As a comics artist, first thoughts & features I'm missing\looking for.

[møh]

Hi, I must first say I am very impressed so far, but there are some features I am missing (or haven't found yet).

I usually work someting like this:

01. I scan my drawings, and use threshold to make it just black/white (no greytones). So far so good.

02. I usually use the magic wand in photoshop to select all the blacks, and copy my lineart to a new layer. -This is where I am starting to struggle, can't find any way to separate my lineart from the white background. I bought Affinity Photo also and it has a feature to remove white paper, I would really like to see something like that in Designer. (But so far, my most missing feature coming from photoshop is the wand. I usually use the feature "Select similar color" a LOT).

03. I make a new layer underneath the lineart layer and start to color everything in basic flat colors with the paint bucket and a pen/brush with hard egdes (I still don't want no anti-aliasing or transparancy in anything). I'm struggeling with figuring out how the bucket tool works, but that may just be my inexperience with it (sometimes it does nothing), At least I found out how to make the brushes paint with hard edges, yay me! :)

04. I do the rest... I have not tried doing the rest in Affinity Designer yet, but I think it will work fine based om what I have seen so far,

wait...there is actually one thing that I also miss. "Free Transform" and scaling with the option of preserving hard edges (nearest neighbour).

 

Thank you :)

 

 

 

[SrPx]

If done instead in Photo (which I'd do, specially for coloring), I'd just set the black inks layer in "multiply" mode, then you don't have to worry about removing the white chunk. Anyway, depends heavily on the planned the output (web comics, printing, if printing, what kind of printing, etc).

You seem to be willing to do the color flats, and yep, is required by the industry, even at indy level, to avoid any smoothing in the flats. In Photo, use the laso, in polygonal mode (top bar) or normal mode (freehand), but be sure antialias is unchecked. Those will be hard edges. Now u have two options :

A) Flood fill tool at 100% tolerance, "contiguous" marked (unless you want to fill other selections at a time which you have overall canvas, that'd be a rare workflow for doing comic flats, tho), which is the usual workflow for those coming from Adobe PS.

B) OR.... Shift F5, brings up a dialog, so, a bit slower, to select your color and hit enter/ok.

Result is the same, or that is, for me.

With the black inks layer, again, depends on final output. Is totally different for offset printing, than digital cheapo printer, than just web/screen for a webcomic. For pritning, you might just scan your inks at 1200 dpi as 1bit image, so, removing the white there is absolutely trivial, and as later on , at printing time, it'd be printed very smooth at final print resolution. But one issue seems is one can't have a 1 bit layer in Photo.

The output I usually need does not need that at all, tends to be enough a layer in multiply mode for the inks. But that's me and my circumstances.

Maybe you can replicate this workflow in Designer's Pixel Persona, as is a bit of a mini raster editor embedded in a vector based tool. Dunno, as never tried such thing.

You have Photo purchased, and you are going for a very raster based workflow (ie, you are not doing the inks as vectors) .So, I don't see the point in using Designer for this.... (edit: and yep, in photo you can select the white with select sampled color, for example. Or the magic wind. Doing a fast test, no issues)

 

 

[SrPx]

Re: brushes paint hard. If not using the lasso tool with no antialias, a very standard procedure among pro flatters since always, and really want to use a brush (I think is way slower, but hey) , then yep u can do so as well, in Photo :

- Use the 1px tool (one pixel tool, thought for pixel art). Despite being a one pixel tool, you can increase/decrease your brush size as desired while you paint. Edges will always be hard.Obviously, leave flow and opacity at 100% ! And hardness (tho I've seen does not vary hardness with this tool, luckily)

Really, you can very well do your comic flats in Photo like in every tool fully capable of that.

EDIT: If you don't find the Pixel Tool : You need to click and paintain pressure on the brush tool in the vertical tools bar. 3 tool icons appear, one called Pixel Tool. It'll replace the normal brush until you change this again. Tip: You can use DIFFERENT key shortcuts for each, if you need to fast swap.

Tip 2 : Keeping ctrl pressed makes Pixel Tool works as an eraser, hard edges, too!.

Tip 3: You have the Pixel Tool, multiply mode (if I remember well) and basic selecting and filling tools as well in PIXEL PERSONA (not in vector persona, which I think is where you are on) at A. Designer. Again, I very much would work on Photo for all this....

[SrPx]

9 hours ago, møh said:

wait...there is actually one thing that I also miss. "Free Transform" and scaling with the option of preserving hard edges (nearest neighbour).

In Photo, you can use Mesh Warp tool (bottom of vertical toolbar). In the top bar as usual appear settings of this tool, set there (Nearest) at the resampling field. Only that this operates only at full layer, not over a selection.It'll look smoothed borders, but once you hit apply is hard egdes. But very irregular, is not though to do this, clearly. Great tool, but wouldn't recommend it for this.

Frankly, just don't use a workflow based on transforms for doing the comic flats. I insist you will work faster with lasso freehand / polygonal tool with antialias off. As how shortcuts are working here (unless you use a shortcuts special tool called X-Mouse button control), your best chances with lasso selection is just use lasso in POLYGONAL mode. As then, just point clicking you are doing polygonal selection (practical for well controlled flats areas: remember you need to keep at center of the ink lines in case stuff gets moved at print time) but if you click drag, it behaves as freehand lasso.(always hard edges, ofc). Also, keys are not the same than PS. Here, to remove from selection, keep ALT pressed. To add, is a complex combo of first right click, keep hold, and with RMB pressed, LMB drag . Two button at a time is less control over your hand (and this is an accuracy critical task), plus more stress to the tendons (bad for carpian tunnel, etc), so, I'd advice to use X-Mouse button control to force it to be totally like PS's shortcuts. But that would need an entire new post. (I have a few about that lying around). And anyway, best if you don't need to over complicate your workflow, in any case.

I mean, with how it is, pixel tool, lasso, paint bucket and/or just shift f5 (fill...) you are ready to go and make great flats. No need for the transform if use properly the lasso OR, large brushes (I have c and v as keys to increase and decrease brush size as I go, configure your fav keys at Affinity preferences) of the hard edged Pixel Tool.

Trust me, is one of those things you can do without missing anything from Adobe PS or whatever.

 

[møh]

55 minutes ago, SrPx said:

Trust me, is one of those things you can do without missing anything from Adobe PS or whatever.

Thank you so much for such great tips and answers!

I will try them one by one. You really made my day!

[SrPx]

Well, then I'm happy, my friend !   

If you get stuck, just ask, there's a large bunch of people around here extremely experienced and talented (some comics making old rockers around, too, very kind and eager to help, as well.    And people knowing a lot about DTP workflows (and any other aspect and field), very technical matters, so, just ask if you get stuck in some problem, someone will pop with a great solution.     ) [ What I mean is that I see here experts in each and every field, almost. That's handy   ]

Have lots of fun making your comics! I know it is a blast.