Embedding Photos

[lakeburchell]

I can't for the life of me figure out how to embed images on Designer. I've tried looking all over but nobody else seems to be running into this issue so I wonder if it is a dumb question. 

As I understand, whenever I place an object using either the option in file menu or Photo placing tool the image is automatically considered 'embeded' so that duplicates of that image can be edited simultaneously. 

I have tried importing a few different images, duplicating them, and then editing, but it will only edit one instance of the image. 

Additionally, if you look on the layers menu each of the objects says "image" rather than "embedded document" like I have seen on some tutorials. Maybe I'm doing something foolish? Help me figure it out. 

I want to know a way that I can edit duplicate objects simultaneously with the same changes. 

[firstdefence]

Welcome to the forum @lakeburchell take a look at this video it might help you understand embedded documents: 

 

[walt.farrell]

2 hours ago, lakeburchell said:

I have tried importing a few different images, duplicating them, and then editing, but it will only edit one instance of the image. 

Additionally, if you look on the layers menu each of the objects says "image" rather than "embedded document" like I have seen on some tutorials. Maybe I'm doing something foolish? Help me figure it out. 

First, "images" are JPG, PNG, or TIFF files. Other formats are "documents" (PSD, PDF, EPS, SVG, .afphoto, .afdesign, etc.) and that's important to understand.

If you Place a document in Designer, you get an embedded document, which can be edited (it will have an Edit Document button on the Context Toolbar when the document is selected, or you can double-click on it to edit it.

If you place an image file, you get an embedded image which shows up as (Image) in the Layers panel. You cannot edit these embedded images separately, as you can for embedded documents. You can only edit them in place as a normal layer of your Designer document (and often will need to Rasterize them before making any changes to them).

Next, for embedded documents:

• If you Place the document twice, you have two separate embedded documents, completely unrelated to each other. Changes you make while editing one of them will not affect the other.
• If you Place a document, then duplicate that layer (Copy the layer and paste, or Cmd/Ctrl+J) then you have two instances of the same embedded object. If you edit one of them, the changes will apply to both.

 

[lakeburchell]

Thanks, that was really helpful!!

[Vasqes]

So,  Affinity Designer is not as professional as photoshop(smart objects) and you can't create an active link to the external file?. 

The only option that you have is to place another document in the affinity document, but this placed document is  not linked to the external file? Am I correct?

There is no option to LINK the file to the document, that will be updated automictically when the linked file has been changed? 

[walt.farrell]

47 minutes ago, Vasqes said:

So,  Affinity Designer is not as professional as photoshop(smart objects) and you can't create an active link to the external file?. 

The only option that you have is to place another document in the affinity document, but this placed document is  not linked to the external file? Am I correct?

There is no option to LINK the file to the document, that will be updated automictically when the linked file has been changed? 

There is no option in the Designer User Interface to have Linked files. That is a Publisher function.

If you have both Publisher and Designer, you can work in Publisher and use the Designer Persona via StudioLink, and have Linked files. Or if you have both Publisher and Designer you can open your Designer document in Publisher and change the document options so that external files will be Linked rather than Embedded. At that point, Designer will honor that setting if you reopen the document in Designer.

However, the support in Designer for Linked files is not as complete as the support in Publisher. They will work, but:

• Designer will not let you invoke the Resource Manager on demand. It is only available when you Open your Designer document, and then only if there are changed or missing Linked files.
• Designer will detect changes to Linked files in real-time, but it will not automatically update them to pick up the changes until you close and then reopen the Designer document.

[Vasqes]

@walt.farrell

Thank you for your reply, Sir. So its "buy Publisher" feature, nice.. I think that this option was in designer in the past.

Its a basic professional workflow feature and a time saver, very not cool that is not in Designer. 

7 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Designer will detect changes to Linked files in real-time, but it will not update them to pick up the changes until you close and then reopen the Designer document.

This is just bad.. 

Cheers

[walt.farrell]

1 minute ago, Vasqes said:

I think that this option was in designer in the past.

There was a bug that allowed a choice of Linking an individual file if you were Replacing an Embedded file. But there was no intended support for Linking in Designer.

And there was another bug that set the option to "Prefer Linked" when certain File > New document Presets were used.

Both bugs were fixed.

There was never support for the Resource Manager nor for the automatic update of changed Linked files in Designer. (Note, by the way, that I left out the word "automatic" in my post above. I've edited it to add that word. You could use the Replace button to manually update a Linked file in Designer when the source was changed.)

[Vasqes]

@walt.farrell

2 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Both bugs were fixed.

Haha - Weren't  bugs, that way they can sale Publisher. Why to remove a feature? no sense .

Its a very important feature and something like this makes software professional or semi-professional (Designer now). I would pay for this as an addon or something as, I'm wasting hours on that.

Don't be evil Serif 

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, Vasqes said:

Why to remove a feature? no sense .

It made sense because it never worked entirely correctly in Designer.

2 hours ago, Vasqes said:

I would pay for this as an addon or something as, I'm wasting hours on that.

The "or something" provided by Serif is to buy Publisher, which includes a bundle of other 'add ons' that more than justify its price.