Affinity Publisher picture frame perspective transformation

[mypointofview]

Hi

 

I know in Affinity Photo I can transform objects and their perspective.

In Affinity Publisher I have only found the possibility to flip, move, crop, rotate BUT not transform a picture frames perspective....

 

is this even possible? Or am I missing something?
and if not could that be a future feature request?
 

thanks 🤓

[thomaso]

Many (not all) APhoto features + tools are accessible in APub via APub's Photo Persona.

… and, once created, you can edited their layers in APub's APub Persona:

[Dan C]

Alternatively, if you have Affinity Designer V2 installed you can use the Designer Persona in Affinity Publisher V2 to add a Vector Warp Group to your design as required -

However unfortunately Publisher doesn't natively support these features as a standalone app currently, apologies.

[mypointofview]

@thomaso

 

thanks a lot for your elaborate answer 🙏🏻

now this might sound completely stupid, but I have always thought that the "personas" are just links to hand over between the different apps to edit an image placed in a picture frame in Publisher in Photo... 🤔

Or is this a fundamental incorrect understanding of Personas?
And they rather allow features of Affinity Photo to be used within Affinity Publisher? Like transformations.

 

@Dan C thank you as well, but I have not installed Designer yet on my MBP, just on my iPad, as I'm just an absolute beginner with Affinity Designer 

[thomaso]

12 minutes ago, mypointofview said:

I have always thought that the "personas" are just links to hand over between the different apps (…)

Or is this a fundamental incorrect understanding of Personas?

It's always worth to get familiar with more basics of the Affinity interface, in particular the first three chapters of the Help: "Introduction" + "User Interface" + "Personas".
I always thought that would be most interesting when working with a new app, not to mention the various offers in the main menu bar, for instance the menu "File" … 😉

[mypointofview]

@thomaso

 

Thanks for the broad hint! 😉

I always used the Affinity apps separately, but the Personas are actually beyond helpful.

Found this video on YT which gives some further details...

 

 

[Dan C]

No problem at all!

15 minutes ago, mypointofview said:

now this might sound completely stupid, but I have always thought that the "personas" are just links to hand over between the different apps to edit an image placed in a picture frame in Publisher in Photo... 🤔

Or is this a fundamental incorrect understanding of Personas?
And they rather allow features of Affinity Photo to be used within Affinity Publisher? Like transformations.

Essentially, there are 3 different ways in which the Affinity apps allow for direct 'interworking' between each app.

 

1. File > Edit In [Photo/Designer/Publisher] ...

Within any Affinity desktop app, you will find menu items under the File menu that allows you to 'send' documents between the apps seamlessly.
This will take your currently active document and open it within the selected Affinity app, to continue editing the file.*

For example; 
You can open and develop a RAW file within Affinity Photo, then once you've finished developing/editing the image you could use File > Edit In Designer...
This would close the edited image from Affinity Photo and open it within Affinity Designer, allowing you to then use the Designer specific tools, such as the Vector Brush Tool on your image.

*Note that Edit In requires the same version of the Affinity apps to be installed on the same device to function.
For example; If you have Affinity Publisher V1 and Affinity Designer V2 installed on one PC, Edit In will not be selectable in either app - you would need to install multiple V1 or V2 apps for this to function. 

 

2. Interchangeable File Format 

Each Affinity app saves your document using a specific file format - Affinity Photo uses .afphoto, Affinity Designer uses .afdesign and Affinity Publisher uses .afpub.

However, these file formats are only named differently for file identification purposes and are essentially the same format, meaning any Affinity app can open any Affinity file, on any platform that Affinity supports.* 

For example; 
You can create a logo in Affinity Designer for Windows and save this as an .afdesign file. You can then send this file to a mac and use File > Open in Affinity Photo on macOS to open this .afdesign and continue editing from where you left off in Designer, but now with the tools found in Affinity Photo.
Following this, you can save the document from Affinity Photo on macOS (which will retain the previous .afdesign format) and then send this to your iPad, where the file could be opened within Affinity Publisher for iPad to finish editing.
This would carry across all of the edits made in the file from both Designer & Photo, and would then be editable in Publisher, using Publishers specific toolset.

The above example is purely hypothetical - as the Affinity document (.afphoto, .afdesign or .afpub) from any app can be opened in any other Affinity app, on any supported platform.

*Note that Affinity V1 files can be edited across all Affinity V1 apps, however once saved within Affinity V2 they will only be editable within Affinity V2 and can no longer be reopened within Affinity V1.(ie not 'backwards compatible')

 

3. StudioLink within Affinity Publisher

Affinity Publisher is currently the only Affinity app to support StudioLink.
Although Affinity Designer and Photo have their own Personas, you cannot access Affinity Designers tools from within Affinity Photo directly,(ie without leaving Affinity Photo) or vice-versa.

Essentially StudioLink allows you to create a document within Publisher, then switch to either the Photo or Designer persona within Publisher*.
This provides you with a more refined set of tools from each app (Photo/Designer) respectively, without having to leave the Affinity app you originally created the document in, which the above 2 workflows require.

However as StudioLink Personas each have this more refined toolset, certain functions of Designer/Photo can only be found within that app directly - such as Panorama Stitching or Astrophotography Stacking in Affinity Photo, which cannot be found in the Photo Persona within Publisher StudioLink.

For example; 
After creating your Publisher document and using File > Place to introduce an image to your document, you might decide this image requires a few edits to be perfect. You can then switch to the Photo Persona using StudioLink to instantly edit this image in your file, using the tools from Affinity Photo, without having to leave Publisher & saving/closing your file.
You may then decide that your document requires a Logo, or perhaps a Warp Group as covered above. Therefore you can switch to the Designer Persona using StudioLink to access these tools, again without having to leave Publisher.
Finally, you can return to the Publisher Persona to complete the editing on your file and Export/Print/Save this as required.

StudioLink has been previously explained/demonstrated during the AffinityLive event when this feature was first announced by Ash, our MD. You can find this video in the below Spotlight article -
https://affinityspotlight.com/article/focus-on-studiolink/

*Note that StudioLink requires the same version of the Affinity apps to be installed on the same device to function.
For example; If you have Affinity Photo V1 and Affinity Publisher V2 installed on one PC, StudioLink will not function in Publisher V2 - you would need to install Photo V2 for this to function. 
Equally, if you have Affinity Designer V2 installed on macOS and Affinity Publisher V2 installed on iPadOS, StudioLink would not function on iPad - you would need to install Designer V2 on iPadOS for this to function.

This is why we now sell Affinity as a 'Universal License', providing you with Photo, Designer and Publisher V2 Affinity apps, on all 3 platforms simultaneously - meaning StudioLink can work on any supported device!

__________________

I appreciate this may be more information than you require, but I felt it best to be thorough - though there may still be edge cases not covered by the above.

Hopefully this helps clear things up for you, but we're certainly glad to hear StudioLink should help with your general workflows in Affinity 

[mypointofview]

@Dan C

 

thanks a lot for your elaborate answer!
It actually makes sense even though it's quite overwhelming.

I will still do most of the work in each specific app to get the benefit of all tools. Nonetheless it's extremely practical when it comes to a case like my specific questions.

 

thanks 😀