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Publisher-Designer-Photo interoperability?


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Forgive me for being a dunderhead, but when you want to edit a photo that's placed in a Publisher document, you simply click the item, and "go to" the Photo persona to make adjustments?

..and not the old model of opening the photo in the photo app and having the layout program refresh the link, right?

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Conceptually, yes, but there are several possible scenarios depending, in part, on that kind of file you placed (image such as JPG or TIFF, vs document such as PDF, .afphoto, .afdesign) and whether you chose to Link it or Embed it.

I would need to do more experimenting before trying to explain further. Sorry.

-- 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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1 hour ago, VectorCat said:

Forgive me for being a dunderhead, but when you want to edit a photo that's placed in a Publisher document, you simply click the item, and "go to" the Photo persona to make adjustments?

..and not the old model of opening the photo in the photo app and having the layout program refresh the link, right?

You are basically working in exact the same file.

When you create a file in Publisher, in Publisher you can switch the interface inside Publisher between the Publisher interface, the Photo interface and the Designer interface. But you're still in the same application and still work in the same file. So there's no 'physical' switching applications, no export/import of files and no conversion involved. You don't even need to save your file to go from one persona/interface to the other. You stay in the same program: Publisher.

If an image in your layout is a linked file in publisher, it's therefore also a linked file in Designer and also a linked file in Photo. Also when you open the publisher file (*.apub) in a different Affinity application. Because all three programs are build on the same codebase and work with the exact same fileformat. So actually we have three interfaces to work on the same layoutfile and with Publisher we only got to have one main-interface open to load all three interfaces (Publisher, Photo and Designer) in.

So editing of images can be done on the spot with the same program and inside the same file. You just switch the interface to the one with the tools, menus and panels you need. So Photo for your raster-work, Designer for your vector-work and back to Publisher for the page layouts/DTP.
That makes it a lot easier then for example Indesign where you need to link image files, just because Indesign doesn't have designtools build for creating images or do photo-editing. With Publisher you could still link files, but you don't need to anymore, because you could also do it in the same program by just switching the persona to Photo or Designer that do have these drawing/layouting tools we're already familiar with.

Hope this helps

 

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I'm sure I'm missing something, but if I'm in Publisher and use "Open in" Photo or Designer, how do I get back to Publisher again, as they don't seem to have "Open in Publisher" options?

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For now you have to save the document (in Designer or Photo) the reopen it in Publisher

Hopefully, the option to Edit in Publisher will be added in a future update

To save time I am currently using an automated AI to reply to some posts on this forum. If any of "my" posts are wrong or appear to be total b*ll*cks they are the ones generated by the AI. If correct they were probably mine. I apologise for any mistakes made by my AI - I'm sure it will improve with time.

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5 hours ago, carl123 said:

For now you have to save the document (in Designer or Photo) the reopen it in Publisher

Hopefully, the option to Edit in Publisher will be added in a future update

Also, if you use APub's Edit in Designer/Photo, make sure you save any unsaved edits made to other pages/spreads or to Master pages in APub before using either of those File menu options. The reason is since neither Affinity Designer nor Affinity Photo have an 'Edit in Publisher' menu option, there is no way to go back to Affinity Publisher to save those unsaved changes.

If you only have made changes to the page opened in Designer or Photo, this is not a problem; otherwise it can be a big one. :(

This option really needs to be added to Designer & Photo ASAP!

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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13 hours ago, Friksel said:

You are basically working in exact the same file.

When you create a file in Publisher, in Publisher you can switch the interface inside Publisher between the Publisher interface, the Photo interface and the Designer interface. But you're still in the same application and still work in the same file. So there's no 'physical' switching applications, no export/import of files and no conversion involved. You don't even need to save your file to go from one persona/interface to the other. You stay in the same program: Publisher.

If an image in your layout is a linked file in publisher, it's therefore also a linked file in Designer and also a linked file in Photo. Also when you open the publisher file (*.apub) in a different Affinity application. Because all three programs are build on the same codebase and work with the exact same fileformat. So actually we have three interfaces to work on the same layoutfile and with Publisher we only got to have one main-interface open to load all three interfaces (Publisher, Photo and Designer) in.

So editing of images can be done on the spot with the same program and inside the same file. You just switch the interface to the one with the tools, menus and panels you need. So Photo for your raster-work, Designer for your vector-work and back to Publisher for the page layouts/DTP.
That makes it a lot easier then for example Indesign where you need to link image files, just because Indesign doesn't have designtools build for creating images or do photo-editing. With Publisher you could still link files, but you don't need to anymore, because you could also do it in the same program by just switching the persona to Photo or Designer that do have these drawing/layouting tools we're already familiar with.

Hope this helps

I think so. It sounds like when you have an image made in designer or photo and you go to the correct persona, it’s functionally the same as if you opened the image in photo or designer, yes? When you’re done, the image file isn’t merely modified in publisher..the image file itself is modified. 

Is this how it works? If so, huge boost to the workflow. 

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1 hour ago, VectorCat said:

I think so. It sounds like when you have an image made in designer or photo and you go to the correct persona, it’s functionally the same as if you opened the image in photo or designer, yes? When you’re done, the image file isn’t merely modified in publisher..the image file itself is modified. 

Is this how it works? If so, huge boost to the workflow. 

Actually: it doesn't matter in which of the three programs you open up an Affinity file: all three programs are in fundamentals basically the same:

  • Photo:
    Can do both raster- and vectorwork and saves to an 'Affinity'-file.
  • Designer:
    Can do both raster- and vectorwork and saves to an 'Affinity'-file.
  • Publisher:
    Can do both raster- and vectorwork and saves to an 'Affinity'-file.

BUT

  • Photo: Acts like being a photo-editor ('like' Photoshop), so has all features enabled to do photo- and raster-editing as a focus and an interface that fits to that
  • Designer: Acts like being a vector-editor ('like' Illustrator), so has all features enabled to do vector-graphics-work as a focus and an interface that fits to that
  • Publisher: Acts like being a DTP editor ('like' Indesign), so has all features enabled to do DTP-work as a focus and an interface that fits to that

But in fact they are all three the same program, just with different things switched on and off and having a different interface making it look and feel like a different program. That's the great thing about it; because their files are not only 100% exchangable, Publisher can therefore just as easily just open up the Photo-interface, or the Designer-interface in the same program. Affinity calls these 'interfaces' 'personas'. So it looks to us like Publisher switches to a different program (Photo or Designer), while in reality it just switches the way the interface looks and workflow works in the same program to a different state. Enabling a different set of tools for the job.

Just do the test for yourself: open up Designer, create a file and save it to disc. Call the file myfile.afdesign. If you close designer now and open the file by clicking on it in your operating system, it opens automatically in Affinity Designer, because the extension is afdesign, and you see your design again in Designer, ready to edit. 

Now close Designer again and change the file-name of the same file to myfile.afphoto and now open that file by clicking on it in your Operating system... now the same file, that was made in Designer opens up in Photo and looks exactly the same, but now you see the Photo interface, so have the photo-tools to edit your file. The SAME file. No import or export was involved. You are working in the exact same file, just with a different interface and so different tools to use.

Now close Photo and change the filename of the same file to myfile.afpub. Now on a click Publisher opens and again, you see the exact same file with everything in it, but now you're in the Publisher interface. Ready to edit the exact SAME file again. No import nor export involved, you're working in the same file, and basically even with a copy of the same tool, just with a different look and workflow; the Publisher look and workflow now. You can still edit your file, but now inside Publisher. And save it to whatever extension you like (*.afpub, *.afdesign, *.afphoto, they all work the same, because it's the exact same fileformat. The name only tells your OS in which Affinity program you'd like to open it).

Hope this lets you understand and feel a little better there's actually just one mayor program and one fileformat. But three 'different tools' (in fact just one tool, but made in three tastes because they have a different interface/skin so looks different) to work with that same file. 

Now there is Publisher and this has three buttons on top: a Publisher persona, a Photo persona and a Designer persona. The thing these buttons do is just switch on and off panels and tools (and maybe some more things like settings now or in the future), which were already there in the first place, but just not for us to see. That's what makes this workflow so fast: working in publisher and using this 'StudioLink' means: you stay in the software, switch the interface (persona) and keep working in the same file. Don't even need to save, because you never leave the sofware nor import or export.

Well, hope this makes it a little clearer. I might also help taking a look at the Affinity Keynote of yesterday: https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/live/ to see Publisher in action if you don't have it (yet).

Good luck! Happy designing, photo editing, publishing :)

 

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I think Studio Link is kind of misleading. At first I thought, that if I choose Publisher as a main app for my workflow, I will get all the features of other apps, so I don't need to start every of them, but as it discovered, that's only partially true, because Photo and Designer personas inside Publisher doesn't have all the features of corresponding standalone apps.

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1 minute ago, MadMak said:

For example, you don't have an Export Persona like in the Designer app or a Liquify Persona like in Photo app.

Also, the Photo persona in Affinity Publisher does not have the batch job, image stacking, focus merging, etc. File menu features that the Photo Persona in Affinity Photo has, & it also (apparently) lacks any support at all for third party filter plugins like the NIK collection.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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Just now, haakoo said:

On the other hand there's still an "edit in photo/designer" present in the menu,so all is not lost :D

True, but see my post above for a 'gotcha' that users should be aware of until the other two apps get an "Edit in Publisher" menu item.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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13 hours ago, R C-R said:

Also, if you use APub's Edit in Designer/Photo, make sure you save any unsaved edits made to other pages/spreads or to Master pages in APub before using either of those File menu options. The reason is since neither Affinity Designer nor Affinity Photo have an 'Edit in Publisher' menu option, there is no way to go back to Affinity Publisher to save those unsaved changes.

If you only have made changes to the page opened in Designer or Photo, this is not a problem; otherwise it can be a big one. :(

This option really needs to be added to Designer & Photo ASAP!

Are you sure that's a problem?

When Publisher transfers the file over to Photo or Designer via "Edit in..." the entire file is transferred, as far as I know, with all changes intact. If you save it in Photo or Designer you are then saving the complete .afpub file.

It is, probably, safest to do a Save before doing an "Edit in..." in case something goes wrong during the transfer, bu that has always been true.

But if everything works, and you actually get it into Photo or Designer all the info should be there.

-- 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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1 minute ago, walt.farrell said:

Are you sure that's a problem?

Funny, I was just thinking about this & revising my earlier post to make clearer what the problem is ... & now I can't reproduce it. O.o

Basically, somehow or other when I selected a page object & used 'Edit In Designer/Photo' it opened as a new, unsaved document -- the title bar said "<untitled>" instead of the APub file name with the expected .afpub extension.

Now, I can't reproduce that but weirdly I just got Designer to crash, after using 'Edit In Designer' twice in a row on the same Affinity Publisher document, reopened after closing the file in AD without saving the changes I made there. On the second 'Edit In Designer' I chose a different page & object from the first time, & weirdly undo or the History panel slider would take me all the way back to the first object, not just to the second one's state when it was opened in AD. I closed the file without saving & the next time I tried to open  file directly in Designer, it promptly crashed.

I guess I need to check this out further to see if it is reproducible or what.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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9 hours ago, Friksel said:

Well, hope this makes it a little clearer. I might also help taking a look at the Affinity Keynote of yesterday: https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/live/ to see Publisher in action if you don't have it (yet).

Good luck! Happy designing, photo editing, publishing :)

thank you..that explanation does quite a lot to illuminate things. I'll listen to that keynote tomorrow.

Pretty clever, I'd say..

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