Category: Computer

Printing a Booklet with Affinity Publisher 2

printed booklet

I couldn’t resist the 6 month free trial of the three Affinity apps – Photo, Illustrator and Publisher. Printing a booklet, which is the main thing that I’d use Affinity Publisher 2 for, can be tricky as most of the options are hidden in various drop-down menus and pop-ups and the exact settings depend on what kind of printer you’re using.

printing a booklet

I’m using a Xerox VersaLink C600 colour laser printer with a duplex option (it can print on both sides of the paper).

To Print as a Booklet

  1. From the File menu, select Print.
  2. From the dialog, set your Paper Size, e.g. A4.
  3. In the Print Options pop-up menu, select Document Layout.
  4. From the Model pop-up menu, select ‘Booklet’. This instructs the print process to impose pages.
  5. From the Print Options pop-up menu, select Xerox Features.
  6. From the 2-Sided Printing pop-up menu, select ‘2-Sided Print, Flip on Short Edge’.
  7. Click Print.

Lighthouse

Experimenting with Procreate and loosely based on Coquet Island lighthouse but minus the puffins, sandwich and roseate terns this is my take on the first project in the ‘Beginner’s Guide to Digital Painting in Procreate’. My thanks to freelance director and artist Izzy Burton for her step-by-step tutorial.

Fur Balls

Back to my animal illustration course and today we’re making our own Procreate brushes to represent animal hair. It’s the equivalent of using a fan brush or an old splayed brush in traditional watercolours.

Bag and Brush

brush

Barbara’s mum and her friend used to go into town on the access bus on a Friday morning and she’d often come back with a brush. This bannister brush from Wilko’s was a bit of a bargain at £1.49.

camera bag

I drew the brush and my camera bag in Procreate on the iPad, using Procreate’s Technical Pen.

PenTips PenPad

PenTips accessories
Procreate drawing

More PenTips goodies: glove, grip and, my favourite, the PenPad Shortcut Panel for Procreate on the iPad. I’ve used Procreate a lot and gone through dozens of tutorials but there are some shortcuts, such as ‘Cut’, that I have a mental block about. There they all are on the pad, so I don’t have to break my workflow by searching through sub-menus.

I’m still searching for my favourite virtual pen in Procreate. In Clip Studio Paint my go-to pen is usually the ‘Real G-Pen’ but in Procreate with dozens of virtual pens to choose from, I’m still undecided.

Perhaps drawing my chitted potatoes with a selection of pens from the Procreate ‘Inking’ section will help me narrow it down.

Pentips 2 Soft

Procreate drawing

I like the extra control that I get with the PenTips 2 ‘Soft’ rubber-like replacement tip for the Apple Pencil but I’ve now damaged two of the three that come in the pack.

Although most of the time when I’m drawing my touch is reasonably light, when it comes to adding colour or erasing it’s a different story. I find that it’s necessary to press on extra hard to squeeze a pool of virtual watercolour from a brush. If I’m using one of the subtler forms of the eraser I can find myself pressing hard to remove a stubborn line.

3 PenTips should potentially last 2 years but I’m getting through one a week! Perhaps I should have gone for their new tougher version designed for wiring.

The PenTip can then stick to the glass and split at the end, revealing the metal core.

Real G-Pen, Clip Studio, ‘Between the Covers’, BBC2.

Procreate Butterfly

Procreate drawing

Saving half the work while drawing a butterfly; my latest Procreate drawing tutorial using symmetry in drawing assist. I’ve faded out the photograph of the peacock butterfly that I’m basing my drawing on so I’ve put in a reference image, floating in the top left hand corner, so that I can see the colours.

While I wouldn’t use symmetry drawing assist if I was out drawing with the iPad I am going to use it for a logo I’m designing which has to be strictly symmetric.

butterfly drawn in Procreate

Procreate also includes ‘Animation Assist’, which turns layers into frames and gives you a timeline and onion skinning (showing a faint impression of your previous frames).

Not sure what happened to the unfortunate butterfly’s dislocated left wing, but you get the idea.

Colour Drop Procreate

Procreate drawing

In Procreate ‘Colour Drop’ is the equivalent of the paint bucket tool in Photoshop. It’s a ‘hidden’ tool activated by a drag and drop from the current colour swatch, which is always there in the top right-hand corner of the Procreate drawing screen.

Compared to pen on paper, I’m struggling to control my line when drawing on an iPad, even with a Paperlike screen protector (although after three or four months that has worn fairly smooth). For the lettering I tried Procreate’s method where you pause at the end of a line, curve or ellipse. Procreate works out what you were trying to draw and turns it into a smooth, editable vector version.

geometric sketches
Drawing isometric shapes isn’t going to be my strong point.

My unaided line is too wobbly, the vector version to smooth but I’m sure I’ll hit on a ‘Goldilocks Zone’ version which will be just right!

The Hidden side of Procreate

Procreate

No, this isn’t a goose watching its favourite anserine TV soap . . .

I’ve learnt a lot from the online course Naturalist Animal Illustration with Procreate but some of the ‘hidden’ features of the program are a bit difficult to grasp when the course is in Spanish and you’re trying to take in both subtitles and – to me – unfamiliar names on the Spanish version of the various tools and menus, so today I booked a free ‘Introduction to Procreate’ session at the Apple Store in Trinity Light in Leeds and I was able to delve into the mysteries of Alpha lock, importing a reference image and the various options for blending.