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wrong function in color swatches


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It is not very useful to have two different kinds of transparency, one in color swatch palette and one in layers. Basically, making something transparent is a case for the layer setting. The opacity setting (deckkraft) in color swatch palette should really be color brightness while stying opaque.

 

 

Bildschirmfoto 2019-07-25 um 20.22.49.png

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Interesting idea.

I think there are several related concepts: opacity (or transparency), brightness, and tint. I'm not sure what the best way is of distinguishing all those.

Just looking at opacity, it can be specified in multiple places: for a layer, for a color, or for a brush while painting. You could apply a 50% opacity color to an object in a 100% opacity layer, or a 100% opacity color to an object on a 50% opacity layer. You can paint using a 50% opacity color, using a brush with 50% opacity, on a 50% opacity layer.

And some brushes, by their definitions, will have some built-in transparency. With them, even if you're using a 100% opacity color, and have specified 100% opacity on the brush Context Toolbar, and use a 100% opacity layer, the color laid down by the brush will be more transparent than you'd expect from the color, layer, and Context Toolbar settings.

-- 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 

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Thomahawk is right. Is useless to have 2 places for the transparency. in the Layer palette I want to set the transparency and in the color swatches palette  I want to set the hue. Thats just logic and we already learned it in the professional programs this way.

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I think the reason there are multiple locations to set opacity is probably due to the pixel layers in Designer and Photo. Pixel layers need the ability to change the opacity for colors, independent of layers. Consistency in the suite is important.

Personally, I use both locations to change opacity. I change the opacity in the color or swatches palettes when I am choosing a color. The proximity saves a little time.  If I am adding translucency to a photo or a group, then I'll use the layer opacity. For my workflow, both locations are helpful/useful.

Ability to change the brightness directly from the swatch palette would be a great addition though. We can double-click a swatch and use either the hsl or lightness sliders, but it would be better to select the swatch and just change a percentage. 

 

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4 hours ago, 3joern said:

Thomahawk is right. Is useless to have 2 places for the transparency.

Not neccessarily. One single layer (= object) might be composed of multiple fills and strokes where each one has a different colour and transparency. Then it might be helpfull to set an additional transparency for the entire layer.

I do not think to have this option is useless.

d.

Affinity Designer 1 & 2   |   Affinity Photo 1 & 2   |   Affinity Publisher 1 & 2
Affinity Designer 2 for iPad   |   Affinity Photo 2 for iPad   |   Affinity Publisher 2 for iPad

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21 hours ago, Thomahawk said:

It is not very useful to have two different kinds of transparency, one in color swatch palette and one in layers.

You will enjoy it once you discover that ...

... 1 Layer can have more than 1 object, and
... 1 object can have more than 1 color

297337048_colortransparent-sunglassespig.jpg.f16ae2169305f6b88986e26efbd7a454.jpg

 

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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Having the possibility to make lines of an object opaque and content transparent is okay, don't get me wrong.

But we are still missing a 'brightness' control for colors. (I dont know how to call it in English). You define a color swatch, lets say 100M100Y (full red). Now if you need an element only 50% tone of that color, plus other shades of it like 20% ,10%, you have to create new swatches for each one. The 50%, 20% etc. transparent setting would not do, because the object or text usually still has to be opaque. With opaque tone control, you only need one swatch, plus when changing that swatch, all tones adapt but stay with 50%, 20% etc. of it.

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8 minutes ago, Thomahawk said:

we are still missing a 'brightness' control for colors. (I dont know how to call it in English). You define a color swatch, lets say 100M100Y (full red). Now if you need an element only 50% tone

Ah, that was not clear from your initial post.
– The easiest way to select a percentage of a color is in the Colors Panel:

1458001463_colortint.jpg.3952caf62b0a65de84c450837aa46c77.jpg


At various spots in the UI there are also "Lightness" and "Saturation" available:

294998194_colorlightness.jpg.c24ed20fd09f047db422e377d8d07ab0.jpg   83588684_colorsaturation.jpg.7cf9d45c4b287f3ead5cbfcb9f8ca75f.jpg

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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Thomoso and dominik have pointed out some reasons for needing transparency at the color level. I'll add only that even in vector graphics, you can often have a gradient that goes from opaque to some degree of transparency. It is not possible to to that with layer transparency other than using masks.

Some people would be pretty vocal if alpha (transparency) was missing from color value definitions.

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It is weird, isn't it, dass uns im 21. Jhdt. immer noch die Worte fehlen, um über Farben unzweifelhaft zu schreiben? z.B. ...

Farbe
Tonwert
Tönung
Färbung
Buntheit
Sättigung
Helligkeit
Leuchtkraft

– obwohl jedes dieser Worte schon lange eine Bedeutung hat, spätestens als das feature 'Sehen' got implemented.

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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@thomaso

Quote

The easiest way to select a percentage of a color is in the Colors Panel:

I am in Publisher. I dont see such drop down option anywhere there. Would be nice though.

Quote

It is weird, isn't it, dass uns im 21. Jhdt. immer noch die Worte fehlen

I meant in English, as I am used to German terms. But there does not exist a word in neither language for this. It is a technical condition. Color value, saturation etc, this all describes absolutes. So only a technical description can explain this, like: "a percentage of a given color", because that given color can have any kind of saturation, brightness or value, be pantone or cmyk or rgb or whatever.

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18 hours ago, thomaso said:

You will enjoy it once you discover that ...

... 1 Layer can have more than 1 object, and
... 1 object can have more than 1 color

297337048_colortransparent-sunglassespig.jpg.f16ae2169305f6b88986e26efbd7a454.jpg

 

We are still in Publisher right? I don't see the point to have confusing Illustration options in a Layout program. Don't get me wrong I love addition stuff if it let my work much easier, but when is just confusing me, that's don't help. When I have a project, time is what I need and time I have with a clear structure of functions. Illustrations extra stuff I expect in Designer. In Publisher I need a fluent and fast intuitiv UI only for layouts. 

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I think the entire point of Publisher is that we can do layout and make design elements and adjust photos in one place without having to leave the app. I love it! It's really helpful having the option to create or adjust design elements as needed, without having to leave Publisher. If I'm reusing a design asset, I might realize the color or transparency or etc. doesn't quite work in the new project. Now I can adjust it immediately, in Publisher.  Not everyone will need access to all of the design features - that doesn't stop them from being helpful to others.

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46 minutes ago, 3joern said:

I don't see the point to have confusing Illustration options in a Layout program. (...) when is just confusing me, that's don't help. When I have a project, time is what I need and time I have with a clear structure of functions.

@ 3 joern, I completely agree - everyone could agree, because you mention no clear and concrete aspect, but only speak in general.

In case it is meant to be about the place within the UI, where to access or edit tints of a color: I can't see it as confusing for it being in the "Color Panel" – though I personally would prefer to have in the swatches panel, too. But since handling tints still is a bit underrepresented in this first release of AfPublisher I guess there will be development in the future, providing that feature requests in the according forums section does inform the company about a wish, desire or need. – Indeed, quite a few users feel confused by the color handling in Affinity; it becomes even more difficult to judge if you first do consider which is a feature, which is "by Design" and which is a bug.

Note: A small hue/tint feature in the Swatches panel: Right-click a swatch and choose "Create Color Chord" > "Tints" to get ten tint swatches. Unfortunately, these are not linked / dependent on their original 'mother color', but individual, independent swatches by themselves and not globally, even if you create them from a global color.

1222486169_swatcheschordtints.jpg.7d6cff46a63db24ad3f5290117c97bcb.jpg

50 minutes ago, 3joern said:

Illustrations extra stuff I expect in Designer. In Publisher I need a fluent and fast intuitiv UI only for layouts.  

Where is the border, the transition? What feature is "only for layouts", what is more than that? What is the other part which is not "layout"? Is it Illustration? So you don't expect any drawing tool in AfPublisher – just text tools and the ability to place and scale images? Even no masking, for instance in a elliptical shape? No image inside text? No text wrapping? No curved text, for instance to modify a character for a logo type? These all tend to be illustrative. Not having these abilities would be less than any former application, I guess since invention of Desktop Publishing.

Yes, the Affinity apps are much more rich than a minimum of features would require. Especially their way of sharing document formats and their Studio Link feature go far away from a conservative way of thinking "We do it as it was always done". I guess, this also was an early intention for any other layout application, too. Some of them grew up to a common understanding of being a standard, named "professional" nowadays, others were forgotten or simply bought by other companies to terminate competitors. A kind of evolution or darwinism – you can try to steer its direction with communicating, but just saying "It is not right" or "not as I am used to it" might not influence the process.

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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2 hours ago, thomaso said:

But since handling tints still is a bit underrepresented in this first release of AfPublisher

For this one, it does not matter that this is the first Publisher release.

The color and swatch functions and implementation are (and must remain, for Affinity compatibility) common to all the Affinity applications. Publisher has merely inherited them from Designer and Photo.

-- 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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On 7/27/2019 at 12:10 PM, Thomahawk said:

I meant in English, as I am used to German terms. But there does not exist a word in neither language for this.

I did not want to blame you or the developers. It was rather philosophical (and thus useless) thinking. The fact that there is no clear word made me think about this language limitation of Homo Sapiens in general. Although color can be understood in all aspects in purely physical properties, it seems to be only an emotion and therefore not measurable to the human mind. Just as we are unable to feel and think in a numerical matter, "that tastes 12% sweeter" or "I love 70% more", we do not think, "I want the blue 35% more blue".

On the other hand, we seem to have a natural sense of numbers, even logarithmic, which gets lost when we learn, hm, to speak: 
https://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/mensch/numerator-tief-in-uns-schlummert-der-logarithmus-a-556493.html

 

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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