Layer control within Place Command

[hifred]

Indesign has a powerful feature which lets me select the layer-display of referenced (not embedded) Photoshop psd's or Illustrator .ai files. A checkbox in the Importer lets users check select just the layers (or layer comps) they need, but one can re-access the layer display dialog at any time later via Object/Object Layer Options and the display of the placed file updates correspondingly. 

Is similar already available for placed Affinity files or even other layered document types (psd, tif)? If not – is this planned?

[dominik]

1 hour ago, hifred said:

Indesign has a powerful feature which lets me select the layer-display of referenced (not embedded) Photoshop psd's or Illustrator .ai files. A checkbox in the Importer lets users check select just the layers (or layer comps) they need, but one can re-access the layer display dialog at any time later via Object/Object Layer Options and the display of the placed file updates correspondingly. 

Is similar already available for placed Affinity files or even other layered document types (psd, tif)? If not – is this planned?

Hi @hifred,

what you can do is to double click on a placed file (I tried with an AD file and a native Photoshop file). This will open the file in a new tab where you have access it's layers. You can then turn on and off layers and simply by closing the tab the file updates.

d.

 

[Michail]

31 minutes ago, dominik said:

what you can do is to double click on a placed file (I tried with an AD file and a native Photoshop file). This will open the file in a new tab where you have access it's layers. You can then turn on and off layers and simply by closing the tab the file updates.

It would be nice if this would also work with TIF files. TIF also stores layers and channels. Unfortunately, no preview is generated for PSD files in the File Explorer, because this prevents Adobe.

[hifred]

45 minutes ago, dominik said:

what you can do is to double click on a placed file (I tried with an AD file and a native Photoshop file). This will open the file in a new tab where you have access it's layers.

Hmm – what you suggest afaik can only work on embedded files. I just tried to force Publisher to only linkt to a placed file but it always appears as "embedded" in the Layer stack. That's the case even after choosing "link" in the dialog and after having set the file to "prefer linked".

Test wise I updated the source file in APhoto and saved. As there's no Link panel yet I checked "Automatically update linked resources when modified externally"  and  saved the Publisher file. It re-opened with the unaltered image in it, so it was indeed embedded. Seems that file linking isn't available yet in Publisher.

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I wondered if selective reading of linked (referenced) files was possible too. That way one could control the appearance of files which are not part of the document.

[hifred]

7 minutes ago, Michail said:

Unfortunately, no preview is generated for PSD files in the File Explorer, because this prevents Adobe

You can solve that problem with free programs like Sage Thumbs. 

[hifred]

Sorry double post.

[dominik]

6 minutes ago, hifred said:

Hmm – what you suggest afaik can only work on embedded files.

It seems that the concept of 'linked files' is still under construction, e.g. see this post (there may be more information on the forum on this. I didn't search thoroughly).

So, basically, it will be possible to switch layers of embedded files on and off once the bugs are sorted out 
In it's initial release it will propably be not as advanced as in InDesign, though.

d.

[MickRose]

32 minutes ago, hifred said:

Hmm – what you suggest afaik can only work on embedded files. I just tried to force Publisher to only linkt to a placed file but it always appears as "embedded" in the Layer stack. That's the case even after choosing "link" in the dialog and after having set the file to "prefer linked".

Test wise I updated the source file in APhoto and saved. As there's no Link panel yet I checked "Automatically update linked resources when modified externally"  and  saved the Publisher file. It re-opened with the unaltered image in it, so it was indeed embedded. Seems that file linking isn't available yet in Publisher

I've tried this with a jpeg and a tif file and they did update. The layers panel says "Image" whereas the Aphoto file says "Embedded".

[hifred]

2 hours ago, dominik said:

So, basically, it will be possible to switch layers of embedded files on and off once the bugs are sorted out 

Let's wait what they come up with, when linking actually works.
 

1 hour ago, MickRose said:

I've tried this with a jpeg and a tif file and they did update. The layers panel says "Image" whereas the Aphoto file says "Embedded".

Yes doubleclicking and changing something in the placed image does work, as everything gets embedded right now. But that's not what I described in my last post – I did some external edits on placed afphoto- files (inside Aphoto) and found out that they were indeed not reflected in the Publisher-document –not even after re-opening Publisher. This only served as a proof that file-linking indeed is broken currently.

My initial request differs from what @dominik suggests, as this requires embedded files.

[dominik]

12 minutes ago, hifred said:

– I did some external edits on placed afphoto- files (inside Aphoto) and found out that they were indeed not reflected in the Publisher-document –n

Maybe this is worth of creating a new post at the Report bugs forum.

d.

[MickRose]

The jpg and tif files were edited in photoshop, not by double clicking, and they did automatically update within Publisher after being saved in photoshop. But this doesn't seem to work for linked Aphoto files. I assume this is a bug. The thing about embed/link file sizes being the same or similar is a known issue which hasn't been resolved yet. 

[Old Bruce]

21 minutes ago, MickRose said:

The jpg and tif files were edited in photoshop, not by double clicking, and they did automatically update within Publisher after being saved in photoshop. But this doesn't seem to work for linked Aphoto files. I assume this is a bug. The thing about embed/link file sizes being the same or similar is a known issue which hasn't been resolved yet. 

I think it has more to do with the Affinity Photo files being 1.6.x instead of 1.7.x like Publisher.

[hifred]

Ok, just to summarize things a bit:

• Linked placing seems to work unreliably right now. Photoshop exported content links ok, Affinity Photo 1.6 files do get embedded.
• The feature I asked for (display control for files which are linked) seems not to exist.
• Being able to doubleclick a placed files (as I understand it) is an indicator of a file being embedded – it's unrelated to the original question.

[prophet]

Old post, but haven't seen any further buzz about "Object Layer Options" with the new 1.8 update.

I've got a multi-page APub file placed in a second APub file (for specific layout purposes). Really love APub's ability to switch between spreads so easily with the context bar, but it would be even cooler to be able to show/hide specific layers as well.

Not too much trouble to hit "Edit Document" to jump to the placed file and turn off layers, but then I have to save it, and if I have this doc placed in any other layouts, layer visibility is updated there as well. In ID, I can place an ID file in another ID file for layout, turn on/off the placed file layers, and even if I edit the placed file, the layer visibility stays the same in the layout.