Missing features for graphic designers and illustrators.

[RevTim]

Hi,

I'm a new convert to Affinity Photo from Photoshop which makes my old CS3 version look like a complete dinosaur, when it comes to photo editing - no regrets there whatsoever 🙂!

However, much of my work is in the area of graphic design and illustration and there are a couple of missing features in Affinity which I use regularly in PS which means I still can't quite uninstall Phtoshop just yet. Here's my little wish list:

STYLES in Affinity are rather basic. There are no ability to add textures in bevel and emboss which means many PS styles can’t be replicated the texture overlay is used to create realistic 3d surface textures. Theres is no pattern overlay (which I used with transparency and blend modes to create textured looks). No satin or similar which I use along with inner glow to give shine to metals, glass, plastic effects. No gradient option for outline which is useful for metals and also for colourful, jazzy styles for vector objects. Most of my PS styles won't import correctly into Affintity becasue they have textures and/or patterns in them - see attached images.

ARTISTIC FILTERS - particularly glass distort, splatter and brush strokes - basically any kind of filter which breaks up the image randomly for artistic effects.

PATTERN LAYERS which use scaleable patterns from a library catalogue rather than the 'create your pattern' layer which Affinity currently has. Pattern libraries for use in layers and layers styles are a crucial part of my flow, allowing me to create textured surfaces to vector shapes. I have hundreds of patterns I use constantly, both for texturing and for patterning objects.

Attached images showing difference between PS textured and patterned layer styles and how they look in Affinity.

Edited May 7, 2021 by RevTim
typos

[Ron P.]

Welcome to the forums @RevTim

While not like PS, you can apply textures in APhoto. It just requires you to clip the texture file to your text layer. Sadly you can't create a style that includes the texture.

 

[RevTim]

Thanks for the tip - I'd forgotten about layer clipping!

I've discovered another fake-around too. Create a style from a textured image via Place>Convert To Curves>Add style from selection (see attached image). Apply this style to an object and then use Bevel/Emboss and/or 3D fx. The only problem with this technique is that you can't scale or move the texture inside the object as you can with layer clipping. Also, for some reason, saving the result as a new style doesn't seem to work on other objects - the texture doesn't always wrap properly (see attached image).

Ideally - developers take note! - adding a Bump Map option to the 3D dialogue on layer FX would be perfect, with the option to load bump map from an image. One could then store a bunch of textures in Assets to be loaded as bump maps.

 

[lepr]

4 hours ago, RevTim said:

The only problem with this technique is that you can't scale or move the texture inside the object

Yes you can by using the tool with two names: Fill Tool in AD, Gradient Tool in AP.

When you created a Curve from the placed Image, the Curve was given a "bitmap" fill, and the Style you created from that includes the "bitmap" fill. Activate Fill/Gradient Tool to get handles for transforming the fill, and other controls in the context toolbar.

 

[RevTim]

Hey that brilliant! Thanks for that 🙂.

Of course that also means I can now change the "Extend" option on the tool option bar from "Repeat" to either "Wrap" or "Mirror" and the bitmap texture will extend across the text or shape.

I haven't had a chance to play around with this yet, but it occurs to me that duplicating the bitmap filled text layer, applying an emboss filter with settings which reveal the detail of the texture and then changing that layer's blend mode to Overlay should give a (subtle) impression of a 3d surface texture - might have to duplicate the overlay layer a couple of times to see the effect. Again, great for one-off projects, but it would be nice to have these features included in layer FX.