Artistic Text and Layers

[ericwedde]

I've been drawing painted maps, for instance a map of Europe with borders and such, and I frequently need to add text to label cities and whatnot. Trying to do this in Affinity Photo, frankly, stresses me out. I really need an option to rasterize text instantly instead of creating a million layers for each label, and I have this annoying issue where every time I use the text tool on the image, it drops to the lowest layer with content on the spot where I clicked, but it doesn't create the text layer. This means not only am I creating a bajillion text layers that I don't want, but they're scattered all between the other layers at random. Why does it not create the text layer on the first click when I have the artistic text tool selected?

Ideal behavior:

Toggle SOMETHING that lets it rasterize text the moment its finished and merge it with the current layer that already has a bunch of text labels on it.

At the moment this gives me such a headache that I feel compelled to export the whole thing into another program, build the text layer there, and then import it back over my map. It feels like photo software is trying to handle text like publishing software. If I wanted that, I'd use Publisher.

[loukash]

21 hours ago, ericwedde said:

Trying to do this in Affinity Photo, frankly, stresses me out.

That's not really surprising because – as its name hints – Photo is not the tool intended to deal with vast amounts of text.

21 hours ago, ericwedde said:

creating a million layers for each label

Arrange menu > Group is your friend.

21 hours ago, ericwedde said:

every time I use the text tool on the image, it drops to the lowest layer with content on the spot where I clicked,

Deselect the image layer in the Layers panel. Then any new layer will be created on the very top of the layer stack.
Creating a new layer right above the currently selected layer is the expected behavior as far as I can tell and vaguely remember reading in the user manual.

Likewise, to add new text layers inside an aforementioned Group layer, select an object (layer) inside that group first. Then all new text objects will be added to that group directly

21 hours ago, ericwedde said:

Why does it not create the text layer on the first click when I have the artistic text tool selected?

Um, probably because folks would then start to complain that the tool creates infinitillions of blank layers…?

21 hours ago, ericwedde said:

SOMETHING that lets it rasterize text the moment its finished and merge it with the current layer that already has a bunch of text labels on it.

After you have all your text objects inside the Group layer ready to be rasterized, select the Group layer in the Layers panel and then Layers menu > Rasterize.
It's really that simple.™

Otherwise, what you're asking for is how primitive image editors of the last millenium used to work.
Take for example the preinstalled MacOS Preview app which is quite a basic image editor on its own: even there, all newly created text objects will remain editable until you save the image. Technically they are layers as well, you just don't have a Layers panel to see and manage them. After saving that image, all content is being flattened and rasterized.

21 hours ago, ericwedde said:

It feels like photo software is trying to handle text like publishing software.

Well, that's exactly the point of the interchangeable Affinity document format. It is deliberately designed to work this way.

And if all you want at the end of your work is a flat rasterized pixel image where you can't change anything:
Document menu > Flatten

Voilà.

[Pšenda]

1 hour ago, loukash said:

Arrange menu > Group is your friend.

Yes, but maybe something like Merge curves and Add new curve to selected curves object would be useful for these cases.

[loukash]

Just now, Pšenda said:

Merge curves and Add new curve to selected curves object would be useful for these cases.

@ericwedde is asking for the text to be rasterized, so no such intermediate vector step is necessary in this case.

[walt.farrell]

19 hours ago, ericwedde said:

Toggle SOMETHING that lets it rasterize text the moment its finished and merge it with the current layer that already has a bunch of text labels on it.

You could assign a keyboard shortcut key to Layer > Rasterize.... You could just press that shortcut when you're done typing the label. That wouldn't merge it, though.

[loukash]

4 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

You could just

There are so many possibilities how to accomplish what's being requested with either a few clicks or with a few (custom) keyboard shortcuts. Some are more or less obvious than others though.

And thus, as usual with any tools that play in the same league as the Affinity suite:
With flexibility comes complexity. It's inevitable. You need to learn to use your tool first before you can master it.

In other words:
There is no "flaw" or "missing feature" here. There are simply several possible workflows how to get there.
Heck, even the "export the whole thing into another program, build the text layer there, and then import it back over my map" idea is a workflow, albeit an overcomplicated and totally unnecessary one.

[ericwedde]

4 hours ago, loukash said:

Otherwise, what you're asking for is how primitive image editors of the last millenium used to work.

Lol yup that's me! Trying to update from the stone age.

[loukash]

5 minutes ago, ericwedde said:

Trying to update from the stone age.

And that's OK.
Just go and watch some of the Affinity video tutorials:
affinity.serif.com/tutorials/photo/desktop

They are helpful, really. I've been in a transition from Adobe to Affinity for the past few months, and they helped me, too.

[Pšenda]

5 hours ago, loukash said:

@ericwedde is asking for the text to be rasterized, so no such intermediate vector step is necessary in this case.

???

How is the organization of layers and their creation related to rasterization and some vector steps?