exurbanite7

OK. What gives? Will this, indeed, ever be part of an update or not. Any time soon? I've been tearing my hair out for months about this situation. I need to crop to dimensions, not ratios. And would like a method that is not rocket science or involved in 12 steps. I want so much to be really happy with this software and make glowing comments but I'm finding it difficult to use as a support tool for my graphic design work. Also, if I may make one more comment, I purchased the manual for Designer and I find it exceedingly unuseable and frustrating mostly because of the underdeveloped Index. I'm willing to assume that as an "old" graphic designer this all comes much easier to whippersnappers than to me. I don't mean to grouse loudly but, doggone it, I'm tired of struggling with this. I have the beta of publisher and my hopes are high but I finally had to subscribe to inDesign to be able to carry on with my work. It was a crushing blow for I have come to literally hate Adobe. I'm on your side but frustrated.

Has anyone tried to use black and white line art scans from a Canon Lide 600f scanner using Vuescan? I have been fighting for three days to get a simple piece of line artwork where I can drop out the white background and color the line. The only help I've been able to get from Vuescan is to go through the arduous task of changing each setting on the prescan settings until I find a combo that works. Have tried it in A-Photo as well but no luck there either. Any help would be appreciated.

I'm going to try to be succinct here as I'm seething with frustration and I don't want to unleash. I am a seventy year old (that was hard to spit out) artist and designer who has managed for the last several years to hang on to adobe indesign and photoshop, but being forced to relinquish my paid copy of both because I'm forced to upgrade to mac OS High Sierra. I am now trying my best to use Affinity-designer and Affinity-photo. I think they are great programs and I could not wait to get them. (Mostly antsy to get the beta of Affinity Publisher but will we have it by August 31?) I tried the beta versions of both and now have the software. Of course, I now must face losing access to the hundreds and hundreds of Adobe files I created over the last 15 years because I just can't take on another monthly expense. That's been hard enough to come to terms with. - I simply do not want to draw on a computer. - There is nothing wrong with it and I have certainly seen wonderful things, that wonderful artists and designers have created with the computer. I am a designer who wants to use his own handmade drawings on things and media created with my computer. What has happened is that I've smashed into a wall that I can't get beyond - in that I can't understand how to create in Affinity programs what was so easy to create in the programs which will now remain nameless. I want to know how to create black and white scans of line images that are transparent and can be coloured, but I am drowning in directions and tutorials that are not answering the question. I can get the drawings scanned and create transparent backgrounds but can't find a way to color them once they are in AP or AD. If anyone can point me in the direction of some very clear instructions it would be greatly appreciated. Sorry to vent.

Hi "createsean", was happy to see that someone else was in the same boat as me. Well not that you were adrift but that I wasn't the only one. I'm having a difficult time trudging through the tutorials for both programs, but I'm trying to hold on. I have been a photoshop/inDesign user for many years and have been happy using them until greed popped up on the horizon. So disappointed to lose my access to years of design files. It still seems like being held at gunpoint but the industry overall seems to have given in not that they had much choice I guess. I'm semi-retired but need to maintain a design clientele for putting food on the table and all the other necessities. Funny how the Millenials get great bargains on Adobe products but the designers who helped put Adobe on the map have been kicked to the curb. Anyway I'm very thankful for the products that Serif has come up with and intend to champion their cause. If I could just get to a better understanding of how lt works. Will keep at it.

Thanks to all for the suggestions. The more I try to work with both programs, the more tutorials I read or watch, the more mired I get in confusion. I'm just not getting either program, much less how they interface. There seems to be nothing intuitive about the processes that gets through to my brain. I suppose the real problem is 25 years of using Adobe and having some misguided conception that the programs would be somewhat closer in process than they are. I was so hoping it would work out because I can't afford to use adobe any longer under their monthly fee sustem. I'm old and useless anyway, so time to accept my obsolescense. Time to hitch a ride on an ice flow if I can find one.

Yes. I'm a mac user. Wow, had no idea this would be so complicated. I'm sorry to say it, and it doesn't make me any less upset with Adobe, but editing a photo and dropping it into inDesign was so much easier. I think Serif is doing a great job and I'm rooting for them. Having used Adobe for many years the biggest upset is losing access to thousands of personal and client files. In semi-retirement, I just don't have enough money to pay them on a monthly basis. Was doing fine using OS 7.5/CS4 until I had to finally upgrade to High Sierra. Oh well, so what, old folks are expendable. Boo, hoo!

Thanks, everyone for all the suggestions. It certainly gives me some choices of action, so I'll ponder over all the info and see if I can come up with a solution. An old dog with some new tricks. A stitch in time saves nine.

Thanks. I stumbled through it with accidental success two times, but have lost the thread again. Somehow I just don't understand the sequence of events. I don't see the progression stated anywhere in all the tutorials I've tried. The mind is so used to photoshop perhaps I just can't get it. I'm giving up to go check my stock of razor blades. Thanks again for the try.

I've tried everything except, obviously the right process, to simply crop a photo in Affinity-Photo and place it in an Affinity Designer file. I've been over and over and over the tutorials and it makes no sense to me. I've used various versions of indesign and photoshop for twenty-five or more years. Maybe my brain is just glued shut. I want so much to learn both Affinity programs but it's just not going well. All of the videos just confuse me more and more. It seems like it should be such a simple thing to do. Just a case of "old dog, new tricks" what a disappointment.

I purchased Affinity Designer and have the Betas for the Photo Program. I'm impressed with both and now I begin the nail-biting wait for your layout/graphics sofware. I want you to rush, rush, rush, except that I know good things take time and a good product demands it. Not to put too fine a point on it - the the whole world is waiting for the complete alternative to you know who and what. Well maybe not the whole world but most of it anyway. I will be patient but it can't come too soon.