Discussion on whether Frames are "Resources"

[William Overington]

Why do threads that I start about Tesco A4 frames now having an optional use mount keep disappearing? Can we have a lively discussion or will it be stopped?

I notice this morning that the thread I started yetserday about A4 accepting frames with an optional use mount has disappeared without explanation.

The heading for the Resources forums of these forums is as follows.

>  Share your custom brush, textures and other resources with the Affinity community.

Please note the term "other resources".

It seems to me that writing that Tesco is selling frames that accept an A4 size document and have an optional use mount with a centred hole of 8.5 inches by 6.5 inches, intended for mounting a 9 inch by 7 inch photograph, is potentially helpful to users of Serif Affinity products because I have realized that one can use a standard printer size of printing on A4 size paper and choose to produce original art within a centred 9 inch by 7 inch rectangular area, which includes a sort of on page bleed area for the picture so that the edge of the picture is hidden behind the mount so the picture looks mounted whereas it is not as it is straightforward to do by simply framing the A4 sheet in the A4-accepting frame.

So, i am hoping to produce some such art and publish it in the Share your work section.

Maybe knowing of the availability of these frames, currently £2.50 each, will influence the design of artworks in that by designing in a 9 inch by 7 inch rectangle while aware of a sort of on page bleed area for the picture will become a convenient way to produce framed prints of original computer art.

I appreciate that some people might not want to have a framed print produced in this manner, yet some people might.

But there is also the wider issue of why with no explanation at all these posts about these frames are being deleted when they seem to me to be a very useful resource for some users of Serif Affinity products, in particular hobbyist artists with limited facilities who might find pleasure in being able to produce a nice end result to display on a wall or a sideboard or suchlike.

Readers might like to discuss the wider aspect of whether a really tightly restricted scope of what resources potentially useful to end users of Serif Affinity products may be mentioned in this forum is beneficial to any user of Serif Affinity products.

William

Here is a transcript of the post I made yesterday. It had over a hundred views.

----

Yesterday I posted a new thread about the fact that some Tesco A4 frames are now being supplied with a mount for a 9 inch by 7 inch photograph, so use without the mount for an A4 certificate or with the mount for a 9 inch by 7 inch photograph. There was a helpful reply from someone else.

This seemed to me to be a useful resource for readers to know about as it opens the possibility of printing a sheet of paper to the A4 size of many printers yet also getting the look of a framed picture framed with a mount if one uses a Serif Affinity product to produce an A4 document that has a centred 9 inch by 7 inch image. The hole in the mount is 8.5 inches by 6.5 inches.

Yet the thread is no longer in the resources section.

Has it been moved or just thrown away because someone just decided to discard it?

Alas I do not have a copy of the text. It never occurred to me that my post would be deleted.

I was intending to try to follow up with a PDF document in Share your work of a 9 inch by 7 inch picture on an A4 size sheet so as to get a result when printed of being able to get the look of a mounted print by straightforwardly placing an A4 size sheet of paper behind the mount.

I thought this to be a useful resource to know about.

I suppose that this post could lead to a discussion about what is reasonable to post about.

William
 

[PaulEC]

I can only assume that a product for displaying your work is not considered a resource for Affinity products per se. (I can see that this could lead to endless posts about frames, display books etc. none of which are specific to Affinity software.) However I must say that I think it would be nice if when a moderator decides to remove a post, for whatever reason, they send a pm to the poster to tell them why their post has been removed.

[William Overington]

29 minutes ago, PaulEC said:

(I can see that this could lead to endless posts about frames, display books etc. none of which are specific to Affinity software.)

Well, I suppose it could.

Yet if the effect of such posts is that people who use Affinity software use it more and gain greater pleasure and satisfaction as a result of doing so, that seems good.

So a second order benefit to Serif from such posts rather than a direct first order benefit.

William

[walt.farrell]

Note, though, that Resources is not really the place to have long discussions and ask questions (as you did in your initial post). The place for that is Questions, if appropriate in these forums at all.

And as these forums are for discussions about Affinity products, and things useful in using them, I kind of agree with @PaulEC that discussion of specific frames (just like discussion of specific printers, or specific cameras) is not really relevant in these forums at all. 

I also agree that it would be nice if the Moderators responded to the member who posted the topic, but they do not have much time to spend right now, while the company is closed for holiday break, and may be taking some shortcuts. In any case, William, you should probably consider that if you try posting about certain things, and the posts are deleted, that you should stop posting about that topic  

 

[William Overington]

6 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

And as these forums are for discussions about Affinity products, and things useful in using them, ...

Ah, there is a difference as between "and things useful in using them" and "things useful in using them and applying their output".

I suppose I have taken "Share your custom brush, textures and other resources with the Affinity community." to have a meaning different from what you and possibly some others take it to mean. Sort of where are the brackets of to what "your" refers to be regarded as being located.

 

8 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

In any case, William, you should probably consider that if you try posting about certain things, and the posts are deleted, that you should stop posting about that topic  

I suppose that I should. It is supposed to be a community though. It is not as if I am writing about something not connected in any way to getting good end results using Affinity products.

For example, I am thinking of producing an A4 size PDF document using an Affinity product, with a sonnet generated by the Bing Chat AI facility (oh yes it can!) typeset within a centred rectangle such as so that when printed as an A4 document and framed in one of these frames the sonnet looks good when displayed in the frame. In order to get a good result I need to take the size of the rectangular hole in the mount and its location within the mount into account when designing the document in the Affinity product.

But, as the saying goes Management must manage, so how Serif manages these forums that it provides for its customers is ultimately a matter for Serif management.

William

 

[William Overington]

But has me mentioning these A4 frames now having a mount supplied with them been of any help to anyone who uses Serif products who has read any of my posts about this? If so, then good.

William

 

[William Overington]

This afternoon I have used two of these frames. I used them to frame two A4 size prints that I received recently. The prints are of images that I have previously posted about in the Share your work forum.

The prints were each printed for me by Viking Virtual Print House using laser printing technology and delivered by Royal Mail, in fact in a larger than A3 thick, flat, cardboard portfolio pack as there were also some A3 size prints in the same order.

I bought several prints of each image.

The first print that I framed is essentially of the following.

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/154847-colour-check/

I say essentially because the print has a far wider black area around the colourful parts.

So I framed the A4 print landscape format using the mount as there is still a good amount of black background around the colourful part when using the mount. I had intended, before finding that recent deliveries of these A4 frames had the additional feature of an included mount, simply framing in an A4 frame much as one can frame an A4 certificate. I opine that, in the event, the result with the mount is excellent.

The second print that I framed is an A4 print of teh following image.

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/175067-faux-lino-cut/

When I sent a PDF document to the virtual print house, I had designed the PDF document such that the faux lino cut image in black had a white border around it.

Upon looking at the print and the mount I realized that teh mount and the print were not compatible. At the sides there would be a white vertical strip of the print between the mount and the black image and at the top and bottom there would ben some clipping of the image such that the framed image with mount would look poor. So I framed this print without using the mount to surround part of the print. However, I placed the mount behind the image so as to maintain the thickness of what is framed and so as to conserve the mount in case it is ever needed, thought that is probably unlikely as I have no intention of using the frame for anything other than this print.

So two frames used, one for a landscape orientation image, one for a portrait orientation image, one image framed using the mount, one framed not using the mount as a mount. Both images produced using Affinity software.

William

 

 

 

[v_kyr]

6 hours ago, William Overington said:

Ah, there is a difference as between "and things useful in using them" and "things useful in using them and applying their output".

I suppose I have taken "Share your custom brush, textures and other resources with the Affinity community." to have a meaning different from what you and possibly some others take it to mean. Sort of where are the brackets of to what "your" refers to be regarded as being located. ...

Can't you first check and see what other people do/are commonly posting here into this "Resources" forum category, is it so difficult to understand? - Mostly (re)usable Affinity software related & based things (reusable brushes, assets, styles, templates ...) created with and for the Affinity products. What you did post here instead (...again irrelevant as often before in other forum sections) doesn't really meet this forum section criteria!

It doesn't matter here whether you use Tesco, Ikea, JYSK or whatever picture frame service to frame your drawings in. It's pretty irrelevant for this Affinity forum section, as others BTW already told you before above! -- So that's the reason why such postings like yours here are removed from this forum section, as it's more section unrelated content fill, similar to and like some unwanted forum spam.

[William Overington]

48 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

Can't you first check and see what other people do/are commonly posting here into this "Resources" forum category, is it so difficult to understand?

Well it had not occurred to me that I was only supposed to post things that are like what other people have posted. I thought my post about these frames now having a mount supplied to them could be of interest to some people using Serif Affinity software and might perhaps influence their design decisions sometimes depending upon what they are seeking to achieve.

Perhaps I should have kept silent.

Posts never shared. Posts never read. Posts nobody realized had even been considered posting. 

 

 

 

 

[v_kyr]

4 minutes ago, William Overington said:

Perhaps I should have kept silent.

Perhaps you should have made & offered instead some specific reusable Affinity framing template files here (so that this posting fits better into this forum section at all). Though on the other side for such trivial A4 prints to be framed, that's either way a nobrainer everyone can do on it's own.

[Patrick Connor]

Frames are not "Affinity Resources", in the same way as computer screens are not Resources for displaying images exported from Affinity Photo or Designer. 

32 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

....either way a nobrainer..

Yup

[William Overington]

I saw that you had replied yesterday evening and I thought about it all, slept on it and had another think this morning.

You mention Affinity Resources, yet that is not the heading of the forum, it is Resources.

I had taken that to include resources to inspire uses of Affinity products and to apply the output of Affinity products.

I remembered the following thread about a resource to inspire and a thread in the Share your work forum that resulted from that inspiration.

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/155308-video-about-an-exhibition-of-the-art-of-sophie-taeuber-arp/

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/155334-art-inspired-by-the-art-of-sophie-taeuber-arp/

Recently I posted the following thread.

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/196134-original-poetry-prose-and-song-lyrics-produced-by-an-artificial-intelligence-system/

I know that my posts about Tesco A4 frames now having a mount included, clearly titled as to what the thread was about, got over a hundred views before being deleted.

So lots of people read the threads.

In management studies there is the phrase "Management must manage" which can be interpreted in various ways, such as

MANAGEMENT must manage.

Management MUST manage.

Management must MANAGE.

So it up to Serif Management to decide what is appropriate for being posted in threads in the Resources forum.

My opinion, and I am not Serif Management, nor a Serif employee, is that if it is possible an additional forum be generated headed as Resources for inspiring uses and applications of Affinity products.

Otherwise, if it is the situation that the forums that are available cannot be increased, then it is a decision for management whether to rule that threads about resources for inspiring uses and applications of Affinity products be allowed in the Resources forum or that a very strict restriction be imposed so that such threads are not allowed.

If Serif Management decided that such threads are not allowed then I will comply.

Yet if such threads are not there, then people will not know of these things, and not be inspired by such things.

My opinion is that there appears to be no limit on the number of threads possible then if threads are clearly labelled then people who are not interested in reading an inspiration intended thread can simply ignore it.  

Management must manage and it is for Management to decide whether threads about resources to inspire uses of Affinity products and to apply output of Affinity products, particularly where such application has a feedback into the design process of artwork in Affinity products.

For example, displayed in my home is a print.

It is framed in an oak effect frame sold by Tesco as a photo frame, yet the print is not a photo.

In fact it is a customized greetings card, marketed as a photo card. Yet in fact one uploads a jpg file to the www.papier.com website, so it can be a photo or a jpg file exported from a computer. In this case a jpg exported from Affinity Designer. The design included use of colours, solid colours and watercolour brush colours. Also use of a font. In fact a font that I made using High-Logic FontCreator software. So products from four companies involved in some way, Tesco, Papier, Serif, High-Logic.

The design is in a forum thread.

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/138654-artwork-for-greetings-cards/

I tend to use Serif products to get a result in relation to something.

For example, I used PagePlus when I wrote and published a novel.

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/novel_plus.htm

Whatever people think of the novel itself, the fact of the matter is that writing it has kept my mind active.

As with the following artworks that I produced using Affinity Designer.

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/169391-language-independent-signs-for-art-galleries

But Affinity Designer on its own is not enough.

There is the font, there is the QR code, there is the virtual print house that used a laser printer to produce some A3 colour prints on 350 gsm stock and send them by Royal Mail.

All of these things are used to convey thoughts from my mind to art in permanent form.

So, it is all for Serif Management to decide about.

William

 

[William Overington]

Thus far this thread has 323 views.

So it gets read.

William

 

[William Overington]

I have just now looked up the following thread that I mentioned earlier.

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/155308-video-about-an-exhibition-of-the-art-of-sophie-taeuber-arp

I found the thread on page 15 of the Resources forum, listed as having had 1.2k views.

So, clearly labelled as to what the thread is about it got a considerable number of views.

William

 

[William Overington]

Looking at the two framed pictures this morning they look really good.

The thread

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/175067-faux-lino-cut/

just has a picture.

What I got printed was five black and white prints of an A4 vector image that was in a PDF document that had been exported from probably Affinity Designer though I think that the image was such that it could also have been produced in Affinity Publisher, on 350 gsm paper, so more like card.

The frame is black, the document is A4, the mount is not used but is stored within the frame behind the picture. There is a white border on the print that is either one inch wide or is 25 millimetres wide and in the middle the large faux linocut image. The transparent covering layer, probably acrylic, which I prefer, reflects the light and the edge of the frame does too.

I produced the image as a proof of concept piece about simulating a linocut using a computer art program, yet, for me, it does look good.

William

 

 

[William Overington]

The other image that I framed yesterday using another of these frames is Colour Check.

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/154847-colour-check/

What was printed was a colour print on 350 gsm paper, though the paper used for the colour prints is different from the paper used for the black and white prints, although both are 350 gsm the paper for colour printing is thinner. The gsm value does not indicate thickness.

Printed from an A4 PDF document the colourful part has quite a large amount of black around it. The PDF document had a bleed area filled with black colour so the black goes right to the edge of the print.

Framing with the mount, notwithstanding that the image was not designed with the mount in mind, in my opinion enhances the finished result.

The image is based from an image that I designed in 1977 as best I remember it.

So now that the print is framed it is conserved better than if it were not framed.

William

 

 

 

[jmwellborn]

“The image is based from an image that I designed in 1977 as best I remember it” doesn’t exactly shout “Using Affinity software in depth.” This entire series of escalating posts from Mr. Overington appears to me rather more as a feeble attempt to justify what was originally a dubious premise. In the Resources section of the Forums, several very professional templates have been provided by generous Forum members. They are easily adjustable, and elegant to use. 

[William Overington]

54 minutes ago, jmwellborn said:

“The image is based from an image that I designed in 1977 as best I remember it” doesn’t exactly shout “Using Affinity software in depth."

I did not produce the image to try to demonstrate anything about Affinity software at all. I wanted to make an image that was based on the image that I designed in 1977 as best I remember it and I used Affinity Designer as a tool to do so. I now have a framed print of the image rather than just my memories.

I had read an article about Viewdata in Wireless World and I designed the graphic on squared paper bought from a stationery shop, letters e in black, control codes in red, I forget whether pen or pencil with a key to the codes below the image design. For example red H for Hold graphics, red g for Graphics Green, red y for Graphics Yellow and so on. I sent it by Royal Mail, received a nice reply, and I was informed it was on page 786 of Viewdata (this was in the time before it was renamed Prestel). Viewdata sets were rare in those days so when I was in the area I called in at the National Physical Laboratory and asked if they had a Viewdata set and explained why I wanted to look at Viewdata. They had a Viewdata set in the foyer of one building and I was taken there and page 786 of Viewdata was displayed for me, and there it was beautifully glowing from the screen.

54 minutes ago, jmwellborn said:

This entire series of escalating posts from Mr. Overington appears to me rather more as an attempt to justify what was originally a dubious premise.

Possibly, in part. My original post about these frames was just intended as a note about a resource that I thought might be of interest to some end users, maybe it could lead to some people buying such a frame and enjoying designing something using an Affinity software program within the constraints of the document being A4 in size and having an image within it of the correct size to go with the size of the hole in the mount. Had it not been removed with no explanation that would have been it, just a post about a resource, a post that I had thought that some people might find of interest, and maybe it was of interest to some readers.

54 minutes ago, jmwellborn said:

In the Resources section of the Forums, several very professional templates have been provided by generous Forum members. They are easily adjustable, and elegant to use. 

Thank you for responding. I simply do not understand what you mean, and I say that not to be critical or indignant or anything like that but because I am not an expert user of Affinity products, I have not studied them in depth, I genuinely do not understand what those two sentences are about. Yesterday another person wrote about "reusable Affinity framing template files" and I had never heard of those before.

Nobody yet has posted in support of a policy of the Resources forum being available for posts about resources that inspire and resources that help apply output from Affinity products, but why post if that means going against the greying.

However, this thread is getting lots and lots of views of the posts. Now at 471.

William

 

[v_kyr]

This locked thread here in Resources should be removed ...

... it's at best completely unneeded and in my eyes overall more an attempt by the OP to generate more view clicks here and as jmwellborn already very aptly said, “to justify from the beginnings an originally dubious premise”.

Further did you ever saw that somebody, whose thread has been moved by the forum moderators from the "Resources" forum category to this more theme suitable "Affinity on Desktop Questions (macOS and Windows)" category, has then in turn created a locked info thread there in "Resources", just in order to tell that the initial thread has been moved? - If everybody would do so/that, then the Resources category would be full with top locked confusing and irrelevant threads!

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, William Overington said:

However, this thread is getting lots and lots of views of the posts.

Which does not mean anything other than that a lot of forum members keep reading it. 

[William Overington]

For me, posting that temporary signpost thread was necessary for completeness. Otherwise there was potential that some people who were following the thread would not know that the thread had been moved and that the title had been changed.

I did not lock the thread. It is good that it is locked as it is just a signpost to this thread. But I neither locked it nor suggested it be locked.

It is labelled as temporary, it will possibly be gone soon.

The thread is clearly titled and has had 85 views thus far, so maybe has helped some readers find this thread.

I consider this present thread to be very important as it is about which way Serif management wants to go over what information related to using Serif products is considered acceptable to be provided to end users in its forum, is the boundary line when electronic output is exported from the software or is the boundary line encompassing everything about applying that electronic output, or where is the boundary line?

It started off about me mentioning about some A4 frames now having a mount supplied, but it is about far more than that.

William

 

[R C-R]

8 hours ago, William Overington said:

I did not lock the thread.

FYI, you can't lock a thread. Only moderators can do that.

[William Overington]

I have been thinking that if a 7 inch by 5 inch faux linocut in a deep blue, like blue ink mixed with black ink, on a "white" background in a PDF document were printed on pink A4 paper, that would have an experimental letterpress look about it, and if framed in one of these Tesco A4 frames with its white mount used, could look good.

Or if a faux linocut image were printed on light blue paper it could be done with just one ink colour, even a black ink print, to have an image depicting early morning in a forest with the black silhouettes of trees against the light blue sky.

Thus knowing about these A4 frames with a mount could result in that knowledge being taken into account when designing in Affinity products. As the Pen Tool is in both Affinity Designer and Affinity Publisher then faux linocut artwork could be produced using either program.

William

 

[firstdefence]

All users of Affinity apps are going to use external resources of one description or another, so does it really matter if people on the forum are interested in what frames are available for framing their artwork? Isn't the point of producing photos, art, books, mags, flyers etc to implement them with real world external resources, be it a framed image, paper, a digital display board, etc, a means to an end and the bit in the middle "Affinity" being a step in that process/workflow. 

[William Overington]

With one of these frames, by removing the transparent layer yet keeping the mount in place and framing some blank A4 drawing paper, a firm, portable drawing pad upon which one can sketch with a pencil is produced. Then later the A4 paper sketch can be removed and framed in another frame of the same type. The advantage of this is that as the mount is in place while making the sketch, the sketch will fit nicely when framed in another frame that has the same size of mount. The sketch pad is available for further use.

The original drawing could be scanned and then an Affinity program used to produce an A4 PDF document which could be printed to print copies of the drawing that could then be framed in frames of the same size.

If the PDF document were posted in the Share your work forum then a reader could, if he or she so chose, print the PDF document and if able to buy such a frame from Tesco then frame the print and the mount would be correctly placed.

William