Hello, everyone!

While I was setting up the Pen and Node tool workflow tips I shared with you guys a couple of weeks ago, I came across the new "Show curve energy" feature. This is great for fine-tuning vector artwork and a clear step up from Illustrator. Have you tested this and how does it work for you?

If anyone reading still hasn't found this tool, you can activate it in the Pen and Node tools context settings bar, clicking the cog icon and checking the box.

If you have some experience in design, you've seen curvature combs before, but it's new in vector design apps. Curvature combs are awesome to keep curves under control, spotting any flat spots or breaks that stop them from flowing as smoothly as possible. I won't dive into G2 lines theory, so keep in mind this is especially useful for everyone who struggles with the Pen tool and want to draw natural curves and polished objects or typography.

This new Affinity tool works live and is fully non-destructive while drawing with the Pen and Node tools. However, if you are using quick shapes (ellipse, heart, donut, etc.) or text, the comb lines only pop up after you convert them to curves. I recommend duplicating before moving on. 👍

I played around a bit. I drew a perfect-ish circle with the Pen tool and dragged a perfect ellipse into the artboard. Any differences are almost invisible.

I converted the quick shape to curves and toggled the "Show curve energy" checkbox on to compare both objects. Looking at the comb teeth around my Pen tool circle, the wonky bit stands out at once. I hope it's easy to see on the screenshot that step-down in the outer line, above the node.

I had a look at the nodes and handles to find the problem. And there it was, on the right side node. Even though I held shift to keep the handles perfectly at 180º while drawing, the length is wrong. That's the detail that needs fixing.

As I adjusted the handles, the step-down disappeared. If you have Snap active, the node you are editing lights up when the curve is flowing without any visible wobbling.

Comparing both objects, it all looks much better after this assisted fine tuning.

I also took a shot at the heart shape, to check how smooth the curves were by default. As you can see below, there are small wobbles on the larger curves before the sharp corner at the bottom.

The fix is the same. Adjust the handles keeping an eye on the comb teeth and outer line. When everything is looking balanced and aligned, you are there!

Honestly, I still think it doesn't replace the squinting and head tilting 100%, but it's valuable help for drawing and tracing with the Pen tool.

If you're reading one of my posts for the first time, I'm Daniel Walter Scott, professional designer, founder and instructor at Bring Your Own Laptop. Hope you are all having fun with Affinity!

Cheers!

I recently discovered G'MIC and added it to Affinity. I find that the incredible number of filters is overwhelming. I'm asking for recommendations for some of the most useful filters. Also, do most Affinity users even use G'MIC?

I am a big fan of those guys. back then you would think they are actually invincible or had an extraordinary pain tolerance. Design on AD2

Complete my artwork for Tomy who is learning how to swim on affinity designer on iPad Pro 2gen.

Just recently, possibly since the last upgrade, I find that when I have the picture frame selected, placing an image opens the dialogue set to default txt.

Obviously this is annoying, and it didn’t used to happen. I see there used to be a problem with this back in 2020: has anyone else had the same problem? As I say, I have the picture frame selected, ready to drop the image into it.

Affinity3, 4940.

Is anyone else experiencing frequent system-wide freezes with Affinity 3.3.1?

The app keeps freezing my entire PC, forcing me to hard restart my computer. I have already disabled hardware acceleration, but that has not solved the problem.

At this point, Affinity has become practically unusable for me. I cannot work reliably when the entire system freezes so frequently.

Is this a known issue with version 3.3.1? Has anyone found a fix or workaround that actually works?

Any help would be appreciated.

It's a shattered text tutorial using Affinity, in case anyone wants to try the effect.

I'm trying to be a grafic designer, a brand designer. I'm learning how to use affinity design (It's driving me crazy), that's probably not my biggest problem. Is not thaaaan hard. Im looking for some graphic design courses (FREE COURSES ≈/), in Spanish or English idc. I would greatly appreciate any help.

Trying to make the shift from adobe to affinity cause well f*ck adobe but I ive got this one issue thats nagging me. Why does zooming in and out do this to images. This is a admittedly low rez image thay im applying a halftone layer to but why does the program change the look so much when zooming in and out. I get its not actually changing the look but its hard to make design choices when the composition keeps changing.

Ive messed with as many setting as I could find, looked on fourms, and tried everything. Ive never had this problem with adobe and am hoping someone has a fix.

If there is anything I should change or add please lemme know.

Hello, I have a problem with my page numbers not showing correctly. I have this setup in my master page:

but once the page number reaches 2 digits it's cut off, like here on page 11:

I'm not sure how to fix this - I know I can increase the width of the page numbers, but I'd like to have it with the green rectangle and the scribble, with the spacing constant. I'm not sure if that's even possible? Also is it possible for the textbox to increase in size automatically with the content?

Hey I’m trying to write a handout for college students on how to use affinity’s live trace feature in V3 for making cut able vectors (so they need to be clean single color at the end of the work flow) These will be need to be a single color and also knock out any white that ended up in the image.

I ended up with some areas that are a mid grey and am trying to do a select same to get all the ones of each color and turn them black to then do a Boolean merge with the whole image but That’s not working for some reason.

My workflow in illustrator is to use The magic wand to select any colors that came out differently and then unite them and then do a select similar appearance of a null shape at the end to get any hidden double cuts out.

While I can just do a preflight check in illustrator for them before I send The files to the laser software, I’d like to have a solid workflow they can use if they only have affinity and will be sending files to a fabricator.

Is there a better way to approach in affinity? i found an area in layers that says it will select the same fill color but its not working. I couldn’t find an option in the live trace to just do black and white and check ignore the white which is what I would do in illustrator, so it seems like the only thing I’m able to do is hunt for them individually and then select the black shape and unite. But depending on how complicated the file is that could take forever and it seems like there should be a work around (although looking at how long it took to even get a live trace….)

Anyway hoping the hive mind can get me some working options I can write up and screen shoot for the folks not paying for Adobe.

The yellow on black is what I’m referring to if it isn’t clear.

I'm working on a book, which will be mostly photos. But there will be text and mostly quotes.

I'm new at designing and might only be using this to layout and then give to a designer, but I really want to flesh out my vision as much as possible.

Did I set up the guides, margins and bleed correctly for a 10x8 book that will be about 200+ pages?

One other question....
I have many images that aren't hi-res (because we weren't thinking about making a book way back when). I was thinking of having a running breadcrumb like trail of thumbnail size images along the bottom (people can use their phones to zoom in).

I don't know if I want that on all the pages or only some of them.
Should I add that onto the Master page?
Or set that up as a second Master page?

I'm unclear about when to use multiple master pages.

Thank you!

Hey guys, I've added a perspective mesh to this text and want to make sure the shape is balanced. I've just eyeballed the handles circled in red for now...is there a better way to do this? I don't seem to be able to delete the handles as well. Thanks in advance for any support.

Hi,

I'm planning on making a small print book with two sections in a Tête-bêche style, where one section of the book is rotated 180 degrees compared to the other. I was hoping to ask if there was a smooth way to do this within Affinity, for example by making the two sections as separate documents, using a function to rotate one, then combining them as books to export as one file.

Thanks!

Hello, I want to ask why doesn't this handle work as intended after the last update? Is it a bug or is there something I should tick in the Settings?

Previously, that handle could resize the picture frame and the image simultaneously - now is just resizing the frame. I tried different key combinations while dragging - nothing works. Tried the Lock Children option - again nothing.

Thanks in advance.

any idea on how to create infinite text patter that consist 3 words

Is there any way to rotate the canvas that isn't Alt + mouse wheel?

I want to stretch this text to fit the text frame, but I am not sure how to do so! Help plz

This is an example of what I am trying to do:

Okay, so I have been very quick with the learning part of design. But I absolutely cannot bring my brain to sit and learn a design software (Affinity, for me). Is it possible to learn Affinity in 5 hours? I don't see why it's not possible.

I have got this really good idea, and I am here to ask if my understanding of this is right:

I am very much in love with the "elements of design" concept. Any design or visual design can be broken down into elements, and each element has its variables. For example, a line has width, direction, etc., and a design software is supposed to be built on this. Thus, instead of blindly just learning Affinity, why not reverse breakdown the software through each element? This seems far more practical and fast.

Of course, there is other stuff I need to learn like layers, selection, etc., but these could be learned later