zer0aster

So, I‘ve got Affinity on my Mac and my iPad, and if I were to do ‘serious’ editing, I would only do it on my Mac. I think the whole Android route is a blind alley. I guess I am also saying why do Serif prefer iPad over Linux? Must be sheer weight of numbers. And that’s it.

Whatever Serif's intentions, the suite clearly occupies a middle ground. For many users it will be professional enough, and the fact it is a well integrated suite will serve the majority of users well. On this thread we are bemoaning the lack of a feature that many of us argue is a crucial part of what we need to be able to achieve with ease. We think it fundamental, but we may just be bellyaching about a process that is less crucial than we think. Personally, I really like Affinity, will never be tempted back to subscribing to Adobe, and if I ever really do need to achieve a true vector free transform I will probably (virtually) dust-off my old copy of Illustrator CS2, assuming it has this feature! Meanwhile, being able to open the document in Affinity Photo ('Edit in Photo' in the Affinity Designer File menu) does the job in most of the situations I encounter using the Distort filter in Photo. I know it doesn't create a vector transform, and drops to mere pixels, but as I work well above the pixel dimensions I export to, this hasn't been an issue for my exported files. It is a disagreeable clunky workaround, way too clunky, but until Serif decide that they are moving out of the middle ground I guess it will have to do. If they do move out of the middle ground, I hope they don't change their pricing model, which is what tends to happen when things go 'Pro'. Instead I hope they really do subvert and pull-out the rug from under Adobe.

Well it got my 3 votes. And I added an appeal for the whole suite. And as to the discussion re App Stores and the way Apple is going... yes, macOS treats software from sources other than the Store with a load of suspicion. Security supposedly justifying this suspicion. Why then, if that were really the problem, would Linux not be riddled malicious software? And then I think, perhaps for the same reason it isn't riddled with an abundance of good graphics software ;-)

I would love a Linux version of Affinity apps, or a version of Wine that could load them. I am far too technologically promiscuous to say I would commit to Linux, but if I could reduce my reliance on macOS/Windows it would be a step in the right direction. But one of the reasons that this is so hard is that unlike with office document formats, there are really no standard formats for graphic source files. I know there are image file formats, but source file formats used by design applications are not readily transferable between suites. I guess a .psd file is as close as it gets, may be .svg for vectors, but certainly not much that is transferable for page layout. It amuses me that the reason we have fairly standard office file formats is actually the market dominance of Microsoft. On the face of it, very un-Linux. That Libreoffice and other office suites can hitch a ride (dare I say it?) on these ubiquitous formats means that Linux is now very viable, if these office apps are all you need. Not so graphic design. What chance Affinity file formats becoming open enough to be imported/exported by other software? Not great I guess.

I don't do graphics or illustrations for money (well, not often) but I do need a full graphics suite and Affinity is the closest to the Adobe offering I have found. That it is cross-platform is brilliant and that it is not subscription-based is absolutely the reason I chose it over Adobe. But there are omissions, and the free-form tool is the big one in my book. So yes, a clunky work-around is to select the paths to distort, go to Edit menu chose Edit in Photo, and use the distort filter there. And then place as pixels in your original vector document. Clunky indeed. Hopefully someone will come up with a plugin?

How frustrating is this? I would consider a free-transform tool a basic tool. One should be able to distort things easily and it should be in Designer first, as the vector app. And it seems this question was asked in 2018, so time would not seem to be a valid excuse. Neither should the idea that Affinity isn't a replacement for Adobe. It is!