I need Liquify in Affinity Designer!

[Meduzah]

Hi from Germany! 
I‘ve bought the complete suite few days ago and I‘m a huge fan of all the affinity products.

Unfortunately I can‘t help but notice that one essential tool in Affinity Designer is still missing: The liquify tool!

As an artist I can tell you that lots of artists use this tool to fix some little mistakes. I tried it with the smudge tool but the result is not satisfying. To be honest: it isn‘t helpful all away. 

Of course your argument could be: the Affinity Photo program/app does have the Liquify Persona. Yes. I totally agree. But it ruins my workflow if I have to switch between the apps/programs. For example: If I want to draw a little pre-sketch for an vector design in Affinity Designer - this is not an efficient workflow neither, when I have to save the document on my computer/ipad, have to upload it in Affinity Photo, liquify a LIIIIIIITTLE thing, need to save that again to upload it back to Affinity Designer just to keep on working on my document. And I have to do all these steps again and again and again … Guys, your app/program is amazing but this is quite annoying and not helpful at all. Otherwise I need to use another program.

Please! Add the Liquify Persona to Affinity Designer or try to create a liquify tool. I‘d personally prefer a tool than a persona. For me it is one of the most important tools I am using in Procreate. Get inspired by them! If your program/app should be a perfect fusion of raster and vector designs - this tool would make it perfect! I swear, you wouldn‘t regret it! 🙏

 

Apart from that - it would also be a really nice thing if there is a similar way to get to know how long you are working on your artwork like the tracker in Procreate. But this would be the cherry on top of the cream.

 

Thank you for listening and I hope you will hear me and my (christmas-)wish (lol).

Tanja

[loukash]

1 hour ago, Meduzah said:

I have to save the document on my computer/ipad, have to upload it in Affinity Photo, liquify a LIIIIIIITTLE thing, need to save that again to upload it back to Affinity Designer just to keep on working on my document.

You don't have to save anything, at least not in the desktop versions. 
The commands File > Edit in Photo and File > Edit in Designer respectively are your friends. The app switch happens on the fly without saving. (Technically, there's a temporary file being saved automatically in the respective application support folders, but that's a hidden process which the user doesn't have to care about.)

This feature works even with yet unsaved documents. It's been there in v1 since years.

On the iPad, yes: You have to save the ADe document first and then you can open it with APh from the respective folder. I guess the "Edit in …" feature has yet to be implemented on iPad. At least though, with the Publisher we now have the Studio persona on the iPad which is already very handy.

[walt.farrell]

6 minutes ago, loukash said:

At least though, with the Publisher we now have the Studio persona on the iPad which is already very handy.

Yes, it's very handy, though it won't help with Liquify. That requires a full application switch. But for many purposes Publisher provides an excellent work environment for users who own both Designer and Photo, too.

[Meduzah]

20 hours ago, loukash said:

On the iPad, yes: You have to save the ADe document first and then you can open it with APh from the respective folder. I guess the "Edit in …" feature has yet to be implemented on iPad. At least though, with the Publisher we now have the Studio persona on the iPad which is already very handy.

Thank you so much for the objections. I have already worked on the desktop with the "edit in ..." in Designer and Photo, which works quite well. In fact, I still find the Liquify Persona a bit difficult to handle, because as an hobby artist it's very irritating for me to adjust a grid (all over the document) instead of adjusting only the drawn stroke by itself. I actually only want to adjust my sketch, not an entire document. Yes, I know, I could increase the size of the liquify brush but most of the time my stroke is getting look weird.

 Apart from that, I'm using the apps on the iPad by far more than the desktop programs. So the problem is still there. And - just another thought I had - let's pretend I'd bought only Affinity Designer on iPad just because I was absolutely certaint that this app is all I need: Either I need to buy Photo or Publisher too just to get a stroke fixed. That can't be a solution. Well, for Serif it would be a good deal but not for the artist, you know what I mean? Especially when the artist only uses Photo because of the Liquify Persona ...

Don't get me wrong: I totally understand why it was programmed that way (I really do), however, it still reinforces my argument that Affinity Designer need its own liquify tool. Drawings and sketches - especially sketches - aren't like photos.
 

Apart from that: thank you @walt.farrell for your support! ;D

Edited November 20, 2022 by Meduzah

[loukash]

5 minutes ago, Meduzah said:

adjusting only the drawn stroke by itself.

• If your strokes are vector, you can use the new nifty Warp Group feature in Designer.
• If they are pixel strokes, you can use e.g. the destructive Mesh Warp Tool in Photo instead.
• Additionally, Liquify in Photo is also available as a non-destructive live filter which you can apply to any object individually, including vector shapes and text. Note, however, that all affected objects will then export rasterized which may or may not be always the desired result, especially for print. (Hence now the long requested and eagerly awaited vector Warp Group! )

[Meduzah]

30 minutes ago, Meduzah said:

Apart from that, I'm using the apps on the iPad by far more than the desktop programs. So the problem is still there. And - just another thought I had - let's pretend I'd bought only Affinity Designer on iPad just because I was absolutely certaint that this app is all I need: Either I need to buy Photo or Publisher too just to get a stroke fixed. That can't be a solution. Well, for Serif it would be a good deal but not for the artist, you know what I mean? Especially when the artist only uses Photo because of the Liquify Persona ...

@loukash - Thank you for your tips! I will keep them in mind! 🙏
Because I was still editing my post while you were writing your answer - here are my biggest pain points.

 

Edited November 20, 2022 by Meduzah

[loukash]

27 minutes ago, Meduzah said:

I'm using the apps on the iPad by far more than the desktop programs

Hab ich schon begriffen…  

I'm new to Affinity on iPad as well (thanks for the Universal License, Serif!), so I also need to check out all these things first. From what I see right now, apart from missing the "Edit in" command yet, all those live filters are there in the iPad-Photo as well. Note that if you open the Filters panel, you may need to activate "Add Live Filters" first, otherwise they will be applied destructively. Then you simply save in Photo, close the document, reopen in Designer, the live filter will be there.

[loukash]

46 minutes ago, Meduzah said:

it still reinforces my argument that Affinity Designer need its own liquify tool. Drawings and sketches - especially sketches - aren't like photos.

But ADe is primarily a vector design app. I've always understood the Pixel persona as a "bonus" which still makes the standalone ADe the most universal of all three apps, especially for beginners who don't want or need to buy the whole suite. I never use the Pixel persona in fact. Why should I when I get more tools when quickly (on the desktop, that is) switching to Photo? And why even switching apps when I can do almost*) everything I ever need in Publisher just by switching between the APu/APh/ADe personae which works on iPad as well.
*) The Liquify filter being an exception because even in Photo, the live filter requires the Liquify persona, and the Photo persona in APu obviously doesn't have access to it.

[Meduzah]

9 minutes ago, loukash said:

I'm new to Affinity on iPad as well (thanks for the Universal License, Serif!), so I also need to check out all these things first. From what I see right now, apart from missing the "Edit in" command yet, all those live filters are there in the iPad-Photo as well. Note that if you open the Filters panel, you may need to activate "Add Live Filters" first, otherwise they will be applied destructively. Then you simply save in Photo, close the document, reopen in Designer, the live filter will be there.

I think this could be a temporary solution for me, thank you for the detailed advice! I still hope that Serif will come outwith its own tool for Designer.
Thank you for listening to me and trying to help me! 🙏 I really appreciate it!

[loukash]

3 minutes ago, Meduzah said:

I still hope that Serif will come outwith its own tool for Designer.

I'd actually expect that eventually the Warp Group feature will be enhanced so that it also fully affects pixel layers. At this stage, it can only warp bounding box of Image objects. It doesn't do anything to pixel layers yet.

[Meduzah]

2 minutes ago, loukash said:

But ADe is primarily a vector design app. I've always understood the Pixel persona as a "bonus" which still makes the standalone ADe the most universal of all three apps, especially for beginners who don't want or need to buy the whole suite. I never use the Pixel persona in fact. Why should I when I get more tools when quickly (on the desktop, that is) switching to Photo? And why even switching apps when I can do almost*) everything I ever need in Publisher just by switching between the APu/APh/ADe personae which works on iPad as well.
*) The Liquify filter being an exception because even in Photo, the live filter requires the Liquify persona, and the Photo persona in APu obviously doesn't have access to it.

I absolutely agree with you! The Pixel Persona is a "bonus" for me, too. I don't need tones of functions or tools. Just the liquify tool. 😂

And yes, your arguments are really conclusive. There is just one thing: Not everyone has the money to buy every application at once. Not everyone uses or needs Publisher, not everyone uses or needs Photo or Designer similarly often or the program/apps at all. I'm quite sure there are lots of people out there who are using just one of these apps/programs. To buy them just because of the need of one tool that is in one of the other apps - or as you said - to get more tools ... - FOR ME - that seems to be quite unnecessary and quite expensive. I would have one or two programs more I won't use regularly.

As I said: I totally understand, why this was made that way and I think this "edit in ..." switch-possibility is a really good thing and lots of people find it useful. But I prefer to stay and work only in one app, especially on the iPad, which on the one hand is more convenient in the workflow and on the other hand also prevents crashes. I may be wrong but I don't think that a liquify tool is THAT complicated to implement into Designer? Especially Photo does it have yet (as a warp tool or as the liquify persona).

 

[Meduzah]

You know @loukash, I'm just a fan of self-contained apps that work on their own and include everything you need. You may think this is naïve or narrow-minded, but I find it much more pleasant for the user experience than having to rely on other apps as well.

I do love the work and programs/apps by Serif. Otherwise I probably wouldn't have bought it. I don't really need Publisher and Photo, but I like the programmes so much that I buy them anyway and support Serif financially in this way. 😇

[loukash]

Technically, the Affinity suite is just one app. There's also just one document format. The file extensions only define the default app to open a document. If you want an *.afdesign document to open in APh by default, simply change the extension to *.afphoto.

This "trinity" of apps was created both for marketing reasons as well as to avoid unnecessary bloat and Featuritis™ of one monolithic "Überapp". Serif just had to draw the line somewhere to make each of their three products distinct. 

Yeah, sometimes we may wish for an eierlegende Wollmilchsau, but more often than not, reduction of features is much better for keeping focused. When I'm laying out a brochure, I definitely don't need to get distracted by menus with dozens of bitmap filters. I need typographic tools, and I get those in the main Publisher persona. Same for the other two apps.

 

[Meduzah]

Well, here it is again: I understand the point of view and I also readily see that one wants and needs to keep points like "overapp" and and reduction in mind.

Nevertheless, we are talking about a tiny function, a warp-or-liquify-tool that is usually included in every (free) drawing programme and actually exist in another app. Besides, it would be enough to add a 3x3 grid to the transform tool in order to be able to make the warping in it.

If I were talking about a vector animation assistent here, for example, I could understand your point of view much better. Here, however, we are both arguing for two points of view (and that in a really nice way! thank you so much for that! 🙏)