AITCH

If I'd known this I'd never have bought the suite. New versions are updates of older one's or am I missing something here?
Can't say I'm impressed with Serif and the prospect at having to pay again, it's not going to go down well with many users in the current climate.
I keep saying this too but there's not even a trace action in Affinity Designer which is bog standard in Illustrator and Corel Draw.
 
For me personally 'Another pay, I'm away' 😔
 

This is a forum that I enjoy due to the discussion of art, which doesn't need arguments, flame wars and the general negativity of the internet at large.  Let's keep things about design and art and the support of each other in said endeavors

Hello you two 😀, please read the guidelines for posting on this forum.
In the Briefly section at the top most, rule 3;
https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/guidelines/

This Thread might already be seen as "controversial enough" since there is discussions on how the competition is moving and how it might affect the Serif Team, the Affinity Suite customers and  the development of other software developers along their respective customers.

*Edit ; Just writing as a concerned forum user and customer who wants to keep the current good level of freedom in regards on what we can discuss.

Some arguments seem to be reaching kind of an aggressive and disrespectful level.
CLC, we don’t have a socialist government, and if it interests you, I have not voted for the party which is now in power in my country. So I don’t see which is the point that you are trying to make with what you have said.
So,...... you are suggesting that our country and others (if it would be the case), should (ought to) support businesses from a firm (Adobe) of a foreign country? Interesting way or thinking. I bought Affinity when it was half its price plus 35 %, still less than its usual price.
Anyway, some of us are way out of what this forum is for. So this will be my last intervention regarding this topic, no matter what. And I apologize to everybody for allowing myself to be driven by some comments that I read throughout this thread and that shocked me a bit

The Integration of the store bought items seems familiar with the integration within the beta versions from the Affinity Suite.
Other Features like the previewed cloud stuff is in my opinion a privacy scandal awaiting directly around the corner.
Some paid single solving programs which allowed sky replacements or  AI/Neural Network based skin repair tools are mostly obsolete now for photoshop users.
its getting interesting now and I am eagerly awaiting what all the non-Adobe developers are going to make and what cool stuff Serif is brewing up.

 

Nope, you are not alone, as a leftover from that era I can still "draw" the run of my layout in pencil, one cicero type on an english leading with a columbian exchange header and woe betide you forgot an undercut or caused a widow or an orphan.
The past is a different planet we do things differently there.

Well, if you use the software for living, it's a crap argument. If you're a carpenter, you will also buy a premium hammer instead of a cheap one, it will last longer, will do better job for you. The quality of the tools simply speaks for itself. Actually - one single job you do with the Adobe Suite will easily pay the whole year of subscription (if you know how to sell your work and pick a proper project that will bright you profit, this is a major difference between professionals and amateurs,) and the rest of the year you're in positive numbers.
Also - when you go to the holidays etc., you can always pause/cancel your subscription and pay when you get back to work. You don't have to pay when you don't use the software. Also, constant upgrades (feature and bugfix wise) are so fast and common it's not stopping you from doing your work without constant necessity to use of dozens of workarounds to get even a simple job done...
 
+
Indeed, indeed...
 
Sadly, the fact is that Serif sells thousands of copies of software that only few percents of buyers actually use. That is the sad truth, I'm speaking from experience here.
It's so cheap they can give up/sacrifice the amount and forget all about the purchase. They might even be waiting for the update that will addres their issues, silently, since not everyone wants to be vocal or part of the forums/community.
 
Truth. Sadly, Affinity doesn't develop much. At least we're getting basic features like Select by... for Designer, a feature that should have been in version 1.0.
Or PDF passthrough. What professional can work or be without it? And now that we have it, it still doesn't display correctly, so it's not WYSIWYG at all. Wicked!
You will love the new neural filters of Photoshop if you try to use them, especially if you're into old photo restorations, colorization and so on.
 
This is sadly not truth. Affinity isn't aimed to creative professionals, despite its aspiration. You sadly cannot rely on it, you have to constantly check every output multiple times, on each export, since there are weird glitches. Also, to this day, we don't have usable Boolean operations. After 6 years... Stuff like default greyscale swatches being actually RGB and dozens of other quirks... Ie, the batch conversion to this day doesn't support drag and drop. You have to select files manually from an system open dialog. Time is money, you know.
The only advantage is its ability to work with CMYK natively. However, you cannot disable colour profiles, so the colours get converted anyway. Wicked.
No support for 1bit images in Photo. Screen printing is a profession. Serif ignores this niche of graphic design completely.
Global layers - an industry standard. Even Corel Draw supports them. Affinity decide to rename Objects to layers for its own convenience, and honestly, layer/object management in Affinity is pure hell thanks to this omission. You have to micro-manage the whole design work you're up to, instead of focusing on the design itself. After few hours of designing, you find yourself managing layers because it's nearly impossible to find stuff in the object/layer hierarchy.
And don't let me started on layers vs. Layers (yes, Affinnity does have 2 types of layers, one without and one with capitalized L). Confusing? They say it's by design...
Vector brushes? They're pure bitmaps. Why are they confusingly named Vector Brushes? Crazy...
Designer - why we still can't see the content of the bleed area when using multiple artboarts? It's part of the design and omitting it from display is just an ignorant approach.
 
Affinity = 6 years, indeed. But Serif = nearly 30 years in the market. They should have some sort of insight already about what features are necessary, what can be omitted and how to build the roadmap.
The only difference is that Affinity was conceived as a Mac product, and addition of Windows support (obviously due to the marketing dept. that seems to have major role in what we're discussing here is the main deciding factor in Serif offices, not designer or coders). This is what started to slow the development down. Next hit was the iOS versions. It must be hell to maintain all this, and I'm not even talking about adding new features. Programmers must in my opinion be quite demotivated over there.
Even a single-man operation can make a good progress when there is a will and power to change things. Look at VectorStyler. They haven't released v 1.0 but they do have my money guaranteed already.
 
This is nonsense. Every professional uses tools that make their lives easier, whenever they can. Otherwise we would still be doing our work the old way, we wouldn't use CTP, but be stuck with CTF. Hell, we would be using old Printing Presses, Manual Typesetting etc. Setting up a single book would take years. Or we would maybe be Scribers, manually rewriting copies of the books...
 
Maybe for presentation purposes, however the tools are usable however one wants. Replace Sky ie., Neural Colorization... What features are you talking about, could you explain, please?
Overall, it's a pain working with Affinity. Faulty UX, weird UI (try to use keyboard to switch the input fields ie.), weird glitches all over the whole suite, often faulty output, weird crashes and lack of basic functionality makes it hard for any professional to use Affinity.
On the other hand: I'm loving Photo's inpainting tool. It's way better than Adobe's implementation and it's the last and single reason why I'm still using Affinity for some light retouching. Some filters are also quite nice. I'm not hating Affinity. I'm sad and disappointed how it didn't evolve after the years.
Bought Designer back in 2014/2015 from the App Store, later bought each single app for both platforms when the apps got released, just to support Serif reaching their goal. I'm using Adobe Suite again since I can't afford to test the software and pull my hair off all the time. Every new version introduces new bugs, plenty of bugs remain unfixed for years, version after version.
I'm losing hope, that's all.

Pains me to say but Photoshop 2021 beta is amazing, I hope the  Serif team that develop Affinity Photo take notice.......they need to.
And is there ever going to be an image trace action for Affinity Designer? I keep having to use Corel or Illustrator which is annoying lol

Regards 

Pains me to say but Photoshop 2021 beta is amazing, I hope the  Serif team that develop Affinity Photo take notice.......they need to.
And is there ever going to be an image trace action for Affinity Designer? I keep having to use Corel or Illustrator which is annoying lol

Regards 

The Affinity Suite is astonishingly good for a 1.8 version, and does most of what the Adobe trio (Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign) does for graphic designers.
Thus far, the opportunity that Serif have been able to exploit is the distasteful subscription policy imposed by Adobe, and the fact that Adobe is rather late in coming to iPad (though Adobe now has versions of Photoshop and Illustrator for iPad).
If it weren't for the subscription only business model from Adobe, Serif wouldn't be in business. The Adobe Suite is more polished and mature, and is more extensive. It also has the advantage of being an "industry standard" and benefiting from a kind of network effect.
Serif need to maintain feature parity with AI, PSD, and INDD, or (even better) exceed the features of AI, PSD, and INDD, and maintain an attractive one-time perpetual license fee.
If either Adobe were to offer their suite for a fixed fee, or Serif were to convert to a subscription model, Adobe would win hands down.
Still rooting for Serif and the Affinity Suite, but they are really facing an uphill battle.
 

I clung onto Photoshop 7 like my life depended on it, “they" - whoever “they” may be, had to pry it from my vice-like hands. After the funeral, I was in therapy for weeks, even now I have flashbacks to the lean mean glory days of old’obe… cue the song… "when I was young, never needed anyone, when photoshopping was for fun, those days are gone” {funky drums solo} “All by myself, don’t wanna be, all by myself anymore…"
R.I.P little buddy.

Simply because I am so familiar with photoshop and have not been able to muster the resilience and the resistence to this impatient nature of mine of having to re-learn a piece of photographic software  after having used Photoshop for over 13 years.  I fear my own stress levels at wanting to do something I am so familiar with on Adobe.  HOWEVER, I am actually tired of having to edit in adobe on my mac, take it to windows, see a change, take it back into apple, re-save and re-do, take it back into windows, etc.  So yes, I am very close to getting the full suite of affinity but need a push., lots of coffee,  a soft sponge brick to throw at affinity photo for the first two weeks (an apology will always follow), and a room with sound proofing so that my wife doesn't hear the naughty words ..........😀

Though that would only be a valid comparison, if you'd still work with the very first, even better with the beta release of an Affinity app. Because CS3 was released in 2007. Since you said, you'd use Affinity "more and more": the latest version of Affinity apps still can't completely replace 13+ years old programs for your? Or why do you still keep CS3 on one of your systems? Anyways, I agree with @Raymondo. In almost all sectors of the creative business, there are deadlines. Most of the time very tight ones, too. "Time is money" as they say—and this couldn't me more true in this case.
Yes, you can do a lot of things and daily works with Affinity's apps in almost the same time as with other products. But there are still a plethora of things which take multiple times longer to finish on Affinity apps with all its missing established basics and standards in UI/UX and in the design industry. Just search for "workarounds" in these fora and you might see the whole picture. And as said, "Time is money."—at least in a professional environment.
I agree with you, Chris, because I also think, most have the wrong idea about Affinity's apps. I personally still don't see Affinity's apps as direct competitors to Adobe's. Affinity's market isn't the same, it's just covering a fraction of Adobe's market. Affinity's apps are great for private use, for small businesses and freelance work, which isn't too time-sensitive. As soon as you have to work in a bigger professional design workflow, you can't bypass Adobe. And I highly doubt that this will change within the next years, if ever. Affinity apps have their market, their price makes it possible. They are not meant to me a 100% replacement for Adobe's Photoshop/Illustrator/InDesign.

Chris26, in the professional market time is money. I’m not sure I would totally agree that the same quality would be achieved in both AP and Photoshop which has a more creative arsenal at it’s disposal and depends on what you are trying to achieve. As a creative designer and compositor of images for a good many years, there are effects and options etc in Photoshop which AP simply cannot match at the moment. Weather both could achieve the same result would entirely depend on what you are trying to achieve as an end product. 
I think if I said to clients or agencies when I’m freelancing, “I don’t care how long it will take me to give you your artwork”, I’ll finish when I finish, I think I would be shown the door as most artwork commissions I’ve ever worked on has had a deadline. Anyway, I’m sure we could disagree all day but there it is.

Yes that’s very true but if I cast my mind back to 2014 when Serif launched AP and AD, the software was aimed fairly and squarely at the “Professional market”. That said, the software was launched into an already established professional market which is always a hard task. Because of this fact, in order to attract professionals in creative agencies/creative design houses away from their favoured workplace structure, you have to offer something which will equal or better what they are using to entice them away. At the moment, AP after 6 years still hasn’t progressed enough to catch up with Photoshop. 
I have always said Serif set their price structure too low and I think this has had a unintended negative effect in attracting professionals. If something is too cheap to be true etc etc is something that has possibly retarded uptake of the software by the professional market. At least that is how it looks to me as I don’t know many agencies/design houses or printers that have adopted AP. If I’m completely wrong I would be happy to eat humble pie. If sales are increasing healthily then so should the workforce in order to cope with development which I’m not convinced is the case. Maybe there is a shortage of talented developers, I don’t know.
I’m not saying no professionals are switching, that would be untrue but I think it will be a harder task with Adobe having forged ahead by a big margin. This all sounds so negative but that’s because I genuinely want Serif to do well in the professional marketplace but it’s a bit like standing in a football ground watching your team being out played..very frustrating.

Not many people can afford a ferrari and neither can it go any faster than a fiat 500 on major roads.  My point being that if you give a project to a whizz kid on adobe and the same project to a whizz kid on Affinity, they could both Achieve EXACTLY the same product in EXACTLY the same quality albeit the adobe guy might finnish FIRST, but who cares when both the ferrari and the fiat 500 can take you to EXACTLY the same destination.🙂

Gotta agree, just been watching Utube video’s over the last few days of the Adobe Photoshop update. It’s obvious to me Adobe have been rattled by Affinity and decided to fight back by this substantial update..and what an update it is. I have been a backer of Affinity and have all three in the suite and I will continue to back them but it certainly has left Affinity in the dust and, to be honest, Affinity Photo is beginning to look quite basic. Adobe seem to have jumped into their Ferrari while Affinity are chugging along in the slow lane in their little fiat 500. 
 
Like AITCH above I do hope Serif sit up and take notice that they are going to have to up their anti if they are going to draw professionals away from Adobe. Bug fix after bug fix is all very well and of course necessary to stabilise the software but we are not seeing much progress elsewhere. I have said before that it’s appreciated that Affinity are much smaller than Adobe but if you’re going to jump into a lake, you need to make sure you can swim.
Sorry Serif, despite my comments, I am on your side...really! I just wish you would find a way to quicken the pace of development. There must be plenty of developers out there..or maybe there isn’t. 

Sweet!

Updated version 

Updated version 

I rarely use Designer, it's nearly always Photo I use but I thought I'd have a crack doing a logo in Designer. 

I like everything but I thank the translucent part on the left needs a little refining. I like the right side so maybe that translucent part isn't needed? Either way, its a cool logo.

I rarely use Designer, it's nearly always Photo I use but I thought I'd have a crack doing a logo in Designer. 

I rarely use Designer, it's nearly always Photo I use but I thought I'd have a crack doing a logo in Designer. 

Check your Preference you have it set to Preferences > User interface see the check box for Monochromatic Iconography