Clipping path / alternative?

[Kalyori]

Hi,

I'm wanting to switch from Photoshop to Affinity Photo very badly.
It does everything well enough (or better) except for one issue I have personally with my workflow, and that is clipping paths.

In my current workflow in Photoshop, I cut images out with the pen tool, I then save as a path and then turn it into a clipping path and save the file as jpg. Thus the clipping path can be easily tweaked later and the file size is also small compared to a PSD/EPS.

With Affinity, in order to be able to edit that path again it needs to be saved as an affinity file.

TLDR; I want clipping paths on my jpg. Photoshop does it but Affinity Photo doesn't.

Is this functionality planned, or is there an alternative I may be unaware of?

What I don't want is to work on my photo (which is in a JPG format) and then save as affinity to preserve the clipping path, and then also have a JPG version which I then use in InDesign/Publisher.

Appreciate any input / suggestions.

Cheers

[CLC]

It's as easy as this. You can always edit the shape/path later on.

Seems faster and even better than Photoshop/Illustrator way, imo
And it works across all the apps, Photo, Designer and Publisher, the same exact way.

However yes, to keep the editability, you have to save as .af* file from what I gathered, and indeed, the sequential .af* files are imo huge. A bit downside.

tl;dr There's probably no way to do it in Affinity the same way as with your described Photoshop workflow.

 

 

[HVDB Photography]

29 minutes ago, Kalyori said:

I then save as a path

I'm afraid this isn't possible (at the moment) in photo.

You can convert the path to a selection and save the selection to file, but  as you can't convert a selection to a path, then it will be more difficult to edit afterwards.

[PixelPest]

31 minutes ago, Kalyori said:

save the file as jpg. Thus the clipping path can be easily tweaked later and the file size is also small compared to a PSD/EPS.

Since when JPG is a layered file format that can save path/vector data?

[Kalyori]

13 minutes ago, CLC said:

It's as easy as this. You can always edit the shape/path later on.

Seems faster and even better than Photoshop/Illustrator way, imo
And it works across all the apps, Photo, Designer and Publisher, the same exact way.

However yes, to keep the editability, you have to save as .af* file from what I gathered, and indeed, the sequential .af* files are imo huge. A bit downside.

tl;dr There's probably no way to do it in Affinity the same way as with your described Photoshop workflow.

Thanks for that. It is very easy to do in Photo which is great, but the inability to have the file remain as a JPG is a big con for me at this stage. It turned my 700kb JPG into a 4.5MB AF file.

4 minutes ago, HVDB Photography said:

I'm afraid this isn't possible (at the moment) in photo.

You can convert the path to a selection and save the selection to file, but  as you can't convert a selection to a path, then it will be more difficult to edit afterwards.

Yeah that sounds like a bit of a pain.

3 minutes ago, PixelPest said:

Since when JPG is a layered file format that can save path/vector data?

No idea but it works. Photoshop -> draw path -> save path -> convert to clipping path -> save. Re-open the JPG in Photoshop and it's still there.

Actually just Googled, JPG has metadata that programs can use to store information. Photoshop uses this to save the path there and will recognize it when opening the file.

[CLC]

2 minutes ago, Kalyori said:

No idea but it works. Photoshop -> draw path -> save path -> convert to clipping path -> save. Re-open the JPG in Photoshop and it's still there.

Actually just Googled, JPG has metadata that programs can use to store information. Photoshop uses this to save the path there and will recognize it when opening the file. 

Very interesting, thank you for that tip!
I didn't know this at all.

[Kalyori]

2 minutes ago, CLC said:

Very interesting, thank you for that tip!
I didn't know this at all.

No problem at all. I didn't understand how it worked either until Googling just now, but I've been using it for many many years.

[PixelPest]

Are you sure not to save into Photoshop´s own PSD format? Can you provide a simple sample file please?

Thanks.

[Kalyori]

1 minute ago, PixelPest said:

Are you sure not to save into Photoshop´s own PSD format? Can you provide a simple sample file please?

Thanks.

Correct, the file is originally a JPG, and is saved, remaining as a JPG. When re-opened the path is there. I can send one later after I'm done with work.

[CLC]

5 minutes ago, Kalyori said:

No problem at all. I didn't understand how it worked either until Googling just now, but I've been using it for many many years.

Just tested and it works like charm, even with PS CS5.

Pretty awesome!

[PixelPest]

10 minutes ago, Kalyori said:

Actually just Googled, JPG has metadata that programs can use to store information

Yes it these are exif, jfif, tiff, camera data but vector data?

[CLC]

23 minutes ago, PixelPest said:

Yes it these are exif, jfif, tiff, camera data but vector data? 

You can add even binary blobs to .jpg files metadata. It's nothing special, but a very creative use of metadata, indeed.

Also, vector data can be easily just a basic plain text (see SVG)

Anyway, Serif could take a hint here, since as I said above, this is quite awesome and creative use of metadata and people would surely benefit from this. Edit: They do as mentioned in the post from @Murfee below.

[PixelPest]

I know xml. But this must be some Adobe home-brew. I don´t know any other app that can store vector/Bézier-path into jpg - Even GIMP will not.

[Murfee]

1 hour ago, Kalyori said:

What I don't want is to work on my photo (which is in a JPG format) and then save as affinity to preserve the clipping path, and then also have a JPG version which I then use in InDesign/Publisher.

Hi, to do this in Affinity Photo, you need to create your clipping path as normal, when exporting to jpg you need to go to the more section on the export panel and then tick convert clips to paths. It adds a curve layer to the file, these remain editable but there will probably be quite a lot of nodes. I have attached one that I created in Photo, (zipped to prevent the forum from destroying the path) I do not know if this will work in InDesign but it does work in Publisher, to edit it you need to edit the image and when it opens in a new Publisher tab just copy the layers back into the Publisher file. I have not found a better way to handle the path directly by opening it in Publisher.

 

Clipping Path Demo.jpg.zip

[PixelPest]

I´ve tried just that already but got mislead as macOS don´t seem to handle a preview via QuickView. So I thought it wasn´t successfully exported - but after reimport path is there. Preview.app can´t handle this kind of jpg under HighSierra though. Can any other app display this kind of file?

[Kalyori]

34 minutes ago, Murfee said:

Hi, to do this in Affinity Photo, you need to create your clipping path as normal, when exporting to jpg you need to go to the more section on the export panel and then tick convert clips to paths. It adds a curve layer to the file, these remain editable but there will probably be quite a lot of nodes. I have attached one that I created in Photo, (zipped to prevent the forum from destroying the path) I do not know if this will work in InDesign but it does work in Publisher, to edit it you need to edit the image and when it opens in a new Publisher tab just copy the layers back into the Publisher file. I have not found a better way to handle the path directly by opening it in Publisher.

 

 

Clipping Path Demo.jpg.zip

Thank you! I will test this out.

2 minutes ago, PixelPest said:

I´ve tried just that already but got mislead as macOS don´t seem to handle a preview via QuickView. So I thought it wasn´t successfully exported - but after reimport path is there. Preview.app can´t handle this kind of jpg under HighSierra though. Can any other app display this kind of file?

Unfortunately I've only come across Photoshop that does this. The same is true on the default Windows 10 preview / photo app... they don't show the path.

[CLC]

6 minutes ago, PixelPest said:

I´ve tried just that already but got mislead as macOS don´t seem to handle a preview via QuickView. So I thought it wasn´t successfully exported - but after reimport path is there. Preview.app can´t handle this kind of jpg under HighSierra though. Can any other app display this kind of file?

Works for me in both HighSierra and Mojave

[Murfee]

2 minutes ago, Kalyori said:

Thank you! I will test this out

Just make sure that your clipping path is filled with white, then offer it to the image thumbnail as a mask, then it will work fine...I sometimes forget the fill and wonder why it hasn't worked 

[PixelPest]

6 minutes ago, CLC said:

Works for me in both HighSierra and Mojave

You´re saying Quicklook generates a preview that shows the clipped image in Finder?

[HVDB Photography]

A kind of hidden function ..!
Great, thanks @Murfee
Never too old to learn.

[CLC]

Oh, you got it wrong, it doesn't USE the path to mask it, it just stores it for future use.

So you see a standard jpeg as it is, just the mask is available in the Paths panel.

[Kalyori]

43 minutes ago, Murfee said:

Just make sure that your clipping path is filled with white, then offer it to the image thumbnail as a mask, then it will work fine...I sometimes forget the fill and wonder why it hasn't worked 

Will do, thanks!

[R C-R]

3 hours ago, Kalyori said:

In my current workflow in Photoshop, I cut images out with the pen tool, I then save as a path and then turn it into a clipping path and save the file as jpg. Thus the clipping path can be easily tweaked later and the file size is also small compared to a PSD/EPS.

That small file size comes at a price: because JPEG image compression is lossy, it selectively discards image data. This is true even at the Affinity "100%" quality setting (equivalent to the Photoshop "12" quality setting), which applies the least compression & results in the largest JPEG file size. At lower quality settings (so greater compression & thus smaller file sizes) this produces progressively more 'blocky' looking images & visible fringing artifacts. Worse, every time a JPEG file is re-saved, it must be recompressed, which further degrades the image quality.

This makes JPEG a file format very poorly suited not just for archival purposes but also for anything that requires re-editing any part of the image, now or in the future. So unless you are sure the file will never need to be re-edited, it is far better to save the file in the 'native' file format, whether PSD in Photoshop or in Affinity's native format.

[Pšenda]

 

 

[Kalyori]

16 hours ago, R C-R said:

That small file size comes at a price: because JPEG image compression is lossy, it selectively discards image data. This is true even at the Affinity "100%" quality setting (equivalent to the Photoshop "12" quality setting), which applies the least compression & results in the largest JPEG file size. At lower quality settings (so greater compression & thus smaller file sizes) this produces progressively more 'blocky' looking images & visible fringing artifacts. Worse, every time a JPEG file is re-saved, it must be recompressed, which further degrades the image quality.

This makes JPEG a file format very poorly suited not just for archival purposes but also for anything that requires re-editing any part of the image, now or in the future. So unless you are sure the file will never need to be re-edited, it is far better to save the file in the 'native' file format, whether PSD in Photoshop or in Affinity's native format.

I shoot JPG on my camera, then process the images once (colour adjustments, levels, paths) and that's it unless I've realised the path is not perfect in which case I may need to update it once more. It works fine in my situation, but I may consider switching to AF files for retaining the better quality -- it's just a matter of storage space.

3 hours ago, Pšenda said:

 

 

Thanks. I had a look over this. Unfortunately I don't think it solves my issue. I also realised another issue -- my thousands of existing JPGs which have been cut out don't show up properly in Affinity Publisher! This is even more of an issue.