create a blend of colors between to selected colors

[edreaux]

I am migrating from SAI Flexi which uses a tool called "blend" to create a determined amount of new colors between 2 existing selected colors. For example if you select a white object and a black object, the "blend" will create new shades of gray between those 2 selected colors. Is there a way to do this with Affinity? Thanks!

[GarryP]

Welcome to the forums @edreaux

It sounds like you want to add a Gradient and that can be achieved in various different ways depending on which application(s) you have available to you and what sort of thing you want to apply the colour to.

If you can give us more details about what you want to do, preferably with an example image and/or document, we can advise further.

(I’ve never used SAI Flexi so I don’t know what it’s supposed to do or how to use it.)

[h_d]

Unfortunately @edreaux this sort of functionality displayed in this video (for Illustrator but I suspect it's what you're looking for)

isn't available in Affinity Designer, although I think it has been requested repeatedly over the years.

[kaffeeundsalz]

44 minutes ago, h_d said:

(for Illustrator but I suspect it's what you're looking for)

I'm not so sure about that since @edreaux explicitly mentions colors and not shapes. Of course, a Blend Tool is a much requested feature for Affinity Designer. But if this is really about color (and only color), there are a few ways to get you at least somewhere with this.

1. Open the Swatches panel, klick the hamburger menu in the upper right an choose "Add Document Palette". Enter a name, then choose any color and add it to the palette as a swatch. If you click-click the swatch, you have a number of options under "Create Color Chord". Granted, none of the options you can find there will give you blend steps between to arbitrary colors. But with "Tints", "Shades" and "Tones" you can at least blend to white, black and gray if that's what you need. Unfortunately, this will also not allow you to set the number of steps. Affinity Designer will always create seven additional swatches from the color you clicked.

2. Create a rectangle, fill it with a gradient and set the gradient stops to the colors you want to blend. Then, with the rectangle selected, go to Layer > New Adjustment > Posterize. In the Posterize dialog, you can use the slider to increase or decrease the number of levels you want to create. This will affect how many colors of the gradient will be visible. It's not great because the quality of the output will depend on the actual colors you chose for the gradient. But if it works, you can use the color picker afterwards to sample from the posterized gradient and build your color palette this way.

3. Use an external tool. If you use a Mac, there are many of them in the Mac App Store. One that I particularly liked is Aquarelo. It hasn't been updated for years but still works an can do exactly what you described: You can set two colors and then create a customizable amount of intermediate shades from them. Or use a website. Again, there are many, but for your requirements, the Gradient Generator by Color Designer might be useful.

[edreaux]

The image shown by @h_d is exactly what I need. I will try the process prescribed by @kaffeeundsalz .  Thanks so much for the info.

[henryanthony]

@edreaux Or, you could...

1. In Affinity Photo, make two layers.
2. Fill each layer with the colors you want to mix.
3. Set the top layer to "Multiply".
4. Change the opacity of the layers to suit.