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Posted

I'm trial testing AD and not finding a tool or function that's in Adobe Illustrator that I use a lot.  Think it's just called Trace tool, but will create vector lines & shapes from raster images, using a parameters UI to set # of colors, curve quality, etc.

Is that something AD can do? If so, what is it called in AD & where do I find info?

Posted

One have to take some third party tool for tracing here, like for example:

☛ Affinity Designer 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Photo 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 ◆ OSX El Capitan
☛ Affinity V2.3 apps ◆ MacOS Sonoma 14.2 ◆ iPad OS 17.2

  • 3 months later...
Posted
On 12/24/2019 at 1:27 PM, v_kyr said:

One have to take some third party tool for tracing here,

And of course, Serif DrawPlus.  That feature has been in DrawPlus for perhaps a decade.  I just purchased Affinity Photo and Designer today and was really surprised to not find tracing in the product considering Serif already had a pretty effective set of code for that.  But I guess it will be brought forward at some point.

Posted
1 hour ago, Studio55 said:

I just purchased Affinity Photo and Designer today and was really surprised to not find tracing in the product considering Serif already had a pretty effective set of code for that. 

The Affinity code was written from scratch, starting with a 'blank slate' approach that reused none of the code of the older Serif apps. This was done for several reasons, one of which was to make it possible to use the same core code for Mac, iPadOS, & Windows versions of the Affinity apps. Another was to support a single unified native file format that all the apps in the Affinity suite could open & edit without any conversion or data loss.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.5.7 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
A
ll 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

Posted
47 minutes ago, R C-R said:

The Affinity code was written from scratch, starting with a 'blank slate' approach that reused none of the code of the older Serif apps. This was done for several reasons, one of which was to make it possible to use the same core code for Mac, iPadOS, & Windows versions of the Affinity apps. Another was to support a single unified native file format that all the apps in the Affinity suite could open & edit without any conversion or data loss.

None? It is a miracle then that the JPG output from the Affinity line is exactly the same as from the Serif Plus programs - and exactly as bad. No improvement there - just disappointment after the hype and inflated marketing.

A blank slate of architecture - yes - but in many places same algorithms - equally slow, equally inferior. JPG output, unsharp mask, noise reduction. Slow and inferior compared to the competition. Dated open source code under the hood. And lets not get started on RAW conversions.

Serif started from scratch after working for 15? 20? years on the Plus line - now targeting three platforms (Win, OS X, iOS) with a small crew. You will wait for a very long time for the features you had in the Plus line @Studio55 @Ma3rk

  • "The user interface is supposed to work for me - I am not supposed to work for the user interface."
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  • Not an Affinity user og forum user anymore. The software continued to disappoint and not deliver.
Posted

... and how does that 'splain that Designer STILL doesn't have that basic tool that I've had since Adobe Illustrator CS6?

Come on Affinity!  That was the deal killer for a sale.

Posted

Actually, there was Live Trace in CS2 and beyond before being superseded in CS6 with Image Trace.

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Posted
5 hours ago, Jowday said:

Serif started from scratch after working for 15? 20? years on the Plus line - now targeting three platforms (Win, OS X, iOS) with a small crew. You will wait for a very long time for the features you had in the Plus line @Studio55 @Ma3rk

And you will have to wait forever for cross platform compatibility or a universal native file format in the Plus line.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.5.7 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
A
ll 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

Posted
20 hours ago, Studio55 said:

And of course, Serif DrawPlus.  That feature has been in DrawPlus for perhaps a decade.  I just purchased Affinity Photo and Designer today and was really surprised to not find tracing in the product considering Serif already had a pretty effective set of code for that.  But I guess it will be brought forward at some point.

Never really used DrawPlus, thus can't tell if the tracing facilities which that software offered were here exceptional good or not at all. However at least it offered to have some tracing capabilities. - Other than that, there are a bunch of tracing apps (also some opensource/freeware ones) where some of them partly produce quite good results. - Code wise it wouldn't be that difficult to adapt/convert/take over previous tracing algorithms, as far as the effort is worth it, meaning here in terms of what tracing quality results it produces then. Actually and AFAIK mostly all the better tracing algorithms code (even for opensource like Potrace etc.) have to be licened for usage in the commercial fields.

☛ Affinity Designer 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Photo 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 ◆ OSX El Capitan
☛ Affinity V2.3 apps ◆ MacOS Sonoma 14.2 ◆ iPad OS 17.2

Posted
2 hours ago, v_kyr said:

Never really used DrawPlus, thus can't tell if the tracing facilities which that software offered were here exceptional good or not at all.

I'm not well versed in the other programs, so I can't say how close DrawPlus was to the stat of the art.  My guess is not so close.  It seems to me that I ended up with what I wanted about 70% of the time, which is something, but not great.

Posted
17 hours ago, firstdefence said:

Actually, there was Live Trace in CS2 and beyond before being superseded in CS6 with Image Trace.

And before that, Streamline, a separate utility that in many/most respects was better than what made it into AI.

2 hours ago, v_kyr said:

Never really used DrawPlus, thus can't tell if the tracing facilities which that software offered were here exceptional good or not at all. ...

8 minutes ago, Studio55 said:

I'm not well versed in the other programs, so I can't say how close DrawPlus was to the stat of the art.  My guess is not so close.  It seems to me that I ended up with what I wanted about 70% of the time, which is something, but not great.

I've had best most consistent results when using Vector Magic at a job I once had. Apart from that application, I found no one application with a tracing utility ever did all images best. So if one mucked it up after trying, I would try the image in another. My results in DP never hit a 70% good result. AI did better for many, CD certain of those that AI didn't handle well, Potrace for a decent job on yet others. But DP did do a good job on images that oft times I couldn't get acceptable results with the others.

For AD, unless/until certain Select By features are also integrated, a tracing feature would be, to me, a useless addition.

 

Posted
1 hour ago, MikeW said:

My results in DP never hit a 70% good result.

I'm not an artist by any definition of the word.  My demands are probably a lot lower than most people here.

Posted
21 minutes ago, Studio55 said:

I'm not an artist by any definition of the word. ...

Gosh, me either!

My usage of tracing is typically for enlarging enough for usage on large format printing. And I'll only use tracing if I cannot enlarge an image using various image enlargement applications.

Me? I consider myself a competent mechanic. 

Posted

I remember Streamline. 😌

Just now had to return to my old and trusted AI CS5 to use the great Live Trace feature with tweakable presets. Thought I'd be migrating to the Catalina OS and 100% Affinity Suite by now. I'll try out one of the third party tools before I totally let AI go. Affinity: please make this an upgrade feature soon.

 

  • 1 month later...
Posted (edited)

Guys. You have to have a trace tool soon. It's embarrassing. Why should I go to a third party tool, when most (even freeware) vector software has had this function for some years. It's a deal killer for some and it doesn't help when people are being pushed to other apps such as Inkscape, which is excellent within itself and could lead to potential customers wondering if they even need AD. I love your software and am loyal to it, but the lack of a trace tool leaves me scratching my head.

Edited by Richard127
  • 8 months later...
Posted

Hi there, I unshackled meself from Adobe's CS, I also have used Coreldraw a lot. The vector effect is one that I use a lot and vector handling I find more intuitive and unparalleled in Corel. Having gotten the Affinity suite I was really hoping to leave software hopping for individual features behind. Sad to say but I find it somewhat disappointing Affinity designer has no trace/vectorize feature built in.

Hope the guys and gals at affinity will get round to adding one in the foreseeable future. would be a very useful addition to a solid application

 

  • 3 weeks later...
Posted

Ive just purchased AD as my AI subscription was coming to an end but am very disappointed there is no trace option - hopefully this will be resolved soon

Posted

I use Inkscape if I need to trace, and it's completely free. Does a good job, but would prefer if it was native to Affinity products. I'm sure it's on their list of things to do.

Anyone form Serif got a comment about this, as it's a deal breaker for a lot of people?

  • 10 months later...
Posted

Most of the time I don't need, which makes it even worse to find a workaround in those rare occasions. This shouldn't be so hard to implement!

Posted
1 hour ago, 1GR3 said:

which makes it even worse to find a workaround in those rare occasions.

For example:

 

Affinity Store (MSI/EXE): Affinity Suite (ADe, APh, APu) 2.5.7.2948 (Retail)
Dell OptiPlex 7060, i5-8500 3.00 GHz, 16 GB, Intel UHD Graphics 630, Dell P2417H 1920 x 1080, Windows 11 Pro, Version 24H2, Build 26100.2605.
Dell Latitude E5570, i5-6440HQ 2.60 GHz, 8 GB, Intel HD Graphics 530, 1920 x 1080, Windows 11 Pro, Version 24H2, Build 26100.2605.
Intel NUC5PGYH, Pentium N3700 2.40 GHz, 8 GB, Intel HD Graphics, EIZO EV2456 1920 x 1200, Windows 10 Pro, Version 21H1, Build 19043.2130.

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