Tutorial for total idiots needed

[johnjohn]

Hi,

First of all let me say that I am not a real voluntary user of affinity designer, simply because I loved DrawPlus and am annoyed that all the work I created is useless in Affinity Designer unless I export it in some format and import it in AD, which is very frustrating when you have to do it thousands of times.

Anyway here I am now and miss many functions I loved in DrawPlus (like cutout studio etc.). But more frustrating is the unfamiliar way AD is organized. Any single step needs hours, simply because I do not know how to do it. Many needed functions are very well hidden and I have not yet found the ones I wanted to start with. Even worse, the help section does not explain them. Let me give you an example and this is also my first question in the forum and I am sure many of you will find it stupid and unnecessary but it may make clear why I am struggling with the software. I want to erase a part of a photograph. Bummer. Impossible. Where is the eraser, which I needed to find in DrawPlus less than a second? Intuitively? Hm. Rather not, at least using my poorly developed intuition. Ok, there is a help section, easy to find (yeah!) and I search for "erase" - and here it is: an icon showing an eraser plus the helping words: 

Erase Brush Tool

You can erase from any area of your image, including any vector objects, using the Erase Brush Tool. Erased pixels become transparent.

That is exactly what I already knew, but where the hell do I find the icon in AD? Where is the erase brush tool? Meanwhile I am busy half an hour looking for the eraser, without being helped by the help, I try Google. Tons of tutorials. For Ipad. Some for Windows. None explaining where the erase brush tool can be found. It must be so obvious that nobody cares to show it explicitly. And I must be blind not to find it. 

Meanwhile iI have been busy 3/4 of an hour. I am writing this, hoping to get an answer here, but hey, simply return to DrawPlus, erase the part of the image I do not need, done. 10 seconds. I hope some day Affinity Designer will reward many hours of learning just the simplest of its tools and stop making me feel like a complete idiot (other issues were similar and still wait to be solved but I stick to the eraser, must be enough for now). So besides asking this question - where is the eraser brush tool - I would also like to know whether there is any help section where I can find answers to this kind of simple questions in order not having to bother you visitors of the forum all too often. Just let me know and you are rid of me. Thank you very much.

[dutchshader]

Hello Johnjohn,

 

just switch to the pixel persona:

 

 

[Gnobelix]

Hello johnjohn,
welcome in this form.
as @dutchshader said, simply switch to pixel persona.
There are tons of tutorials, click here.

 

Cheers

[johnjohn]

Thank you both very much.

But ... wow! Who came up with this idea? In a thousand years I would not have found the needed function. In my profession I am used to use the word "persona" in a complete different sense, so the first impuls when I saw the feature "persona" was ... gosh, can I get rid of it? How can I clean the menu from superfluous functions? I'm here to design, not to treat one of my clients. Language seems a virus from outer space ...

Would you mind explaining me the idea behind giving the set of functions this name? 

[R C-R]

1 minute ago, johnjohn said:

Would you mind explaining me the idea behind giving the set of functions this name? 

The idea is to reduce the clutter in the UI by organizing everything into highly customizable, task-orientated workspaces called Personas. (I suppose the name is based on the definition of "persona" that means a role or character adopted by an author or an actor, but that is just a guess.)

If you are new to the app, browsing through the four the topics in the Introduction section of the built-in help is a good place to start. The third one, About Personas, is quite brief but covers the basics.

 

[Wosven]

Another tip for looking at all the tool available is to use the "Customize tools…"

All will be displayed and you'll have a better understanding of the Personas, and you'll be able to add the tools you need most (you can switch personas while they are displayed).

[johnjohn]

Thank you for explaining everything patiently!

I guess it is my way to stumble (The other day I needed more than an hour before I found out that what I was searching for - variation - was called combination by the makers of the software. One hour I could have had a walk in the park of a coffee with friends instead of searching the help, the forums and google, what a waste of time). I get easily impatient and do not even care to look into things that look very wrong at first sight. I should know better after all these years of using software...

[R C-R]

12 minutes ago, johnjohn said:

I get easily impatient and do not even care to look into things that look very wrong at first sight. I should know better after all these years of using software...

It takes time to learn about any software with a rich feature set. One of the things that convinced me to invest in the Affinity ones is the excellent support provided through these forums, both by the staff & other users. So when you get stuck on something, don't hesitate to ask about it here -- typically, someone will reply within a few hours. It can save a lot of time & frustration.

[Sharkey]

2 hours ago, johnjohn said:

Thank you for explaining everything patiently!

I guess it is my way to stumble (The other day I needed more than an hour before I found out that what I was searching for - variation - was called combination by the makers of the software. One hour I could have had a walk in the park of a coffee with friends instead of searching the help, the forums and google, what a waste of time). I get easily impatient and do not even care to look into things that look very wrong at first sight. I should know better after all these years of using software...

Of little 'help' I know I am still telling myself "just Do It" after nearly 15 yrs. on Macs. Still trying to think of how to do something before realising it just drags&drops DUH!!!!!

Moving to AP from PS5.5 via Capture One, Pixelmator, Silky Pics, Photo, Aperture etc etc etc was a complete "Nightmare" and I doubt it completely ends :-(

As I recall "This is an Illegal Operation", Windows 5 I think, caused me to switch the PC off just incase someone found out ;-O.........

Language, Assumption and the totally misunderstood Intuitive are the most intrusive and destructive forms of torture for the user of any software - beware of them all.

Oh, and age of course (rising 67).