Extracting a vector subset of some vector artwork

[William Overington]

Some time ago I produced some original vector artwork using Affinity Designer.

This is 1571 pixels wide by 2171 pixels high, 300 pixels per inch. Intended as 5 inches by 7 inches with a 3 mm bleed area on each edge.

The purpose, which worked fine, was to export a jpg file to upload to the Papier website and use the file to produce what is marketed as a custom photo greetings card, send it to myself, and frame it in a frame (marketed as a photo frame) that had been delivered with my grocery order.

I am now wanting to produce an A5 PDF document that includes an illustration showing the image on the card, yet using vector artwork in the PDF document, not a bitmap illustration. The PDF document being produced using Affinity Publisher as I am hoping to add, on a separate page of the PDF document, some descriptive text about the image.

Here is a part of a Print Screen image of the original artwork. Please note that the shapes and watercolour brush marks all go outside the canvas.

So what I want is the area 1500 pixels by 2100 pixels extracted from the centre of the image as vector artwork.

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I have thought that I could add four large white rectangles to cover the parts of the artwork that I do not want displayed, then group it, copy and then paste into the Affinity Publisher document.

I have already tried doing a copy and paste on the artwork as drawn without any such additions and that part works fine.

But that seems a bit, well, not a good approach.

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I have found there is a vector crop tool but I have not used it yet.

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So two questions please.

What is the best way to get the illustration as on the greetings card but in vector format into Affinity Publisher?

Does the vector crop result in the same image when cropping through something like a frehand-drawn filled vector shape and through watercolour vector brush strokes?

William

 

[Alfred]

19 minutes ago, William Overington said:

What is the best way to get the illustration as on the greetings card but in vector format into Affinity Publisher?

Open the Affinity Designer file in Affinity Publisher. The name of the Affinity range reflects the fact that the apps in the suite share a single file format.

[Alfred]

23 minutes ago, William Overington said:

Does the vector crop result in the same image when cropping through something like a frehand-drawn filled vector shape and through watercolour vector brush strokes?

I’m afraid I don’t understand the question.

[William Overington]

6 minutes ago, Alfred said:

Open the Affinity Designer file in Affinity Publisher. The name of the Affinity range reflects the fact that the apps in the suite share a single file format.

Oh, I didn't realize that is why the range of software programs is called Affinity.

Ah!

William

 

[William Overington]

32 minutes ago, Alfred said:

I’m afraid I don’t understand the question.

Well, if I have drawn a closed freehand vector shape, for example, the green one selected in the picture.

Since posting I have now realized what I want to do. It is not clear to me from the description if the vector crop tool will do it. But I am not an expert in using Affinity software.

Using measurement in pixels (I like using pixel measurements)

The upper left corner of the canvas is at (0, 0).

The lower right corner of the canvas is at (1571, 2171) or maybe (1570, 2170) but the difference is not important here.

What I want to do is draw on top of the original artwork an unfilled rectangle (or filled if that helps) with its upper left corner at (36, 36) and its width 1500 and its height 2100. I can do that using the Rectangle Tool and then get the precise position and size by entering numbers in the Transform panel. In fact, I have just done that a few minutes ago.

Now I want to extract a vector image 1500 wide by 2100 high from within that rectangle.

But I don't know how to do it.

I had the rectangle highlighted and it wiped, at least from display, everything that was outside the canvas, but I tried copying and pasting to a new document, A5 in size, but I just got the empty rectangle.

Going back to what I wrote earlier in this post.

Well, if I have drawn a closed freehand vector shape, for example, the green one selected in the picture.

Now that shape has nodes and none of them are where the outline of the shape crosses the crop line, so I am wondering if Affinity Designer by some internal process produces a new vector shape that follows the original curve within the rectangle and also puts a flat edge where the original green shape intersects with the rectangle, such that the new shape has no part of it outside the rectangle.

Is it possible to do a crop using a precisely located shape or is it only hand drawn selection areas please?

William

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Alfred]

2 hours ago, William Overington said:

Is it possible to do a crop using a precisely located shape or is it only hand drawn selection areas please?

You can do a crop using a shape whose size and position are precise, but it will be a non-destructive vector crop. If you want to permanently exclude the parts that are outside of the cropping shape, you will need to do it manually.

[William Overington]

So it is four rectangles, each with no stroke, filled with colour to place them correctly using the Transform Panel, then filled white, then everything grouped, copy and paste into the 22 page Affinity Publisher A5 document. Produce the PDF document. Upload it to the Viking Virtual Print House website and configure it as a Paperback Book, printed in colour, with the front cover and back cover in the file. Then have a look at the preview.

Only a faux book at present to get the layout correct, placeholder text in a few pages and the one picture, but I seem to be getting there.

William