a small feature request [Stroke Selection]

[Tanner4500]

First off, Affinity is a stellar piece of kit. I am a very satisfied customer. However there is a small oversight that is really strange and I think should be fixed. 

So, I checked the help section, which was incredibly useful and very well designed, lovely experience. and I couldn't find any way to add strokes to selections. This seems like a really weird oversight. Krita and Medibang can do this, photoshop can, and so can gimp, but Affinity can't and that does sour the experience in an otherwise fantastic piece of software. I hope this feature is added to affinity photo in the near future. the selection tools available are nothing short of spectacular, so it seems strange that there is no option to add a stroke with a pixel line or a current brush when everything else is really good. 

I am doing this on 2 fold: 1 I wanna help affinity as much as I am able, especially since its a reasonably priced 1 off payment. 2 I don't want myself or those who have similar opposition to adobe as i do, come crawling back to photoshop. 

I will continue to explore this app and report my findings and thoughts here to help the devs keep this tool awesome for everyone who uses it. Will also be down in the future to keep buying software from you guys should you continue to take a stab at adobe. I'll be happy to give money and feedback. Photo is such an incredible piece of kit, and I want to help make sure that everyone who needs it doesn't have to crawl back to adobe over some silly trifles. I will gladly give some of my time to the devs of photo if they want me to test the implementation of this.

Have a nice day everyone.

[fde101]

I think what you are asking for is the ability to create a shape from the selection, so that a stroke can be applied?

I believe that has been requested before and is something that was being looked into, it probably just hasn't been a high priority yet.

In the meantime, depending on what you actually need to accomplish, you could try using Select -> Outline to convert the selection to a selection of the area to be stroked, then Layer -> New Fill Layer to create a layer from that selection which a color can be applied to using the Color panel.  This might not be exactly what you are asking for, but depending on what you are trying to do, it might be a workable solution in the interim.

[gafvert]

I've also requested this, and it's been discussed in the thread Stroke a selection. While creating a shape from a pixel selection and then be able to use that for stroke sounds nice, it also sounds complicated to implement and difficult to get right. What I, and I think @Tanner4500 above would like is just a one step tool to add a stroke to an existing pixel selection, like what's available in other image editors. In other words without changing the selection to selecting an outline and then flood filling it as you need to do now.

 

[Moira]

Sent from here, adding my voice to nth this request.

[Fixx]

If you do not need vector outline (which is not basic feature anyway) you can use outline effect for the layer.

[gunda]

Another vote for this feature request.

[bhurd]

I would like to see the fill and stroke feature  like photoshop in Affinity Photo. I have spent a couple of hours trying to find "stroke" and looked for convert selection to path.

I see there are mentions of work arounds that would be nice to have as video tutorials.  A little hard to follow for a new user. I'm not the only one who would be delighted to see a step by step procedure. 

[gunda]

12 hours ago, bhurd said:

I would like to see the fill and stroke feature  like photoshop in Affinity Photo. I have spent a couple of hours trying to find "stroke" and looked for convert selection to path.

I see there are mentions of work arounds that would be nice to have as video tutorials.  A little hard to follow for a new user. I'm not the only one who would be delighted to see a step by step procedure. 

Speaking as another new user who went looking for this, the other posters who suggested outline are correct for a basic stroke:

1. make your selection.

2. from the select menu, choose the second to bottom option, outline.

3. select a non-zero radius to set the stroke thickness, and select inside, outside or centre, as you would in Photoshop edit | stroke

4.  choose the flood fill tool and choose your colour from the swatches tab

5.  Click inside the selection.  You may need to create a pixel layer if you don't have one already selected or if you want the stroke on a separate layer.  If the stroke is very narrow, you may need to zoom-in in order to use the flood fill tool.

Certainly do-able, but an edit | stroke command would be more efficient and also useful to ease the transition from PS.

[PeterinJapan]

@gunda Thanks, this worked as a good enough workaround for me

[ajahn]

Another vote for this feature request.

[— Miriam]

I am working in Affinity Photo for iPad. I don't see the menu options mentioned above. (Maybe it's a difference between the desktop version & the iPad version.) I would like to see a tool for creating a stroke from a selection as well, preferably for both the desktop & the ipad version.

[Palh]

Glad I didn't fork out a lot of money for Affinity Photo no Stroke feature had I know I would have not have purchased.