Gradient tool is awful

[Nita Reed]

53 minutes ago, kirk23 said:

I personally find Photo  gradient more convenient with it's interactive editing.    Only miss quick gradient library from Photoshop.  Before they changed it recently and now I have to do 10 clicks to find something

I think this is an example of not missing what you never had...  I was not a photoshop user so the gradient library is not an issue for me.

The more I use presets in Photo, the more I appreciate "old school" (a traditional art thing).  I've always had to rely on my head for things...presets make me lazy.  I forget the how...  Kind of like calculators in math class.

I love the convenience of things, but I do worry, at times, that my fundamentals suffer.  If that makes sense.

[Inkwell]

I'm trying to select each handle in the gradient tool and color each one then drag in the rectangle to fill with 2 color gradient. Is that even possible in AD? I saw a tutorial vid at the site that indicated you can, but I have not been able to replicate myself.

[GarryP]

Does the attached video help?
If not, then you might need to give us some more explanation of what you are trying to achieve.
If you can upload a video showing what you are doing then that might make it easier for us to say if you are doing anything ‘wrong’.

[jaizon]

On 3/22/2021 at 9:38 AM, Nita Reed said:

Perhaps it's easier for a user who has never used photoshop in the first place?

Not really, some times painting with the gradient tool is way better than applying a layer of gradient over a layer, it gives more control as how the gradient should look like in a simple way, and by should look like I mean different gradient points.

On 3/22/2021 at 11:04 AM, kirk23 said:

I personally find APhoto  gradient more convenient with it's interactive editing

It is good and all but sometimes you just need more fast-multi-point control over the gradient, let's say you added a curve for light but that light comes from different places, with the gradient tool we a re used to is just a matter of simple  swaps in different places and with different directions and you are mostly done. Sure you could use a brush for that instead of the gradient tool, but with the gradient tool the transitions is so much better.
 

Don't take me wrong, I prefer Photo's gradient over Photoshop at any moment, but I do feel like there's a need for a gradient tool that can also stack gradient instead of stack a simple object over a layer. 

[Nita Reed]

On 7/20/2021 at 2:12 PM, jaizon said:

Not really, some times painting with the gradient tool is way better than applying a layer of gradient over a layer, it gives more control as how the gradient should look like in a simple way, and by should look like I mean different gradient points.

It is good and all but sometimes you just need more fast-multi-point control over the gradient, let's say you added a curve for light but that light comes from different places, with the gradient tool we a re used to is just a matter of simple  swaps in different places and with different directions and you are mostly done. Sure you could use a brush for that instead of the gradient tool, but with the gradient tool the transitions is so much better.
 

Don't take me wrong, I prefer Photo's gradient over Photoshop at any moment, but I do feel like there's a need for a gradient tool that can also stack gradient instead of stack a simple object over a layer. 

Untitled.mov

I meant...maybe photoshop users are so used to photoshop processes that they have trouble when things don't work the same.

[jaizon]

15 hours ago, Nita Reed said:

I meant...maybe photoshop users are so used to photoshop processes that they have trouble when things don't work the same.

Maybe, but not really, I personally prefer the way Affinity does but to be honest, the gradient tool in AP works more like what you'd expect in a vector Software than in a raster, especially for people who paint and stuff who relies heavily on stacking multiple gradients to achieve a specific look, also, the fact that we don't have an opacity slide for it is a huge downside.

[Wosven]

17 hours ago, Nita Reed said:

I meant...maybe photoshop users are so used to photoshop processes that they have trouble when things don't work the same.

It's not only Photoshop, it's simply other apps. And as said by @jaizon, a simple and effective tool that is easier to manage than brushes (doing this with brushes means you need to calculate perfectly the size of the brush, or try again and again... or do many strokes, for not so regular results).

If the apps have good and new features, this doesn't mean all the other are bad. That's why I can't answer "Which one do you prefer from QXP, ID or APub?" Each one get good features thought by good dev, and somes are better in one app than the other... some miss in this one... it would be easier if we could mix our app from the features we like in other ones!

[jaizon]

1 hour ago, Wosven said:

If the apps have good and new features, this doesn't mean all the other are bad. That's why I can't answer "Which one do you prefer from QXP, ID or APub?" Each one get good features thought by good dev, and somes are better in one app than the other... some miss in this one... it would be easier if we could mix our app from the features we like in other ones!

Exactly, they could also unify both the undesctructive tool they already have adding an option for the destructive one people are asking for, a simple toggle checkbox will do, also, add the gradient opacity for both modes. Check how krita's gradient tool works, that kind of functionality is a must for people wo do any kind oof painting from time to time

 

[Max P]

If I understand your request correctly  a solution i use
Above the layer that received the gradient
        Put a fill layer with a deep black New Fill Layer
        group it  in erase mode

modulate with opacity of the fill layer AND  the opacity of erase group

The gradient doesn't move, it is just + or - Transparent

I use for mixing with sweet modulation  (also for modulate luminance on grey layer, with local brush)

[Wosven]

@Max P ,

No, he just want to be able to get this sort of result in one mask and classical pixel gradients, without using a brush or many layers, like we can do in others apps (this one was done in PS):

test_mask_gradients.psd

[cygaj]

I stopped replying to this thread before because I didn't want to waste my energy and I felt like I'm not going to convince the other user. But I'm glad that others started posting here again and just wanted to add that I can't take seriously the idea that adding a functionality isn't important because you can achieve the same effect in just couple seconds more. It's simply ridiculous. Imagine if the program shipped without any keyboard shortcuts and people asking for them were told that they shouldn't demand Photoshop features and that they can simply choose everything they need from a dropdown menu. Imagine if you needed to confirm every brush stroke and merge it to a layer below before making a new one, after reselecting the color because the tool won't remember it, that is

My needs for a raster editing application are (relatively) modest. I don't even paint on desktop anymore, ever since I got an ipad, and I only need Affinity Photo for editing my scans now. So I can live with it's shortcomings if it means I don't need to be Adobe customer, it is greatly appreciated. And it's perfectly natural that AP has less features given it's age. But many people who work in Photoshop for a living can't make the jump because of little gaps in functionality like these impeding their workflow to a great extent. All those "seconds" add up. And in the absence of destructive gradient tool you simply can't use it as all for many things you would want it in a photo editing program, it's a no go

[LDB]

Oh dear. Evidently this answers my question about gradients.

This is a very, very badly needed tool. As a comic book artist who primarily works with flats, a dead-simple, one-click, 2 second destructive raster gradient tool that works like a brush rather than a vector object is a MUST. It is absolutely essential to my workflow, I will use this tool dozens of times during a 30-minute coloring illustration job, maybe a hundred times on a full comic book page, and if I have to struggle with the tool for even 10 seconds each time I need to use it, this easily doubles the amount of work and is an utter deal-breaker. Saving my presets as a style is a non-answer, I need to be able to change colors, angles, and transparency on the fly.

I cannot purchase this program unless and until this tool is added. Affinity is useless to me as a professional without it.

Edited January 5, 2022 by LDB
spelling

[Medical Officer Bones]

@LDB Completely agree. I would actually argue that Photo is entirely unsuitable for use in a professional comic colouring and publishing workflow. The gradient tool is utterly unusable for colouring work, but there are other problems, such as the lack of an overfill option to speed up flats and holds.

Since you seem to be in a discovery phase to replace Photoshop for your comic colouring work: have you had a look at Krita and/or ClipStudio? Both have a dedicated set of tools to simplify comic colouring work. Krita in particular offers a very efficient Colorize Mask workflow to create flats quickly and efficiently - with automatic gap close hinting and cleanup. And automatic colour swatch tracking of the colours used for flats! No more manual selections for everything: add a stroke to indicate the flat, and done. It may take Krita some time to calculate the flats, but still way faster compared to manually creating selections and filling those.

https://docs.krita.org/en/reference_manual/tools/colorize_mask.html?highlight=colorize

 

[LDB]

@Medical Officer Bones For pros in other kinds of work environments, I can absolutely see why you'd be right. I have a lot of friends who work for IDW and there's a lot about this program that would drive them up the wall!

I don't do work for publishers anymore, I'm entirely an independent creator who has spent a lot of time whittling down my workflow to the very barest bones, so if Affinity had this gradient thing sorted out, as far as I could tell, I'd personally be golden.

I spent the better part of a year challenging to produce my comic with nothing but Gimp and Krita, and in the end they also had non-negotiable problems. I even started lettering by hand because Krita's text tool was non-existent! (And I do much prefer the results.) The other problem there was the jpeg compression for web publishing was not good either. But that's neither here nor there...

[Medical Officer Bones]

6 hours ago, LDB said:

@Medical Officer Bones For pros in other kinds of work environments, I can absolutely see why you'd be right. I have a lot of friends who work for IDW and there's a lot about this program that would drive them up the wall!

I don't do work for publishers anymore, I'm entirely an independent creator who has spent a lot of time whittling down my workflow to the very barest bones, so if Affinity had this gradient thing sorted out, as far as I could tell, I'd personally be golden.

I spent the better part of a year challenging to produce my comic with nothing but Gimp and Krita, and in the end they also had non-negotiable problems. I even started lettering by hand because Krita's text tool was non-existent! (And I do much prefer the results.) The other problem there was the jpeg compression for web publishing was not good either. But that's neither here nor there...

Yes, absolutely agree with you in regards to the text tool in Krita. The devs should really up the ante there. I still prefer InDesign for that work myself: the typography is so controllable. Although I have been doing more lettering in PhotoLine the past few years - in particular because it also supports 1bit image layers combined with different resolutions and bit depth combined in the same layer stack.

Also not a fan of lettering in ClipStudio, btw, because it is originally aimed at Japanese comic lettering, and a bit too clunky for my taste.

PS didn't you like Krita's colorize mask tools? I have used those before to create the holds quickly, and export the layered result to Photoshop/PhotoLine. Saves myself hours of manual tinkering with selections.

[LDB]

@Medical Officer BonesFunny, I may wind up using ClipStudioPaint now that I can't use Affinity!

The flatting tool honestly didn't help me *that* much. A really amazing invention for sure, but I close all my lines and draw with a nib essentially like a rapidograph, with a completely non-expressive weight; it was really not much faster than just using selections. Though if I was coloring literally any other kind of art, it would have been fantastic! (You can thank me for Krita having a threshold tool, though. I managed to convince the devs to put one in for us old-fashioned inkers after they conceded that it wouldn't be much work to do so. Affinity's silence on this issue is a real disappointment, in contrast. Especially since I was ready to pay real cashmoney for this program and tell all my social media followers why they should pay cashmoney for it too.)

Edited January 8, 2022 by LDB