toolbar for the Gradient Tool is blank. Should there be other gradient types in addition to linear? The Fill Tool in AD has numerous options.

Hello, I can't seem to work out how to do this. I've limited experience with Affinity Photo, using it mostly for simple contrast and exposure adjustments. I'm sure I'm missing something obvious but can't figure out how to apply a simple ND Filter effect to an overexposed sky. Thanks!

Thank you for the surprisingly quick release of Photo Beta for Windows! I have a few questions / comments on RAW editing as a heavy user of Photoshop and its upstream ACR workspace. While I like that Serif actually chose a common interface for traditional photo-retouching / compositing as well as RAW developing there's also features I miss right away. Photoshop's RAW development allows for global editing of image properties – pretty much in the way the Develop Persona works. That way one can raise the exposure or increase contrast – changes do apply to the whole image. Apart from that one may use any combination of tools for non-destructive brush based operations, as well as graduated filters. The impact of any contributing tool may get changed at any point in time. Even after bringing the edited RAW image into the main PS application as a smart object and having worked for hours in a composition, one can still go back and each and any global, operation as well as brush based RAW operations are still Life. One at that point can even delete the original RAW file, as it has completely gotten embedded into the .psd. If so desired, one could strip out any changes and export to .dng again. The Affinity RAW editor seems not to have any of the tools I just described. Also, RAW development in Affinity seems to be understood as the first step in a linear stream of editing operations. One may of course re-enter the Develop workspace, but all tools have forgotten the settings one had dialed in initially. I wonder what your plans are in terms of RAW editing: Do you plan to keep Develop-setting Live? Is non-destructive brush / gradient-based editing with any combination of tools on the roadmap? I also wonder what happens if one uses a couple of RAW based images on a large Poster. In Photoshop one may use these images at their full size or as a thumbnail. But one can scale that thumbnail up again or paste it into a new file and raise the output size here. As the RAW information is encapsulated in the Smart Object one never loses resolution. Obviously one shouldn't go larger that the original RAW but for all smaller output sizes one can practically forget about resolution issues. Is there a similar solution inside Affinity Photo?

Hello, When I use the Gradient tool, I can not find the settings window. Where is it ? When I open the adjustment of the color palette, I can not paste a value from a right mouse click. Thanking you. Cordially

Hey there! Not sure if this may come in handy or much of use, but it would be a cool feature I haven’t seen in any other App so far (if there are any pleas tell me): I was creating these sort of vines for an illustration in Designer and I tried several ways to create this »overlapping« effect, simulating depth. The vines were created with a regular outline/stroke with some pressure simulation. I then started to destructively split the path into several segments and apply gradients on some parts and place other segments on top (see images, I think you see what I’m talking about). Problem here is it needs further adjustments, cause every time the stroke width is slightly changing – that’s when I came up with the idea of a gradient that follows the form and curves of a stroke from start to end. Not sure if something like this is even possible, but let me now what you think. :) Also if anyone has a more convenient way for something this without necessarily cutting or expanding the stroke – I’m listening. ;) Have a nice weekend Dennis

I find the tiny swatches for gradients almost completely useless for identifying them. Setting swatches to large helps this a little bit, but not a lot, and, because it is a global change, makes the main colour swatches very cumbersome and destroys the neat and logical columnar arrangement of the colours unless you drag the palette out very wide. I really think it would help if gradients had long horizontal swatches that really would give the user a chance to see the contents.

I watched the Affinity Photo tutorial for adding a graduated ND filter effect. The first process is to add a curves adjustment layer, change the curve and then add a gradient. That works fine, but assuming I've clicked away from that layer, how to I get back to be able reselect the gradient if I want to change it? I've tried simply selecting the curves layer and also re-selecting the gradient tool, but the handles for the gradient I applied are never shown again.

A request to add an option for cubic interpolation to AD's gradients.

I would like to be able to move the gradient and opacity gradient onscreen "stick". I keep having to redraw the gradient if it not right everytime. Thanks

Hi, it would save a lot of time if the layer fx "gradient overlay" AND outline ("Umrandung" - see 3rd attached image) would have the same functionality as "color overlay": the ability of choosing swatches - gradients in this case. For a vice versa functionality - see also: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/25422-how-to-get-a-color-gradient-from-layer-fx-into-swatchesgradients/ Thanks for taking your time and thinking about it, Stefan.

Hi, I am creating a flower with gradient petals and I am pulling up a default gradient that is not of my choosing. I am trying to make changes, but sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't and I'm stumped.waterlily:affinity.afdesign

Hi, In the develop persona there is a tool called overlay gradient tool. Does this tool not exist in photo persona? The reason I am asking is because some of my scans are in monochrome (no RGB), and the develop persona is not able to handle none RGB files. Which reminds me... is it possible to converse color profiles? Cheers Peter

Hi folks, How can I simply do this? GradientTool&Mask.mov It's an almost everytime needs for me when advance editing a photo :( Am I missing something? Thanks for your help.

Maybe I'm missing something but I don't see how to create a closed curve shape with the pen tool and then assign it a vertically oriented gradient (N.B. horizontal gradient works just fine). Is there something I'm missing? Or should this be an enhancement request? Michael http://www.jmichaelsullivan.com

Excuse me i don't know if it can be done in the windows version so i can't copy a gradient from an element to another, and i think the dropper tool is a bit hard to find and as said can't get the gradients. Pls give me a feedback.