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26 minutes ago, ProDesigner said:

I know this thread is perhaps done now but to clarify something.

Check out the title bar for serif.com. Note the word "professional".

Now the "professional" creative IS Adobe’s market.

I also remember seeing an article before any affinity app was released (not been able to find it) that clearly stated the apps were a challenge to the Adobe suite. The article was a press release written by Serif. I’m certain about this, because it’s what put these apps on my radar and I’ve followed their development ever since because of it.

Therefore the clunky stuff has to be on their list for developing, unless they’ve lowered their sights, or don’t really mean (or understand) "professional".

You clearly confused marketing and targeted development.

»A designer's job is to improve the general quality of life. In fact, it's the only reason for our existence.«
Paul Rand (1914-1996)

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Just now, Andy05 said:

You clearly confused marketing and targeted development.

A business that doesn’t match its marketing to its "targeted development" is never going to be a winner in competitive markets.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Words are crude implements, difficult to get perfect, easy to get tied in knots with, and often - usually - misunderstood, which is why 'tolarence' is the best word of all.

The word "professional" fits us all - amateur, semi-pro, beginner, advanced, middle, beyond it all, and on....., because professionals are tolerant.

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1 minute ago, ProDesigner said:

A business that doesn’t match its marketing to its "targeted development" is never going to be a winner in competitive markets.

Don't tell me. Tell Serif.

»A designer's job is to improve the general quality of life. In fact, it's the only reason for our existence.«
Paul Rand (1914-1996)

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Whatever Serif's intentions, the suite clearly occupies a middle ground. For many users it will be professional enough, and the fact it is a well integrated suite will serve the majority of users well. On this thread we are bemoaning the lack of a feature that many of us argue is a crucial part of what we need to be able to achieve with ease. We think it fundamental, but we may just be bellyaching about a process that is less crucial than we think. Personally, I really like Affinity, will never be tempted back to subscribing to Adobe, and if I ever really do need to achieve a true vector free transform I will probably (virtually) dust-off my old copy of Illustrator CS2, assuming it has this feature!

Meanwhile, being able to open the document in Affinity Photo ('Edit in Photo' in the Affinity Designer File menu) does the job in most of the situations I encounter using the Distort filter in Photo. I know it doesn't create a vector transform, and drops to mere pixels, but as I work well above the pixel dimensions I export to, this hasn't been an issue for my exported files. It is a disagreeable clunky workaround, way too clunky, but until Serif decide that they are moving out of the middle ground I guess it will have to do. If they do move out of the middle ground, I hope they don't change their pricing model, which is what tends to happen when things go 'Pro'. Instead I hope they really do subvert and pull-out the rug from under Adobe.

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1 hour ago, zer0aster said:

Whatever Serif's intentions, the suite clearly occupies a middle ground.

I would say this is only true from a feature perspective, and Affinity is only a few features away from being a true competitor with respect to the most desirables, image/perspective warp being one of them along with image trace (bitmap to vector). Keeping warped elements vector is important as well for logos and the like. I follow several Affinity social media groups and it's always these two features people are looking for workarounds for. The intuitiveness of the UX and workflow in Affinity are superb, and I think that's why most of us use it. I was off and running almost immediately when I transitioned from Fireworks years ago, which, though it temporarily wore the Adobe name was created by Macromedia. It takes me at least 30% longer to achieve the same results in Adobe and how to accomplish tasks is not nearly as self-discoverable as Affinity. 

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49 minutes ago, MCFC_4Heatons said:

How does anyone know, because nobody from Affinity ever comments or lets us know what's going on and if/when it will happen ... Even Adobe are less secretive and better at communication than this ...

I miss that too. It would be nice to know if they are already working on something or plan to do it, even if they don't know when it will be ready. I also get that things often don't go as planned (especially with technology) and there can be delays. Not knowing is just frustrating. And no communication says they don't care about what people need even if that's not what they mean. I really enjoy Gumroad's approach, they keep people excited about their development. 😁

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Oh there's a second topic for this..

here's another one. It's 12 pages long.. so combined with this we now have 19 pages full of complaining about this missing feature.

 

and 0 response from Serif.

Honestly, I love the Affinity software but the way they handle this is really sad.. Not a single word. nothing.

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I've not waded through this whole topic so forgive me if this has already been explained.

This is the steps I use for a simple 'perspective' style distort. It can involve as many shapes as you like so long as they're all curves.

It preserves the vectors.

It takes a bit of pondering and clarity about what you want to end up with before you start (plus an understanding of perspective)...

You may need to get to your objective via several distort steps too.

- - - - - - - - - -

(In iPad Designer) To obtain a 'simple' perspective style distort:

  1. Make a copy of object(s)/group "in-case"
  2. Select all paths involved (has to be paths, so convert to curves as necessary)
  3. Using Node Tool, drag select all nodes to be scaled (the choice of nodes - be sure you understand perspective and what you're trying to end up with)
  4. Set Bounding Box Transform to on - context menu.
  5. Add constraining finger gestures (to scale around centre)** / or tap the scale around centre thing in the context menu / or highlight centre 'anchor' in transform studio.
  6. Scale
  7. (Optionally - Drag left/right/up/down depending on perspective required... or miss out step 5!)

**Step 5: I always use the finger gestures, so the actual nuts and bolts of the other two approaches may be inaccurate.

- - - - - - - - - -

I assume this can be done in Designer Desktop too. I'll check and correct this if it's not possible. I'll be very surprised.

This covers most of the distorts I need .. most of the time.

___________________

Apps aimed at professionals

As a 'professional' I want all the shortcuts I can get. More power to my elbow the better. I'm distorting like this several times in every illustration/diagram I do pretty much. A distort tool could reduce the six (plus) steps to two (select curve/object/group > distort) and multiplied over several operations, that adds up when you've deadlines to meet.

'Productivity' is at least as important as 'creativity' - and at times, it's more important in a professional's working life.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Words are crude implements, difficult to get perfect, easy to get tied in knots with, and often - usually - misunderstood, which is why 'tolarence' is the best word of all.

The word "professional" fits us all - amateur, semi-pro, beginner, advanced, middle, beyond it all, and on....., because professionals are tolerant.

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34 minutes ago, ProDesigner said:

I've not waded through this whole topic so forgive me if this has already been explained.

This is the steps I use for a simple 'perspective' style distort. It can involve as many shapes as you like so long as they're all curves.

It takes a bit of pondering before you start (and an understanding of perspective)...

- - - - - - - - - -

(In iPad Designer) To obtain a 'simple' perspective style distort:

  1. Make a copy of object(s)/group "in-case"
  2. Select all paths involved (has to be paths, so convert to curves as necessary)
  3. Using Node Tool, drag select all nodes to be scaled (the choice of nodes - be sure you understand perspective and what you're trying to end up with)
  4. Set Bounding Box Transform to on - context menu.
  5. Add constraining finger gestures (to scale around centre)** / or tap the scale around centre thing in the context menu / or highlight centre 'anchor' in transform studio.
  6. Scale
  7. (Optionally - Drag left/right/up/down depending on perspective required)

**Step 5: I always use the finger gestures, so the actual nuts and bolts of the other two approaches may be inaccurate.

- - - - - - - - - -

I assume this can be done in Designer Desktop too. I'll check and correct this if it's not possible. I'll be very surprised.

This covers most of the distorts I need .. most of the time... and preserves the vectors too.

- - - - - - - - - -

Of course as a 'professional' I want all the shortcuts I can get. More power to my elbow the better. I'm distorting like this several times in every illustration/diagram I do pretty much. A distort tool could reduce the 6 (plus) steps to two (select curve/object/group > distort) and multiplied over several operations, that adds up when you've deadlines to meet.

not a perfect solution.. but that is one seriously good tip. It'll make some things a bit easier.

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  • 1 month later...

Just another use-case to toss in the ring.

Is this possible?

I'd love to be able to take some text and skew it to look like it's written on this stage.

I might be a boring designer, but If I were to order the things I use a graphics program for (in order of importance) this would be really high on the list.

Screen Shot 2021-04-23 at 7.18.50 AM.png

Screen Shot 2021-04-23 at 7.30.29 AM.png

Edited by sheriffderek
Add image from the help on transforming a shape
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There is a Live Perspective filter in Affinity Photo that can do this... If you haven't already it might be worth purchasing Affinity Photo and Publisher, then you can switch between Photo and Designer with StudioLink and get the best features from both apps combined... You just launch and work from within Publisher and seamlessly switch switch between Designer and Photo ..

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4 hours ago, MCFC_4Heatons said:

There is a Live Perspective filter in Affinity Photo that can do this... If you haven't already it might be worth purchasing Affinity Photo and Publisher, then you can switch between Photo and Designer with StudioLink and get the best features from both apps combined... You just launch and work from within Publisher and seamlessly switch switch between Designer and Photo ..

I think most people here are looking for vector transform. It is a useful feature for raster though 👌🏻

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30 minutes ago, Mark Freeman said:

I think most people here are looking for vector transform. It is a useful feature for raster though 👌🏻

The live perspective tool in Affinity Photo is non-destructive. Text, vectors and shapes and their properties are still editable after applying it - access it from the liver filters icon at the bottom of the layers panel in Affinity Photo.

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9 hours ago, MCFC_4Heatons said:

The live perspective tool in Affinity Photo is non-destructive. Text, vectors and shapes and their properties are still editable after applying it - access it from the liver filters icon at the bottom of the layers panel in Affinity Photo.

But it rasterizes the objects. So the results are not useable in any workflow, which requires vectors.

»A designer's job is to improve the general quality of life. In fact, it's the only reason for our existence.«
Paul Rand (1914-1996)

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24 minutes ago, Mark Freeman said:

I wish people would verify before posting😡. Right..... I guess if they had that function, they would have included it in designer.

I have all three apps Publisher, Photo and Designer and I can use the LIVE Perspective tool in Photo and it does NOT rasterize the object.  One you have all three apps you can launch Publisher and the Studio Link feature enables you to switch between Affinity Photo and Designer features from within the one app, so you get the best of both worlds.

Maybe the person who's calling me a liar is accessing the Perspective tool from the top menu, that will rasterize the object! - However, the LIVE Perspective (note the word LIVE) tool is accessed from the bottom of the Layers panel in Photo and it is non-destructive.

Once you have all three Affinity apps  you can use the combined features of both Photo and Designer and you can use the live perspective tool on text, shapes and vectors and they are NOT rasterized .....

The person who thinks they know better, is actually the person who doesn't know what they are talking about here....

....and yes it's strange that they put a non-destructive perspective tool in a photo editor and did not include it in Designer ....

Here's how you access live filters In Photo:

LIVER_FILTERS.png.7d5884926a59e27b6099e40e5e7753ee.png

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1 minute ago, MCFC_4Heatons said:

However, the LIVE Perspective (note the word LIVE) is accessed from the bottom of the Layers panel in Photo and it is non-destructive

I think it's just a misunderstanding, technically it is rasterising the element - you cannot export it as a vector. Behind the scenes it's keeping the original copy which is then re-used for any changes, making it "live".

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7 minutes ago, BofG said:

I think it's just a misunderstanding, technically it is rasterising the element - you cannot export it as a vector. Behind the scenes it's keeping the original copy which is then re-used for any changes, making it "live".

OK I see, You can effectively retain editability inside the Afffinity app using the Live Filters, but when you export it will rasterize ...

So, if your final export format needs to be a scalable vector its a problem. If your highest quality requirement for export format is as a high res bitmap then it's still very useful to retain editability inside the Affinity App if you need to return and edit further...

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12 minutes ago, BofG said:

I think it's just a misunderstanding, technically it is rasterising the element - you cannot export it as a vector. Behind the scenes it's keeping the original copy which is then re-used for any changes, making it "live".

I was playing around with using the Live Perspective filter in the Photo Persona of APub & created this perspective glitch.afpub file. On my iMac I get very odd results as I zoom in & out, with lots of phantom rectangular shapes appearing outside the page boundaries.

Anybody else see the same thing?

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.0 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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12 minutes ago, MCFC_4Heatons said:

OK I see, You can effectively retain editability inside the Afffinity app using the Live Filters, but when you export it will rasterize ...

So, if your final export format needs to be a scalable vector its a problem. If your highest quality requirement for export format is as a high res bitmap then it's still very useful to retain editability inside the Affinity App if you need to return and edit further...

Yeah, I stand by my statement.

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15 hours ago, MCFC_4Heatons said:

OK I see, You can effectively retain editability inside the Afffinity app using the Live Filters, but when you export it will rasterize ...

So, if your final export format needs to be a scalable vector its a problem. If your highest quality requirement for export format is as a high res bitmap then it's still very useful to retain editability inside the Affinity App if you need to return and edit further...

No, it's not useful at all. Show me how you distort text and export it so I can use it in a workflow for laser cutting or for CNC. Or how you export this as EPS/SVG that way so stockpages will accept it as vector.

If you need vector, you need vector - not a pixel image in whatsoever high resolution.

»A designer's job is to improve the general quality of life. In fact, it's the only reason for our existence.«
Paul Rand (1914-1996)

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