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Brush resize and hardness with Ctrl + Alt


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On 1 older Mac AP thread I saw that you can use Opt + Cmd to change your brush size/hardness just like in PS. This doesn't work for me so I'm asking is it a bug or?

 

Also while I'm here I gotta ask are you planing on adding more options to "Apply Image"? Invert and layer selection would be nice. 

 

Yea I know theres a forum section for feture request, sry again.

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Hey Novak, the brush size/hardness modifier on macOS is Ctrl+Alt+Left mouse. On Windows, however, the Ctrl modifier has moved to the right mouse button (as there's no substitute for the Cmd key). So on Windows it's Alt+Left mouse+Right mouse. Hope that helps!

Product Expert (Affinity Photo) & Product Expert Team Leader

@JamesR_Affinity for tutorial sneak peeks and more
Official Affinity Photo tutorials

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Hey Novak, the brush size/hardness modifier on macOS is Ctrl+Alt+Left mouse. On Windows, however, the Ctrl modifier has moved to the right mouse button (as there's no substitute for the Cmd key). So on Windows it's Alt+Left mouse+Right mouse. Hope that helps!

Tnx. I know I'm asking much but about that Apply image, are you gonna add layer options as well as invert?

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Hey Novak, the brush size/hardness modifier on macOS is Ctrl+Alt+Left mouse. On Windows, however, the Ctrl modifier has moved to the right mouse button (as there's no substitute for the Cmd key). So on Windows it's Alt+Left mouse+Right mouse. Hope that helps!

Thanks James - this definitely helps. BUT... as I am using a Wacom tablet it would be great if this could be reconfigured.

In Photoshop I am used to ALT + RightMouse (RM) and this works great with a Wacom pen (with one button configured as RM). 

Now I don't know how to use ALT+RM+LM with a pen... 

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VERY IMPORTANT UPDATE (21st June, 2019) : Depending on your config or how you'd deal with it, this might have not worked, and the trick could have some issues (NOTHING terrible, it just would not be activated, the trick) if you are not well versed in this utility (or in general with this kind of thing).  Please, check the following post I just did (21st June, '19) , much better explained, better ordered, and avoiding some potential flaws (it is a full step by step tutorial, so, you can totally avoid reading this post, only focus in the link pasted just below ) :

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/4987-how-to-change-brush-size-with-keyboard-mouse/&do=findComment&comment=477294

 

=====================================

With X-mouse Button Control, easy ... :)

I just made it now, out of curiosity. Works great.

[    For the below to work, and ending up with just your Wacom or etc pen being able to change brush size and hardness with no key involved, clicking one of the pen side buttons and dragging, you do need first to go to your Wacom panel (or other brand if has this feature) , add a new application (Affinity Photo) if you haven't it already, so to these configurations only affect when Photo is used.

Then configure one of the side buttons of the pen to have right mouse button assigned. This is pretty a basic thing to do with your Wacom, so you surely know this already, but if is not the case, don't be afraid to ask in this thread :) .  ]

I explained today general usage here:

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/27990-zoom-like-a-photoshop/?p=135701

But for this specific case, is, of course customizing the app, Affinity Photo (Photo.exe) , just in this case is Right mouse button, using again the "simulated keys" option, but then use "during" for the mouse mode, and the codes {ALT}{LMB}{RMB}  . takes 10 seconds, and is only done once, for ever... Until you change it or deactivate the tool.

Here it's working great...

 

Screens (sometimes does not end up loading the image, in that case, right click and choosing "open link in new window", should work).... :

post-31469-0-30615600-1478905838_thumb.jpg

post-31469-0-43103500-1478905844_thumb.jpg

post-31469-0-15789100-1478905851_thumb.jpg

post-31469-0-13945700-1478905861_thumb.jpg

PD: Made it now in a moment, by setting like you, RMB in my Wacom Intuos Pro pen (just for A. Photo in the wacom panel, of course ), then just telling X-mouse how to deal with RMB, as explained in those screens above. Anyway, much step by step explained how to use this free utility in the other thread I link here above.  (and the utility :  http://www.highrez.co.uk/downloads/XMouseButtonControl.htm )

____________________

 

Advanced tip :

 

Addition for those enjoying already this utility (for AP or any other application) :

1) You do not have to block the right mouse button by assigning it to a side button in the pen. As wacom allows it, you can instead assign in wacom panel the middle mouse button, or even a 3rd or 4th mouse buttons in your mouse, if you are lucky to have one of those. This way you leave the right mouse functions free for whatever other uses. I am using the middle button mouse now, and would use a 3rd or 4th if my mouse had it, instead. Using it for all x-mouse layers (configurations) FOR AP ONLY (as in Wacom panel I only set it for AP).

2) You might have noticed you can use layers in x-mouse button. This are simply alternative configurations. So, you can fill up all options on a layer 2, and swap to that config at any time, by just hitting the layer swap button in X-Mouse window, which you can leave open for fast access, is fine. Two buttons: Swap, and APPLY button, so that changes are actually applied and working in AP. No need to reboot AP neither X-mouse. On the fly.

 

This way, am having two configurations: One with which i set my side pen button (set as middle click in my Wacom panel, but ONLY for AP ) to be my color picker, which is for when I'm basically coloring, oil painting, and so picking a lot colors in the canvas. The other configuration (x-mouse layer) is to have my pen side button to do the change of hardness and size change. Useful when I am doing line art/comic inking or pencil sketching.

 

Configuration 1, for brush size and hardness :

post-31469-0-26751700-1479402534_thumb.jpg

 

Configuration 2, for color picker :

post-31469-0-43955800-1479402167_thumb.jpg

 

Swapping the layers to make active the other configuration.

post-31469-0-03155300-1479402047_thumb.jpg

AD, AP and APub. V1.10.6 and V2.4 Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
Ryzen 9 3900X, 32 GB RAM,  RTX 3060 12GB, Wacom Intuos XL, Wacom L. Eizo ColorEdge CS 2420 monitor. Windows 10 Pro.
(Laptop) HP Omen 16-b1010ns 12700H, 32GB DDR5, nVidia RTX 3060 6GB + Huion Kamvas 22 pen display, Windows 11 Pro.

 

 

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Seriously, the x-button author is not paying me or something, neither get paid per each tutorial I make, lol :D ...Is just that I use it for everything, and it's a before and after knowing this thing. I have all much more uniformly, in shortcuts and mouse, less mind-switching controls.... Also, as I believe there are much more important matters in which they are focusing now... I mean, implementing all this that takes decades, in just so little time.. impressive, but they're humans....   ;).  

I mention it as I see a lot of requests in the forum... Am even regretting to have mention my findings with the brush issues...

AD, AP and APub. V1.10.6 and V2.4 Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
Ryzen 9 3900X, 32 GB RAM,  RTX 3060 12GB, Wacom Intuos XL, Wacom L. Eizo ColorEdge CS 2420 monitor. Windows 10 Pro.
(Laptop) HP Omen 16-b1010ns 12700H, 32GB DDR5, nVidia RTX 3060 6GB + Huion Kamvas 22 pen display, Windows 11 Pro.

 

 

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You are welcome :)

I know... However, I keep installing my few "favorites" anyway: Irfanview, Notepad++, WindirStat, Thunderbird... They've become just as important as setting up the wacom driver, to me.. ;)

And the laptops are having those as well. :) [i've got none, but my family, each member has one, lol... ]

 

I just resorted to that when I realized that configuring each software the most similar possible in terms of shortcuts and mouse, it was going always to be needed to pan or zoom differently in one or another application. And I did not want that. I'm flexible to go back to that, but I realize am faster working, now. Also, I avoid so dealing with configuring again and again shortcuts of any new installation of the same application -ie, to a new version upgrade-  as x-mouse button deals with that app and ctrl+wheel, for example, and those defaults rarely change.(when they occasionally do, I just modify slightly the config in x-mouse for that app, like I'd do in the Wacom panel. )

 

Might sound unimportant, but I was getting a bit angry at times when wheel zooming at irfanview and jumping to a new file instead -really bad when you are browsing between very large images- . Now it just zooms :)

AD, AP and APub. V1.10.6 and V2.4 Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
Ryzen 9 3900X, 32 GB RAM,  RTX 3060 12GB, Wacom Intuos XL, Wacom L. Eizo ColorEdge CS 2420 monitor. Windows 10 Pro.
(Laptop) HP Omen 16-b1010ns 12700H, 32GB DDR5, nVidia RTX 3060 6GB + Huion Kamvas 22 pen display, Windows 11 Pro.

 

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

I thought this feature didn't exist, until i found a video on it. There are an awful lot of features that are hard to find for newcomers. Maybe the affinity guys should do a affinity for Photoshop users video.
I would have never guessed the right mouse button was ctrl.
Also, it would be great if there was a way to change these combo keys.(not hard coded)

Now, I have a different solution to this problem, instead of a third party app, i simply used wacom's app to set things in the express keys and the pen.
This is my setup currently:
Professional_CPL_2016_12_09_22_03_42.pngProfessional_CPL_2016_12_09_22_04_25.png

Professional_CPL_2016_12_09_22_04_12.png

 

deactivating windows ink is fundamental for right click to work. Also, on screen keyboard in the express keys wasn't needed you can replace it for whatnot.
The first image is the pen options, I substituted pan/drag for space keystroke.
With this setup everything works as intended. Also, I added Photo as a special case in the app instead of modifying the general setup.

Thanks guys, love the software!

Ps: it seems i can't upload content, I had to use postimage, why is that?

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I would have never guessed the right mouse button was ctrl.

 

 

Sorry? It is not. If I understood that sentence, I believe there is a typo up there...

 

About the Wacom settings. Actually.... That is very basic usage of the Wacom options panel for general usage. Something essential for any one using a tablet. That you can and should add customized apps like you did with Photo, and so you would with practically any other software, and surely leave the more convenient standard setup with just right mouse button in one of the pen side buttons, central click in another, so that you can handle better regular system usage, browsing, etc. And use the customized apps presets so that they'd trigger when the whatever app starts -in some old driver versions, you often need to indeed click on that preset tomake it active, though. 

 

I've used this matter I believe since the very first version of Intuos, that is, Intuos 1 A4 size, back in the elder days. In the other side, the non pro series back then (Intuos was the "pro"), the precursor of Graphire (later bamboo, later the "intuos") did have a lot less functions than todays basic wacom tablets. You could not do set per application configs, which you now can.

 

IMO, and I say fully respectfully, I believe is not a duty of Affinity to teach you how to use the Wacom panel. If anything, it would be a Wacom's duty, and there are indeed very good Wacom's video learning materials for that, and also, they tend to provide a great learning manual, even if in PDF format. Affinity's task, IMO, doe snot need tot go beyond making their applications manuals and working in their applications development. If they do learning tutorial, well, my take is  this is a gift and a nice extra. So, we should take those as a gift, not as an obligation or duty for them.

 

Also, Wacom Ink is sth not everybody can deactivate. I mean, I do have to use an older Wacom Driver which does not support that, as is an Intuos 4 XL (now very old generation of the Intuos Pro series).

 

That said, I've been using workflows like these for many years, and I have a config for every app. Indeed, I have several for each application, depending on the type of task I'm into. In general, serves me much better than that setup above, to usually have ctrl + z or ctrl +alt +z in one side button, for very fast undo, and alt or any other combination neeed in the other one, to act as a color picker. But that's maybe as my main activity is digital painting. (anyway I do tons of image editing as well, since always) . Space is such a large key and hard to miss key that, as I set (a wacom XL is huge as a billiard pool table)  my keyboard in a side, typically my left hand is in the keyboard, and shift, ctrl, alt, space are the keys than I can most easily -and often- access. Anyway, depending on the tasks, I find useful often to configure for a stage of a project just the space panning to my middle mouse button (and wheel for zoom) resulting that extremely productive for many types of tasks. I've worked using  these things during decades, with sizes as different as XL, A4, tiny A6, medium, etc. Probably am a man attached to a keyboard, tho, and I make use of almost all tablet buttons (typically the wacom ring not for zoom, as am too used to the mouse wheel, but instead, proved to be productive in every app for changing brush size, for me, more comfortable than all this ways we're speaking about in this thread ) . But again, I've become familiar to that habit of change my wacom settings depending on the project stage am in.  In illustration, I don't use same setup for the pencil sketching stage (these days I don't sketch and scan, all is digital, but funnilly, my sketching look and feels a lot like when am sketching in paper) , inking (some projects need that) , or digitally painting (like with oils or acrylics). Neither the same when merely image editing (much more similar to Photographers' editing) , and extremely different when am doing a 3D project (mouse only in the modeling stage except sculpting, mixed setup when texturing, etc)

 

You can combine this huge flexibility Wacom has always provided in their settings, with free tools (there another very good free one, more focused on the keys, I just can't remember now the name) like the one I feature in this thread, if you would wish to go a step further in making totally independent which keys and mouse usage you do for whatever applciation. This is how I deal with it, although, to be sincere, I have finally opted in the very case of Affinity's applications not using the utility for now (will do for certain projects, that's for sure) as the applications provide me with a sensible setup already.  Will most surely do when I'd start using the apps for my painting activities, for the interactive color picking matter.  For regular image editing, I prefer not to use the mentioned utility.

 

Don't take me wrong, your tips are very good and helpful. Just completely basic even in hobbyists' level (way more indeed for professionals), and definitely, not a must do learning material for Affinity, or any other company than the tablet manufacturer. 

AD, AP and APub. V1.10.6 and V2.4 Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
Ryzen 9 3900X, 32 GB RAM,  RTX 3060 12GB, Wacom Intuos XL, Wacom L. Eizo ColorEdge CS 2420 monitor. Windows 10 Pro.
(Laptop) HP Omen 16-b1010ns 12700H, 32GB DDR5, nVidia RTX 3060 6GB + Huion Kamvas 22 pen display, Windows 11 Pro.

 

 

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Also, IMO, total and absolute newbies, might find this kind of thing too deep. Usually, is best to give them a button in the top bar to handle, which they actually have there. IMO, is people more versed in painting the ones that would expect to have a RMB + drag brush size/hardness change. And if you notice many of the complaints are for it not being done the very exact way than it is in PS (like a 392.834.788 of the complaints in the forums   ;) ;)  )  . If you were used to use this in Photoshop, then you are what I would consider more than a newbie to digital painting, but rather an average or advanced user.  But.. as you see in those artists complaints, they already had tried the shortcut, and some even did just look in the info bottom bar and learn there several shortcuts info. An info bar which is contextual: Whichever the tool you use, in the bottom you see most things you can do with different shortcuts. This is no novelty in UIs, but quite an standard in many graphic making applications' interfaces, 2D and 3D. Affinity's success is due t many reasons, and one of them is having an intuitive UI, and respecting a lot of known standards. Trust me, have seen how newcomers suffer with other applications' interfaces, (Blender, Gimp, XSI, etc) for being not necessarily bad, just extremely different to what they are used to. Simply you would have 20 times less users in the forum and purchasing and trying the betas, if the A. UIs were not the easy thing that they are.... 

 

One thing I would agree with you, though, is in that indeed (or at least the last beta I tried, which is not current, and I neither have yet the release version) it does not show this shortcut in the info bar. Which, for a painter, would be convenient to see. And seems there's room enough in the bar to add it, so, probably is not very complex to add.

 

Anyway, is at so many forum threads -the shortcut- that anyone doing a very basic search will have found all needed info (and more) about it.

AD, AP and APub. V1.10.6 and V2.4 Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
Ryzen 9 3900X, 32 GB RAM,  RTX 3060 12GB, Wacom Intuos XL, Wacom L. Eizo ColorEdge CS 2420 monitor. Windows 10 Pro.
(Laptop) HP Omen 16-b1010ns 12700H, 32GB DDR5, nVidia RTX 3060 6GB + Huion Kamvas 22 pen display, Windows 11 Pro.

 

 

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BTW, the other tool I've mentioned in several times as the other tool I initially considered for these tricks, and that I never remembered the name, it came to memory now (my brain's cache works like that...)  ...I have *not* tested it, so, am not particularly recommending it. I for sure will try it as am a curious person and seems quite an useful free thing. Is called Autohotkey,  https://autohotkey.com  and from their own main page, was a tool that started only for the purpose I have been referring too, shortcuts replacing (and so, less bugging to A or B application developer to change their choice of how they desire to make their software, hehe ) , but seems this one evolved to a powerful automation tool, with even a good scripting language behind. I can think of a ton of uses, specially for us with professional activity, for this type of thing. Have used automation tools (like Selenium, plus batch tools with actions in adobe, macros in many software apps, batch processors, many command line utilities) and working with graphics for certain matters, they are time savers (ie: collections of frames from animations outside a video editor, etc).  But this goes beyond the scope of the matter here itself.  

 

So, as a conclusion, the two good tools out there for that (despite I have not tested Autohotkey) are X-Mouse Button Control, and Autohotkey. And that my final advice, despite all the big effort of making tutorials for X-mouse, is to recommend most users not to use these utilities (*cough*) .  Instead, configure well your wacom panel and the shortcuts (you should also if you use the utilities) in Affinity's applications preferences, do good combinations among the two things, and you should be fine. 

 

Yet though, I still believe it is positive to know of the existence of these two tools, and that specially with X-Mouse (perhaps easier to configure) one user (me) have tried to replace the standard AP and AD shortcuts and mouse functions, and Affinity apps work absolutely great with x-mouse, no issues. Even have tested performance with or without it, AD/AP behave the same, they are not badly affected by using X-mouse (Autohotkey, haven't tested).

 

And this advice is because mostly there's way more than enough flexibility with AP/AD configuration and the Wacom panel. So, why mess more. I will, but am a weird user.  :)

 

Also, one huge con is that they both are Windows only !  :O :s

AD, AP and APub. V1.10.6 and V2.4 Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
Ryzen 9 3900X, 32 GB RAM,  RTX 3060 12GB, Wacom Intuos XL, Wacom L. Eizo ColorEdge CS 2420 monitor. Windows 10 Pro.
(Laptop) HP Omen 16-b1010ns 12700H, 32GB DDR5, nVidia RTX 3060 6GB + Huion Kamvas 22 pen display, Windows 11 Pro.

 

 

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