A question about Studio Link

[Wayne Burrows]

Howdy Folks,

I ran across someone on YT a while ago that said that he works on everything by opening up in Publisher because you’re able to seamlessly go between platforms via Studio Link when necessary - As opposed to ‘File > Edit in XXX’. I have come to find out that THAT makes a lot of sense. But I have a question about this approach…

If you have to hop over into one of the ‘sub’ personas, such as the Pixel Persona for instance, how can that be done when you open up your work in Publisher? So far I haven’t seen a way of getting there.

THANX!

WB

[Pšenda]

By using StudioLink (as opposed to fully switching to another application using Edit In...), only the basic functionalities of the given application will be made available, not their Personas (e.g. Export persona).

[walt.farrell]

StudioLink gives you the main Personas of Photo (Photo Persona) and Designer (Designer Persona) in Publisher. You don't have access to the Pixel Persona, or the Export Persona, or Tone Mapping, etc. 

Specifically for the Pixel Persona: you shouldn't need it if you have Photo. Just use the Photo Persona. 

For the others, you would have to use Edit In.

[Old Bruce]

1 hour ago, Wayne Burrows said:

If you have to hop over into one of the ‘sub’ personas, such as the Pixel Persona for instance, how can that be done when you open up your work in Publisher? So far I haven’t seen a way of getting there.

This assumes that you own all three Affinity applications. And they are all the same version, one or two.

If you need to use Designer's Pixel Persona you may be best served by using Publisher's Photo persona (it is far more powerful than Designer's Pixel persona. If you only own Designer and Publisher then you will need to do the Edit in ... route to access Designer's Pixel persona.

[R C-R]

5 hours ago, Wayne Burrows said:

If you have to hop over into one of the ‘sub’ personas, such as the Pixel Persona for instance, how can that be done when you open up your work in Publisher?

Exactly as how @Old Bruce just mentioned, by clicking on the Photo Persona icon in the toolbar.

[Pšenda]

8 hours ago, R C-R said:

Exactly as how @Old Bruce just mentioned, by clicking on the Photo Persona icon in the toolbar.

But this will not enable what the OP expected - i.e. making available all sub Personas of the ADesigner application, i.e. Pixel and Export Persona. So it's clear that the OP didn't understand the basic difference between Edit in..., when you physically switch to the second application including all its properties and functions (so the second application starts), and StudioLink, when only the functions of ADesigner and APhoto are made available directly in APublisher. The mentioned sub Personas (Pixel, Export, Liquify, Develop, Tone) are not directly accessible in the APublisher application.

So clicking on Photo Persona will not "exactly" do what the OP expected (availability of Pixel Persona), but only a replacement - because the functions in Photo Persona contain and extend the functions in the requested Pixel Persona.

[Wayne Burrows]

5 hours ago, Pšenda said:

But this will not enable what the OP expected - i.e. making available all sub Personas of the ADesigner application, i.e. Pixel and Export Persona.

I'm still feeling my way around everything, so anytime a question pops into my head as I'm working on a project, I see if I'm able to find an answer for it over here and if I don't come across one within a previously posted question, I pose the question myself. I just used 'Pixel Persona' only as an example of a 'sub' persona, that's all. BUT... Now that i know that it's a like a limited version of APhoto, I will remember that for future reference.

This software is literally blowing my mind with all of the functionality & features that's intertwined within it. I purchased the suite around the beginning of the year and just really started digging into it about a couple of months ago, so I am constantly learning new things every single day. I knew absolutely Zero about Affinity before then and now I have completed a couple of very detailed laden projects - and I have only scratched the surface of what the whole suite has to offer.

So you all have answered my question, and then some.

Thank You

WB

[Pšenda]

47 minutes ago, Wayne Burrows said:

Now that i know that it's a like a limited version of APhoto

The wording about the "limited" version is probably not entirely correct, because Photo persona in APublisher is functionally identical to Photo persona in APhoto. The difference between the Photo persona in APublisher, when the "functions" of the Photo persona in APhoto are made available, and Edit in Photo... is that when Edit in, the APhoto application is completely switched/launched, and thus its Personas is also made available and even her Help*).
The Photo persona in APublisher is thus definitely better functionally equipped than the Pixel persona in ADesigner. However, if the user does not have the APhoto application, the Designer persona in APublisher will make all vector functions available to him, but not the raster/pixel ones from Pixel persona (for this he has no choice but to use the Edit In Designer command).

*) I think it would be good if, when using the Photo/Designer persona in APublisher, the relevant Help section was also made available with a description of the relevant tools.