Jump to content
You must now use your email address to sign in [click for more info] ×

Smart Layers | Affinity Photo | Affinity Designer


Recommended Posts

I love Affinity for its one time purchase and many of its great features but it desperately needs to support photoshop/illustrator smart layers to compete.  I use the smart layers to easily create mock-ups for various projects and without this feature my work would be significantly more difficult.

 

Thank you for your time,

 

J. Wolfe

Freelance Graphic Designer and Brand Works

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Smart objects allow for external files to be embedded, and for elements to be cloned. They can also be used to organize work quite effectively. States of SOs can be controlled via properties, making it simple to re-use GUI elements, for example.

 

A function for instancing layers which update in real-time while the source is edited in-place would be very welcome as well (something Photoshop is lacking, but Photoline and Krita do feature).

 

And Affinity is not nearly as non-destructive as it could be: in Photo text is rasterized the moment anything but a perspective filter is applied as a distortion. RAW processing is destructive. Liquify is destructive.

 

Then again, smart objects in Photoshop can be a real pain to use - a simple instancing method for layers would go a long way. Best: accommodate both: 1) external and embedded SOs/placeholder layers, and 2) instanced layers or symbols, so the user may choose between each approach depending on the situation (Photoline allows for this, for example).

 

Perhaps Affinity Publisher/Layout will be the solution?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
  • Staff

Hi mateusz.zimnoch, wolfe8131,

Welcome to Affinity Forums :)

PSD is a proprietary format owned by Adobe and very poorly documented. Both programs also use a different document model and implement some features in a different way so there's no direct mapping  between their functionality. This means it's very complicated for us (or to another software publisher) to fully support all PSD features. Although we strive to provide the best PSD import possible, it's unlikely  that will be able to provide 100% compatibility any time soon. Rather than relying on closed/proprietary PSD format specs, you should be able to create similarly complex mockups entirely in Affinity as we move forward and the program matures. Hopefully more files/templates will also become available as more users start taking advantage of it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1. How much is TIF compatible with PSD files?

2. Does Affinity covers TIF format 100%?

 

If so, maybe it is better to convert PSD to TIF an then import to AP to retain as much as possible from Photoshop documents?

All the latest releases of Designer, Photo and Publisher (retail and beta) on MacOS and Windows.
15” Dell Inspiron 7559 i7 Windows 10 x64 Pro Intel Core i7-6700HQ (3.50 GHz, 6M) 16 GB Dual Channel DDR3L 1600 MHz (8GBx2) NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M 4 GB GDDR5 500 GB SSD + 1 TB HDD UHD (3840 x 2160) Truelife LED - Backlit Touch Display
32” LG 32UN650-W display 3840 x 2160 UHD, IPS, HDR10 Color Gamut: DCI-P3 95%, Color Calibrated 2 x HDMI, 1 x DisplayPort
13.3” MacBook Pro (2017) Ventura 13.6 Intel Core i7 (3.50 GHz Dual Core) 16 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3 Intel Iris Plus Graphics 650 1536 MB 500 GB SSD Retina Display (3360 x 2100)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Adobe abused the TIFF format by introducing "layered" tiffs, which are basically a PSD wrapped in a TIFF container. No luck there either. Blame Adobe.

 

The best you can do is to convert unsupported features to rasterized layers, save as a PSD, and test.                                                   

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Guidelines | We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.