Reassign embedded file?

[Tokamak]

I'm experimenting with using Designer to replace my photoshop workflow for laying out comics, and it's mostly going well. But there are a couple of things I do with Photoshop that I haven't figured out how to replicate. Yes, photoshop is the wrong tool to try to do comic layout, which is why I'm trying to switch to Designer instead.

In photoshop, I drag png files into the photoshop window, which creates "smart objects". Fine so far, that works the same.

But often after I have done a lot of layout and masking and other things, I need to replace the embedded image file with a newer version. In photoshop I can just right-click on the appropriate layer, and select "replace contents", which allows me to pick a new file to put into that container.

I can't find anything like that in Affinity Designer. Surely there must be some way?

I'd also settle for (and indeed prefer) a way to just link to my original image files instead of embedding them.

Can anyone point me in the right direction? I've tried some googling, but I seem to be searching for the wrong things, because I'm not finding anything apropos.

[Joachim_L]

6 hours ago, Tokamak said:

I can't find anything like that in Affinity Designer. Surely there must be some way?

Welcome to the forums. You can replace the image by clicking on it and hitting the "Replace image" button in the upper toolbar.

6 hours ago, Tokamak said:

I'd also settle for (and indeed prefer) a way to just link to my original image files instead of embedding them.

This is an APublisher only feature. Of course you can trick around by "Edit in Publisher", turning embedded to linked and then "Edit in Designer" again. But I don't think this way was intended by the developers.

[Tokamak]

7 minutes ago, Joachim_L said:

Welcome to the forums. You can replace the image by clicking on it and hitting the "Replace image" button in the upper toolbar.

This is an APublisher only feature. Of course you can trick around by "Edit in Publisher", turning embedded to linked and then "Edit in Designer" again. But I don't think this way was intended by the developers.

 

Thank you for the response!

 It looks like the cause of my confusion was that the "change image" option is just plain not there if you place an image by dragging it into the application from an explorer window. After playing around I found that it was available if I used the 'place image' tool.

I guess I can adjust my workflow to deal with that, but that seems... odd. Does the drag-and-drop method import the image in some different way, into some different kind of object?

 

Regarding the file linking thing: That's fair enough, I just thought I'd have to check. I'm probably not in the market to by another piece of software just quite yet, but if my experience with Designer keeps going as it has been, I'll probably buy Publisher eventually too.

[Oval]

14 minutes ago, Tokamak said:

I'll probably buy Publisher eventually too

Serif: “With Affinity Publisher, you can directly link to your other Affinity apps through StudioLink. The first technology of its kind, this revolutionary feature takes the pain out of publishing by allowing you to instantly switch to the advanced photo editing features of Affinity Photo and precise vector tools of Affinity Designer without ever leaving the app.”

Please have a look into the features.

 

[Tokamak]

1 minute ago, Oval said:

Serif: “With Affinity Publisher, you can directly link to your other Affinity apps through StudioLink. The first technology of its kind, this revolutionary feature takes the pain out of publishing by allowing you to instantly switch to the advanced photo editing features of Affinity Photo and precise vector tools of Affinity Designer without ever leaving the app.”

Please have a look into the features.

 

But you still have to buy Designer and Publisher separately, don't you?

[Joachim_L]

7 minutes ago, Tokamak said:

It looks like the cause of my confusion was that the "change image" option is just plain not there if you place an image by dragging it into the application from an explorer window. After playing around I found that it was available if I used the 'place image' tool.

I never noticed this before, but if you drag and drop an image into AD, the image loses its focus, I mean by that, that it is deselected. So you have to select it again to get the "Replace image" button. So no need for changing your workflow, just an additional click more (unfortunately).

[Tokamak]

Just now, Joachim_L said:

I never noticed this before, but if you drag and drop an image into AD, the image loses its focus, I mean by that, that it is deselected. So you have to select it again to get the "Replace image" button. So no need for changing your workflow, just an additional click more (unfortunately).

*blink blink* Well, I feel silly for not noticing that. Thank you! I was looking around in menus and the right-click menu and layer options and so on... and missed the one right in front of my face.

One of the 'problems' that I've been having with Designer is that, after using Adobe products, I keep looking for the hard way to do things... and Designer seems to generally do things in a much simpler, sane way, that it doesn't even occur to me to look for. Deleting curve points by selecting them and hitting "delete"? Madness!

[R C-R]

15 hours ago, Joachim_L said:

I never noticed this before, but if you drag and drop an image into AD, the image loses its focus, I mean by that, that it is deselected. So you have to select it again to get the "Replace image" button. So no need for changing your workflow, just an additional click more (unfortunately).

FWIW, a dropped image in the Mac version remains selected.

[Tokamak]

Thanks again for the help, since I was unable to see what was right in front of my face XD

I have a related question, and I hope it's not as obvious. Say I have an embedded image, and I lost the original file. Is there a way I can export that embedded image back to a png or whatever that I can save on its own. I mean, obviously I could do something like fit the document to the image object and export the whole document... but is there a way to just tell Designer "Hey, give me my file back"?

[Alfred]

24 minutes ago, Tokamak said:

Thanks again for the help, since I was unable to see what was right in front of my face XD

I have a related question, and I hope it's not as obvious. Say I have an embedded image, and I lost the original file. Is there a way I can export that embedded image back to a png or whatever that I can save on its own. I mean, obviously I could do something like fit the document to the image object and export the whole document... but is there a way to just tell Designer "Hey, give me my file back"?

You’ve probably been looking, once again, for the hard way to do it! You just need to select the image and choose the ‘Export...’ option from the File menu.

[Tokamak]

1 minute ago, Alfred said:

You’ve probably been looking, once again, for the hard way to do it! You just need to select the image and choose the ‘Export...’ option from the File menu.

Doesn't that export the whole document? I was hoping to just find a way to take an embedded image and save it independently. In this case it is a document with a dozen or so different embedded images. 

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, Tokamak said:

I was hoping to just find a way to take an embedded image and save it independently. In this case it is a document with a dozen or so different embedded images. 

Well, if you had Publisher it would be easy. If you had Embedded images (rather than Linked images) you could use the Resource manager to make them Linked, which would give you the images saved separately.

Just using Designer it's a bit harder, but the Export Persona's Layers panel will let you easily create Slices from them. And then the Slices panel will let you easily export each slice to one or more separate files.

[Alfred]

2 hours ago, Tokamak said:

Doesn't that export the whole document? I was hoping to just find a way to take an embedded image and save it independently. In this case it is a document with a dozen or so different embedded images. 

My bad — I shouldn’t have replied without having the app in front of me! Walt has the answer:

22 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Well, if you had Publisher it would be easy. If you had Embedded images (rather than Linked images) you could use the Resource manager to make them Linked, which would give you the images saved separately.

Just using Designer it's a bit harder, but the Export Persona's Layers panel will let you easily create Slices from them. And then the Slices panel will let you easily export each slice to one or more separate files.

 

[Tokamak]

4 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

Well, if you had Publisher it would be easy. If you had Embedded images (rather than Linked images) you could use the Resource manager to make them Linked, which would give you the images saved separately.

Just using Designer it's a bit harder, but the Export Persona's Layers panel will let you easily create Slices from them. And then the Slices panel will let you easily export each slice to one or more separate files.

Ah, so no way to just dump out the same .png that I dragged in? Oh well, it was worth asking.

I'm not really clear on how Personas even work... so I guess it's back to the documentation for me. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction!

[walt.farrell]

You're welcome.

 

[MadHugger]

This is an APublisher only feature. Of course you can trick around by "Edit in Publisher", turning embedded to linked and then "Edit in Designer" again. But I don't think this way was intended by the developers.

Are there plans in the works to update Designer to add this functionality? As it is, it makes the entire purpose of having Linked Documents pointless as the feature is currently. As one who needs to often swap static images and rely upon the links working to ensure that any static image the changes in a master document is updated. This was something I loved dearly about Adobe Illustrator and made so much of my work more efficient.

It is also mentioned that the Asset Manager can be used to replace linked docs. But in Preflight all you get is "an embedded file has changed" with no details on which of the embedded (formerly linked) documents have changed. Making this feature more of an annoyance than helpful.

As a product that touts being a good choice to replace Adobe, to miss out on such a base feature is really not serving your customers. If this ability/function (not genuinely a "feature" as that is dismissive as an attempt to minimize the usefulness) is not improved, then the implied value is irrelevant as it becomes a comparison of apples and oranges; not Macintosh and Fuji (if you know your apples). I came to the Affinity ecosystem based upon the marketing of it being comparable to Adobe CC.

 

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, MadHugger said:

Are there plans in the works to update Designer to add this functionality?

You're replying to an old topic. Designer has had Linked files for awhile now.