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Using the Photo persona in Publisher


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I wanted to try to edit an image in Publisher with the Photo persona. The image file  (made in Photo and saved as a Photo file) consists of two layers, one with the actual image where I have removed the background and one with a new background layer. When switching to the Photo persona those two layers is not shown. So if I want to change the brightness and contrast of the image only it also affects the background layer. This makes it much less useful for me. Am I missing something here or is this simply not possible?

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But I don't want it to open in a new tab. I have a publication with a lot of small portraits and I want to be able to see the changes in on image compared to the others as I do them. That's what I thought was brilliant with the persona feature - or maybe not...

 

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I also am confused as the behavior is not what I expected after watching the keynote address today. This is my first experience with AFPub.

I create a new document in AFPub, insert a picture frame, and then open an afphoto file in that picture frame.

The afphoto file opened in the Publisher picture frame then appears on a new layer within the Publisher document labeled (Linked Document). Switching to the Photo Persona allows me to edit the photo in the frame. It does not, however, let me see and change the already existing layers in the afphoto file that I inserted in the AFPub document. It is as if I had simply inserted a jpeg file into the AFPub document. 

If, as suggested above by @Mark Daniel, I double-click the photo, then the photo is opened in a new tab labeled "embedded" and the Photo persona is active for that tab. This embedded tab does show the layers existing in the original afphoto file and I can modify the settings if I wish. 

But to see within the context of the AFPub document any changes made to the photo using the embedded tab, I have to switch back and forth between the Publisher document tab and the embedded tab. If I add adjustments to the photo using the Photo persona on the document tab then these changes are not reflected on the photo in the embedded tab. 

I've only used Publisher for an hour, so I expect to be confused. But my first reaction is like @Steaming T above. It is not working as I expected. Manipulating and tweaking photos within the AFPub document  was the first thing I wanted to do. I did not find a tutorial addressing this basic function. No doubt meaning will soon emerge from my confusion as more people post on this aspect of Publisher document creation with linked afphoto files.I'm looking forward to replies from the many helpful people I've encountered in these forums.

Affinity Photo 2.4.0 (MSI) and 1.10.6; Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 (MSI) and 1.10.6. Windows 10 Home x64 version 22H2.
Dell XPS 8940, 16 GB Ram, Intel Core i7-11700K @ 3.60 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060

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My understanding of the situation…

As explained in the keynote there is only one Affinity file format. The three varieties (afdesign, afphoto and afpub) are only used to direct the file to the preferred application when opening the file with a double click.

An Affinity file can be thought of as a container (or box) in which you can put things.

With Designer you might start with an empty box, into which you put various shapes to make an illustration.

With Photo you might start with a RAW or JPG file in the box, on to which you apply adjustments and filters.

If you then start a new document in Publisher, you are starting with a new box, so when you place an existing Affinity file (afdesign / afphoto / afpub) into this document you have just placed a box within a box.

You can see what the box contains, but can't fully interact with the contents of that inner box until you open it up.

Double clicking on an embedded or linked Affinity file instructs Publisher to open the inner box, which it does in a new tab. This is exactly the behaviour we are used to with embedded documents in Designer and Photo .

You can now work on the contents of that inner box using any of the three personas.

If you are making adjustments to existing work, you will most likely want the persona that matches the contents (Designer for afdesigner, Photo for afphoto). But you may equally want to use features that were not available in the Affinity application that produced the original file. For example you may wish to add a Live Perspective filter (from the Photo Persona) to a logo (originally built in Designer).

You could already do this type of inter-application manipulation (using Edit in Photo / Edit in Designer). The Personas in Publisher refine this process to make it cleaner and faster.

All that said: There was never a time during the keynote when we saw this scenario (a box within a box), there was never a linked or embedded Affinity file, only vector objects and raster images (PNGs JPGs TIFFs).

This is also true of the two sample files provided with Publisher, with one exception

On page 44, 45 of the Life Style Magazine there in an embedded afdesign file. Notice that you can see exactly what is in the box, but can't interact with it in any way, until you double click to open the inner box.

Does that mean that the whole keynote was a sham?
No, not at all.
Accessing the contents of the inner box this way is definitely faster and smoother that the old method. And there are times when keeping discrete aspects of a project isolated from each other is very useful - especially if different tasks are handled by separate team members.

Is it disappointing that the join between the inner and outer box isn't absolutely seamless?
Perhaps. There are times when it would be nice to see the rest of the Publisher document while working within an embedded / linked Affinity file. Who knows, this may change in the future? This is after all a brand new groundbreaking approach that spans three applications on three operating systems!

Is it possible to avoid the box in a box scenario?
Yes. Instead of placing an Affinity file into Publisher, copy paste the contents of the Affinity file directly into your Publisher document. However this approach loses the benefits of a separate file (the ability to replace one file with another, or have someone else work on just that sub-project in isolation from the rest of the document).

I hope that helps.

Win10 Home x64   |   AMD Ryzen 7 2700X @ 3.7GHz   |   48 GB RAM   |   1TB SSD   |   nVidia GTX 1660   |   Wacom Intuos Pro

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If it was possible to view both the embedded file and the whole document in a split window this would not be a problem but as it is now the only way to do this is to run the windows in separated mode which makes the user interface very cluttered and unwieldy to manage.

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Ah-ha!

Windows doesn't have separated mode, but you prompted me to try something, and I think I have hit upon an answer that works for me on Windows (not sure if Mac is exactly the same).

So using the page 44, 45 Lifestyle Magazine example…

  • Open the Lifestyle Magazine file.
  • View > New View
  • Drag the new view to the side (or even onto a second screen)
  • Double click the afdesign file to open it in a new tab
  • Switch to Designer persona to edit the embedded illustration.

Result: The second view remains on the whole publisher page, and updates in realtime, which is pretty fantastic - I am working both in detail and with an overview.

Win10 Home x64   |   AMD Ryzen 7 2700X @ 3.7GHz   |   48 GB RAM   |   1TB SSD   |   nVidia GTX 1660   |   Wacom Intuos Pro

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What would probably help (particularly if you have a second screen) is if there were a way to float individual document windows without taking the rest of the interface into separated mode.  In this case you could float one of the windows and put it on the second screen (or tile it with the main window if you only have a single screen).

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That is exactly what I can do!

image.thumb.png.d39a3e1e76f414dfe3bd380a3a0ce320.png

Left screen is the Publisher document.
This overview shows the whole document (illustration, plus the text frames etc)
Other than the titlebar, scrollbars and statusbar there is no UI on this view.

[Note I also keep some panels on the left screen: Colour, Swatch, Stroke]

Right screen is the embedded Designer file.
This is the main window with all the tools, layers panel etc which is in Designer Persona.

When I work on the embedded document it is updated in realtime in the other view.

Hey look - I made the traffic light all big and red!

--

I guess you are seeing something different on Mac?

Win10 Home x64   |   AMD Ryzen 7 2700X @ 3.7GHz   |   48 GB RAM   |   1TB SSD   |   nVidia GTX 1660   |   Wacom Intuos Pro

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I can't see any ptoblem with editing Photo file within Publisher. When double clicked, Photo file opens in a new window with all layers 100% preserved and editable like you can see in the attached file. But you wrongly assumed that Photo persona will open your Photo file. It can't because it doesn't do that. Personas simply allow you to have access to Designer and Photo workflow while working in Publisher. When you place/import your Photo file into Publisher, currently opened file is still Publisher file, not Photo file. The only way to edit placed file, is to double click on it like instructed by Serif.
image.thumb.png.53a24fd3398d903ea21144303821a0a1.png

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2 hours ago, fde101 said:

What would probably help (particularly if you have a second screen) is if there were a way to float individual document windows without taking the rest of the interface into separated mode.  In this case you could float one of the windows and put it on the second screen (or tile it with the main window if you only have a single screen).

That's the way the Affinity applications work in Windows.

On the other hand, we Windows users don't have Separated mode.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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Another option which might work (haven't tried it yet) would be to have the embedded document linked and simply edit the original in Photo (or Designer) which could easily be on another display (or tiled).  If Publisher is set up to automatically update linked documents when modified externally, then saving the changes in Photo/Designer should be enough to get Publisher to update and show the changes in context?

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Thanks to everyone, especially @Aammppaa for explaining this more clearly and correcting my misconceptions.

Having a container AFPub document that includes linked AFPhoto files reminds me of working with the Framework office suite in MS-DOS about 35 years ago and even more like working with MS Word for Windows some 30 years ago using fields to link separate files of documents and images into a single master document. You might then edit the image in another program, or construct a long document from several linked documents in the master document. You had to remember to update fields if you edited an image. I guess AFPub makes this all very slick, more convenient, less error-prone, and much faster for professional production, but it seems to be the same principle.

Affinity Photo 2.4.0 (MSI) and 1.10.6; Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 (MSI) and 1.10.6. Windows 10 Home x64 version 22H2.
Dell XPS 8940, 16 GB Ram, Intel Core i7-11700K @ 3.60 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060

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On 6/20/2019 at 3:27 AM, Aammppaa said:

As explained in the keynote there is only one Affinity file format. The three varieties (afdesign, afphoto and afpub) are only used to direct the file to the preferred application when opening the file with a double click.

If so, why I can't see all layers of the .aphoto file when placed in Publisher? Just flatten image.

All the latest releases of Designer, Photo and Publisher (retail and beta) on MacOS and Windows.
15” Dell Inspiron 7559 i7 Windows 10 x64 Pro Intel Core i7-6700HQ (3.50 GHz, 6M) 16 GB Dual Channel DDR3L 1600 MHz (8GBx2) NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M 4 GB GDDR5 500 GB SSD + 1 TB HDD UHD (3840 x 2160) Truelife LED - Backlit Touch Display
32” LG 32UN650-W display 3840 x 2160 UHD, IPS, HDR10 Color Gamut: DCI-P3 95%, Color Calibrated 2 x HDMI, 1 x DisplayPort
13.3” MacBook Pro (2017) Ventura 13.6 Intel Core i7 (3.50 GHz Dual Core) 16 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3 Intel Iris Plus Graphics 650 1536 MB 500 GB SSD Retina Display (3360 x 2100)

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On 6/20/2019 at 6:02 AM, Mandu said:

I can't see any ptoblem with editing Photo file within Publisher. When double clicked, Photo file opens in a new window with all layers 100% preserved and editable

This is the problem. Photo file is show as flattened, either you single-click, or double click on Photo Persona.

All the latest releases of Designer, Photo and Publisher (retail and beta) on MacOS and Windows.
15” Dell Inspiron 7559 i7 Windows 10 x64 Pro Intel Core i7-6700HQ (3.50 GHz, 6M) 16 GB Dual Channel DDR3L 1600 MHz (8GBx2) NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M 4 GB GDDR5 500 GB SSD + 1 TB HDD UHD (3840 x 2160) Truelife LED - Backlit Touch Display
32” LG 32UN650-W display 3840 x 2160 UHD, IPS, HDR10 Color Gamut: DCI-P3 95%, Color Calibrated 2 x HDMI, 1 x DisplayPort
13.3” MacBook Pro (2017) Ventura 13.6 Intel Core i7 (3.50 GHz Dual Core) 16 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3 Intel Iris Plus Graphics 650 1536 MB 500 GB SSD Retina Display (3360 x 2100)

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5 hours ago, fde101 said:

Don't double-click on the persona.  Double-click on the image (using the move tool).

This is the result of your advice. I can see all the layers but I am back to Publisher's workspace. No Photo tools to work with. If I now click on Photo Persona it is OK, but it is two steps more including double-click on the image. Why it can't be done simply by single-click on Photo Persona?

result.png

All the latest releases of Designer, Photo and Publisher (retail and beta) on MacOS and Windows.
15” Dell Inspiron 7559 i7 Windows 10 x64 Pro Intel Core i7-6700HQ (3.50 GHz, 6M) 16 GB Dual Channel DDR3L 1600 MHz (8GBx2) NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M 4 GB GDDR5 500 GB SSD + 1 TB HDD UHD (3840 x 2160) Truelife LED - Backlit Touch Display
32” LG 32UN650-W display 3840 x 2160 UHD, IPS, HDR10 Color Gamut: DCI-P3 95%, Color Calibrated 2 x HDMI, 1 x DisplayPort
13.3” MacBook Pro (2017) Ventura 13.6 Intel Core i7 (3.50 GHz Dual Core) 16 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3 Intel Iris Plus Graphics 650 1536 MB 500 GB SSD Retina Display (3360 x 2100)

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I think this is a related question to properly using the Photo persona.  I place an image in my Affinity Publisher document, and when zooming in I see it in all its detail, which is great because my next goal is to do a smart select and refine edges.

Publisher-Publisher-Persona.png.25b630e0c863eced47e4b6bc3a315415.png

So I switch to the Photo persona and instantly my image resolution has gone to hell, and my efforts in smart selection/refinement is worthless due to the poor resolution:

Publisher-Photo-Persona.png.ba787628ecb4a3d105deb078cd5c5204.png

What happened here?  How can I use the Photo persona to change this image in place using Studio Link?  The above happens when I've placed either a .jpg or a .afphoto file.  The workaround, which is unsatisfying, is to cut out the background in Affinity Photo and place the resulting .afphoto file.

Thanks for any insights.

 

 

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18 hours ago, Petar Petrenko said:

Why it can't be done simply by single-click on Photo Persona?

Switching personas does not change the document you are in.  It gives you access to a different set of tools for working in the same document.  Double-clicking on the layer for the embedded document opens that document in a separate tab - it is not the same document you were previously working on, it is nested inside of it.

I disagree quite firmly that switching personas should automatically open a different document; however, I could easily argue the point that if the photo persona is available and you open an embedded document that was an afphoto document when it was embedded (or linked for that matter) it should be smart enough to open it in the Photo persona, and likewise for an embedded Designer document.

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15 hours ago, watou said:

What happened here?

This one is just a guess...  hoping Serif weighs in on this one at some point, but as Photo is a raster image editing tool optimized for working with pixels, it may be intentional that it is not rendering the same way as Publisher when you are zoomed in to more than 100%.  Photo has a tool for working with an image at the pixel level, and if the pixels were to be smoothed out then using using it would be very difficult as you could not easily see the individual pixels you were working with.  Publisher on the other hand would not have that same problem, so it could apply an algorithm to smooth out the appearance of the pixels.  In other words, what Photo is showing you is a more precise representation of what is actually there, while Publisher is trying to make it look "better", and more like what you would want to see happen if enlarging a photo to print it.

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18 hours ago, Petar Petrenko said:

Why it can't be done simply by single-click on Photo Persona?

Activating the Photo Persona gives you a view of the current Publisher page.

I suppose one could argue that if one had an image layer selected, the Photo Persona could be activated with just access to that layer, but I don't think that would work as well. For example, in the Affinity Live presentation Ash used Photo tools to enhance an entire spread. So the Photo Persona definitely needs access to the entire page. To get that, with your approach, the user would have to do something like deselecting all layers before the Photo Persona could access the entire page.

In that sense, activating the Photo Persona is "optimized" for use in a DTP application, the case where you're using it to enhance a page. The other case, where you're actually doing detailed image editing on a placed image take an extra click or two. To me, that's the right choice.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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