select object convert selection to path. HOW?

[dizeyner]

I am desperately trying to save my work which is being lost due to fireworks being abandoned by photoshop. There are no adobe programs to open the work in and save. So Im bitterly trying to save what I can and redo whatever cant be ported over intact to affinity. As expected, when I bring any formerly editable vectors into affinity from fireworks the vectors open as bitmaps.  So I need to recreate. I get that. Im trying to recreate without reinventing the entire wheel point by point. But I can't find a simple process in affinity that adobe has. Possible it does not exist. OR, my hope is that its just me not understanding the vastly different ways affinity seems to do anything.

so here is what I want to do and how I used to do it in adobe:
In adobe applications you can use the magic wand to select an area around an object, invert selected (so now the selection wraps the object instead of the space around the object), and next I would then convert selected outline of the object to an editable path.  

I cant find any equivalent of a magic wand in affinity. and I cant find anything that takes a selection and converts it to a path. If there is a way please help. If not let me know and I will go beg for a feature. 

 

[walt.farrell]

How are you exporting from Fireworks to migrate things into Affinity? I would have thought that if you exported as PDF or EPS you'd be able to Open in Affinity Designer and get editable vectors. (But I'm not an expert in that area, and could easily be wrong.)

[firstdefence]

There is no Selection to Path option at the moment, there are selection options in Pixel Persona in Designer and you can invert selections using ⇧⌘I

[Kuttyjoe]

It sounds like you're trying to vectorize some raster art.  Affinity Designer also does not have this feature, but Serif's older DrawPlus program does.  Also, most other vector software has vector tracing.  You wouldn't need to use any kind of selection.  Just open the file in DrawPlus, or other program that features vector tracing, and use the tracing option.  It will convert your image to a vector.  There are also some online vector tracing apps.  Some may or may not be free to use.

[Wosven]

Hi,

Can't you export your files to PSD, TIFF or AI so you could open them in AD and get back some of your layers and curves ?

From the documentation I read :

Quote

Vous pouvez enregistrer les formats de fichier suivants directement depuis Fireworks : PNG Fireworks, GIF, GIF animé, JPEG, BMP, WBMP, TIFF, SWF, AI, PSD et PICT (Mac uniquement).

 

[dizeyner]

So what Ive been doing is exporting my fireworks vectors to illustrator files. opening in illustrator, exporting as SVG. then opening the SVG in affinity and saving as an affinity file. Most of the time my vectors are preserved with this process. But sometimes something goes wonky and Ill end up with crazy bitmaps. 

Thank you all for your tips. Some of these things I had already tried among others.
Exporting to PSD does not always result in editable vectors remaining editable. In the same file two identical vector objects might exist, one will have remained editable the other not. Lots of trial and error. everything must be ungrouped. You never know when an applied filter will cause a problem. This is I think a problem with the legacy fireworks application. But Im not certain.

I was not aware that tiffs maintained layers. I thought this would result in a flat file. But will admit Ive rarely used tif as a file format. Ill explore. thank you!

I was not familiar with the term vector tracing. Ill google that. thank you! However, if anyone knows of a program that works on an imac that would be helpful. 

Not sure what pixel persona is as so many things in affinity are not defined or located in ways Im used to finding things. But Ill defo check that out. Thank you!

Exporting to EPS from fireworks and opening in Affinity was an epic fail. Ditto for PDF. did not end up with editable anything. theoretically should have worked. But I believe the failure is in fireworks.

I had considered renting adobe fireworks CS6 for this process but they do not allow it anymore. In fact refused to allow anyone to purchase it even when it was available. All a part of Adobes master plan for forcing people into subscriptions where you cant even rent just what you need. You have to pay for everything. Loved adobe for 17 years. Cant even tell you how much I hate adobe now. Seriously hope affinity never becomes like that.

f only Id kept a machine running an older OSX this whole process would be easier.  Alas we got no warning that our software would no longer work if we upgraded.

Anyway...loving Affinity designer and photo today! Using my FW to SVG process I salvaged a lot yesterday. Took me 9 hours to save all the "pages" from just 2 fireworks files. Thank fully did not lose any of the layers. Some filters will need to be applied. Gradients need to be redone.  but editability was there for the most part.

Thank heavens for SVG! If only fireworks CS4 could go right to SVG! Would totally love to skip the whole illustrator step.

[firstdefence]

13 minutes ago, dizeyner said:

Not sure what pixel persona is as so many things in affinity are not defined or located in ways Im used to finding things. But Ill defo check that out. Thank you!

 Pixel Persona

• Make freehand, shape, and brush-based selections
• Add pixel brush strokes
• Erase using pixel brushes
• Retouch with dedicated tools