Updating linked images

[RuralKat]

Hello,

 

I've made some edits to an image in Affinity Photo, and wish to update the link in Affinity Designer. I've searched through the AD "Help" section, but cannot seem to find a way to do this. Can anyone point me in the direction of where to find an "update link" type button?

 

Thanks!

 

[R C-R]

I may have misunderstood what you mean but currently there is no file linking in either app. Files can be embedded but they are not linked.

[RuralKat]

Ok, thanks @R C-R. In Illustrator, you just click to update the linked image after conducting some Photoshop tweaks. In other words, if you work on an image outside of Ai in Ps to tweak it, and then return to Ai, it can be set in preferences to automatically update. It's handy and efficient.

 

I think I'm getting that with AD, you open the file in AP FROM AD, in order to tweak it; but I'm confused as to how to single out a placed image that is layered in AD. It seems to come into AP as one flat image. I know I've got a learning curve to relearn tools and unique methods.

 

I do appreciate not having to do Command-7 or Command-8 anymore to mask; masks are automatic in child layers. Interesting!

[Andreas1974]

On 9/23/2017 at 11:21 PM, R C-R said:

I may have misunderstood what you mean but currently there is no file linking in either app. Files can be embedded but they are not linked.

Perhaps the option to link images has been added since you wrote this. I was looking for something similar to RuralKat when I ended up on this question.

After linking an image into an Affinity Publisher document, I made some changes to the image in an external piece of software (Photoshop or similar) and now I'd needed to update the same image in the Affinity Publisher document.

First I was not able to find an option to "update image" or "refresh view" or similar, but as I saved the Affinity Publisher document there was a notification that the image had changed, and the "Resource manager" appeared, where the option to update the image was presented.

And the next time I saved the image in the external program, there was an immediate notification in Affinity Publisher.

The resource manager is found in the "Document" menu.

[walt.farrell]

45 minutes ago, Andreas1974 said:

Perhaps the option to link images has been added since you wrote this. I was looking for something similar to RuralKat when I ended up on this question.

After linking an image into an Affinity Publisher document, I made some changes to the image in an external piece of software (Photoshop or similar) and now I'd needed to update the same image in the Affinity Publisher document.

First I was not able to find an option to "update image" or "refresh view" or similar, but as I saved the Affinity Publisher document there was a notification that the image had changed, and the "Resource manager" appeared, where the option to update the image was presented.

And the next time I saved the image in the external program, there was an immediate notification in Affinity Publisher.

The resource manager is found in the "Document" menu.

There is no option in Designer or Photo to have linked images within their files. There are some bugs that allow it (or force it) but they will be fixed at some point.

In Publisher, if you have Linked images, you should be notified when they are modified externally while you have the document open, or you should be notified when you Open the document if its Linked images have been modified. At that point you can use the Resource Manager. Alternatively, you'll find a Publisher Preference to update them automatically.

(Note: Linked image files (JPG, TIFF, PNG) work somewhat differently from Linked document files (PDF, .afpub, .afdesign, .afphoto, EPS, SVG, etc.). But changes are in progress in that area, and 1.8 may work differently than 1.7, though we don't know for sure yet.)

[Guest]

On 11/9/2019 at 6:39 PM, walt.farrell said:

There is no option in Designer or Photo to have linked images within their files. There are some bugs that allow it (or force it) but they will be fixed at some point.

In Publisher, if you have Linked images, you should be notified when they are modified externally while you have the document open, or you should be notified when you Open the document if its Linked images have been modified. At that point you can use the Resource Manager. Alternatively, you'll find a Publisher Preference to update them automatically.

(Note: Linked image files (JPG, TIFF, PNG) work somewhat differently from Linked document files (PDF, .afpub, .afdesign, .afphoto, EPS, SVG, etc.). But changes are in progress in that area, and 1.8 may work differently than 1.7, though we don't know for sure yet.)

Thanks for the clarification. I was wondering about this issue during the last days as well. To be honest, in the last few weeks I used Publisher I feel way more like a Beta Tester than a customer of a final product. Linking and embedding files are a very essential part of applications like these. Having bugs in such crucial features in a product that was in Beta for many months shines a very bad light on Serif to me. Embedding Affinity files into other Affinity files also cause me "memory leaks", crashing even my workstation with 32 GB RAM (link). But with that, I really hope for 1.8 to fix many of these.

 

[Freddie360]

Will Affinity make image update possible in future versions of Designer and Publisher, making things like complex genealogical graphic trees without image updating is a bind.

[walt.farrell]

2 minutes ago, Freddie360 said:

Will Affinity make image update possible in future versions of Designer and Publisher, making things like complex genealogical graphic trees without image updating is a bind.

It's already possible in Publisher, if you use Linked images or documents. And you can have it done automatically if you set your Publisher Preferences to do so.

Designer is not intended to support Linking, though it can be enabled using Publisher. But the full support is not available in Designer even then.

Serif has so far indicated that Linking might remain exclusive to Publisher, so that may be the better application for your purpose.