[Affinity Designer] How to copy gradient fill to Fx?

[Muirén]

Is there a way to convert a gradient fill to FX or copy that fill and apply it as an FX?

 

[GarryP]

I’m pretty sure that the answer is no, but I’d be happy to learn otherwise.

If you can give us an example of what you are doing then we might be able to come up with an alternative.

[Muirén]

There are two separate fill menus I shared screenshots of.

I used to gradient fill in the basic object fill menu.

Later I found it easier to create gradients in the Fx menu over a uniform base color.

When repurposing elements from earlier work, I increasingly just use them as a reference and manually re-create each band of color from the original in the Fx menu gradient fill.

[GarryP]

Thanks for the extra information but I think I should have requested a visual example so we can see what you are doing.

Having said that…

One of the problems with this might be that the Gradient Overlay Effect applies to the whole visible area of the layer whereas the Gradient Tool can apply to either the Fill or Stroke, so that would have to be taken into account somehow.

Another problem could be that the Gradient Tool fill can be a bitmap fill which the Gradient Overlay Effect can’t handle.

Another problem could be that the Gradient Tool has many more positional adjustment possibilities (e.g. any angle) than the Gradient Overlay Effect, so I don’t know how that could be handled if copied to an Effect.

[Muirén]

My mistake, I thought you were being helpful.

[GarryP]

2 hours ago, Muirén said:

My mistake, I thought you were being helpful.

I was trying to be helpful but now I'm just confused.

Can you explain why you think I'm not being helpful?

[loukash]

6 hours ago, GarryP said:

I’m pretty sure that the answer is no

Not sure if it's a bug or a "missing feature", but there seems to be no way to apply an existing gradient swatch to an overlay effect.

And because of this…

6 hours ago, Muirén said:

Later I found it easier to create gradients in the Fx menu over a uniform base color.

… I'd recommend not to use this workflow because from the Layer Effects window you'll have no way to save your painstakingly created gradients as swatches.

You can achieve the same effect by multiple other non-destructive workflows, using simple vector shape layers or fill layers with a gradient fill, and applying blend modes, etc.
Also, don't forget about the Gradient Tool, rather than using the awkwardly small popup window in the context toolbar…

[GarryP]

15 hours ago, loukash said:

Not sure if it's a bug or a "missing feature",

I can’t see any evidence that this might be a bug because:

• my observations above show that there could be problems with ‘equivalence’ between the functionalities (‘square peg, round hole’), and;
• there’s nothing in the UI or documentation which tells me that it should be possible.

[loukash]

17 hours ago, loukash said:

from the Layer Effects window you'll have no way to save your painstakingly created gradients as swatches.

Thinking of it again, you can save objects with Layer Effects as Styles, but styles have their own bunch of issues, e.g. being non-editable. I, for one, rarely ever use them.

[GarryP]

Yeah, I feel sure that Styles have their uses in various situations, but I don’t think I’ve ever used them other than to briefly see what something looked like, mainly because of the limitations already mentioned in your post and elsewhere in the forums.

[loukash]

Another possibility is to save a small specimen object as an Asset for future use, then use Edit → Paste FX to apply its layer effects to other objects in other documents.

[loukash]

Another option:
Layer effects can be recorded as Macros.

But that still doesn't resolve the original issue, how to apply an existing gradient to a gradient overlay effect.