affinity designer my pictures with comments about my use of AD

[Roscografik]

Hi here a short strip done with AD.
First of all it's very pleasant to work with it, the interface is clear and easy to understand.

 

I work with wacom material (here a cintiq) and the pressure with the brush or with the pencil is fine. I can really use it, there is a light smoothing after drawing but the stroke is like I want. This is good and works better than in Illustrator where I only get pressure with brushes and where I get strange effects particularly on corners.

In Illustrator I'm used to work with theyr pencil allowing to keep the last stroke selected and to redraw it again. With AD it's not possible so I draw a sketch on a layer and then my inking on another layer with undo/redo to get a good stroke, sometimes using the pen to adjust.
I noticed that the brush has more options than the pencil and used here the pencil which is more simple. An advantage using the pencil is that after drawing the stroke stay selected (you can see the bezier curve) and you can change color and stroke. With the brush you can't change the color or stroke, you first have to get the move tool or you can press "cmd" and "alt" and then change color or stroke.

 

In fact this the first time I can draw with a vector software and get an inking like in a bitmap software.

 

Where handwriting was difficult in Illustrator it's here much more easyer with AD ! I attached three captures, one with AD and two with AI : This is interesting because AD will often be compared with AI requesting what AI has, but here AD do something very well that AI doesn't have !

After that my colors are simple, nothing special, using the pen was perfect, its precise and offer all the possibilities we can wait for a vector pen. One thing I found fastidious is the use of the eyedropper tool ( go right to get it, and left to use, and right to click…).

Exporting the file offer many options, this is good, my file was 7,8 Mo as a pdf, it's heavy for such a file with no gradient or particular effect…

SVG, PNG, PSD and JPG where ok. After this very good first impression I will seriously wait for Affinity Publisher…

[MattP]

Wow! That's a brilliant sketch - looks very fluid and 'real' :) Really glad you're enjoying Designer! :D

[Andrew Tang]

One thing I found fastidious is the use of the eyedropper tool

 

With the pencil tool, you can hold down ALT (or Option) to use the eyedropper tool directly. :)

[Roscografik]

With the pencil tool, you can hold down ALT (or Option) to use the eyedropper tool directly. :)

I tried but I don't know where the eyedropper chose the color, how it works, I think I missed something…? I press alt, I get the eyedropper zoom but the pixels I see are not those under the zoom.

[retrograde]

One thing on the eye dropper that I've noticed Matt and Andrew, is when painting in pixel persona... there seems to be a pause or slight delay upon option key press and you seem to have to move the mouse/pen once you've pressed the key to see the picker. Is this intentional? I would prefer an instant call for the picker to show up immediately and sample the colour.  

 

Currently if you hold down option and single click the mouse/pen without moving it then let go of option you will get a "painted" dot over the area you wanted to sample. Although this behaviour isn't the end of the world, it isn't what I would expect nor want.

 

Comments? Anyone else notice this?

[Roscografik]

Hi retrograde ! I can't make a capture of the eyedropper because it disappear  when moving the mouse. So I made a picture of it to explain. I have an object selected, the pencil selected, I press on "cmd" and get the eyedropper when moving my pen but the eyedropper doesn't sample the color under my mouse but a color really far away from it, so it most of the time is really hard to sample a color because it's simply hard to find where to sample. 

[retrograde]

Yep I just tried the same thing here. It's got to be a bug because the eyedropper isn't changing the colour at all. It appears to be, but it isn't, and that's not what you would expect. 

 

In pixel persona using the brush tool it works as expected except for that delay I mentioned above which is minor compared to your issue in vector persona with the pencil.

 

Any comments from the team on this one, seems like a bug to me.

[MEB]

Unless i'm misunderstanding something, i believe there's no bugs here.

 

The color picker has "two" different "modes" of working:

 

1) pressing alt and clicking anywhere inside of your drawing will capture the color under your cursor. You then have to press the small circle on the right of the color picker inside the Color panel to actually apply it (see image below). There's no zoom loupe in this mode.

 

2) pressing alt and dragging the mouse will bring up the color picker in "zoom mode" (the loupe). This mode will let you pick a color with more precision and will capture the color inside the little square in the center of the loupe. You then have to press the small circle on the right of the color picker inside the Color panel to actually apply it, as in the previous case.

 

The decision to apply the color only after clicking on the small circle instead of immediately is by design.

 

@retrograde

In the case you describe with the Brush tool in the Pixel Persona, there's also another behaviour going on simultaneously.

As soon as you press alt, click and leave the alt key (case 1 above) or press alt, drag the mouse and stop pressing it (case 2 above) the Brush tool's cursor automatically pick and preview the color you just have picked in the canvas (it fills the shape of the brush) without you having to go to the small circle in the Color panel.

 

You can disable this behaviour in Affinity Designer Preferences -> User Interface, unchecking Show preview in brush Tools.

 

@Roscografik

Since the latest MAS version there was a considerable number of updates related to color in the application. I believe most (if not all) of those problems were already fixed in the beta. If you want you can give it a try, downloading it from here (the latest version is usually pinned at the top). It can be installed along with the MAS version since they don't interfere one each other.

Note however that you can't open documents created or saved with the Beta in the MAS version.

[Roscografik]

Unless i'm misunderstanding something, i believe there's no bugs here.

 

The color picker has "two" different "modes" of working:

 

1) pressing alt and clicking anywhere inside of your drawing will capture the color under your cursor. You then have to press the small circle on the right of the color picker inside the Color panel to actually apply it (see image below). There's no zoom loupe in this mode.

 

2) pressing alt and dragging the mouse will bring up the color picker in "zoom mode" (the loupe). This mode will let you pick a color with more precision and will capture the color inside the little square in the center of the loupe. You then have to press the small circle on the right of the color picker inside the Color panel to actually apply it, as in the previous case.

 

The decision to apply the color only after clicking on the small circle instead of immediately is by design.

 

@retrograde

In the case you describe with the Brush tool in the Pixel Persona, there's also another behaviour going on simultaneously.

As soon as you press alt, click and leave the alt key (case 1 above) or press alt, drag the mouse and stop pressing it (case 2 above) the Brush tool's cursor automatically pick and preview the color you just have picked in the canvas (it fills the shape of the brush) without you having to go to the small circle in the Color panel.

 

You can disable this behaviour in Affinity Designer Preferences -> User Interface, unchecking Show preview in brush Tools.

 

@Roscografik

Since the latest MAS version there was a considerable number of updates related to color in the application. I believe most (if not all) of those problems were already fixed in the beta. If you want you can give it a try, downloading it from here (the latest version is usually pinned at the top). It can be installed along with the MAS version since they don't interfere one each other.

Note however that you can't open documents created or saved with the Beta in the MAS version.

Hi MEB, many thanks, this solve my problem,

1) is a good way i Didn't know, it works perfect.

2) I have the problem that the zoom is not zooming under the loupe but somewhere else, I tried the beta and it works good with the beta.

[ronnyb]

@MEB: If you have the vector brush tool set to a pretty fat brush size, and want to sample a color under the center of the cursor, well, basically the larger the brush, the harder to estimate where you are sampling from... Is there a way to show the center crosshair cursor AND whatever tool's cursor you have selected, say the brush tool's circular outline preview? This totally enhances workflow... I think Photoshop has some preference like that...

[retrograde]

Hi MEB, thanks, yes I understood how it works in those 2 distinct ways. I guess referring to it as a bug might not be accurate.  :)

 

some thoughts... no offence to anyone on the team just trying to figure this out  :)

 

Having to confirm click the little circle beside the eyedropper icon in the colour palette is an extra step that may be by design but I'm wondering what the rationale for that is... Why do users have to confirm from a practical standpoint, and why is this behaviour different from the more expected pixel persona behaviour? Maybe it's from a technical reason?

 

If I'm drawing away with the pencil tool (draw persona) and option click to sample a new colour, I would expect the colour to change. (especially since in loupe mode it appears to have changed...) I work a lot in full screen mode with minimal or essentially no interface i.e. no palettes, so this means I now have to - show palettes, navigate to the colour panel, tick a little circle to confirm the colour, hide palettes again and continue to work?  (This is still how it's working currently in the latest beta.)

 

If there is a scenario where the by design workflow would be preferred it surely isn't as common as the standard expected behaviour scenario just described...is it?

 

... perhaps I'm missing something  :mellow:

[MEB]

@MEB: If you have the vector brush tool set to a pretty fat brush size, and want to sample a color under the center of the cursor, well, basically the larger the brush, the harder to estimate where you are sampling from... Is there a way to show the center crosshair cursor AND whatever tool's cursor you have selected, say the brush tool's circular outline preview? This totally enhances workflow... I think Photoshop has some preference like that...

 

I don't quite get what you're after here. Why is the center of the brush important to define the position of the color you want to pick? Seems completely unrelated to me.

If the brush is covering the area you want to sample the color from, using the case 2 (ctrl+drag) will bring up the loupe so you can pick precisely the color you want. I think It doesn't make sense to show a crosshair instead because it also obscures the pixel behind it.

Or am i missing something here?

[ronnyb]

@MEB: the crosshair has many uses, one of which is to sample color under it, but also to use as a mark of precisely where the center of the brush is. Say I want to follow a path as close as possible, I can do that with the crosshair turned on, but with the crosshair turned off, the larger the brush the more imprecise my stroke tends to be... Here is an example of what I mean:

 

I find that I use that option in Photoshop all the time, it let's me understand the diameter of the brush and the center of the brush, which is also important to know with soft edges/hardness turned low... In the example above, I can use the crosshair to apply a brush stroke precisely where I want to position it....

[ronnyb]

@MEB: regarding color sampling to the foreground vs background or stroke vs fill color, why not simply default to sample to the currently selected swatch (foreground/background or stroke/fill) in the color palette? Meaning if I have my foreground color swatch selected, when I sample it will sample into the foreground color, UNLESS I hold a modifier key to force AD to sample to the unselected swatch in the color palette...

[MEB]

I thought we were discussing was about picking colors, not to use the center of the brush to draw precisely. That's a totally different story. 

[MEB]

@MEB: regarding color sampling to the foreground vs background or stroke vs fill color, why not simply default to sample to the currently selected swatch (foreground/background or stroke/fill) in the color palette? Meaning if I have my foreground color swatch selected, when I sample it will sample into the foreground color, UNLESS I hold a modifier key to force AD to sample to the unselected swatch in the color palette...Screen Shot 2015-01-31 at 8.27.15 PM.png

 

 There's a small inconsistency between the way the Vector Brush tool and the Pencil tool work. I will log this to be looked at.

[ronnyb]

Not TOTALLY different @MEB  ;)

 

The point is the cross hair gives me precision, I can just click and sample the color without having to click and drag to sample the color — although I admit like the zoomed up loupe! Perhaps it appears with a click only, not with a click and drag, when the crosshair is turned off?

[Chris Van Cleve]

Late to this party, but I'm in the same boat as Retrograde. The extra step(s) involved in confirming the color is confusing at first, and annoying after you figure out that's what it takes. It's just seems a strange design decision to me too.

[MEB]

Yes i also think that all the freehand drawing tools (Brushes and Pencil) should behave the same regarding the color picker.

This is already logged to be looked at.

[Roscografik]

Finished a new picture with AD, I used only the vector mode and really enjoy it. Made this on a cintiq and it works really fine, I can direct sketch and draw. I hope that AD is just at the beginning of a very long life !!
 

[MattP]

This is wonderful! REALLY nice work! :D

[ronniemcbride]

this was very pleasing. Thanks for sharing!

[MEB]

Very peaceful. Great work Roscografik  ^_^

[Roscografik]

A doodling artboard, all done with AD and a wacom cintiq.

[MattP]

As always, that looks brilliant and effortless - I'm really enjoying your work! :D