Transcripts
1. Welcome to Class!: [MUSIC] If I had to
describe myself, I would say I'm
an artistic nerd. I get just as excited about technical tools in my
favorite digital apps as I do the creative ones. I think it's what drew me to using vector apps
in the first place. The thing is as dry as
those tools may be, understanding how they
work and sometimes understanding them
enough to make them work in ways they
weren't intended, can make the creation
process more efficient, abundant, and ultimately
more enjoyable. Hi everyone. I'm Tracey Capone. I'm a Chicago area
illustrator, photographer, and top teacher
here on Skillshare. Welcome to class. Where as part of my
beginner's guide to Affinity Designer
for iPads series, we're going to
explore the ins and outs of designers
export persona. I've been a full-time artist
for over a decade and designer has been
one of my go-to apps for the last several years. I've taught a range of designer classes here on Skillshare, as well as tutorials on YouTube. I've had the privilege of being spotlighted multiple times by Sara of the Makers of Designer as an online
teacher to watch. The expert persona is the least complicated of the three
personas in designer, but I'll admit it's also
the least creative. What we'll be focusing on a technical tool and
designer in this class, understanding how it works
and more importantly, how it can work for you will allow you to take what
you've created and the other two personas
and prepare it for use in multiple
projects like stickers, animation, digital brushes,
cut files and more. The best part, you aren't limited to what you
create in designer. You can use the
Export persona on anything you create in any app, even scans with analog marks, artworks, and images that
you import to designer. In this class, I'm going to
share all my best tips and tricks on how to make the
Export persona work for you. We'll start by taking a look
at the difference between the main export function and the Export persona when
you'd want to use each. Next, I'll walk you through
the interface and show you the best practices
for creating slices, which are individual
selections that you can create from within
a single Canvas, even if everything's
on the same layer. After that, we'll export
our slices and talk about common export formats and which work best for
your various needs. Then finally, as a bonus, I'm going to show you how to use designers' export persona to export slices of objects
created outside of designer, like scanned images,
analog marks, or artwork you created in
other illustration apps. For class, you'll need the
Affinity Designer app. I'm going to be using
Version 2 of the iPad app. However, if you're on Version 1 or either version of the
desktop application, the principles are the
same so you can easily follow along as long as you know where the
tools are located. You'll also need
something to export. I recommend using both
a canvas with all of your objects on
a single layer and a multi-layer canvas
with everything broken out as we'll be covering both
scenarios here in class. This class is perfect
for beginners or even experienced
users who want to learn more about
exporting in designer. Are you ready to up
your export game? If so grab your iPad, join me in class, and let's get started.
2. The Class Project: [MUSIC] The project for class
is to create slices from your own work for whatever project you'd like
to use them in. Create your slices manually or allow a designer to do it, and export in whatever format
works best for your needs. Take screenshots of your
process along the way, and share your approach. When you're ready, tap to create project button at the top of the Projects and
Resources screen. Create a cover photo, upload your screen grabs, add any comments
and hit "Publish." Sharing your project
not only allows future students to
see what they'll learn when they take the class, it helps more students
find the class. Next up, we'll take a look
at the difference between the main export function and the export persona. I'll
see you there. [MUSIC]
3. Export Function vs. Export Persona: [MUSIC] In an upcoming lesson, we'll take a closer
look at how to use the tools and the
Export Persona. But for now, let's look
at how they differ from the main export
function as well. We do have some similarities. There are some distinct
differences between the two. The main export function can be found in the Documents menu
at the top of the screen. This is in all three personas. When you want to export your entire document in
various formats, this is the place to go. You'll be given several
format options along the top, and you'll want to choose
one of those before you move on to the
rest of the screen because each option has its own set of parameters
to choose from. I'm not going to run through
all of the format options, but I do want to point out that under each format you have the ability to select what area of your document
you want to export, whether it's the
entire document, a particular art board, or if you use them
even a selection. Now while it will allow
you to isolate selections, you need to make sure that it's broken out
into something that you can easily select
in the layer studio. The Export Persona can
be found by clicking the persona icon at the top
here and choosing "Export". Now, this isn't the
option that you want to use to export an
entire document. You're going to want to stick to the main export
function for that. The Export Persona creates
what are called slices. These are isolated objects
that can be created by designer if they're broken
out into individual layers, groups, or art boards, or manually by you if they're not. Again, we'll get into
more detail on how to create those slices in
an upcoming lesson. The manual process of being able to create
your own slices is the big advantage that
the Export Persona has over the main
export function. If you've created all
of your objects on one single canvas without
breaking them out, or you pulled in a scanned image or marks on a single
piece of paper, you still have the
ability to export them as individual slices
to use as stickers, cut files, brush sources, pattern motifs, and more. At the end of the day, the
best export option for you is going to depend on
what you want to export, how you want to use it, and ultimately how you have
your canvas broken out. Next up, we're going
to take a look at the Export Persona's interface. I'll see you there. [MUSIC]
4. Export Persona Interface: [MUSIC] In this lesson, we're going to take a tour of the export persona's
interface and map out where all of
the tools are located. Let's get started.
I mentioned in the previous lesson
that you can locate the export persona by tapping the persona icon at the top here and choosing
the third option. Now this persona is the least
complicated of the three, and the interface is
pretty straightforward, but each tool has its own separate and distinct
role in the export process. We're going to go into
greater detail about how to create slices
in the next video. But for now, let's start
with a high-level overview of the interface itself,
starting with the tools. Before we begin, I
want to note that my screen is flipped for
a left-handed person. Our tools and studios may be flipped opposite of one another. However, everything
works exactly the same. I'll be sure to note
which icon I'm choosing. However, if you ever had
a hard time locating one, you can always tap the question
mark at the bottom here, and labels will pop up along the sides as well as the middle. I'm going to start
with these two tools, the first one being
the slice tool. This is going to allow
you to manually create slices in the absence of your
layers being broken out. It works just like
any selection tool. You'll tap and drag across your object and it's going to automatically create a slice. You can modify your slice
by dragging your handles. In a little bit
I'll show you how to work with a canvas like this, where things are a
little bit crowded. The arrow here, which will
looks like the move tool, is called the slice
selection tool. This tool allows you
to select your slices. However, unlike the move tool, it doesn't allow
you to move them. Let's head to the opposite
side of the screen and talk about the export studios. Starting with this top one, this is the slices studio. As you begin to create slices, they're going to show up
here and this is also where you're going to export
your slices from. The second icon looks
like the layer studio and the other two personas and is actually called
the layer studio. However, it is specific
to creating slices. If you have your Canvas broken out into individual layers, groups of layers or art boards, this is where you can
prompt designer to create slices automatically by selecting the layer or group of layers and tapping,
create slice. Just like the layer studio and
the other two personas you have layer options available by clicking these
three dots at the top, but it's very basic. You can change the name of
your slice by tapping here. You can make your
slice exportable or not by clicking
this off and on, though you can also do
the same thing within the layer studio itself by
turning them off and on here. You can also lock or
solo your layer as well. The last few icons are the
transform and history studios. To be honest, I'm
not entirely sure of the point of the
transform studio and the export persona
as it's specific to transforming the
slices and frankly, I find it awkward. I personally opt not to use it and instead
manually change the size of my slice by dragging the handles that
I pointed out earlier. The history studio isn't
specific to the slice studio. It's actually the
same history studio that you'll find
in every persona. You can backup to a particular point on
your canvas overall up to the total number of history snapshots that you've
selected in your settings. Let's head to the next video where we'll take a
look at how to use all these tools to create some slices for export.
I'll see you there. [MUSIC]
5. Creating Manual or Automatic Slices: [MUSIC] Now that we've
taken a look at the tools in studios and the
export persona, let's look at the two ways
that you can create slices, either by allowing
Designer to make an automatic selection or by creating one manually
using the slice tool. I have two versions of the
same illustration here. One is a group of
individual group layers, the other is a
rasterized version where everything is
on the same layer. I can create slices
from both of these, but each one warrants
a different approach. I want to export these
as transparent PNGs. Before I do anything, I need to make sure that my
transparent background is on and that any backgrounds I've manually created are
turned off because I don't want them to be exported with the rest of the slice. If you've created
your own background using the shape tool
or some other method, you're going to make sure
that's turned off first. Now from the layer studio
in the export persona, you can tap the layer and turn the opacity
all the way down. Or, you can go to one
of the other personas, I'll go to the
"Designer" persona, go to the layer studio
and turn the layer off. The layer that I
manually created is set, but now I need to turn my transparent canvas
on because right now I have the white background that Designer automatically
places on my canvas. I'll go up to the
Documents menu, tap "Canvas," and then choose "Transparent Canvas"
and I'm all set. I'll go back to my
export persona. Now if you plan to
export as a JPEG, Transparent Canvas doesn't apply because JPEGs use encoding
that automatically place a white background
on your file in the exact size of the
slice made whether it's manual or done by
Designer and that's the case whether
you're working on a transparent background or not. Now that our backgrounds
are taken care of, let's take a look at
the single-pixel layer. Because I have all of
my bugs on one layer, if I go to the layer studio and select that layer and
then tap "Create Slice," it's going to create
one large slice with all of my bugs which isn't what I want
because that's no different than exporting
the entire document. Instead what I need
to do are create manual slices of
each individual bug. The problem is the placement
of my bugs on the canvas is going to make that
challenging because some of them are
very close together, so I need to make some
adjustments first. The most important thing to
remember when you're creating slices is that what you
slice is what you get. In other words, if I grab my slice tool and I drag
across this guy here, in order to make sure that
I've captured the entire bug, I'm also capturing some
of the one beneath it and that's going to get
exported with it which, of course, isn't what I want. What I need to do is adjust the placement of the
bugs on my canvas first, and then make my manual slices. I'm going to do that
in the pixel persona. Inside my pixel persona with the freehand selection tool
which looks like a lasso, I'm going to select
each of the bugs and move them to a spot on
the canvas where I can easily create slices without touching any of the other bugs. Let's go back to this guy here. I'll select my free
hand selection tool and I'm going to start drawing
a selection around him. I'm going to stay pretty
tight to the bug, I want to make sure that
I'm not getting any of this guy below. Once the selection is made, I'll grab my move tool and move him up and away from the others. Now I'm going to do that with the rest of the bugs and
I'm going to speed it up. But before I do that, I want to note a few things. Make sure to avoid dragging your selection over any
of the other objects, otherwise, you're
going to end up including them in
your selection which, of course, isn't what you want. The other thing to
remember is that slices are a
rectangular selection, they're not free-form
like we have here. I find that it's easier to rotate my objects
either perfectly vertical or perfectly horizontal so that I can more easily make that rectangular selection. Then finally, if you need to, you can always size an
object down slightly once you select the
move tool if it's not going to matter
to your final output. If it helps you place it in a area of the canvas where it's not going to get cut off, you always have that option. I'll go ahead and move
the rest of my bugs. I'm going to speed it up and I'll see you
on the other side. [MUSIC] Once I'm done moving all of the bugs on the canvas, I can go back to
my export persona, grab my slice tool and begin making my slice selections
around my bugs. I make a rough selection first knowing I can always
go back in and adjust. I'll just go ahead and
drag across all of these. You don't have to worry if your slices cross
over one another, for example, right here. Because you're working
with transparencies, as long as you don't hit
anything here, you're fine. [MUSIC] Two things to
keep in mind when you're creating your manual slices. The first is that
anything outside the bounds of your
object but within the bounds of the slice box is going to export even
if it's transparent. In other words, if I pull my
selection all the way out, anything within the
bounds of that box is going to export as a
transparent padding. If I'm going to use this on a webpage where I pull
this in as an image file, that transparent padding is going to mean that
anything else I pull in can only be pulled up to the edge of the
transparent line. So if you don't
want that padding, you want to make sure to
adjust your selection so it's enough that nothing
is getting cut off, but not so much
that it's creating an invisible barrier
around your object. The other thing to note
is that at the top of every slice box
is a label bar. Your selection can
actually go to the very top of the box, you don't have to keep
it beneath that bar. I can bring my selection down so that it's just
above those antennae, but below the top
of the blue bar. I'm going to go ahead and adjust all of my
selections here, again to bring them in nice
and close to the bugs, but not so close that I'm
cutting anything off. While I started out with a very cramped
single-pixel layer, I was able to move things
around using a combination of the free-hand selection tool in the pixel persona and then the slice tool in
the export persona. If I go up to my slice studio, you can see that I have
seven individual slices created from one single layer. We've created manual slices
from a single-pixel layer, now let's have Designer create automatic slices from
multiple layer groups. This is the other
illustration that I created, and this is the one where
everything is broken out into individual
group layers. Now because they're
broken out, of course, I don't need to make
manual selections. I can simply tap on a group, tap "Create Slice," and it
automatically does it for me. Now, it's quick and easy but I do want to
note that Designer while it tends to make some
pretty good selections, every once in a while I do
find things get cut off. That has actually happened here. Despite the fact
that this white area here is part of my group, if I zoom in, you can see that it's cutting
off the top here. It's not a problem, I can
just take this and drag it and I'll just make sure
that everything with my bug, including that white
background, is included. I always let Designer make
the initial selection and then I adjust
it out slightly to make sure that
nothing is cut off. Sometimes it does it perfectly, other times it doesn't, it's always a good idea
just to check. One final note about the automatic slices is,
unlike manual slices, because everything
is on its own layer, there is no danger of slicing anything
from another layer. While I had already moved
things around on this canvas, I could've done this
just as easily with the original canvas where my
bugs were closer together, as long as they were
on different layers. You do, however,
want to be aware of the padding issue that we talked about with the single layer. If you don't want extra
padding around your space, make sure that
everything is as tight as possible without
cutting anything off. Now that we've touched on
how to create the slices, let's take a look at
how to export them. That's coming up
in the next video and I'll see you there. [MUSIC]
6. Export Options & Formats: [MUSIC] In this lesson, we're
going to take a look at how to export our slices and which export formats
work best for the various scenarios.
Let's get started. There are a few ways
to export your slices, all of which take place in the Slice Studio
here at the top. You'll note that a
slice is were created, they were added
here to the studio. There's also a layer for the original background
illustration that was pulled in. I can turn off any of these
slices that I don't want to export simply by tapping
this dot on or off. I wanted to do that with the background
illustration because I don't need another copy
of it before I export, I want to make sure that
the remaining slices are named the way I want them. Otherwise, they're going to
be exploited to slice 1, 2, 3, and so on. I also need to make sure that
my file format is correct. I'll do that by
selecting the layer, going to the slice
options here at the top, the three dots. I can tap at the top here
and change the name. This works exactly the same
as it does in other layers. I'll tap Bug 1 and click "Okay". You'll note though
that other than that, there's only one
additional option to change here in
the Slice Studio, and that's the file format. Your slice is going to
be set up front with an initial format as
soon as you create it, typically it's whatever
you used the last time. In my case it was PNG. You have the ability
to change the format or add additional slices
with a different format. I can either tap these
arrows or I can tap in the middle to get the list of all file formats available. Now I'm not going to run through every single format here, but suffice it to say
there are many options. The one that you choose
will ultimately be driven by how you plan
to use your slides. Let's take a look at some of
the most common selections. I'll select PNG when I want
a transparent background, which in most cases
that's what I'm going to be using because
for the most part, if I'm exporting a slice, I needed to have a
transparent background and PNG is the best option. This is perfect for
stickers, pattern motifs, digital brush sources anything else where a transparent
background is a must. You're going to
note that there are two different types of PNG. PNG8 tethered is typically
used for very small graphics. Standard PNG is going to be quite suitable for
most of your needs. You're also going to note here that there's three options; standard, retina,
and three times. These are linked with
your documents, dpi. The export dimensions
in dpi will change with each option depending
on which you pick. Let's say that you have a 100 by 100 pixels slice at 72 dpi. If I choose standard, it's going to export
it exactly that 100 pixels by 100
pixels at 72 dpi. If I choose retina two times, it's going to export
200 by 200 at 144 dpi. Finally, of course, three
times we'll export it 300 by 300 pixels at 260 dpi. You can export at all three dimensions
and it's going to create an individual
slice for each one. I typically stick with
standard but choose whatever works best for your needs
and what you're exporting. Let's talk about JPEG. Remember, JPEG encoding means the designer is going to
export your slice with a white background out to the bounds of the
slice that you create. This is fine if you're creating something like a sticker,
just remember though, it's going to be the exact shape of the slice you created, not the shape of the
object you slice. If you do need a
transparent background, JPEG is not the option for you. Then finally, if
you're exporting a vector object and need
to be able to use it in either another vector app
or on a cutting machine or laser you can export
it as an SVG. It's going to export
with all of the vector attributes that you've added to the shape before slicing it. Strokes fills
everything like that. I always go with high quality
whenever I use this option, I do want to note that when
you set your file format, it's for an individual
layer and it's going to stay set to that format
until you change it. In other words, if you want
to export one slice as a PNG and another slice
as an SVG, for example, you need to select each
of those layers and change the format for
that individual slice, then export each object individually and we'll get into how to do that in a moment. Then I also want to
note that if you go to the burger menu at the
top of the Slice Studio, you're going to see the option
to choose Export Folder. This is going to
allow you to set your Export Folder in advance. If you don't do this, it's going to prompt
you to choose an Export Folder once
you export your slices. Once you've named your files
and you've set their format, there are two ways to export. Either by choosing
export all at the top, or exporting one by one. When you export all, you're going to want to
make sure that you uncheck any slices that you don't
want to export with the rest, and then hit 'Export All". Now if you've already
set a folder, it's going to be sent to the
folder that you selected. If not, it's going to prompt
you to choose a folder. You can also export
individual slices one at a time by using
the sheer arrow here. Again, it's going
to prompt you to choose a folder if you
haven't already selected one. One final option I want to
show you is continuous export, which can be found
in the burger menu at the top of the Slice Studio. This is going to allow you to automatically
update a slice with any changes that
you make in design or even after
you've exported it. For example, I have this leaf shape and I've
created a slice out of it. If I export it to my chosen folder in green
and then go to that folder, you'll see that
it's here in green. If I go back to designer, go into my designer persona and change it to
something like blue. If I go back to that folder, you'll see that now it's blue
because it automatically exported that same
slice again in the same format with
the updated color. Now one important thing to
note if you're intentionally exporting the same object twice with two different colors, either create two slices or turn continuous export off because it's going to replace
the original object. Next up as a bonus, I'm going to show
you how you can use the Export persona to isolate and create slices from objects
that you create anywhere, not just in designer. I'll
see you there. [MUSIC]
7. BONUS: Isolating Analog Marks & Scans: [MUSIC] Up to this point, I've
showed you how to isolate an export objects that have
been created within designer. But the expert persona
is also handy for isolating and exporting
manual marks that you make. For brush sources, analog
creations you want to use in patterns as well
as image cans that you've created that aren't
already broken out. I have this scan sheet of
white paper that I've made some sharpie marks on
and I want to isolate the mark so that I can use
in this brush sources. When I scan it and
I made sure to scan it as a black
and white image so that I don't have
any other colors coming through and I did
this for two reasons. First, I needed to be pure black and white to create
the brush source. But just as importantly, I need it to be black and white so that I can take the next step to remove the white background
and make this transparent. Before I do anything else, I want to rasterize
the image that I've placed so that I can use
all of my tools on it, including the free
hand selection tool and the Pixel persona. I'll go to my layers studio, select the "Layer" and go to this second icon and choose Rasterize and now I'm all set. Next, I want to turn off my white background
so I can go up to my Documents menu and choose
Canvas and transparent Canvas. But you'll note as still have the white paper in
the background. Now I could pull this into
Affinity Photo and use the erase white paper filter
which designer doesn't have. But instead, I'm
going to show you a different way you
can remove all traces of the white paper for a transparent background
in my layers studio, I'll select my layer and go
to Layer Options and I'm going to go all the way to
the bottom to blend ranges. I want to use the box
on the left here called source to remove all of
the white from my file. Now I'm not going to go into great detail on Blend
ranges in this class. But for the purpose
of this exercise, just note that if I drag
down on the right note here, it's going to remove
all light areas. If I drag down on the left node, it's going to remove all black. So if I were to drag this down, you can see all of the black
marks are almost gone. Conversely, if I drag
down on the other side, it's removing all of the white. For added measure I'm
going to make sure that any between grays are removed. So I'll drag this node a
bit to the left as well. If I want to make sure that I've removed all traces and white, I can add a pure black
rectangle behind my transparent layer
and just check to make sure that I'm not
seeing any additional marks, which in this case I'm not
even if I were to zoom in. Just be sure to remove this when you're done so
I'll delete that. One final step that you
could take if you felt you needed to do is to add
a threshold adjustment. Now, I don't need
to for this one. But if you did, you
could select your layer, go to the adjustments panel
and scroll down to threshold, and then adjust the
contextual menu accordingly. I would do one final check with your black rectangle just to be sure and then you can
move to the next step. Now that my background
is transparent, I want to clean up
some of the lines left behind by the shadow under the paper when I
scanned it and I'm going to do that in
the Pixel persona. I wanted choose my
rectangular marquee tool that's under the
free-hand selection tool. That's going to be
the easiest way to select these and
then delete them. Before I do anything now
I want to change this from new to add and I want to make sure that my layer is selected and what Add is
going to allow me to do is begin my selection and
then continue to add to it as I go around so I can
select all four sides. I'm going to end up cutting off a little bit of this
source image here, but I'm not going to
worry about that. I'll hit "Delete" and then
de-select and I'm all set. From here, I can go
into my Export persona, grab my slice tool, and begin creating
my rough selections and then editing them with
the notes wherever I need to. Once I've selected all of these, I can export each of these
individual slices and I have separate source
images that I can use to create digital
brushes in any app. Next up, we're going to wrap up class with some
final thoughts. I'll see you there. [MUSIC]
8. Final Thoughts: [MUSIC] Thanks so much for
joining me here in class. I hope you'll find the
expert persona to be a valuable tool in
your creative arsenal. Remember, when you
create a project, share it to the projects
and resources section. If you found the class helpful, I would truly appreciate
it if you left a review. Doing both not only helps future students to see what to learn when they take the class, it helps more students
find the class. I have lots of new classes
in the works so be sure to head to my profile here on
Skillshare and click Follow, so you'll always be
notified when I post. You'll also find
my entire lineup of Affinity Designer classes, as well as classes in other digital apps like
Procreate and the Adobe Suite. Information about my
Facebook group that's dedicated to all things
digital texture, where you can share your work, ask questions or share your own tips and tricks
in a friendly environment. You'll find a link to my
YouTube channel where I share short digital art
tutorials in a variety of apps to complement my
classes here on Skillshare. Finally, you'll find a
link to my newsletter. When you sign up, you'll receive a giant brush and texture pack, and regular freebies as well. If you have questions about the class or a
suggestion for one, post them in discussion section below, or send me an email. Thanks again, and
happy creating.