Nazario

I had to read that a few times. No wonder I couldn't figure it out. Thats a bit convoluted to say the least  :mellow: Theres far too many extra steps that simply aren't required. One would think you select an object, click the eyedropper (needs a shortcut) which brings up the Loupe as your 'cursor', place it where you want and click to set the colour of the selected object. Depending on whether stroke or fill is active it will change the colour respectfully. Much more refined and intuitive is it not?  :wacko:
 
You guys are doing aigret job, don't get me wrong but that one is a little 'wonky'  ;)

Howdy,
 
I was disappointed to read a while back that Publisher has taken a back seat to allow for iOS development on the iPad Pro. (Correct me if I'm wrong on that I did read it a while back.)
 
With Photo and Designer coming along nicely I was hoping to be able to completely leave Adobe behind when Publisher launched as I believe are many other people.
 
Looking from the outside of the development of the Affinity Suite I think the delay might be a bad idea and focus should return to getting Publisher out the door first.
 
Many designers are stuck at a point of transition. Some have embraced the subscription model from Adobe, others have reluctantly accepted it and many flat out refuse to be held to ransom.
 
With CS6 being the last supported version of Adobes software on Apples latest operating system and Apple's change in release pattern to annual releases there is a strong possibility come October when the next OS is potentially released that it will break what compatibility CS6 still has with OSX. Indeed El Capitan itself caused us to have to download legacy Java software to keep running Illustrator CS6. I fear the next OS will break it entirely.
 
For those people that refuse to switch to Adobes subscription model and are waiting for Publisher to be able to completely leave Adobe, or those that are on the fence, and I believe there are quite a few, this will cause a problem if they wish to upgrade to Apple's latest OS when the time comes. If the new OS does indeed break compatibility and support is stopped for CS6, users will then be forced to either hold off upgrading their OS or reluctantly sign up to Adobes subscription model to bridge the gap. Thereby losing Affinity potential customers as by the time Publisher is launched they may indeed come round to being ok with using Adobe CC via subscription and not purchase Affinity Publisher at all.
 
If Publisher is launched before (probably not possible) or at least around the time of the new OS then this decision won't be so much of a headache and Serif/Affinity should make themselves available to many new customers. By delaying I think they're practically pushing potential customers back to Adobe.
 
I know developing is a very dynamic process and things move quickly at times but I think it bears thinking about somewhat. This is just my opinion obviously, what do you guys think?

Howdy,
 
I was disappointed to read a while back that Publisher has taken a back seat to allow for iOS development on the iPad Pro. (Correct me if I'm wrong on that I did read it a while back.)
 
With Photo and Designer coming along nicely I was hoping to be able to completely leave Adobe behind when Publisher launched as I believe are many other people.
 
Looking from the outside of the development of the Affinity Suite I think the delay might be a bad idea and focus should return to getting Publisher out the door first.
 
Many designers are stuck at a point of transition. Some have embraced the subscription model from Adobe, others have reluctantly accepted it and many flat out refuse to be held to ransom.
 
With CS6 being the last supported version of Adobes software on Apples latest operating system and Apple's change in release pattern to annual releases there is a strong possibility come October when the next OS is potentially released that it will break what compatibility CS6 still has with OSX. Indeed El Capitan itself caused us to have to download legacy Java software to keep running Illustrator CS6. I fear the next OS will break it entirely.
 
For those people that refuse to switch to Adobes subscription model and are waiting for Publisher to be able to completely leave Adobe, or those that are on the fence, and I believe there are quite a few, this will cause a problem if they wish to upgrade to Apple's latest OS when the time comes. If the new OS does indeed break compatibility and support is stopped for CS6, users will then be forced to either hold off upgrading their OS or reluctantly sign up to Adobes subscription model to bridge the gap. Thereby losing Affinity potential customers as by the time Publisher is launched they may indeed come round to being ok with using Adobe CC via subscription and not purchase Affinity Publisher at all.
 
If Publisher is launched before (probably not possible) or at least around the time of the new OS then this decision won't be so much of a headache and Serif/Affinity should make themselves available to many new customers. By delaying I think they're practically pushing potential customers back to Adobe.
 
I know developing is a very dynamic process and things move quickly at times but I think it bears thinking about somewhat. This is just my opinion obviously, what do you guys think?

While I agree on many of your points I don't think only having 3 apps will hold back Serif or the Affinity brand. As long as the three are capable of creating vector (Designer) and bitmap (Photo) images and producing layouts and press ready PDFs (Publisher) then the suite is essentially complete and will allow many to jump into the Affinity world without much trouble.
 
At the moment we can create graphics and edit photos with Affinity but we are unable to create anything to put them to use. i.e. a multipage document/brochure or webpage. We still require Adobe for that.
 
Creating Designer/Photo for iPad will still bring us to the point where we are unable to do anything with the files we create until Publisher is released. We might make a poster, or stationery set and fire off a PDF to the printer but without a real publishing platform from Affinity we will still have to rely on Adobe for those kind of things. 90% of my work is done in InDesign. I create in Photo and Designer but have to use InDesign to bring those elements together. It will be the same on any platform until Publisher is released.
 
This is not a criticism of Serif or the Affinity team by any means, they are doing an absolutely fantastic job and I'm with them all the way but I just feel that getting the publishing app out there to close the circle first, so to speak, and then focus on expanding that circle.

Howdy,
 
I was disappointed to read a while back that Publisher has taken a back seat to allow for iOS development on the iPad Pro. (Correct me if I'm wrong on that I did read it a while back.)
 
With Photo and Designer coming along nicely I was hoping to be able to completely leave Adobe behind when Publisher launched as I believe are many other people.
 
Looking from the outside of the development of the Affinity Suite I think the delay might be a bad idea and focus should return to getting Publisher out the door first.
 
Many designers are stuck at a point of transition. Some have embraced the subscription model from Adobe, others have reluctantly accepted it and many flat out refuse to be held to ransom.
 
With CS6 being the last supported version of Adobes software on Apples latest operating system and Apple's change in release pattern to annual releases there is a strong possibility come October when the next OS is potentially released that it will break what compatibility CS6 still has with OSX. Indeed El Capitan itself caused us to have to download legacy Java software to keep running Illustrator CS6. I fear the next OS will break it entirely.
 
For those people that refuse to switch to Adobes subscription model and are waiting for Publisher to be able to completely leave Adobe, or those that are on the fence, and I believe there are quite a few, this will cause a problem if they wish to upgrade to Apple's latest OS when the time comes. If the new OS does indeed break compatibility and support is stopped for CS6, users will then be forced to either hold off upgrading their OS or reluctantly sign up to Adobes subscription model to bridge the gap. Thereby losing Affinity potential customers as by the time Publisher is launched they may indeed come round to being ok with using Adobe CC via subscription and not purchase Affinity Publisher at all.
 
If Publisher is launched before (probably not possible) or at least around the time of the new OS then this decision won't be so much of a headache and Serif/Affinity should make themselves available to many new customers. By delaying I think they're practically pushing potential customers back to Adobe.
 
I know developing is a very dynamic process and things move quickly at times but I think it bears thinking about somewhat. This is just my opinion obviously, what do you guys think?

Howdy,
 
I was disappointed to read a while back that Publisher has taken a back seat to allow for iOS development on the iPad Pro. (Correct me if I'm wrong on that I did read it a while back.)
 
With Photo and Designer coming along nicely I was hoping to be able to completely leave Adobe behind when Publisher launched as I believe are many other people.
 
Looking from the outside of the development of the Affinity Suite I think the delay might be a bad idea and focus should return to getting Publisher out the door first.
 
Many designers are stuck at a point of transition. Some have embraced the subscription model from Adobe, others have reluctantly accepted it and many flat out refuse to be held to ransom.
 
With CS6 being the last supported version of Adobes software on Apples latest operating system and Apple's change in release pattern to annual releases there is a strong possibility come October when the next OS is potentially released that it will break what compatibility CS6 still has with OSX. Indeed El Capitan itself caused us to have to download legacy Java software to keep running Illustrator CS6. I fear the next OS will break it entirely.
 
For those people that refuse to switch to Adobes subscription model and are waiting for Publisher to be able to completely leave Adobe, or those that are on the fence, and I believe there are quite a few, this will cause a problem if they wish to upgrade to Apple's latest OS when the time comes. If the new OS does indeed break compatibility and support is stopped for CS6, users will then be forced to either hold off upgrading their OS or reluctantly sign up to Adobes subscription model to bridge the gap. Thereby losing Affinity potential customers as by the time Publisher is launched they may indeed come round to being ok with using Adobe CC via subscription and not purchase Affinity Publisher at all.
 
If Publisher is launched before (probably not possible) or at least around the time of the new OS then this decision won't be so much of a headache and Serif/Affinity should make themselves available to many new customers. By delaying I think they're practically pushing potential customers back to Adobe.
 
I know developing is a very dynamic process and things move quickly at times but I think it bears thinking about somewhat. This is just my opinion obviously, what do you guys think?

I think I may of found a quick way of doing it. Not completely satisfied it will work every time though but I tried it on a few different tints.
 
Basically open the file and then click each of the four 'Auto' buttons at the top but in reverse order. So 'Auto Whitebalance' first, then auto colours, then contrast then levels. If you sample the white background after doing this it shows a CMYK value of 0,0,0,0.

There are a few ways to do this. The easiest way in my opinion is to select the area you want then click 'layer mask' then go to Export and save as a TIFF. Unfortunately Affinity still shows the preview with a black background which can be confusing but if you import it into another app it does work and the background disappears.
 
This was logged as a bug a while back by myself and a few others I think, while the process now works the icon preview still shows up wrong.
 
Give it a shot.
 
I've attached a little video and a screenshot of the icon with black background. I've also attached a screenshot of the image in InDesign showing its transparency over a red box.
alphamask.mov

You don't need a mouse no. It may be easier with some tasks but as you point out your MacBook doesn't have a mouse. It wouldn't make sense for Affinity to make software that can only be used with a mouse. You can use a graphics tablet too which again can make things easier or harder depending on what you're doing. Its whatever you are used to, the inputs are almost irrelevant as that comes more down to the operating system so as long as they can reproduce the commands required for basic pointing and clicking. You'll be fine.
 
As for which mouse, you can use pretty much any. Even a cheap £5 Microsoft crappy plastic one :)

Yeh it again distorts the gap between the rails. You have to allow for the outer curve being wider than the inner curve. It sounds simple to achieve but its actually quite complicated, especially when you are rubbish at maths like me haha. I done it by eye and its looking better than before. Just finishing up the rest of it and i'll post a finished switch to end the thread. Im sure theres a better mathematical way but I've just done it freehand  :wacko:

While I agree on many of your points I don't think only having 3 apps will hold back Serif or the Affinity brand. As long as the three are capable of creating vector (Designer) and bitmap (Photo) images and producing layouts and press ready PDFs (Publisher) then the suite is essentially complete and will allow many to jump into the Affinity world without much trouble.
 
At the moment we can create graphics and edit photos with Affinity but we are unable to create anything to put them to use. i.e. a multipage document/brochure or webpage. We still require Adobe for that.
 
Creating Designer/Photo for iPad will still bring us to the point where we are unable to do anything with the files we create until Publisher is released. We might make a poster, or stationery set and fire off a PDF to the printer but without a real publishing platform from Affinity we will still have to rely on Adobe for those kind of things. 90% of my work is done in InDesign. I create in Photo and Designer but have to use InDesign to bring those elements together. It will be the same on any platform until Publisher is released.
 
This is not a criticism of Serif or the Affinity team by any means, they are doing an absolutely fantastic job and I'm with them all the way but I just feel that getting the publishing app out there to close the circle first, so to speak, and then focus on expanding that circle.

Go to Applications > Adobe Photoshop CS'X' > Presets > Colorbooks and copy the books you want to desktop (so you don't spanner up the originals).
 
Go here.
 
http://www.dctsystems.co.uk/Software/ACB.html
 
Download the app.
 
Go to File > Open and select the files. Apple Colour picker will pop up and show Pantone colours are now in Apple Colour picker. Restart Affinity Apps if they are running then the Pantone swatches (or whatever you chose) will appear in Affinity Apps. Not sure what will happen once Serif guys actually include Pantone files but I can't see it being too much of an issue.
 
You can now trash the .acb files on the desktop.

I had to read that a few times. No wonder I couldn't figure it out. Thats a bit convoluted to say the least  :mellow: Theres far too many extra steps that simply aren't required. One would think you select an object, click the eyedropper (needs a shortcut) which brings up the Loupe as your 'cursor', place it where you want and click to set the colour of the selected object. Depending on whether stroke or fill is active it will change the colour respectfully. Much more refined and intuitive is it not?  :wacko:
 
You guys are doing aigret job, don't get me wrong but that one is a little 'wonky'  ;)

I had to read that a few times. No wonder I couldn't figure it out. Thats a bit convoluted to say the least  :mellow: Theres far too many extra steps that simply aren't required. One would think you select an object, click the eyedropper (needs a shortcut) which brings up the Loupe as your 'cursor', place it where you want and click to set the colour of the selected object. Depending on whether stroke or fill is active it will change the colour respectfully. Much more refined and intuitive is it not?  :wacko:
 
You guys are doing aigret job, don't get me wrong but that one is a little 'wonky'  ;)

I prefer the old icons.
 
However, my style is based very much around minimalism and its strengths, but I see a lot of poorly designed minimal icons as people try to keep up with the latest design trends etc. just for the sake of it but don't fully understand or follow through with the concept.
 
Affinity's new icons are not poor I just think they need tweaking. I would drop the gradients or reduce them so they are only barely noticeable. They are far too prominent and make the icons look very 'cheap'. Its like saying 'heres a symbol, its very simple, it works great in black and white and is memorable and relevant but lets whack a drop shadow and rainbow colours in it just so its looks like we've actually done something' which simply destroys the initial aim of having a more simplistic logo.
 
I get clients ask 'is that it?' when I present them with logos sometimes purely because they don't understand the concept. When you explain it and follow through with it they end up happier as they understand what they are looking at and can see it working.
 
A great logo is achieved when it conveys everything it needs to without any extraneous pieces. Its like a sculpture. Start with a block of marble and chip away everything thats not needed to unveil the masterpiece.
 
The gradients are not needed and on top of that are too strong and make the logos look a bit tacky.

I had to read that a few times. No wonder I couldn't figure it out. Thats a bit convoluted to say the least  :mellow: Theres far too many extra steps that simply aren't required. One would think you select an object, click the eyedropper (needs a shortcut) which brings up the Loupe as your 'cursor', place it where you want and click to set the colour of the selected object. Depending on whether stroke or fill is active it will change the colour respectfully. Much more refined and intuitive is it not?  :wacko:
 
You guys are doing aigret job, don't get me wrong but that one is a little 'wonky'  ;)

I had to read that a few times. No wonder I couldn't figure it out. Thats a bit convoluted to say the least  :mellow: Theres far too many extra steps that simply aren't required. One would think you select an object, click the eyedropper (needs a shortcut) which brings up the Loupe as your 'cursor', place it where you want and click to set the colour of the selected object. Depending on whether stroke or fill is active it will change the colour respectfully. Much more refined and intuitive is it not?  :wacko:
 
You guys are doing aigret job, don't get me wrong but that one is a little 'wonky'  ;)

I prefer the old icons.
 
However, my style is based very much around minimalism and its strengths, but I see a lot of poorly designed minimal icons as people try to keep up with the latest design trends etc. just for the sake of it but don't fully understand or follow through with the concept.
 
Affinity's new icons are not poor I just think they need tweaking. I would drop the gradients or reduce them so they are only barely noticeable. They are far too prominent and make the icons look very 'cheap'. Its like saying 'heres a symbol, its very simple, it works great in black and white and is memorable and relevant but lets whack a drop shadow and rainbow colours in it just so its looks like we've actually done something' which simply destroys the initial aim of having a more simplistic logo.
 
I get clients ask 'is that it?' when I present them with logos sometimes purely because they don't understand the concept. When you explain it and follow through with it they end up happier as they understand what they are looking at and can see it working.
 
A great logo is achieved when it conveys everything it needs to without any extraneous pieces. Its like a sculpture. Start with a block of marble and chip away everything thats not needed to unveil the masterpiece.
 
The gradients are not needed and on top of that are too strong and make the logos look a bit tacky.

I prefer the old icons.
 
However, my style is based very much around minimalism and its strengths, but I see a lot of poorly designed minimal icons as people try to keep up with the latest design trends etc. just for the sake of it but don't fully understand or follow through with the concept.
 
Affinity's new icons are not poor I just think they need tweaking. I would drop the gradients or reduce them so they are only barely noticeable. They are far too prominent and make the icons look very 'cheap'. Its like saying 'heres a symbol, its very simple, it works great in black and white and is memorable and relevant but lets whack a drop shadow and rainbow colours in it just so its looks like we've actually done something' which simply destroys the initial aim of having a more simplistic logo.
 
I get clients ask 'is that it?' when I present them with logos sometimes purely because they don't understand the concept. When you explain it and follow through with it they end up happier as they understand what they are looking at and can see it working.
 
A great logo is achieved when it conveys everything it needs to without any extraneous pieces. Its like a sculpture. Start with a block of marble and chip away everything thats not needed to unveil the masterpiece.
 
The gradients are not needed and on top of that are too strong and make the logos look a bit tacky.

Designer for vector. Photo for raster. Publisher to bring them together. Simple.

Designer for vector. Photo for raster. Publisher to bring them together. Simple.

HI,
 
Like myself, most Freehand users are still running very old copies of Freehand on some very old Apple Macs… and still earning a living.
It's not because of some stick-in-the-mud attitude to change, but simply because it's still a superior tool in comparison to AI.
I personally have been hanging on for something more intuitive than AI to come along for over 10 years - I think this is probably the best I've seen yet. After using the Beta for a few hours I'm about to start my next project using it and see how far I get.
 
Most FH users started with Freehand back in the 80s/90s at agencies across the globe.
They're now a hugely experienced, influential bunch as this now famous thread will attest: http://www.creativereview.co.uk/back-issues/creative-review/2009/march-20091/freehand-anonymous
It would be more than worth your while engaging with them.
 
We don't necessarily want a Freehand "Clone" but some familiar features and workflow would help ease the transition - and it wouldn't take much to ease the transition as Adobe have now almost pulled the shutter down on all Macromedia products.
 
The Freehand requests seem to be all over the shop and perhaps a specific area on the Forum where we can place them all would be an idea. It would also help cultivate a FH community that you can engage with.
 
S
 
 

I'd love to see Freehand's 'Reflect' tool integrated into Affinity Designer. Much more intuitive and powerful than Ai's lame attempt. With Ai you have to work out the maths in your head and type in the numbers to get what you want. In Freehand you simply selected how many reflections you wanted then dragged the tool. Instant live preview. Let go off the mouse and boom. Done. Very simple, but very powerful.

Designer for vector. Photo for raster. Publisher to bring them together. Simple.

Designer for vector. Photo for raster. Publisher to bring them together. Simple.