upscaling in Designer

[ikirbster]

Probably these two questions has been answered previously but here it is: In Affinity Designer, when in the pixel persona, do the brushes upscale if you enlarge the file? Also why can't I open an .afphoto in Designer?

[walt.farrell]

5 minutes ago, ikirbster said:

Also why can't I open an .afphoto in Designer?

You should be able to. How did you try to open it, and what happened, in as much detail as possible, please

[Pšenda]

5 hours ago, ikirbster said:

why can't I open an .afphoto in Designer?

In APhoto - Menu File, Edit in Designer... not work?

In ADesigner - Menu File, Open... not work? 

[ikirbster]

I'm sorry Walt, I was not clear. I meant why can't I do a Place Image command using an .afphoto file? If I Export the image as a PSD I can do a Place but not with the .afphoto.

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, ikirbster said:

I'm sorry Walt, I was not clear. I meant why can't I do a Place Image command using an .afphoto file? If I Export the image as a PSD I can do a Place but not with the .afphoto.

Ah, yes, proper terminology is important   Opening refers to File > Open.  Other choices are Placing, dragging & dropping, or copying & pasting. All are different, and have different characteristics ad behaviors.

You can Place .afphoto files in Designer. At least, most .afphoto files. Here, for example, is a .afdesign file I just created with two Placed .afphoto files in it:
sample.afdesign

Are you by any chance trying to Place a one of the .afphoto files from the Photo Workbook? Those are locked for copyright reasons, and all you can do is Open them, not Place them. But normal .afphoto files should place just fine.

Unfortunately, the Place operation does not give an error message, as far as I can see, when you try to Place a locked .afphoto file. It should, as that would be much less confusing, but as normal users can't create those files it may simply be that the Affinity Developers haven't thought about that error situation and implemented the proper error checking for it.

If that doesn't explain it, perhaps you could attach a .afphoto file that you can't place in Designer, so we can try it ourselves.

Edit: No, that probably won't explain it, as you wouldn't be able to Export one of those special files, either. So I'd need to see your .afphoto file to make any further guesses.

[R C-R]

7 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

You can Place .afphoto files in Designer. At least, most .afphoto files. Here, for example, is a .afdesign file I just created with two Placed .afphoto files in it:
sample.afdesign

Note that as in Walt's sample file, Affinity document files (as well as several other file types) are placed (or pasted or dropped) as "(Embedded document)" layers:

Editing embedded document layers is handled a bit differently from editing regular layers: you double click on them & they open in a new tab titled "<Embedded>" that makes their layer structure available, as if they were separate documents opened normally. When working on them, the "Edit in Photo" option is greyed out (& so is the "Edit in Designer" one if you open the file in Affinity Photo). To do that, you need to close the "<Embedded>" tab to return to the 'parent' document, where the option will be enabled.

[ikirbster]

I apparently still don't understand. Attached is a proof (JPEG) of a poster that I did in Designer (for a client) and also a downsized version of one of the reptile .afphoto files that I attempted to Place. The reptile image is mine so there is not a copyright issue. I'm a graphic designer with a background in Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, Quark, and many other graphic programs from when they first emerged from the primordial void, about 1989 if I remember correctly. What I wanted to do was Link the photo in my Designer document (to keep the file size small). When I hit "D" for the Place command, I click on the image and choose "Open". If the image is a PSD, it is Placed into my document as I expected, however, if the image is a .afphoto image nothing happens. 

I should probably mention that I'm using the Beta versions instead of the regular versions. I have a terrible weakness for working in Beta versions of software even when I'm doing critical work for clients. Still, I find the Betas to be very stable and seemingly feature complete. BTW, I very much appreciate your help and patience. I'm extremely happy with the Affinity software but I still find myself occasionally searching for how to do something that I learned many years ago in another software program. I keep telling other designers that they should switch but the having to send "native files" thing is still an issue for many people.

testcollaredliz.afphoto

[Madame]

Just a thought, –is the .af file from the same beta as you are working on, or from the regular affinity programme? 

[R C-R]

4 hours ago, ikirbster said:

What I wanted to do was Link the photo in my Designer document (to keep the file size small).

Can you explain what you mean by "Link" & which document type you are trying to reduce the size of?

[walt.farrell]

13 hours ago, ikirbster said:

What I wanted to do was Link the photo in my Designer document (to keep the file size small).

Designer does not support linked files, only embedded.

[R C-R]

10 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Designer does not support linked files, only embedded.

From what was said about sending native files in the OP's last post, even if it did support linked files I am not sure what the point would be if the object is to send the files to other people. Whether it is two files with one linked to the other or a single file, it would still require the same amount of data being send, right? 

[walt.farrell]

15 hours ago, ikirbster said:

I apparently still don't understand. Attached is a proof (JPEG) of a poster that I did in Designer (for a client) and also a downsized version of one of the reptile .afphoto files that I attempted to Place.

testcollaredliz.afphoto

The .afphoto file was created in Photo Beta (1.7), and you're probably trying to Place it using Designer retail (1.6). That won't work, as the newer file formats created by the beta are not backward-compatible with the earlier releases. Placing that .afphoto file works properly when I try it in Designer 1.7 beta.

Affinity should provide an appropriate error message for this case, as it does when you try to Open the file.

[ikirbster]

I am using the Photo Beta and the Designer Beta (1.7.0.4) software only, not the 1.6 version. From your replies, it appears that it should be working so I'm guessing that it is a mistake at my end. OK, so I just tried to do the Place Image using Photo 1.6.7 and Designer 1.6.1. It worked as I had expected it to. So this was apparently something to do with the Beta software. I just tried to do it again using the Designer Beta 1.7, and the Photo Beta 1.7 it still didn't work but if I used an .afphoto file made in Photo 1.6, it worked as expected.

Concerning embedding vs linking a file, when you embed a file it usually makes the vector programs (Designer) file size much larger, thus using more hard drive memory. You are actually creating an extra version of the rasterized (Photo) file. It has nothing to do with sending a file, I was just explaining the problem that some designers have with switching over to Designer from the Adobe products.

[walt.farrell]

I need to check something, but I'll make one comment for now: the beta versions have their own set of forums. All discussions of them should take place there, to avoid confusion

[walt.farrell]

Please confirm the full version number your running for Photo 1.7 and Designer 1.7 beta.

The current Mac versions are 1.7.0.112 for Photo beta on Mac and 1.7.0.6 for Designer beta.

To further confirm whether your versions are compatible try using File > Open in Designer and see if you can in your .afphoto file.

[Dan C]

9 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

the beta versions have their own set of forums. All discussions of them should take place there, to avoid confusion

I've moved this whole thread to the relevant section and passed it to our QA team

[Sean P]

16 hours ago, ikirbster said:

I am using the Photo Beta and the Designer Beta (1.7.0.4) software only, not the 1.6 version.

I would suggest upgrading to the latest version of Designer (1.7.0.6). The 1.7.0.4 version was quite old compared to Photo (although you don't say which version of Photo 1.7 you are using).

If that still doesn't work when placing could you do a screen recording showing the process you are going through please?

[ikirbster]

I got the 1.7.0.6 version of Designer Beta, Placed a .afphoto image and it worked as it should. Sorry about the trouble.