Struggling with EPS files

[pomme27]

From time to time, I purchase a graphic from CreativeMarket to supplement my poor artistic skills. If the graphic comes in SVG format, it loads perfectly into Affinity Designer. The object is selectable, and each layer is well-organized and easily editable.

 

When the graphic comes in EPS format, however, the result is very different. When I import the graphic, it comes in as hundreds (yes, hundreds) of masks, all intermingled with no apparent order. See attachment. It's impossible to select and edit the elements that you want to adjust. It's hard for me to believe that the original artists all built their EPS graphics in that manner, so I assume I am importing them incorrectly into Affinity Designer. To import the graphic on my Mac, I simply right-click on the file, then select Open With Affinity Designer.

 

I know that Affinity Designer is supposed to handle EPS files, but I wonder if I'm somehow using them incorrectly.  Any thoughts?

[stokerg]

Hi Pomme27,

 

This comes up a lot here on the forums and you are not doing anything incorrectly,  if you see my reply here you'll see this is just how EPS files are created in AI.  If you had AI and opened the EPS file, it would show the layers in groups but that's because when AI creates an EPS it also embeds an AI file, which is what AI opens and it ignores the actual EPS data.  We can't, so we open the actual EPS file.

[pomme27]

Thanks. That explains it.