Gradient Overlay effect stops working

[Jim Monson]

I use the gradient overlay effect quite effectively, but often it stops working after three or more edits in the gradient colors. I can continue to bring up the effect dialogue window but clicking on the Gradient color box no longer brings up the dialogue box that lets one edit the two or more gradient colors, etc. I must quit AD and bring it up again. It then works for a few edits (sometimes up to 7 edits but often 2 or 3) but then I no longer get any response by clicking the Gradient color box. I remain on the correct layer while doing this, the gradient effect is chosen. The main Gradient Overlay effect dialogue window always appears but I cannot go further into editing colors or other gradient settings. Is this a bug or is it soaking up too much memory?

[Lee D]

Hi Jim,

 

I can't seem to reproduce the issue with the Gradient Overlay and the Gradient colour dialog. Are you running Designer on Mac or Windows? Does the same issue occur if you start a new document and insert a quickshape and then use the Gradient Overlay from Layer Effects.

 

Have you tried resetting the app to default, the steps I've included below. This will lose any brushes, user settings etc that you may of added so if you wish to back these up follow the steps in this video first.

 

To Reset:

With the app closed, hold down the CTRL key and open the app from the icon. A new window will appear,release the CTRL key and select Clear, the app will now continue to open.

[Jim Monson]

Thanks, Lee. I have done some experiments and believe I have found the problem. My doc is a complex geology map that I brought into AD from Illustrator. This may be causing the problem I described above. When I created the gradient from scratch in AD, I no longer had the problem. It may also be the reason that editing complex (many-noded) curves caused AD to stop and process for a minute or two (color wheel and Force Quit message that AD "is not responding"). Waiting it out usually brought AD back. Other times the same type of edits caused AD simply to stop responding, without the color wheel.

 

My assumption is that the complexity of Illustrator and the restraints Adobe places on a "clean and stable" transfer into AD must demand a lot from AD's memory, unlike its quick native processing. In the case of the gradient problem, this also limited AD's opacity options in gradients (some did not respond). However, with a native AD gradient, everything is working beautifully. Thus it seems it is not an AD problem but rather part of the burden and complexity of bringing a heavy Illustrator doc into AD. Now that I realize that, I can carry on. Thanks, again.

 

PS: Being originally from the wild West, i.e., *old* California, I like your hat and accompanying beard!

[R C-R]

PS: Being originally from the wild West, i.e., *old* California, I like your hat and accompanying beard!

I am trying to decide if that image is of a generic "Old West" cowboy or possibly Chuck Norris, maybe in his Walker, Texas Ranger role:

[Fobb]

I have the same problem. I can't chose new colors in the gradient overlay effect after a while. I have to restart the application. I have NOT imported from AI or similar, this is a document created from scratch in AF.  I run this on macOS Sierra. 

 

I have not tried to reset the app to default though... I will do that later. Still, It would be great if there was a bug that could be found and fixed for later releases. Thanks!

[Richmont]

All  -  I am having this same issue.   No Illustrator imports or anything.   Just a very basic Affinity design with some oval shapes.   Can use the gradient overlay once, then it stops working and I have to restart.   This is a bug for sure.  

[MEB]

Hi Fobb, Richmont,

Welcome to Affinity Forums

I will try to reproduce this here/keep an eye on it and fill a bug report if necessary. Meanwhile please launch the app with ⌃(ctrl) held down until a Clear User Data dialog appears. Remove the tick for Don't restore window and documents. Leave only Clear User Defaults and Reset Studio checked then press Clear. This should fix the issue. If you run into this problem again after the reset please let us know.

[Fradim]

Hi MEB,

a little bit late... I am having this issue as well. It still continue after your recommendation above. I work on Mac.

Thanks

[thorgas]

i found solution, right click gradient tab and press ''collapse to icons''. it will be temporary solution

[Jim Monson]

Sounds good, thorgas, Will try soon. Thanks!

[Jim Monson]

Finally, I found a work around that appears to solve this problem without rebooting. In Layer Effects I simply click on a different effect and then back to Gradient Overlay and I can then edit the Gradient color. There must be a bug somewhere in Gradient Overlay that is cleared (at least for awhile) when I do this. Your suggestion, Thorgas, did not seem to work for me.

[amjayreen]

Still facing the same issue with Gradient overlay in Publisher and in Designer too. Jim Monson quick work around it helping though.

[IanColley]

I've been having a similar problem for some months now too. I edit a lot of Real Estate photos and often use Overlays in the Develop module to modify highlight and shadow areas separately on the Raw file.

Yesterday drove me insane as I could only process 2 or 3 photos before the overlays stopped working, requiring me to close AP and reopen and start again. I select Overlays, click on the 'add brush overlay' brush bottom right and a new brush overlay layer appears. Unfortunately nothing happens from here. The 'overlay paint tool' doesn't leave the red coloured adjustment area highlight and if you go to "Basic' adjustments panel and then use overlay paint tool nothing happens either.

In the recent past I have been getting between 4-6 photos before it stopped working, yesterday every third photo adjustment failed. This needs to be fixed asap please AP folk. 

I am using i7, 32 GB memory, Radeon RX580 8GB graphics running Catalina 10.15.6 and dual screens.

Regards  Ian Colley

 

[Leo Ofsso]

Having the same issue. Running on OSX 10.15.6 and SF

This is a doc that is generated from AF and it is also one of two shapes in this doc. I can get the first gradient object to change colors but the 2nd above that I can not get the color selection for the gradient to appear with out doing a restart.

[truth2bear]

I've noticed this problem for the last couple of years as well and thought it was just me going too fast, being on the wrong layer, or just being ignorant of something. It is Dec 2020 and this is still a bug. The original post description from 1/2017 above is my exact problem and none of the fixes listed work for me. I have to shut down AD and reopen all the files to access the color gradient and have it work again. I am on an early 2015 MacBook Pro running Big Sur (but it was a problem with Catalina and High Sierra as well, but on the same machine).

[Well.Spokin]

Same issue here. OS X 10.15.7 Catalina. Latest AD 1.8.6. Document created natively in AD.

I have a line drawing with about 40-50 objects which use Layers for Gradient Overlay (Effects tab in the Designer Persona). I edit these gradients by going to the Effects tab and clicking on the gear icon for Gradient Overlay (all grads exist already - I’m only attempting modifications to them). The gear icon successfully brings up the Layer Effects dialog box. But when I click on the gradients thumbnail (in an attempt to edit the actual values, midpoints, etc, associated with a gradient) - that dialog box doesn’t appear.

To clarify - as per previous comments here - I can typically accomplish the task 5-8 times when first using the app, and then after that it stops working. I typically save and exit AD, then relaunch the app to get that functionality back.

It just happened again, so per support’s advice I created a new object on my canvas and attempted to apply the gradient overlay effect - but as with existing grads, the dialog box remains frozen. Although the object populates with the default gradient, and I can access the Grad Overlay gear icon, I cannot click on grad thumbnail to adjust values, midpoints. So as usual, save and exit AD, and then re-launch app to return functionality.

I wanted to try the advice above on right-clicking on a tab and collapsing to icons - but I right clicked on various tabs and never even got a menu to choose from. I don’t see a gradient tab at all, so not sure if we’re talking about the same app version or platform (I’m on AD desktop 1.8.6 on Mac OS X).

Support - please advise.

[Sandra Lamb]

My problem is similar but slightly different. I have been using the gradient feature for three or so years now with no glitches. I have an older Mac desktop and also a MacBook Pro running on Big Sur 11.6, which I use most often. My use of the gradient feature is sporadic and with the current pandemic thing, it's been about a year, maybe more since I used it. I have a gradient preset saved which has always worked great in the past for a certain client. Anyway, I went to use it today for a new photo addition and lo and behold, all I got was a lot of fits and starts... sometimes with the Affinity defaults, mostly not loading and NEVER loading for my preset. Tried restarting program, rebooting computer, posted workarounds and the best I could do was get the defaults to apply once in a while. Gave up eventually, and went back to my old Mac which still has AP and it worked like a charm. Hmmmm.... Any further ideas or is this a bug that will be addressed in five years or so?

[GarryP]

Welcome to the forums @Sandra Lamb

This thread is about the Gradient Overlay Effect.
Is your question about the Gradient/Fill Tool, or the Gradient Overlay Effect, or something else?
I only ask as “gradient feature” and “gradient preset” aren’t very specific.
If your question isn’t about the Gradient Overlay Effect then a moderator can split this question off into its own thread for you.

[Sandra Lamb]

Yes, that would be the gradient overlay. I am specifically taking a photograph and in essence, adding the gradient overlay to make it appear as a duotone.

[GarryP]

Note: This is with Photo 1.9.2 on Windows; if 1.10.x does something different then that could be something that needs looking at.

A Gradient Overlay Effect seems to be working okay for me when I try and produce what I think of as ‘duotone’ – see my very-quickly-produced image.
What do you get when you try what I have done?
Are you doing something different?

If you don’t get what I get then a full-screen screenshot – like mine, with the Effects Dialog visible and showing the Gradient Overlay settings – would be useful for diagnostic purposes.

[Ron P.]

17 hours ago, Sandra Lamb said:

Yes, that would be the gradient overlay. I am specifically taking a photograph and in essence, adding the gradient overlay to make it appear as a duotone.

By Duo_Tone are you wanting the cinematic Teal-Orange? Or just 2 different tones?

The Gradient Overlay can not really get that sort of effect. The split-tone, cinematic look needs to be able to apply the two different tones to the Highlights and Shadows separately.

I learned how to do this with AP, through a tutorial by Simon Foster, @drippy cat on these forums, on his Udemy tutorials.

It involves using:

• Selective Color Adjustment
• Channel Mixer Adjustment
• HSL Adjustment
• Curves Adjustment

 

[cbordey]

I am having this same issue. I change gradient overlays on objects dozens of times. After about 3 or 4 changes, I can select the gradient overlay, but I can't click onto the gradient itself to change the colors. I'm running Big Sur. It resolves after I quit the program and restart.

[Sandra Lamb]

In regards to my original question, I have been majorly distracted with other work. Back at in now. I'm not sure if I am on the right thread though and its a bit redundant now, as after many, many instances of it not working (re-boot, re-load not helping), suddenly it is fine, but other little bugs have popped up. Specifically, I would load a colour photo, convert it to black and white, then re-convert to RGB. Then on the adjustment panel I select Gradient Map and then the pre-set that I put there ages ago (which worked just fine for months). When I first posted this, at the time, I was lucky to get it to respond to any of the defaults, never mind my preset. I am (and was) working on a MacBook Pro OS Big Sur 11.6. My best guess is that I uploaded the latest version of Photo a while back and that has resolved the problem (but I'm still nervous).

[Jim Monson]

I have been creating gradient overlays for years with no problem at all. As recent as three weeks ago I made example1 below with various gradient overlay effects (ovals, long rounded rectangles and vertical red rectangles. The red vertical rectangle in example 1 below has zero opacity on both sides of the center red which allows the red to fade beautifully into the underlaying background colors which is also an underlying gradient overlay. My settings are seen in examples 2 and 3. Note that 3 shows black on both sides in the top preview but no color in the lower spread since both sides are zero opacity.

In a recent iteration of the same document my overlays continue to appear as they should, but last week the red vertical overlay rectangle has become solid (example 4). None of the gradient overlays had been edited. Thinking it might be a layer issue (which I did not find), I moved the red rectangle layer to a completely new layer. The problem persisted, even when I copied the good red rectangle from my earlier doc and pasted it in this later version of the same doc. Example 4, a closer snap, but the same exact rectangle size in my doc. I also made a completely separate rectangle document but could not replicate the zero opacity on both sides of the center red.

Thinking that the problem might be that this red rectangle is an overlay gradient on two other gradient overlays, I deleted the blue oval, but nothing changed. Example 5 shows the setting for this solid red rectangle = zero opacity on both sides of the center red, the same as example 3 above!

Why would the gradient overlay work fine throughout my current doc, and this red vertical rectangle not maintain its opacity on both sides? I Has something changed in Publisher and Designer?

To double check my procedure I've searched for a specific Affinity video on creating a gradient overlay effect but as yet have not found one.

[Jim Monson]

I placed all five snaps correctly in the "Drag Files..." box but they come up dispersed throughout the text. Sorry about that. Not sure what happened.