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Identifying Brush used in either pixel or vector painting


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In Affinity designer, I tried a few things and I do not think it can done, but as often is the case my name is Mr.Wrong  -  is it possible to identify the brush that was used on an object while indeed you have selected its layer?

Microsoft - Like entering your home and opening the stainless steel kitchen door, with a Popup: 'Do you really want to open this door'? Then looking for the dishwasher and finding it stored in the living room where you have to download a water supply from the app store, then you have to buy microsoft compliant soap, remove the carpet only to be told that it is glued to the floor.. Don't forget to make multiple copies of your front door key and post them to all who demand access to all the doors inside your home including the windows and outside shed.

Apple - Like entering your home and opening the oak framed Kitchen door and finding the dishwasher right in front you ready to be switched on, soap supplied, and water that comes through a water softener.  Ah the front door key is yours and it only needs to open the front door.

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No, it's not possible.

Theoretically it should be possible for a vector brush stroke, but it isn't implemented.

For a raster brush it would be much harder to implement, I think.

 

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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1 hour ago, walt.farrell said:

No, it's not possible.

Theoretically it should be possible for a vector brush stroke, but it isn't implemented.

For a raster brush it would be much harder to implement, I think.

 

Thankyou Walt.

Microsoft - Like entering your home and opening the stainless steel kitchen door, with a Popup: 'Do you really want to open this door'? Then looking for the dishwasher and finding it stored in the living room where you have to download a water supply from the app store, then you have to buy microsoft compliant soap, remove the carpet only to be told that it is glued to the floor.. Don't forget to make multiple copies of your front door key and post them to all who demand access to all the doors inside your home including the windows and outside shed.

Apple - Like entering your home and opening the oak framed Kitchen door and finding the dishwasher right in front you ready to be switched on, soap supplied, and water that comes through a water softener.  Ah the front door key is yours and it only needs to open the front door.

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  • 1 year later...
On 12/22/2020 at 4:48 PM, walt.farrell said:

No, it's not possible.

Theoretically it should be possible for a vector brush stroke, but it isn't implemented.

For a raster brush it would be much harder to implement, I think.

That's actually too bad. I don't really think it would amount to something like rocket science to implement this.

If I have assigned a certain oil paint brush (or whatever) to a stroke I don't see why this information doesn't remain connected to the object it has been expressively assigned to (like e.g. its colour which obviously isn't that "volatile"...).

Even if modifications have been done to the brush via the Properties panel this doesn't alter the fact that the basis is still a certain individual brush (which even had a name). It could even be indicated by some symbol (red dot or whatever) added to the brush in the brushes panel, that this brush with the object selected has been modified.

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33 minutes ago, Lorox said:

That's actually too bad. I don't really think it would amount to something like rocket science to implement this.

At first thought this seems like just one piece of information to associate with the vector stroke, like the width, color, etc. and could be considered simple.

But even here there are complications. Brushes can be added, deleted, moved, or changed (edited) at any time, even during an application session. Any of those changes could invalidate the remembered information. When you consider opening a document created in a different session, potentially several years ago, that's even more complex.

It would be even harder for raster brushes, where there is no concept of strokes once a brush had been applied to a pixel layer. At that point there are only pixels.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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3 hours ago, Lorox said:

If I have assigned a certain oil paint brush (or whatever) to a stroke I don't see why this information doesn't remain connected to the object it has been expressively assigned to (like e.g. its colour which obviously isn't that "volatile"...).

You are not assigning a raster brush to a stroke. You are painting on a pixel layer using a pattern of pixels defined by a specific set of properties (a brush preset) that can be changed or even deleted at any time. IOW, the only object you are assigning anything to is the pixel layer object itself.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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2 hours ago, R C-R said:

You are not assigning a raster brush to a stroke. You are painting on a pixel layer using a pattern of pixels defined by a specific set of properties (a brush preset) that can be changed or even deleted at any time. IOW, the only object you are assigning anything to is the pixel layer object itself.

I wasn't thinking of raster brushes leaving (pixel) marks on a pixel layer – once applied they are indeed just pixels as any other one on that layer. I'm talking about those so called (albeit falsely) "vector brushes" that you actually do assign to a path (or curve) as the stroke's appearance and at any time can change as to its colour and thickness and which will be transformed accordingly when you manipulate the the curve's nodes (including their handles).

Although these brushes, especially those meant to look like natural media marks, unfortunately are not real vector brushes (like those you have in Illustrator or VectorStyler) but are made from pixel images (and thus regrettably are not resolution independent) they nevertheless can be assigned as strokes to vector curves. They are not happening on a pixel layer but on a vector layer as part of a vector curve.

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5 minutes ago, Lorox said:

... they nevertheless can be assigned as strokes to vector curves.

Yes, they can be used as strokes but they are still just presets that can be deleted or their stored stroke properties edited such that they no longer act like the original.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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11 hours ago, R C-R said:

Yes, they can be used as strokes but they are still just presets that can be deleted or their stored stroke properties edited such that they no longer act like the original.

I do acknowledge this. However, I do also think that being able later to identifify the „original“ brush used on/with a vector path can be beneficial in many cases. And as I wrote earlier, one could think of some sort of mark in the brushes palette when a path/curve is selected whose properties have been modifified so it's no longer the default version of that brush. But you would still know that the stroke you see on that vector element is based on e.g. „Oil 3“ and not on ”Acrylics 5“.

As of now you don't have almost ANY idea where to start when – especially after some time – you want to recreate or make variations of a given design using such strokes.

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28 minutes ago, Lorox said:

As of now you don't have almost ANY idea where to start when – especially after some time – you want to recreate or make variations of a given design using such strokes.

This "ANY idea" seems to be a matter of experience and thus may vary for each user. One might recognize from looking a vector brush stroke appearance MANY or ALL its various used parameters – while other users might have NO idea at all.

It is comparable to curved text, which still displays its look and thus its style. While many users may still recognize its font family, only very experienced users may recognize if it got e.g. stretched or a stroke assigned before it got converted to curves (or got rasterized).

But there are various spots and object types in Affinity which lack in a user-friendly link to their original. For instance Assets | Object Styles | Bitmap Fills, which all relate to / are based on a certain object, regardless whether it is still existing or not at a later moment. Again like text, which keeps a saved text style assigned regardless whether it got deleted afterwards or whether the font file exists any more. On the other hand Affinity still remembers the initial file path for embedded images and thus offers a simple, comfortable way to make it linked to its original file at any later moment.

Technically brush strokes could remember their initially used style like Text does it in a comfortable way: Not only it highlights its initially used saved text style in the Text Style panel and additionally marks it in the Context Toolbar with a '+' symbol as soon any parameter gets altered. Additionally this marker disappears if the altered style parameter of certain text gets reset to the original of the saved style. Affinity even delivers a list(*) with every single deviation from its style at the top of the Text Style panel with every single style parameter which got altered after a saved text style was assigned. This all works even for a tiny style change done to a single letter in a story of thousands characters. (* though with a very uncomfortable UI in a not scaleable text field)

Actually, technically it would even be possible for raster brush strokes to display a hint to its initial brush style as long 1 certain raster brush style gets used on 1 certain layer. And one could weigh whether all style parameters, e.g. size, would influence / destroy this info. This info would not be linked to the pixels but it could be saved with its layer. (like technically style parameters could be saved for curved text, too, and thus be recallable even if not be editable.)

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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6 hours ago, Lorox said:

However, I do also think that being able later to identifify the „original“ brush used on/with a vector path can be beneficial in many cases.

Please keep in mind that it is only a preset, a set of properties that depending on the controller used when making the stroke may not duplicate any of the preset's properties.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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