Trljr

This is a sweet deal. Thanks a lot! now i can buy the $400 of add in toys i wanted for $200. if you dont have these programs for sure worth the purchase even at full price. Hard to be a complainer when you could be buying the alternative for $600 per year subscription

I have just received your completely unnecessary email of 19 January "We’re here to help – use our apps free for 90 days" WHY I am a registered used of all three apps plus add ons. I do not need to be offered a 90  Day Free Trial, and 50% off all apps etc.
Unnecessary emails clog up email in boxes and will tend in the future to just dump email from affinity without reading them.
Someone in your marketing departments needs to be sacked.
Please put a stop on this type of email to existing customers.

Hi All,
When much of the world went into lockdown last year we put a few things in place to try to offer some support to the creative community. In the big scheme of things they were fairly small gestures I guess, but we were quite overwhelmed by the positive feedback we received about it.
In particular the 90-day trial of all our apps provided a big help for people who may have lost access to their normal tools through their work or university, and offering a deep 50% discount on our apps was also greatly appreciated.
We reverted back to our normal trial length and pricing as those initial restrictions eased and the situation felt like it was improving. However here in the UK we are back in full national lockdown and in many countries restrictions are tight and livelihoods continue being severely affected as we deal with the second wave of this virus. For that reason, we have decided to re-introduce both our 90-day trial and 50% discount on all our apps and digital content (unfortunately the relatively small margins we have on workbooks means we cannot offer the discount on those). We have also reset the 90-day trial so anyone who took advantage of it before can do so again.
The thoughts of all of us at Serif remain with everyone affected by this crisis and we wish you all the best.
Ash

All new features of Photoshop 2021 are not needed in the professional segment, because the professional is not paid for the movement of sliders. They are paid for precise work. All these new features for junior designer... Many professionals are still working in Photoshop CS6 2014
 
P.S. Algorithms work terrible, I never used them because after them you still need to fix everything

Click here to download the latest beta
Status: Customer Beta
Purpose: New features, performance, fixes
Requirements: A valid product key (for Affinity Store purchases), or an installation of the full retail version from the Microsoft Store

As this is a beta it is considered to be not suitable for production use. This means that you should not attempt to use it for commercial purposes or for any other activity that may be adversely affected by the application failing, including the total loss of any documents. We hope you enjoy the latest build, and as always, if you've got any problems, please don't hesitate to post a new thread in this forum and we'll get back to you as soon as we can. Thanks once again for your continued feedback. 

If you have a general question about the software, please head over to the Questions Forum, or if you have any suggestions, please head over to the Feature Requests forum.
Fixes
Fixed crash / hang at startup when OpenCL.dll is not installed 1.9.0.733 release notes

Status: Beta
Purpose: Updates and Fixes
Requirements: Purchased Affinity Publisher
Windows Store: Not submitted
Download: Download
Auto-update: Not available
Hi,
We are pleased to announce that Affinity Publisher Customer Beta 1.9.0.742 is now available as a download from the link above.
If this is your first time using a customer beta of an Affinity app, it’s worth noting that the beta will install as a separate app - alongside your store version. They will not interfere with each other at all and you can continue to use the store version for critical work without worry.
This beta is significant update from the 1.8 version available for purchase - we strongly recommend that you do not use this beta for real work as data could be lost and the files you save are not guaranteed to open in previous or future versions of Affinity Publisher.
---
New Features and Improvements
We are still very early in the beta process for 1.9. We have additional features we expect to integrate over the next few weeks.
PDF Bookmarks
Bookmarks provide a listing of flagged content that are present within a PDF document.
Bookmarks can be added via the Anchor Panel or automatically generated from a Table of Contents.
PDF Passthrough
It is now possible to flag placed PDF files for PDF passthrough. When such a file is encountered during PDF export it can be embedded verbatim in the output PDF ensuring 100% fidelity.
PSD flattened image representation
When placing a PSD we now use the flattened bitmap representation in the file rather than interpreting the file content ourselves. This will generally give better results on output.
Convert Pixel Layer to Image Node / Picture Frame
It is now possible to convert a Pixel Layer to an Image or Picture Frame plus content.
Initial Text Baseline Advance
Text frames now support an ‘Initial Advance’ property. This can be helpful to keep text aligned with other page elements and ensure predictable consistent layout.
Path Text
Additional controls now make it possible to avoid flowing text onto both sides of a curve. Additionally it is now possible to hide overflowing Path Text if desired.
Configurable Bleed and Margin Guide Colours
The colours used for Bleed and Margin guides are configurable by the user and saved with the document.
---
Known Issues with New Features
The following lists some of the more important known issues we currently have with new the features:
- PDF Passthrough: Crash exporting specific PDF - If you have crashes exporting we would love to hear about them
- PDF Passthrough: Preflight warns of passthrough pdf when it is set to interpret. Some preflight checks drill into PDFs flagged for passthrough and report spurious errors.
- Convert Pixel Layer to Image Node: Converted image resources can end up with no name
- Path Text: Path text overflows on wrong side, hiding overflow hides all text
---
To be notified about all future Windows beta updates, please follow this notification thread 
To be notified when this Publisher update comes out of beta and is fully released to all Publisher customers, please follow this thread

Nice to meet you @Trljr.
Welcome to the community.

My name is Tom. I have been a 20 year developer using mostly Adobe products in the past. I was out of the field for a few years and have returned recently discovering the Affinity product line as they have reignited my design passion. I am very grateful for the incredible tools provided as well as the top notch tech support for them. I can't wait to see what is next and am right now in deep study trying to learn the inner workings of the current Affinity Suite. I wish I had these same tools available in the past as they would have streamlined some involved past projects. These belong in everyone's graphic toolbox, even if you work with other tools as they are very reasonable and very good at what they do. From what I have seen already, Serif really cares and will give you the best they can. Thanks so much. Worth easily multiples of the purchase price, yet so affordable and reachable for anyone. 

We are pleased to announce an update for the Windows release of Affinity Photo, version 1.8.4
Changes in this build
The changes in Affinity Photo for Windows 1.8.4 (over the last release Affinity Photo for Windows 1.8.3) are as follows:
Fixes & Improvements:
X3F: Fixed uninitialised crop areas in release builds  X3F: Fixed non-sequenced reads from files (was preventing any X3F file from being loaded in CL release builds)  X3F: Apply Black and White in Develop Persona when the Monochrome flag is set Fixed redo always being a step behind in Develop Persona Fixed import of PSD files with extended blend modes Fixed Hasselblad RAW files loading thumbnail preview only Fixed occasional crashes loading RAW files  Allow Saving a document with history to be in recorded macros Fixed crash when making some selections Fixed Voronoi reset not matching the default Changed mask thumbnails to use black, not transparent Improved LAB defaults for selective channels in the document view Fixed OCIO transform being removed when the window is moved or minimised Fixed Character Panel's Decorations colour box displaying in RGB  Fixed Layer Effects Gradient Overlay sliders not working correctly Changed brush parameter shortcut from Alt+RightMouseButton to Ctrl+Alt (same as macOS) Fixed flickering brush preview with tablet input Fixed spurious lines being drawn with tablet input Fixed Alt+Drag colour picker getting stuck when using tablet input Fixed crash when failing to load an X3F file (some files will still fail to load, but won't crash) Fixed gradients not changing when Global Colour is modified  Improved support for Canon EOS-1D X Mark III colour data.  [Installer] Prevent installation into non-empty directory Added EOS 1D-X Mark III to list of known CR3 cameras  Fixed Flood Selection Tool is offset with 'All layers' enabled Stopped Image quality dropping after exiting an edited Equirectangular image Minor CR3 tweaks Fixed CR3 from a Canon EOS-R opening with a purple haze Fixed Develop Persona Red Eye Removal Tool crash Improved support for X3F files Removed units from the Crop Tool ratio option Fixed rotating a raw file in Develop Persona darkens it  Fixed adding guides in Develop Persona darkening image Removed "Windows Ink" option, and replaced with high precision WinTab support Fixed AI import incorrectly identifying as EPS when it was actually a PDF with extra data at the front Fixed PDF import for documents with extra data at the front Fixed PDF export for some Asian fonts that support many glyphs Fixed Layers panel dropping of items of right of thumbnail in expanded parents Fixed right-click context menu to disable Merge Down when attempting to merge a Pixel Layer into a shape Fixed PDF import crash due to infinitely searching for fonts Fixed HSL ring displaying incorrectly when returning to the adjustment  Fixed being unable to drag afassets into the app  Changed PDFs to open as restricted if we don't have permission to edit, copy or print them Fixed PDF export accidentally outputting all RGB images at 16-bit. Fixed RAW files appearing too dark Fixed High Pass filter for LAB colour Fixed Detect Edges after developing a RAW file in 32 bit Fixed NEF import from Nikon D90 rendering incorrectly Fixed CTRL+M with a node selected to not show the curves dialog. Fixed handling of ' XP ' EXIF data from Luminar 4 exported files  Fixed placement of RAW files to apply default settings Fixed Selection Brush Width not remembered if changed by Right mouse button + Alt modifier Fixed layer blend modes not scrolling with arrow keys  Improved performance of font loading (and tried to improve behaviour with font managers) Improved PDF export support for 16-bit and 32-bit images Fixed SVG import of elements with closepath not followed by move Fixed SVG export of curves with large bounds Fixed incorrect sheet colour in PSD export (following import) Fixed incorrectly enabled control on Text Style decorations Fixed click to select items with group crops Fixed locked layers being selectable via Marquee selection Fixed PDF import of certain unicode characters producing the wrong character Fixed SVG import to ignore spurious quote marks in "url('#identifier')" references Fixed SVG import to treat gradients with one stop as solid fills Fixed SVG import having wrong default for gradientUnits Fixed crash when importing an invalid SVG due to negative heights or widths Fixed hand cursor getting stuck after panning  Fixed crash when pressing V with Alignment flyout open Fixed font names always displaying their English names Fixed PDF export with embedded ICC profiles Fixed SVG import of booleans Fixed SVG import of documents with multiple <svg> elements Fixed fill aspect ratio for Radial and Conical to be maintained unless the correction handle is visible Fixed text edit handles to allow auto pan ability Fixed changing tool while the Align Panel is open (if the next tool supports the alignment options, it will remain open, else it will close) Fixed crash when dragging items in the Layers control Improved performance of PDF import Improved performance of text when rendering text Fixed vector export of text occasionally filling characters Fixed crash when closing floating document  Fixed New Document dialog previous document selection highlight not being remembered Fixed Procedural Texture rendering different to macOS applications Fixed Ctrl+M with nodes selected to not bring up the curves dialog  Fixed crash when docking a panel with the Brushes panel Fixed PNG export not displaying the size warning if the export dialog was previously closed with a different preset  Help and Localisation improvements. Earlier changes and fixes in 1.8 made since 1.7 (including the new 1.8 features) are listed in some detail in this 1.8.0 update announcement and  this 1.8.2 update announcement
 
UPDATING TO THIS VERSION (Free for existing customers)
The software version can be seen on the splash screen and the About dialog (in Help > About Affinity Photo).
If you’ve purchased from the Affinity Store— each time you start the Affinity Store software it will check for updates and offer any available update. The latest update will install over the top of any earlier version, with no need to uninstall. You can download the latest installer by logging into the affinity store here and find the order in your account and use the "Download" button in there. Alternatively, this new release (and previous versions of Affinity Photo for Windows) can be downloaded from this link. (that installer is NOT for Windows Store purchases and needs a product key).
If you’ve purchased from the Microsoft Store— Microsoft Store updates are done automatically by the operating system (each time you start the application). If this does not happen for you, open the Windows Store app and click the three dots in the top right corner of the app and then go to Downloads and Updates. Click Get Updates. This should hopefully force the update to show.

We are pleased to announce an update for the Windows release of Affinity Designer, version 1.8.4
Changes in this Build
The changes in Affinity Designer for Windows 1.8.4 (over the last release Affinity Designer for Windows 1.8.3) are as follows:
Fixes & Improvements:
Fixed import of PSD files with extended blend modes Fixed crash when making some selections Changed mask thumbnails to use black, not transparent Fixed OCIO transform being removed when the window is moved or minimised Fixed Character Panel's Decorations colour box displaying in RGB  Fixed Layer Effects Gradient Overlay sliders not working correctly Fixed flickering brush preview with tablet input Fixed spurious lines being drawn with tablet input Fixed Alt+Drag colour picker getting stuck when using tablet input Added user preference for whether to try to keep selections after deleting Fixed  expand stroke failure on strokes that use velocity as a controller  Fixed gradients not changing when Global Colour is modified [Installer] Prevent installation into non-empty directory Fixed setting artboard/spread origin from panel not accounting for artboard spread position Fixed various issues with guide positions and artboard origins Allow closing of curves for special case selection Removed "Windows Ink" option, and replaced with high precision WinTab support Fixed AI import incorrectly identifying as EPS when it was actually a PDF with extra data at the front Fixed PDF import for documents with extra data at the front Fixed PDF export for some Asian fonts that support many glyphs Fixed Layers panel dropping of items of right of thumbnail in expanded parents Fixed right-click context menu to disable Merge Down when attempting to merge a Pixel Layer into a shape Fixed PDF import crash due to infinitely searching for fonts Fixed HSL ring displaying incorrectly when returning to the adjustment  Fixed being unable to drag afassets into the app  Changed PDFs to open as restricted if we don't have permission to edit, copy or print them Fixed PDF export accidentally outputting all RGB images at 16-bit Fixed Guide positions to be displayed relative to current Artboard Fixed layer blend modes not scrolling with arrow keys  Improved performance of font loading (and tried to improve behaviour with font managers) Improved PDF export support for 16-bit and 32-bit images Fixed SVG import of elements with closepath not followed by move Fixed SVG export of curves with large bounds Fixed incorrect sheet colour in PSD export (following import) Fixed incorrectly enabled control on Text Style decorations Fixed click to select items with group crops Fixed locked layers being selectable via Marquee selection Fixed PDF import of certain unicode characters producing the wrong character Fixed SVG import to ignore spurious quote marks in "url('#identifier')" references Fixed SVG import to treat gradients with one stop as solid fills Fixed SVG import having wrong default for gradientUnits Fixed crash when importing an invalid SVG due to negative heights or widths Fixed hand cursor getting stuck after panning  Fixed crash when pressing V with Alignment flyout open Fixed font names always displaying their English names Fixed PDF export with embedded ICC profiles Fixed SVG import of booleans Fixed SVG import of documents with multiple <svg> elements Fixed fill aspect ratio for Radial and Conical to be maintained unless the correction handle is visible Fixed text edit handles to allow auto pan ability Fixed changing tool while the Align Panel is open (if the next tool supports the alignment options, it will remain open, else it will close) Fixed crash when dragging items in the Layers control Improved performance of PDF import Improved performance of text when rendering text Fixed vector export of text occasionally filling characters Fixed crash when closing floating document  PDF Import - Import now allows creation of Artistic Text if 'Group lines of Text into Text Frames' is switched off Fixed New Document dialog previous document selection highlight not being remembered Fixed Ctrl+M with nodes selected to not bring up the curves dialog  Fixed crash when docking a panel with the Brushes panel Fixed crash with Appearance panel after using Ctrl+Z on vector brush input  Fixed PNG export not displaying the size warning if the export dialog was previously closed with a different preset  Help and Localisation improvements. Earlier changes and fixes in 1.8 since 1.7 (including the new 1.8 features) are listed in some detail in this 1.8.0 update announcement and this 1.8.2 update announcement
 
UPDATING TO THIS VERSION (free for existing customers)
The software version can be seen on the splash screen and the About dialog (in Help > About Affinity Designer).
If you’ve purchased from the Affinity Store— each time you start the Affinity Store software it will check for updates and offer any available update. The latest update will install over the top of any earlier version, with no need to uninstall. You can download the latest installer by logging into the affinity store here and find the order in your account and use the "Download" button in there. Alternatively, this new release (and previous versions of Affinity Designer for Windows) can be downloaded from this link (that installer is NOT for Windows Store purchases and needs a product key).
If you’ve purchased from the Microsoft Store— Microsoft Store updates are done automatically by the operating system (each time you start the application). If this does not happen for you, open the Windows Store app and click the three dots in the top right corner of the app and then go to Downloads and Updates. Click Get Updates. This should hopefully force the update to show.

We are pleased to announce an update for the Windows release of Affinity Publisher, version 1.8.4
Changes in this build
The changes in Affinity Publisher for Windows 1.8.4 (over the last release Affinity Publisher for Windows 1.8.3) are as follows:
Fixes & Improvements:
General
[Installer] Prevent installation into non-empty directory Fixed recent regression when saving Linked Image placeholders which was causing large document files Recoloured K-only images with transparency lose their transparency Stability and Performance improvements Fix for zero-height / width objects moving to the wrong pages when switching to / from 'Facing Pages' Text > Interactive - Options mismatched with Context Menu  Can now import .afassets file via drag drop  Layer / Blend modes list fixed to scroll with arrow keys Linked afphoto file shows wrong DPI when modified Pan Tool cursor persisted after using <Space> / Pan Fix for stale preflight results persisting when Pages are removed Multi-spread
Allow immediate dragging of objects on other spreads Constraining while dragging objects between spreads now works correctly When dragging between spreads, snapping is now performed on the target spread candidates Dragging objects between spread using the Focal Point handle now works correctly Fixes for dragging curve nodes across multiple spreads Fixes for 'restart drag' when translating across spreads Fixed issue with auto-panning in the text tool Text
Improved performance of text when rendering text Avoid generating infinite filler text when leading is zero Further improvements for ideographic line breaks, mainly for quote-marks Allow OpenType kerning between glyphs with different settings (if they are the same font and size) Fixed 'Indent To Here' not working if lines are broken by drop cap or wrap shape Fixes for line-breaker around Fixed Spaces Index Find - match words with following punctuation Index Partial loss of parent topics when adding pages from file Fixed crash after editing text styles if changes caused pinned objects to move between spreads Option to preserve Text Frame width when changing Column Gutter in the context toolbar Double click multi-word selection could leave the original word not selected Fixed handling of local objects pinned to master page text when subsequently unpinned Improved line breaking for ideographic languages Chinese Font names now show in Chinese Character Panel - Font Category changes after changing font or deselecting object Import
IDML Import - Text frame corners are now scaled correctly IDML Import - Fixed instances where text wrap path could fail to import, or be scaled incorrectly IDML Import - Generic OpenType features not being imported from IDML file IDML Import - Effects settings not scaled correctly on master page items IDML Import - En-Space in numbered list imported as a 0 IDML Import - Elements could be positioned incorrectly in some instances IDML Import - Question mark in file path breaks link during the import IDML Import - Initial Words not scaling correctly IDML Import - Placed EPS files are slightly clipped IDML Import -  Better handling of master page items with overridden properties XLSX Import - Fixed hang with cells with gradient fills PDF import - Improved performance PDF Import - Improved handling when importing password restricted PDFs PDF Import - Import now allows creation of Artistic Text if 'Group lines of Text into Text Frames' is switched off PDF Import - Import now provides fallback if the used font doesn't define space PDF Import - Fixed text positioning which could be incorrect due to spaces being treated as tabs under certain conditions PDF Import - Fall through to alternative mappings when importing text, if necessary PDF Import - Better handling of restricted files SVG Import - 'ClosePath' doesn't have to be followed by a 'Move' SVG Import - Now treats gradients with one stop as solid fills SVG Import - Other fixes for specific files, including malformed files Export
Fixed vector export of text occasionally filling characters PDF Export - Better support for RGBA16 and RGBAUF images PDF Export - Export could fail for glyph ids that happen to match surrogate pair values PDF Export - Fixed issues exporting to PDF/X-4 with content with embedded profiles  SVG Export - Fixed source of numeric overflow causing curves to be exported incorrectly in some cases Earlier changes and fixes in 1.8 since 1.7 (including the new 1.8 features) are listed in some detail in this 1.8.0 update announcement and the 1.8.2 update announcement
 
UPDATING TO THIS VERSION (Free for existing customers)
The software version can be seen on the splash screen and the About dialog (in Help > About Affinity Publisher).
If you’ve purchased from the Affinity Store— each time you start the Affinity Store software it will check for updates and offer any available update. The latest update will install over the top of any earlier version, with no need to uninstall. You can download the latest installer by logging into the affinity store here and find the order in your account and use the "Download" button in there. Alternatively, this new release (and previous versions of Affinity Publisher for Windows) can be downloaded from this link (that installer is NOT for Windows Store purchases and needs a product key).
If you’ve purchased from the Microsoft Store— Microsoft Store updates are done automatically by the operating system (each time you start the application). If this does not happen for you, open the Windows Store app and click the three dots in the top right corner of the app and then go to Downloads and Updates. Click Get Updates. This should hopefully force the update to show.

Status: Beta
Purpose: Updates and Fixes
Requirements: Purchased Affinity Publisher
Windows Store: Not submitted
Download: Download
Auto-update: Available
Hi,
We are pleased to announce that Affinity Publisher Customer Beta 1.8.4.687 is now available as a download from the link above.
If this is your first time using a customer beta of an Affinity app, it’s worth noting that the beta will install as a separate app - alongside your store version. They will not interfere with each other at all and you can continue to use the store version for critical work without worry.
This beta is an incremental update to the 1.8.3 version recently released to all customers (though it installs parallel to the release). We recommend that you use this beta in preference to the store version if you are affected by any of the issues listed below.
---
Improvements and Fixes
- Stability and Performance improvements
Further fixes, made since the release of 1.8.3, are listed in earlier 1.8.4 betas
---
To be notified about all future Windows beta updates, please follow this notification thread 
To be notified when this Publisher update comes out of beta and is fully released to all Publisher customers, please follow this thread

Throw my name in the ring for a DAM product. I'd leave Adobe in a heartbeat.
Cheers!

Hi,
This has been asked for a number of times now. I'm pleased to say we've now implemented it and it will be in Photo 1.9 (beta will start in a few weeks).
Thanks,
Andy.

Status: Beta
Purpose: Updates and Fixes
Requirements: Purchased Affinity Publisher
Windows Store: Not submitted
Download: Download
Auto-update: Not Available
Hi,
We are pleased to announce that Affinity Publisher Customer Beta 1.8.4.663 is now available as a download from the link above.
If this is your first time using a customer beta of an Affinity app, it’s worth noting that the beta will install as a separate app - alongside your store version. They will not interfere with each other at all and you can continue to use the store version for critical work without worry.
This beta is an incremental update to the 1.8.3 version recently released to all customers (though it installs parallel to the release). We recommend that you use this beta in preference to the store version if you are affected by any of the issues listed below.
---
Improvements and Fixes
General
Fixed recent regression when saving Linked Image placeholders which was causing large document files
Recoloured K-only images with transparency lose their transparency
(Win) Can now import .afassets file via drag drop 
Text
Avoid generating infinite filler text when leading is zero
Further improvements for ideographic line breaks, mainly for quote-marks
Allow OpenType kerning between glyphs with different settings (if they are the same font and size)
Fixed 'Indent To Here' not working if lines are broken by drop cap or wrap shape
Fixes for line-breaker around Fixed Spaces
Import / Export
IDML Import - Text frame corners are now scaled correctly
IDML Import - Fixed instances where text wrap path could fail to import, or be scaled incorrectly
IDML Import - Generic OpenType features not being imported from IDML file
IDML Import - Effects settings not scaled correctly on master page items
IDML Import - En-Space in numbered list imported as a 0
IDML Import - Elements could be positioned incorrectly in some instances
IDML Import - Question mark in file path breaks link during the import
IDML Import - Initial Words not scaling correctly
IDML Import - Placed EPS files are slightly clipped
PDF Import - Better handling of restricted files
PDF Export - Fixed issues exporting to PDF/X-4 with content with embedded profiles 
PDF Export - Export could fail for glyph ids that happen to match surrogate pair values
Index
Index Find - match words with following punctuation
Partial loss of parent topics when adding pages from file
---
Further fixes, made since the release of 1.8.3, are listed in earlier 1.8.4 betas
To be notified about all future Windows beta updates, please follow this notification thread 
To be notified when this Publisher update comes out of beta and is fully released to all Publisher customers, please follow this thread

Click here to download the latest beta
Status: Customer Beta
Purpose: Fixes
Requirements: A valid product key (for Affinity Store purchases), or an installation of the full retail version from the Microsoft Store

As this is a beta it is considered to be not suitable for production use. This means that you should not attempt to use it for commercial purposes or for any other activity that may be adversely affected by the application failing, including the total loss of any documents. We hope you enjoy the latest build, and as always, if you've got any problems, please don't hesitate to post a new thread in this forum and we'll get back to you as soon as we can. Thanks once again for your continued feedback. 

If you have a general question about the software, please head over to the Questions Forum, or if you have any suggestions, please head over to the Feature Requests forum.
Fixes
Fixed Huion input failure Fixed flickering brush preview with tablet input Fixed spurious lines being drawn with tablet input Fixed Alt+Drag colour picker getting stuck when using tablet input Fixed crash when failing to load an X3F file (some files will still fail to load, but won't crash) Fixed gradients not changing when Global Colour is modified  Improved support for Canon EOS-1D X Mark III colour data 1.8.4.665 release notes

Click here to download the latest beta
Status: Customer Beta
Purpose: Features, Improvements, Fixes
Requirements: A valid product key (for Affinity Store purchases), or an installation of the full retail version from the Microsoft Store

As this is a beta it is considered to be not suitable for production use. This means that you should not attempt to use it for commercial purposes or for any other activity that may be adversely affected by the application failing, including the total loss of any documents. We hope you enjoy the latest build, and as always, if you've got any problems, please don't hesitate to post a new thread in this forum and we'll get back to you as soon as we can. Thanks once again for your continued feedback. 

If you have a general question about the software, please head over to the Questions Forum, or if you have any suggestions, please head over to the Feature Requests forum.
Fixes
Fixed Huion input failure Fixed flickering brush preview with tablet input Fixed spurious lines being drawn with tablet input Fixed Alt+Drag colour picker getting stuck when using tablet input Added user preference for whether to try to keep selections after deleting Fixed  expand stroke failure on strokes that use velocity as a controller  Fixed gradients not changing when Global Colour is modified  1.8.4.665 release notes

The auto-trace feature in Inkscape (free and open source) works quite well, but since Affinity Designer doesn’t currently have a ‘Simplify’ feature you may need to spend some time removing extra nodes manually.

Well I had to reinstall Inkscape only for this purpose ... after have payed something  that's supposed to do one of the most common stuff like this.
Uhmm ... I'm a bit disappointed ...

It's very sad news this. I purchased few day s ago Photo and Designer. 
Now for such thing, I have to reinstal Inkscape in order to get this done.
It's apity that such package hs not yet implmented such useful feature.

Serif does seem to be a company that remains fairly mum on issuing public announcements on something until they're absolutely 100% sure they're ready to commit to it.
For the longest time, I kept seeing posts from people asking them about their rumored up and coming competitor to Indesign, and their replies would almost always be along the lines of "we're working on something along those lines that may or may not be shown at some indeterminate point in the not too distant future", or "we can't comment on that at this very moment." Then one day, seemingly out of the blue, they announced they were prepping up for a beta release, and then it was practically all they'd talk about.
So going by this most recent example, if they've vaguely alluded to working on a DAM, then it's probably coming. No one knows when exactly, but it's coming.

What was made by man, man can do again.
IMHO a replacement for LR is crucial for Affinity if they want users to move all of their workflow away from CC. Adobe seems to be well aware of this - you only get LR as part of a bundle, not stand alone any more. This option died with LR6. The way LR is structured makes up an effective lock-in for the users into the CC-ecosystem, creating a steady flow of money for Adobe.
From my view the reason the Affinity suite is without a DAM at the moment is probably that the company spirit is driven by the creative element. A DAM is more on the organisation of workflows, probably not the key competence of the dev team at Serif.

I am in the same position. Photography user of Adobe and LR more or less everyday. Purchased all Affimity apps to support Serif.
I will leave Adobe as soon as I have a DAM (preferably within Affinity) that replace LR.
With over 100 K photos I need a DAM that can do what LR can. The fact that LR leave the orignal photo and save changes outside the original is cruical!
Sorry to say that I am not using Affinity very much but when (?) I can purchase a new DAM I will also stop useing LR and PS!

I also searched for this feature in designer. I use it in my designs for clients particularly relating to landscapes and other organic forms that are often already captured
in a rasterized form. I hope this feature is added to designer.

Click here to download the latest beta
Status: Customer Beta
Purpose: Fixes
Requirements: A valid product key (for Affinity Store purchases), or an installation of the full retail version from the Microsoft Store

As this is a beta it is considered to be not suitable for production use. This means that you should not attempt to use it for commercial purposes or for any other activity that may be adversely affected by the application failing, including the total loss of any documents. We hope you enjoy the latest build, and as always, if you've got any problems, please don't hesitate to post a new thread in this forum and we'll get back to you as soon as we can. Thanks once again for your continued feedback. 

If you have a general question about the software, please head over to the Questions Forum, or if you have any suggestions, please head over to the Feature Requests forum.
Fixes
[Installer] Prevent installation into non-empty directory Added EOS 1D-X Mark III to list of known CR3 cameras  Fixed Flood Selection Tool is offset with 'All layers' enabled Minor CR3 tweaks Fixed CR3 from a Canon EOS-R opening with a purple haze Fixed Develop Persona Red Eye Removal Tool crash Improved support for X3F files Removed units from the Crop Tool ratio option Fixed rotating a raw file in Develop Persona darkens it  Fixed adding guides in Develop Persona darkening image Removed "Windows Ink" option, and replaced with high precision WinTab support Fixed AI import incorrectly identifying as EPS when it was actually a PDF with extra data at the front Fixed PDF import for documents with extra data at the front Fixed PDF export for some Asian fonts that support many glyphs Fixed Layers panel dropping of items of right of thumbnail in expanded parents Fixed right-click context menu to disable Merge Down when attempting to merge a Pixel Layer into a shape Fixed PDF import crash due to infinitely searching for fonts Fixed HSL ring displaying incorrectly when returning to the adjustment  Fixed being unable to drag afassets into the app  Changed PDFs to open as restricted if we don't have permission to edit, copy or print them Fixed PDF export accidentally outputting all RGB images at 16-bit 1.8.4.650 release notes