Edit spines for book boxed set covers

[Ed James]

Hi,

I'm generally loving the Affinity products, they're at least as good as Photoshop and Illustrator for my simple uses.

One of the things I'm struggling with is a possible gap when dealing with PSDs. I need to create 3D images for boxed sets of my books. I've bought some PSD templates for these, which worked well in Photoshop. Essentially, you get a 3D file that you edit to add the book spines and a slipcase cover, which are text objects and you can add images, etc.

Trouble is, I can't edit them in Affinity. Any ideas on how I can do this? Is it a gap? Is it user error?

Thanks!

 

Here is the spine:

 

Here is the layer view:

[GarryP]

Welcome to the forums @Ed James
Without being able to tinker with the template I can’t be sure but you should be able to replace the Spines layer with your own image.
From what I can see it looks like you will be able to:
* Release the Mask from the Spines layer (right-click the mask layer and choose Release);
* then place your image in the document;
* then use the Mesh Warp Tool to change your image to match the shape of the original Spines layer;
* then place the mask layer inside your image layer;
* set the original Spines layer to be hidden (so you can use it again if necessary).
However, I don’t use PSD templates myself so that might not work, but it’s worth a try.

[Callum]

Hi Ed,

Welcome to the forums

Adding to what GarryP has said above you may also need to enable support for smart objects in the apps preferences to make full use of your template.
Please let me know if you have any further questions

C

[Ed James]

This worked! Callum’s suggestion to change the preference, then it let me adjust the spine text.