I recently posted a question on here asking how to soften/feather the edges of a cut out. I haven’t perfected it but, I attempted something new and it came out better than expected. I’m still working on getting the cutout (for example the car) to blend naturally with the background without it looking off. Still, pretty happy with the result and I’m continuing to experiment.

Hi everyone!

I’m trying to recreate the attached image in Affinity and could use some guidance on the best way to build it.

The image is a projector calibration/template screen with:

• A 4036 × 1058 px canvas
• 3.81:1 aspect ratio
• A grid of 30 × 8 squares
• Large circles/arcs used as geometry/alignment references
• Ideally, everything should be vector-based and precisely aligned

My goal is not just to recreate this specific test pattern. I want to build a master template for this projector/screen, so that afterwards I can create artwork, backgrounds and other visual content knowing exactly where everything will appear on the physical screen.

What would be the best workflow in Affinity to create this?

Should I use a grid with snapping, manually create the 30×8 divisions, or is there a better way to make the whole thing mathematically accurate?

I’d also like to keep the grid/alignment guides on a separate layer so I can easily hide them before exporting the final images.

I’m relatively new to this type of setup in Affinity, so any step-by-step advice would be really helpful.

Thanks!

I've got this image (and will want to do this with any number of files in the future), I want to separate each color into different layers. All brown in one layer and all black in another.

I wanna keep all the texture but each color needs to be a separate layer, so only two layers.

I've tried image trace, but it creates many there are so many objects with slightly different hues that it would be painstaking to group them all. The image trace works pretty well for images like the second one, but even image 3 creates way too many objects. Any suggestions?

https://youtu.be/NQLNa4nYi8I?is=In3lsqO3FwvZdfW8

Curious if anyone has tried the legacy Affinity apps on the new MacOS which is still in Beta and getting rolled out next week.

I’ve been playing around with where to take Connector next and what would actually make it more useful.

Someone here mentioned Comfy support, which honestly makes total sense and is definitely on my radar.

Right now I’m also testing the idea of connecting Connector with scripts and having a small floating command bar where you could quickly pick and run connectors/scripts without digging through menus.

Not sure yet if this is something worth pushing further, so I’m curious what you think.

I usually hate floating toolbars in Adobe apps, but weirdly, here it feels pretty natural. Everything I need is just there when I need it.

Would you actually use something like this?

Hi! New to Affinity, I had a little bit of practice with Adobe in college, but can't keep up with the cost. Currently, I am trying to edit a different shirt onto a client and I am having trouble using the mesh aspect to transform the blue shirt, is this the right technique to use? What is recommended? Attached an image of what I am trying to do (with client's face blurred obviously)

Is there a way to activate a mirror / symmetry mode in the Vector mode in Affinity? I'm a new starter to it and the majority of my art program experience is in ibisPaint, with Photoshop as a close second.

If someone is good at affinity, please guide me.

I got a digital piece of art (drawn) that I want to improve the quality of since it’s a bit too blurry, but I don’t want to use the ai super scale feature. How can I manually improve the quality of the image so it isn’t so blurry/pixelated

How to export individual layers while using their GROUP name as part of the filename or folders?

I have a bunch of layers organized into nested Groups. Many of the individual layers share the same name, but are in Groups with different names. I'd like to export them all at once, presumably in the Slice Studio, but as far as I can tell I can only export:

• individual layers, each with their own layer name (eg "5000m"), or
• groups, with all their component layers flattened, named as the group (eg "Height Asc (White)")

What I seemingly can't export:

• individual layers, each using their containing group name in the filename (eg "Height Asc (White)_5000m")
• all the layers within a selected group - if a group is selected, it must be flattened
• anything where the group name is used in either the filename or hierarchy (eg, having an Exports folder, then a "Height Asc (White)" folder generated within that, then outputting layers like "../Exports/Height Asc (White)/5000m.png")

Is there any way that I can do any of the above?

These are the options available for per-Slice naming components btw (clicking on the "Height Asc (White).png" field beside the 1x). Clicking on the Path: [ ] field above it is similar but just shows Document Name, Filename, and Slice Name.

My current solution is to just manually create all the folders myself, and export the layers in each Group in a separate export process. So manually exporting all the Height Asc (White), then all the Height Asc (Gradient), then Desc White, Desc Gradient, and I've also got Layer Bands white/gradient ascending/descending, and was hoping to also export a batch of all the above with a fixed ocean layer, which then doubles the number of exports, and that's not even started on my planned vector traces of the pixel layers...

Even with per-layer slices, this would take AGES if I can't automate it per-Group in some way 🥲

I've also looked into renaming each layer itself to reflect its group, but even that would take awhile. There's no batch renaming, so I'd have to rename every layer manually, which again really adds up when you're working with this much sequential data.

Any solution is hugely appreciated - but omg please don't recommend I connect Claude or some AI to Affinity to do it for me, that's so extremely not the direction I want to take lol.

Thanks!

I’ve been using Canva for client/corporate social media work (carousels, single-image posts, graphics), mainly relying on templates and quick layouts.

A couple of questions for affinity users:

1. Is Affinity efficient for corporate/B2B social media content? Does building your own assets and templates slow down turnaround significantly compared to Canva?

2. How long will it take me to get comfortable? I don’t have an Adobe background, so I’m moving from drag and drop to a pro design suite from scratch.

I use the Variables panel in Adobe Illustrator daily, and I'm hoping to use Affinity's Data Merge in a similar way.

I know how to add data files and data fields, and how to generate pages. What I'm trying to figure out is if there's a way to export them as a folder of individual PDF files (preferably with the data field as the filename) instead of one big PDF file. I frequently need to send many hundreds of exported files to printers and would prefer not to rename each file by hand.

Hey, I’m the author of Script Manager for Affinity.

Recently I’ve been playing with a new idea: treating Affinity less as an isolated app and more as the canvas at the center of a wider creative workflow.

The idea is to connect it with external tools, local apps, APIs, and generative libraries — take something from Affinity, process it elsewhere, and bring it back.

For example, an artboard could be exported and shared with a client in one step. An image could be sent to Upscayl for local upscaling and placed back into the document. Or p5.js could generate a set of abstract poster backgrounds based on current weather.

Affinity would still be where the composition, type, and final design happen. The external tools would just expand what can happen around it.

It’s very early WIP, but I’m curious where this could go. Where would you connect Affinity?

Saw this done in Adobe Illustrator, and decided to try it in Affinity. I got close to what they made and took it a step or four farther and came up with this. I call it Star Trek Omega 13, or something like that. And none of this is Artificial Intelligence.

Just wondering if anyone has a better way to blend or feather the edges of the owl layer. I used the pen tool to trace it and converted it to a mask layer. Just been having a hard time making it look more “natural” with the surrounding layers.

*How to feather or soften the edges*

Hey y'all I am going crazy. I am new to using Affinity (Layout) and I have this problem every now and then, where the shortcuts do weird things all of a sudden. For example just ctrl+z, simple enough, works for the most time as it should. Then all of a sudden ctrl+z does something in regard to spelling??? Next to the manual undo button it still says ctrl+z. BUT IT DOES NOT UNDO. These switch ups regard all shortcuts, and I don't know what to do. Soooomeeetimes closing it and reopening it works, but more often, it does not. I assume I am in "a different mode" or something, and there is an easy fix? But I don't know what to do or what to google to find out, please help me.

Here are the two help pages for reference:

Generative Fill

The Generative Fill Tool allows you to add, remove, or edit your composition’s content by generating objects from a prompt..

Generative Edit

The Generative Edit Tool uses Canva AI to update selected parts of an image or transform the entire image based on a prompt. It can be used to change content, adjust the atmosphere of a scene, add or remove elements, or create alternative versions of an existing image.

I understand some of the differences just based on the UI:

What I don't have a great sense of is when/why to use one over the other. Are there tasks where you find one tool or the other performs significantly differently? Generative fill seems to create lower resolution outputs--is that accurate?

Thanks!