AllAppsUser

Yeah, no. I’ve just been contemplating the use of vector brushes for some artwork I’m making that needs to be output at different resolutions - including ‘huge’. Vector objects are resolution neutral - they’ll be crisp no matter what size you output them (you probably know this and I state it for all readers).
"Vector" brushes are a bit of a misnomer in my view. The path is a vector, but the brush effect is raster. This means they’re not resolution neutral and beggar-up the whole point of a vector illustration. If you’ve the one output size and can create a document to scale, it’s not an issue of course.
Vector brushes allow you to alter the path after drawing, where you’re committed with a raster brush. From that point of view they’re good.
However.. as you’re realising, you cannot then convert the raster element of a vector brush to outlines. Boy oh boy would that be useful eh. It’d need a trace engine built in and Serif have not done this (yet.. fingers crossed).
I’m currently contemplating whether to export the texture I’ve just created to put it through a trace app I’ve downloaded... or whether to just construct some "raster-vector brush" vector texture (keh!?) myself using the pencil tool ....or download some scribble vectors.... Think I’m going for the second option... just need to ponder the use the artwork will be put to.

Exactly my feelings. I'm backtracking on paying for version 2 at the moment. I'm out there conducting a serious review of the alternatives before I do so, and it shouldn't be like that.
I'd advise this company to develop a robust process for gathering 'professional workflow' knowledge (Forums are not it), and clarify really diligently who their target market is, or it's never going to reach the heights it set out to at the beginning. It's THE critical thing for their future right now (I've 10+ years experience helping big brands grow bigger, btw).
I'd love to know how sales of version 2 are doing, and whether they're on target with expectations. I'll be surprised if they are. They'll be blaming cost-of-living which will be wrong.
Here's how wide they are - I use ProCreate on the iPad for the quick n dirty photo work - cut-outs, basic adjustments, simple montages. Five minutes and I'm done. Affinity Photo comes nowhere near. And let's face it, quick n dirty photo work is the bulk of photo activity for design professionals who buy the full suite.

While I was nodding along to the UI frustrations, the big thing I see Serif seem incapable of grasping is colour, which manifests most obviously in the management of swatches.
During the apps early development - as soon as they added the utterly useless 'recent' colour feature, I knew they had no clue how important colour is to designers... Scenario that plays out again and again if you attempt to use it is: "ok, which of the last five shades of red sitting in the recent colour thingy is the red I actually used on that object? Errr, last one in the recent series, as in most recent?  Hope it's the most recent recent colour. Uh-ho, no. What now, there's 4 really similar shades of red!!!" Yeah, there's lots of other things to do to overcome it, but that lives in to my point that there is little point to the recent colour thing.
The colour features in the affinity apps always give the impression that, like so many in this world, they see colour as just a pretty, random, inconsequential thing designers and illustrators haphazardly muck about with, and they can't compute anything beyond that. When actually, colour is one of the most disciplined and important areas of designing anything.
It does not surprise me that you report @kal that version 2 appears to demonstrate minimal improvement in their understanding.

The behaviour of the app here is really irritating (to me).
It's not possible to use scribble (unless someone knows better) in the text frame itself.
Therefore, I don't understand the point of not being able to access the full keyboard when the pen has been involved in placing the text frame.
  The only method I've found that allows me to switch from the small keyboard UI to the full keyboard is this: With the text still selected and the Pencil UI showing Knock the app into the background (off screen) Then call it back to the foreground again (I've found this activates the full keyboard) Irritating to say the least.
If anyone else knows otherwise, I'll be happy to be corrected and discover there's a better way.
--------------------------
The Pencil is still a relatively new feature tbh, but at some point someone will understand that humans don't "only use the pen" vs "only use the full keyboard", but they switch from one ot the other and back again.
Serif are interfacing with iOS here, so I suspect the answer is: it is what it is until Apple move it forward.

I did understand that, and as I said, I didn’t mean to reply to your post or any of your earlier remarks. They make much sense to me and mirror my experience quite closely. 🙂
 
Yes, I wished *so dearly* that the developers would just take one, two or three weeks off, leave their planned schedule, and fix all those little things that add so much friction to the daily workflow. I provided an initial list earlier, but you could easily expand this list by reviewing what has been posted over the years on these forums. To repeat, these are really tiny annoyances, but they add up. The suggested solutions would non-disruptive and should be largely non-controversial, so I just hope that after bringing the suite to its full cross-platform extent, there will be some time for the developers to make improvements in this area.

Just for the record, as far as I am concerned, I’ve never said that I wanted a “Photoshop workflow” or something the like. I said I dearly wished that all the little annoyances that impede a true Affinity work-flow would finally be removed. I’ve been an Affinity user since the first version of Designer came out, and I can tell you, the annoyances I am talking about are not due to a lack of familiarising myself with “the way things are done in Affinity.” I think I can say that I know these tools from inside out, and I’ve completed countless projects with the apps over the last seven years. Nonetheless, it should still be possible to highlight aspects of the application that create needless friction, in particular, when they could be amended easily and are felt to be annoying by a great number of other users as well.
Just to repeat one of my examples, is there really a good reason for not making the buttons for the snapping options available in the toolbar of the Export Persona? In my workflow, I will regularly need specific snapping settings for slices that are different from my standard snapping settings for vector objects. Yet, I cannot change these options from the Export Persona toolbar, because snapping options are simply not available there. Don't tell me that the continued frustration I experience about this circumstance is due to a lack of familiarising myself with the Affinity way of doing things. 😉

Personally I don't view creative app usage as indoctrination. It's a tool to me, like a very good hammer. If I can do the job well with Affinity, if it serves my goals, then I use it. 
Theres been a lot of R&D and $$$ invested into Photoshop, and it's an excellent, industry-tested tool. I just don't like renting it. 

😂
Thank you Debra. It is quite traumatic to reach into your little bag of love hearts and find it empty.
But let us be consoled by what the Affinity forum administrators have allowed us… no limits on verbal diarrhoea!! 💩🎉 

As do many-many others. They're pursuing freedom with the same emotion you just expressed, Kal.
So of course it expresses itself in the forums as the mirage of a better life seems in danger of slipping away altogether.
While I'm in the camp that there's too much emotionally driven stuff happening in the world, I'm not inclined to discount the emotion of frustration in here. It could be the canary in the mine ultimately.
The understandable frustration is why these forums are described as a mess, which they are. Only the Stack Overflow model works as a useful resource IMHO. But Serif are a small business despite millions on their accounts, so they've not had the resource. The few who valiantly give their time in any great quantity helping others in these forums are very much to be admired.
A bit of give n take, slowness to take offence and a calm response to those who seem a bit off key, often because emotion is near the surface, and usually without intention, goes a long way.

If we could just leave this talk of “professional” versus “prosumer” versus “amateur” behind us, once and for all. — In the end, it is all about tasks that can be fulfilled with the help of a particular software and about the level of difficulty or ease of fulfilling these tasks. Also, and not to forget, about the way in which the design of a particular software can inspire us in doing our work. Tools can be inspiring, remember. What @debraspicher said earlier in this thread made a lot of sense to me. Forget about labels like “professional,” as they really do not tell anything in themselves. Rather talk about use cases and tasks. That will be more fruitful.
I’ll give you an example. When Affinity Publisher came out some years ago, I had hoped I could soon start using it for typesetting press-ready academic books with the application (my focus of work has changed to a different area since then). But without footnotes and an option to organise Publisher documents into books, that was unfeasible. In Version 2, we have a footnotes system as well as a book system now, and my first tests show that Publisher does handle large documents with footnotes quite well. Unfortunately, we still lack a robust cross-references system that would also be required for the intended task, at least for the kind of publications I have in mind. So I have to conclude that for the specific task of typesetting academic books with footnotes and cross-references, Affinity Publisher is still lacking an essential feature.
Such a description does not make use of the word “professional” or the like. It just describes requirements for fulfilling a task, and I think it does not really make much sense start a debate concerning the question whether a “professional” DTP application must be capable of being used for typesetting publications whose production would require a robust system of cross-references. Remember that housands upon thousands of books are printed and published each year that do not contain a single cross-reference. Ironically, a majority of academic books and publications are today produced by people who wouldn’t call themselves “professionals” in the area of typography or book design at all, for these books and publications are typeset by their authors themselves. The typical work environments of these authors are LaTeX or Microsoft Word. So when you take a look at the provided example, I think it should be sufficiently clear that using the word “professional” is highly uninformative in comparison to descriptions of tasks and task requirements. Please let’s leave this debate behind us, as it really doesn’t get us anywhere, does it?
In short, I found @Kal’s approach at the beginning of this thread very fruitful, and I hope this post may contribute to get back to the intention from which this thread was started. 🙂

😳
Holy disastrous dialogue derailment Batman! Does Affinity need a Meta forum for this kind of thing?
I'm the one who triggered this whole thing with my offensive use of the word 'pr*fessionals', so let me be the one to try and end it. Who cares what happened on other threads with other forum members? On this thread, I used the word, and when brought to task over it, I explained exactly what I meant by it. And I stand by that. Now, you're free to agree or disagree with the point I was making, but let's play the ball and not the man. Many have commented that our society has largely lost the skill of respectfully disagreeing with one another, and forums like this one seem to prove the point.
Now, to those who resent the very existence of this thread, because I dared to complain about software which only cost me A$159… In my original post, I said:
 
For those who are still offended, let me spell it out. It's not about the price. The price is great. So, you get what you pay for? Yes. So, that denies me the right to express any disappointment over this V2 release? No. I am disappointed because the software is clearly positioned as a competitor to Adobe's Creative Cloud software. As others have pointed out, Affinity uses the word 'pr*fessional' in their own marketing! Go take a look—it's the first effing word on their home page!! Oh but that's just marketing hyperbole right? We all know not to trust marketing, right? Well here's a thought… If you want to take someone to task over their use of the word 'pr*fessional', why don't you start with Affinity? If you think it's marketing bullsh*t, why not hold them accountable?! Why take it out on me when I simply come here to express my personal disappointment that the experience doesn't match the hype?
I've been pretty patient on this thread up 'till now (even when the first two comments tried to shut down the discussion before it even began). But the way some people make things personal (even getting precious and defensive on Affinity's behalf), is reminding me why I tend to avoid the Apple forums—so many precious Apple users who take unofficial residence outside the glass walls and guard their turf ferociously. I have better things to do with my time—and so do you I suspect.

My mistake @François R.  I thought it was odd. Thank you both, @walt.farrell too.

I would really appreciate it if we could just discuss the software here and no one had to discuss themselves, feel offended by the wishes of others, or be allergic to the term "professional". This forum is about software and not about the personality of individual users, not about belief and not about the bad guys versus the good guys (may it be users or companies, especially in relation to another software provider that starts with a capital "A").

Well, without doubt there are "professional needs". I understand this to mean, among other things, speed, reliability even on a very large scale, precision, and the ability to streamline and automate workflows. However, the existence of special professional needs does not diminish the needs of users who do not use the software for a living, but may be even the same in some parts. I don't know who said otherwise (I don't read or know each comment in this forum).
Professional or not says nothing about the quality of work that is done with the software nor the users themselves. So no need to feel personally attacked when the term "professional" is used.

Why not just ignore them who take themselves and their needs too seriously? I don't think Serif values their requirements more highly just because they call themselves professionals. I hardly think Serif actually keeps a list of user requests here from the forum. At least they have ignored most of them in the past years. It is still a big mystery what Serif plans to do with its suite and what suggestions and needs they will take into account. Therefore, it is completely irrelevant whether some users consider their needs to be more important than those of other users. JM2C.

No problem. 🙂 It is getting late. 🌛

François R was talking to Psenda there, not to you.
 
 

Indeed. Some in here could learn a lesson or several thousand from Walt. He is very balanced, actually listening, he asks curious questions to understand better and is actually a very helpful person.

When I use the word professional, it is a 100% reference to whether the product is used in a professional context where the creative uses the product in order to sell a product or the product as a part product, or where the product is used in a context where the product in its final form or as part of something larger is finally to be sold. Or used by professionals by authorities or organisations. In this context several other professionals and professional equipment are involved. Printers, print shops, web servers, other creative, whatever. What my product can do is not as relevant as that it works in the middle of a workflow. And in particular as an end product.
When you throw around the term professional tools in marketing, which Serif loves, you have to be aware that someone assumes this is what is meant by professional, because that is simply the reality for someone.
I am well aware that some need less than others. But it is so much their need and tolerance for the unfortunate many necessary workarounds that dominate this forum. Someone has to take the term professional seriously because Serif uses it non-stop.
When you even advertise that v2 "sets new standards", that it is "Professional photo editing, publishing, graphic design and illustration", that with v2 you are "breaking barriers," you have to expect feedback from the disappointed. And it has come.
Double disappointment for those Serif customers when they are confronted with nonsense from random people in here.

Exactly my feelings. I'm backtracking on paying for version 2 at the moment. I'm out there conducting a serious review of the alternatives before I do so, and it shouldn't be like that.
I'd advise this company to develop a robust process for gathering 'professional workflow' knowledge (Forums are not it), and clarify really diligently who their target market is, or it's never going to reach the heights it set out to at the beginning. It's THE critical thing for their future right now (I've 10+ years experience helping big brands grow bigger, btw).
I'd love to know how sales of version 2 are doing, and whether they're on target with expectations. I'll be surprised if they are. They'll be blaming cost-of-living which will be wrong.
Here's how wide they are - I use ProCreate on the iPad for the quick n dirty photo work - cut-outs, basic adjustments, simple montages. Five minutes and I'm done. Affinity Photo comes nowhere near. And let's face it, quick n dirty photo work is the bulk of photo activity for design professionals who buy the full suite.

While I was nodding along to the UI frustrations, the big thing I see Serif seem incapable of grasping is colour, which manifests most obviously in the management of swatches.
During the apps early development - as soon as they added the utterly useless 'recent' colour feature, I knew they had no clue how important colour is to designers... Scenario that plays out again and again if you attempt to use it is: "ok, which of the last five shades of red sitting in the recent colour thingy is the red I actually used on that object? Errr, last one in the recent series, as in most recent?  Hope it's the most recent recent colour. Uh-ho, no. What now, there's 4 really similar shades of red!!!" Yeah, there's lots of other things to do to overcome it, but that lives in to my point that there is little point to the recent colour thing.
The colour features in the affinity apps always give the impression that, like so many in this world, they see colour as just a pretty, random, inconsequential thing designers and illustrators haphazardly muck about with, and they can't compute anything beyond that. When actually, colour is one of the most disciplined and important areas of designing anything.
It does not surprise me that you report @kal that version 2 appears to demonstrate minimal improvement in their understanding.

V2 is just disheartening. It's like coming from the great, original Star Wars Theatrical, being sold tickets to Empire Strikes Back, and forced to watch A New Hope: Special Edition -- the vast bulk of features are a hodge-podge of stuff the maker wanted, neither understanding nor caring what the audience wanted -- while being 99% the original. Serif could also learn from the various Death Stars down through the ages, it doesn't matter how numerous or fancy the features, if it keeps blowing up.
It's not so much that V2 isn't an Adobe killer now, it's that at this rate, it's so amply clear that it will never even be a contender. There's just so much wasted potential and time, so much missed opportunity, I'll likely just go back to an old Photoshop when my V2 trial expires.
And don't get me started on those of us with the MSIX bug being forced to watch Star Wars: Holiday Special, Clockwork Orange style.

This is very sad but also very true. 
I really liked V1 and thought there was great potential, but V2 of Photo is such a let down.  There were so many basic things that needed tidying up in V1 but they have just been ignored for V2.  Seems to me that pretty much everything new is graphic based and of little use in photography work.  I've decided not to buy V2 and will stick with V1 altough these days I pretty much just use it from my old copy of lightroom for cloning and the inpainting brush.
I was really hoping V2 would have a new app to replace Lightroom.  Sadly not the case

Eww, no. I don't want that credit lol

I think it's more that it kept getting repeated in commentary so I started to think it was a question rather than a conversation. It was a decent conversation just to follow/lurk/scan-read. Thanks.

Hey @debraspicher. Yes, I beleive you're correct. Have to admit that for 'painterly' (raster-pixel) illustrations I use ProCreate.
Even with 'flat' or 'flatish' coloured (vector) illustrations, the recent colour list contributes nothing. It's of limited use case - as-in: only when the colours are distinct enough to be able to discern one from the other, and relate them.
I'd love to watch someone who uses the recent colours list a lot for coloured illustration work, to see how they get value out of it, btw.
It's perhaps the number and complexity of colours in the artwork that makes the recent colour list useless. It perhaps proves valuable in 'graphic' pieces, though even then I've found - because Serif don't really get colour - you think you're picking a swatch you last used from the recent colour list. You check the colour and find it's not. I'm not sure how many people trust that it is and don't realise it's not the colour they thought they were picking.