(Affinity Designer) Color selection question.

[GalacticQuokka]

This is my first post on the forum, so first I'd like to say hello to the Affinity community! Even the rhyme was found!

I have a question for more familiar Affinity Designer users. I received the task of simplifying the vector illustration. The problem is that the illustrator has made some 1,500 layers. My task is to simplify the illustration as much as possible, that is, to group colors, make a uniform fill under layers, etc. My question is, is there any way to indicate the selected color, for example red and to select all layers with a given color and combine them? I admit that scrolling through 1,500 layers (they are not in order) and looking for elements of illustrations is a bit (well, damn) frustrating. Do you have any ideas how to simplify such illustrations in a quick way and is there an option I mentioned above? I apologize in advance for my English!

 

[firstdefence]

Affinity Designer doesn't have the ability to select colours for all layers in Draw Persona, it has an option in Pixel Persona to select RGB Reds, Greens or Blues but it doesn't seem to work, whether a shape, curve or a pixel layer...

1. Select the Pixel Persona
2. Create 4 squares and colour one blue and the rest red R255, G000, B000
3. Select > Colour Range > Reds, no layer that has red will be selected, in fact no selection of any kind is created.
4. IF you select all the layer and use Select > Colour Range > Reds, the top layer will have a selection but the rest will be ignored.

However it will work on an image.

 

[GalacticQuokka]

It is a pity that there is no such option. Anyway, thank you very much for trying to help me! 

[firstdefence]

This has been suggested/requested a few times: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/search/&q=select by colour&type=forums_topic&nodes=53

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, firstdefence said:

Affinity Designer doesn't have the ability to select colours for all layers in Draw Persona, it has an option in Pixel Persona to select RGB Reds, Greens or Blues but it doesn't seem to work, whether a shape, curve or a pixel layer...

1. Select the Pixel Persona
2. Create 4 squares and colour one blue and the rest red R255, G000, B000
3. Select > Colour Range > Reds, no layer that has red will be selected, in fact no selection of any kind is created.
4. IF you select all the layer and use Select > Colour Range > Reds, the top layer will have a selection but the rest will be ignored.

However it will work on an image.

How are you creating the 4 squares in step 2 if you switched to the Pixel Persona in step 1? If they are all on the same Pixel layer (like in this red & blue pixel layer.afdesign file) it should work with that layer selected. But Designer's color range selectors apparently only work on one layer at a time, so if the squares are on different layers & you select more than one of them, it is only selecting from the layer lowest in the layer stack.

[firstdefence]

Used shapes initially, then tried by rasterising the layers, effectively turning them into pixel layers. The colour range selection is a bit hit and miss and in an image selects more than just red, add to that the lack of control i.e. not being able to select an RGB #number and you have a feature that isn't really that useful.

Isn't it confusing that the lowest in the stack (last layer created) is actually the top layer

I'd much rather have offset paths and warping 

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, firstdefence said:

The colour range selection is a bit hit and miss and in an image selects more than just red, add to that the lack of control i.e. not being able to select an RGB #number and you have a feature that isn't really that useful.

What about Select Sampled Color? 

2 hours ago, firstdefence said:

Isn't it confusing that the lowest in the stack (last layer created) is actually the top layer

??? When I add a new Pixel layer, it is created at the top of the stack.

[firstdefence]

I thought stack referred to something different than the layer stack, like an internal stack. 

[R C-R]

18 minutes ago, firstdefence said:

I thought stack referred to something different than the layer stack, like an internal stack. 

Sorry if I was not clear but I was referring to the stacking order in the Layers panel. So the only thing I think is really wrong with Designer's color range selectors is that there is no indication that when more than one layer is selected, the range selector is applied only to the lowest selected layer in the Layers panel. This would be a lot more obvious if the selectors were greyed out when multiple layers are selected.

[v_kyr]

10 hours ago, firstdefence said:

Isn't it confusing that the lowest in the stack (last layer created) is actually the top layer

I too stumbled over "lowest" here, since for me a stack is just a plain datastructure with limited functionality, aka you can only push to add a new element to the top of the stack, pop to remove the element from the top, and peek at the top element without popping it off. So a stack gives you a LIFO or last-in first-out order. The element you pushed last is the first one to come off with the next pop. - A very similar data structure, the queue is FIFO, or first-in first-out. So related to what we sometimes call the layer stack, well that internally isn't just a simple stack datastructure, since you can add/insert/reorder/remove ... etc elements.

Related to the OP question here, yes agreed it's a pity that there is no such vector based color selection feature available, since that would for sure be useful and ease such find and select all specific colored vectors/curves tasks.

[firstdefence]

Sketch has a Select plugin created by someone called Canisminor1990 that has so many different select options it's off the chart.

This is just the first tab
 
 
 

[v_kyr]

6 hours ago, firstdefence said:

Sketch has a Select plugin created by someone called Canisminor1990 that has so many different select options it's off the chart.

Interesting addition which shows what own APIs are good for, does it also offer color based selections? - AFAI recall Inkscape can do so and has a select same fill color option.

[firstdefence]

4 hours ago, v_kyr said:

does it also offer color based selections?

Yes.

 

[v_kyr]

Looks to be a pretty useful Sketch tool, would be nice to have something like that for AD too.