Is it possible to make a template for Guides in Affinity Photo

[freelancer]

Hello great community,

I'm using Affinity Photo and I've setup guides in an image and they work perfectly so that I can resize my product to fit within them. 

However, when I open up another image (new product), I have to setup the guides again.  Since I'm trying to do this across about a hundred images, I was hoping there was a way to setup a template or copy/paste action into each new image I open.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

ps the images I'm opening are all individual TIFF files (with layers)

Edited August 18, 2020 by freelancer

[David in Яuislip]

Yep, set up a blank document, create your guides, File/Export as Template

GuidesOnly.aftemplate

[freelancer]

Thanks so much for your reply David,

Do you mean, dropping my images (and layers) into the template, and then saving and new files?  That could work, but I have about 100 TIFF files each with images and layers within them.  What I would like to do, if possible, is to open up each TIFF file, then apply the same guides as the previous file or from the template (if it was possible), make my image adjustments and then save the same TIFF file.  Does that make sense?

[David in Яuislip]

Idea is to open the template and File/Place the image then save as .afphoto. 

If the tiffs are the same dimensions then you can record a macro to create the guides and run that for each file. It doesn't work on other sizes as the macro stores the positions in pixels and not percentages

[David in Яuislip]

Part2, actually atemplate only works for same size image. I've opened it, placed larger and smaller images, clipped canvas and the guides go awol. So whether you use a template or a macro you will need one for each image size. APhoto doesn't play nicely with percentages

[freelancer]

Oh, that makes sense why the macro was doing strange things for me (the documents were different sizes).

I think I will have to resort to your former option with the template, because I can resize the image, within the template (no need to crop or resize the canvas).

Incidentally, I noticed the template opens by default in Publisher for me, anyway to change this?

[David in Яuislip]

If you work like that then great

On windows you can right click the file and choose Open with, then go down and find Photo, click the box Always open. No idea on a mac

[freelancer]

Thanks for your help David, much appreciated.

ps, I'm on a mac

[Alfred]

Like David, I’m on Windows, but I understand that on a Mac there’s an ‘Open with’ section in the Get Info window in Finder. (In case you didn’t know, you can display the Get Info window by pressing Cmd+i.) Change the app to the one you want, and then press ‘Change all’ (and confirm) to make your choice persist.

[freelancer]

Fabulous Alfred, thanks 😀

[thomaso]

2 hours ago, freelancer said:

when I open up another image (new product), I have to setup the guides again.  Since I'm trying to do this across about a hundred images, I was hoping there was a way to setup a template or copy/paste action into each new image I open.

As a workaround maybe self-made guides, saved as asset, can help?
Sorry, though in this video I still struggle with correct snapping the curves obviously appear to get recognized as candidates.
(maybe someone can shed light on my snapping issues, "Force..." was unchecked)

Edited August 18, 2020 by thomaso

[freelancer]

Thanks Thomaso,

This looks like it could be the best option for my requirements.  I will give it a go.

Much appreciated 😀

[thomaso]

Would you mind to let me know if/how you managed to make snapping work correctly with this workaround?

[freelancer]

10 hours ago, thomaso said:

Would you mind to let me know if/how you managed to make snapping work correctly with this workaround?

Unfortunately I haven't been able to test the snapping for you because I can't even create an Asset to start with!  Although I've never used Assets before, I've followed these instructions: https://affinity.help/designer/en-US.lproj/index.html?page=pages/SymbolsAssets/assets.html?title=Using assets but my group of curves will not drag over to the subcategory in the Assets panel? 

[Alfred]

29 minutes ago, freelancer said:

Although I've never used Assets before, I've followed these instructions: https://affinity.help/designer/en-US.lproj/index.html?page=pages/SymbolsAssets/assets.html?title=Using assets but my group of curves will not drag over to the subcategory in the Assets panel?

Have you tried the alternative method described in the Help article?

Quote

• On the Assets panel, click a subcategory's options menu and select Add from Selection.

 

[freelancer]

8 minutes ago, Alfred said:

Have you tried the alternative method described in the Help article?

 

Thanks Alfred.  Yes I have but it won't accept a 'group' of curves, only the curves individually.  In Thomaso's video, he seems to have a group of curves?

Nonetheless, I think the easiest workaround for my initial problem/post is to use curves (instead of guides) and to just copy and paste them into each document

Thank you all for your help, LOVE Affinity... and the community

[thomaso]

11 hours ago, freelancer said:

it won't accept a 'group' of curves, only the curves individually.  In Thomaso's video, he seems to have a group of curves?

Yes, it's a group. I can't drag it into the panel, too (there is a known drag-issue, e.g. in Separated Mode) but the menu works charming.
Here's my 'asseting' procedure (+ I added a color option;):

Can you show the procedure on your screen so we might detect what prevents it from working?

[freelancer]

Hi Thomaso,

I've since resolved my issue by using a copy and paste method (much easier for now) but I've done a quick recording to show you what happens on my end when trying to create an asset using a group of curves...

[David in Яuislip]

On 8/19/2020 at 12:57 AM, thomaso said:

Would you mind to let me know if/how you managed to make snapping work correctly with this workaround?

In the Snapping Manager I enabled Only snap to visible objects and it works very well. This is a clever technique by thomaso that also allows the use of shapes or lines at any angle

Bonus, a Colour Overlay fx allows you to change the colour

DIYgrids.afassets

[thomaso]

3 hours ago, freelancer said:

when trying to create an asset using a group of curves...

I suppose the Group exists in your Asset Panel but does not show an icon. Note the first, empty position:

To make a group appear in the panel try this:
– hover-hold the cursor over the first position to make a tool-tip appear after a moment.
– in the panels burger menu choose "Show As List".
– in the layers panel name a group before adding it as asset.

Here the 1st asset is a group (+ tooltip), at the 2nd and 3rd position are the single lines instead, Affinity creates a default icon/thumbnail for them, I suppose to make them more visible in the panel. (its odd that you got circle-thumbnails for two of your lines):

[freelancer]

You solved the riddle there Thomaso, that's exactly what happens.  I've created a new video to demonstrate and for anyone who may be interested, I'll run through the process from the start...

(if you notice closely, the group that is created is very faint, at top left hand corner of the asset panel)

https://youtu.be/MV31tAT-uLc

ps I tried numerous times to load this video by 'attaching' but received a -200 error so I've uploaded to Youtube

[thomaso]

3 hours ago, David in Яuislip said:

In the Snapping Manager I enabled Only snap to visible objects and it works very well.

I doubt this setting does indeed cause snapping for you. I rather suppose if unticked invisible items will snap, too, additionally to visibles. However, I am not able to make the DYI guides snapping with the Rectangular Marque Tool – does it snap for you on "real" guides at all while you drag-create a selection?

The best snapping occurs to me while dragging with the Shape Tool, then I even don't have to have the mouse button pressed. For Rectangular Marque Tool it snaps only after creating but while moving a selection, but it snaps only to real guides, not to the curve objects. With the Crop Tool it snaps while dragging already but again not for the curve objects.

I also experience odd behavior when coming back to the rectangle shape tool: then I need to change the zoom level to get the snapping candidates occur. Quite strange!

Do you get the same results? If yours are better, any idea what's wrong here? I think with such DIY guides snapping would be fundamental for their use, right?

 

[David in Яuislip]

1 hour ago, thomaso said:

I doubt this setting does indeed cause snapping for you. I rather suppose if unticked invisible items will snap, too, additionally to visibles.

Yes, you are correct, unticking snaps to invisibles too. However, snapping to real guides and DIY guides just works and is not zoom dependent. I can only wonder if the mac version is different from Windows but that's a long shot, hopefully Serif staff will pick this up and respond

In the attached file, the DIY guides were drawn with the Pen along the top and left edges then moved using the Transform Panel. The real guides were set with the Guide Manager. Drawing a rectangle snapped perfectly to both intersections and looking at the Transform Panel for the rectangle confirms this. I would've sent my previous file but it grew to 1.63MB which is ludicrous for vectors and text - after deleting all text layers it went to 1.99MB.....Save history is turned off.....

DIYandRealGuides.afphoto