Ways to Organize Brushes?

[CartoonMike]

Hey there!

 

I'm beginning to get into using Affinity Photo for digital painting and there's a fair chance that I'll be peppering the forum with questions that I figure out and can't find answers for.

 

This time: Brush Organization.

 

In some apps (like Manga Studio and Painter) I can move brushes around and even create floating palettes with my "go to" brushes. 

 

Currently in AP there's no convenient way to do this. I've no choice but to flip through brush sets and scroll, to find the brushes I like/use a lot/prefer. It seems that the only way to create a "go to" brush set that contains individual brushes cobbled together from many sets is to recreate, manually, a brush from set A into my Custom Set. And if the brush uses a custom alpha/bristle, use an other app to extract that and then assemble it all in AP. 

 

Is there an easier way? Either something I can do with the current MAS or Beta version or, at least, an assurance that this (imho) essential feature will be added "down the road."

 

I would like very much to use AP for digital painting, but dang it! Doing an hunt for a specific brush currently, is an adventure that takes me away from my train of though (such as it is) and is a bummer of a distraction.

 

Thanks!

[stokerg]

Hi CartoonMike,

 

You can create a custom brush category and move any of your most used brushes into this category. 

 

I've attached a screen recording of the Brushes tab in Affinity Photo, showing me adding a custom brush category and then moving brushes into this category.

 

Hope that helps, any questions just ask :)

 

 

brushes.mov

[CartoonMike]

TYVM for that. Sometimes when I spend way more time reading/figuring out a new software, I get impatient and don't read things through. The Help (wish it was a PDF so I could read it on my iPad!) did cover it, although it was in a lightbulb bulleted "tip" and I didn't read it. I'm also very spoiled, as in Manga Studio a new brush set can be created just by dragging and dropping and only have to use menus to dupe a brush. The good news is that I only have to create a new set and move the brushes to it in AP once, then I can just "live" with the new brush set. Will be exporting it just so I make sure that in updates I don't risk losing that work.

[stokerg]

Glad i could help.

 

I speed read help files so often find myself in the same situation as yourself a lot of the time.  I'll see if we can get a PDF file of the help produced as a separate download, as i can see it would be a big help  to people coming into the Affinity world.

 

With the MAS version you shouldn't lose anything when you update.  With the Beta version, it might clear them out when you update to the next Beta, but i'll need to get that confirmed when i get into the office tomorrow and will post an update here.  But for now, exporting them would be the best idea, as my mum says, 'Better to be safe than sorry.'  :)

[CartoonMike]

About the online help -- it's been somewhat glitchy on my end, I would put in a search term and get a blank window, no little "couldn't find 'x'" statement or list of relevant articles. Makes me really want a PDF or local to my machine online help. 

 

Brushes work fine, now. One snafu that I've not been able to reproduce is that after adding a few brush sets, moving them to my custom set, and deleting the (now empty) sets, I couldn't move any brushes within a set. This was corrected by quitting and restarting AP. If I'm able to reproduce this bug, I'll post a recipe in the bug section.

[stokerg]

Thanks for bringing this up about the Help file, i'll raise this with the Devs tomorrow and see about getting a PDF file of the help.  I can see the benefits, esp if you have one monitor, at least then you could load the PDF help on a iPad/tablet which would make it easier to follow.

 

If you can replicate the issue with the brushes, please do pop a post in the bugs section and then the Devs will get to see it

[CartoonMike]

about the brush issue, I can try to replicate it, but given how much time I've spent just trying to use AP for drawing/digitally painting, I may give AP a rest for a week or two. Frankly, it seems every time I use AP it's one thing or another. Now it's not having keyboard shortcuts for flip canvas. Which may seem like a little thing, for me it's just one more little thing that, when added to all the other little things, is just too many things I have to be mindful of when all I want to do is create art. It's a shame, really, since I do like and use AD so much now. Usually I "get" an app within a day or so (with AD it was within the first hour of use). It's been a week now for AP and I may have to admit that this app just isn't for me, while it seems to be good for Photographers and some digital artists, it's way too clunky and so much is obfuscated that, so far, every session with AP has ended with my just getting too frustrated to continue with it. 

 

TBH, AP is far from a replacement for Photoshop for me. I really don't think I'll be using it much from here on. Maybe once in a while for minor stuff, as needed in AD, but not for digital paintings that will be printed out. Shame really, I still have great hopes for all of Affinity's products, but imho, AP needs to go back in the oven and back until it's done. 

[stokerg]

I can understand your frustrations of getting to grips with new software.  The good thing is we do have a Dev team that listens to and cares about our users, so if you can think of anyway we can improve the way we do things, please pop a post on the feature suggestions section.  

 

Custom keyboard shortcuts are on the road map for both Designer and Photo, so shortly that will resolve one of your issues.

[LilleG]

Thank you, stokerg!  We've been begging for a PDF version of the Help for a while now.  I was beginning to think that no one was listening or if they were, could not see the benefits of being able to read it someplace besides within the program.  

[CartoonMike]

@Stokerg : Post is Popped. :D And it's a book unto itself. Thanks for all your help and comments.