Affinity vs developers - little help?

[toten]

Hello mates,

 

First of all I would like to thank Serrif for this amazing software - I love Affinity Designer since the beginning, I am a designer and since I work with Affinity designing process became just so much smoother and more pleasant than before. However I have some troubles when it comes to prepare my project - i.e. an app design (I usually work on apps and logos) - for being coded by a developer.

 

Usually I don't take huge projects, I work on small apps projects with developers that I know - that's why I hadn't this problem before - because when it comes to prepare a small projects for developers that I know and I used to work with before - I usually make a documentation, some flowcharts that explain how should the app work, sometimes I use some Prot.io to make a fully functional prototype, etc. I never send .psd files since there's no need to.

 

However in the future I would like to I face a huge project and I'm wondering what if developers ask me for .psd's? I had that once before, but before I was working in Photoshop, and after switching to Affinity there's no question for me to go back to PS. I've already checked all export to .psd settings available in Affinity and all of them doesn't work as I would like to - there's a lot of bugs which is totally understandable because they are two totally different tools.

 

But - the question is - how do You, Affinity Designers, handle Your developers? How are You preparing Your projects? What if You have to send a .psd? How do You overcome this? I was thinking maybe about some other image formats supporting layers? How do You prepare Your project for coding when it comes to complex designs? 

 

If You would have any handy tips for me, I would be really thankful!

 

Best Regards,

Jacob

[Ben]

PSD export is the right option.  But, we do not recommend repeated import/export of PSD - some aspects of the document might be changed due to differences in our formats.

 

For most cases PSD export should give you what you need.  It will handle all raster export with no issues.  The problems usually come in when you add layer effects, adjustments, and complicated masking or clipping.  We also cannot replicate PSD use of gradient fills in some cases.  Solid fills on vector objects and strokes should be ok.  Dotted strokes on vectors will always be different as Photoshop does the stroke in pixel space, whereas we link the stroke to first node of vector paths and direction.

 

If you have a document that doesn't export to PSD as you expect, please PM me with a DropBox link, and I can look into what is happening.  It might just be that you need to avoid certain things in order to ensure your PSD export matches your Affinity document.

[toten]

Ben, thank You for Your help! Well yes - PSD export is an option, however as You said the problem begins when we use a lot of layer effects, adjustments, masking or clipping. But also grouped layers doesn't export well. However all of that can be fixed by rasterizing layers. My main problem is that after export, layers are renamed like layer 1, layer 2, etc. which make some mess in my project and annoys me since like my files well structured, clean and easy to understand. But if there's no other choice - then let be it, it's a small price to pay for all handy features which comes with Affinity Designer. :)

 

I just wanted to know how other designers deal with that issue and their developers - so if there is anyone to share some experience with us, You're welcome. :)

[Butler To Cats]

Hi toten, I find that if I choose the Final Cut Pro export option then it preserves object, layer, and group names when imported into Moho.

 

 

 

Note to readers (I'm fairly sure you know this, toten): the layer type identifiers (Group, Ellipse, Curve, etc) are not default names, you have to manually assign actual names.

 

[toten]

Nice try obtusity - I will try this :)