Color picking?
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I have difficulty trying to recolor objects by color picking them. When I have 2 vector objects of different color I would expect it to work this way:
- I select the object I want to recolor
- Press I for the color picker
- Click on the colored object I want to take the color from
- The selected object changes color
However in VS it is reversed, instead of picking the object I want to recolor, I have to pick the object I want the color from, then use the color picker to recolor my other object. Unless I am misunderstanding how this is supposed to work?
Also, I do not seem to be able to take the color from images, only from vector objects. This is a rather unfortunate limitation as I often use images as a reference to pick colors from.
In general I find working with the swatches rather difficult. I will create a new thread for this, as it seems more complicated than it should be.
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About the color picker:
The mode of operation can be changed by unchecking the Select -> Options -> Alternate Style Picker menu option.
To pick color from images (or any pixel of the document view), hold Shift when clicking on a location.
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About swatches:
In VectorStyler we have Presets, Styles and References, there are no swatches as known in AI (or AD).
A brief explanation:
Styles (Panels -> Styles -> Styles, and others) are can only be stored in a VS document, and when applied, styles are always linked. Symbols are also just styles (whole objects). Styles can be organized in a similar way as swatches.
When changing a style, all its instances in the document are changed, unless disconnected.Presets (Panels -> Presets -> Presets, and others) can be in separate files, or in the document. Presets are always organized by type, (color, gradient, patterns, effects, etc). When applied, presets are copied to the object. When changing a preset, its copies are not updated. But presets can be applied as styles, in which case a new style is created with the content of the preset.
And then References are similar to styles, but they are always taken from an existing named object of the document. This allows to define a style (color, gradient, shape, symbol, etc), by setting a Role and a name for an object in the document. The object name will show up in the Styles (or Symbols) panel, and in places using styles. When the specific attribute of the referenced object changes, all uses of the reference style are updated.
And almost any attribute can be saved and reused as a style, or a preset. Or accessed by reference.
There are a lot of features specific to VS, related to styles and presets and how to manage a workflow with these.
But these are new (and specific to VS), so we have to get used to them.More details can be found here:
https://www.vectorstyler.com/documentation/symbols/ -
Thanks for the thorough explanation! I will try to see how to work with these different workflows and what works best for me. Thanks!
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A related question, so I don't want to make a whole new thread for this: If I have a shape with a fill and a stroke, how can I make them the same color. Is there some kind of shortcut to make them the same color? Or how would I be able to pick the color of the shape and apply it to the stroke? I tried the color picker, but this does not seem to work to only pick up the color of an object and apply it on other objects. In Affinity there is a color picker on the color wheel panel which lets you pick up the color and saves it, and apply it to a shape.
Having a panel showing the recent colors would also be an option. The only way to archive something like this is to create a color palette from the canvas, but this does not update automatically.
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@postdes Just drag the Fill swatch over the Stroke swatch (or vice versa) in the Color panel.
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@b77 That's a great tip, thanks a lot!
