Milos Micatek

It is always nice to see my font used in real application :) http://planetadinosauru.cz/ 
 

Hi All,
Well, it’s been a pretty crazy week since the launch of V2!
This has been a real labour of love for us over the last year or so, and I can’t even begin to describe how hard the development team have worked on it. Not only getting the V2 apps launched, but also of course finally bringing Publisher to iPad. 
With this being our first paid-for upgrade there has understandably been a lot of feedback / questions around future updates and our pricing policies. I thought it was worth addressing / clarifying our position on some of these personally...
Updates to V2 moving forward
Buying V2 not only gets you all the new features you have seen, but we have various updates planned – including many more new features and improvements – which you will get for free. This will continue until such a time that V3 is released. We’re not sure exactly when V3 will be, but I can confirm we are not going to move to anything as regular as an annual upgrade cycle as has been speculated.
It’s worth saying too that V2 does include many under-the-hood changes to our underlying technology, and we have also been investing in several new areas of research recently. Some of these haven’t manifested themselves into new features yet, but overall V2 does give us a better platform to develop on moving forward and I’m sure you will be pleased with the updates V2 will receive.
Updates to V1 moving forward
While we did say on the FAQ that V1 would no longer receive any updates, I want to clarify that was about new feature updates. We will be updating V1 to fix any critical problems caused by operating system updates in the future. So if the next version of macOS breaks V1 we will endeavour to fix it. There will be a point in time when continuing to maintain V1 in this way will not be tenable, but certainly for the foreseeable future we will continue to patch. In fact, we have an update to V1 queued up for release very shortly with some fixes for Ventura and issues caused by a recent Windows security / quality update. 
We will update our FAQ shortly to make that clearer for everyone.
Offer period
In case you didn’t see, I’m pleased to confirm we have decided to run this initial launch offer until 14th December to give everyone the best chance possible to get it if they wish / have a decent amount of time to trial it. 
Upgrade pricing
It’s been really hard to see some of the comments about us not looking after our existing customers – we’re pretty devasted that anyone feels like that to be honest. But the fact is we felt our hands were tied somewhat with being able to offer upgrade pricing in a fair way. The main reason for this was App Store customers (which make up around 35% of our userbase). The problems with that are two-fold: firstly, we didn’t have a way from within V1 to validate an App Store purchase receipt to reliably ensure customers who were entitled to an upgrade could get one; and secondly, we could not find a good way for people to get that discount via the App Store. Us pushing upgrade customers to go exclusively via our own site (including customers who were previously acquired via the app stores) may also have put us in violation of App Store Ts & Cs which we were obviously concerned about.
I’m not saying that these issues were completely insurmountable, but any solutions we came up with would be messy, and most importantly could have resulted in some bona fide V1 customers struggling to get validated and claim their discount. We certainly don’t have the support resource here if we ended up needing to manually validate tens of thousands of receipts for example.
The only option we felt was safe to move forward with was a general launch offer, which would guarantee that every V1 customer could get the discount, whether they purchased directly through us or the App Stores. We knew a side effect of that would mean some new customers would end up receiving that same discount – but we felt that was a better option than V1 customers missing out. It’s also worth saying that while there has been some good press about V2, all our main marketing has been via email and through social media to our followers. In other words, we felt ok about it because we knew the vast majority of people who would find out about it or take advantage of the offer would be existing customers. I would be surprised if over the offer period customers upgrading from V1 didn’t make up more than 90% of our sales.
Overall I do believe us giving a 40% discount, along with the addition of the new Universal Licence of course, is offering fantastic value for money for those who want to upgrade. 
However, taking on board some of the feedback there is something extra we can do – we will offer a new free bundle of content exclusively for V1 customers upgrading to V2 as an extra thank you for your support. I’ve seen this suggested by a number of customers and it’s a great idea as it does remove the App Store conflict entirely. 
We’ll need a little time to put something together, but all customers who previously registered or purchased V1 and have since upgraded to V2 will receive a voucher code for this via email as soon as we can.
A comment on no subscription
I do want to say that some of the points above are exactly the reason why software companies move to subscription. Whatever you do with upgrade pricing, you still have the issue of customers who bought the previous version 3 months ago vs. those who have had it 2+ years. Offering perpetual licences also gives the additional overhead of needing to maintain the previous version longer than you would if everyone was on subscription / generally always on the latest version.
We are a small team so some of these complications are not ideal — all we really want to do is focus on developing our latest codebase, push out regular updates and continue with our mission to make great creative software accessible to everyone. 
But it does need to be funded somehow. We know you love our no-subscription model, but there also needs to be a level of appreciation that the alternative is having paid-for upgrades from time to time. That unfortunately comes with its own problems.
All of that said, I have to say we have been blown away with the response to V2 - around 3 times as many people have upgraded in the last week than we expected - and we really can't thank you enough for the support you have shown. More than anything the success of this upgrade puts us in a great place to continue investing heavily in development which is ultimately what it's all about, and we’re super excited to crack on with some great updates coming next year!
All the best,
Ash

This post is also available as a press release in: English Français Deutsch Italiano Español 中文 Português 日本語 Brand new products launched today, Affinity V2 Universal Licence ownership tier announced, and Affinity Publisher comes to iPad
 

Serif has today unveiled the long-awaited Version 2 of its award-winning Affinity creative suite. Available to buy now with generous launch discounts, Affinity V2 comprises reimagined versions of the three products which have taken the creative software world by storm, loaded with spectacular new features and a stunning new look.
               Affinity Photo 2 – ultra-powerful photo editing and raster painting Affinity Designer 2 – intuitive, imaginative vector graphic design and illustration Affinity Publisher 2 – nimble, no-nonsense page layout software boasting StudioLink, a unique way of using the editing tools from the two other Affinity products Designed and built to empower creatives and bring out the very best in their work, Affinity V2 integrates photo editing, graphic design, illustration and layout into a super-sleek workflow – delivering a holistic experience unlike that of any other creative suite.

Version 2 of all Affinity apps launches today
Ashley Hewson, Managing Director of Serif, says: 
“Setting new standards for creative software, Affinity V2 is by far the biggest, most exciting launch in the history of Serif. For the very first time we’re bringing the very latest, highest performing versions of all our products to the market at the same time, with some simply stunning features.
“At Serif, we know that we don’t work for ourselves – we work for the photo editors, the artists, the illustrators, the designers, all those people who rely on Affinity software as the engine to power their day.
“We have worked tirelessly to not only include many of the new features our customers have been asking for, but a whole host of usability and workflow improvements to make the apps more productive than ever. We think Affinity users both old and new are going to love it.”
Alongside the launch of Affinity V2 comes the eagerly awaited release of Affinity Publisher 2 for iPad, completing the core suite of apps available on macOS, Windows and iPadOS. Feature packed, intuitive and touch-friendly, it is the first time a truly professional, desktop-grade layout and page design app has made its way to the platform.

Affinity Publisher comes to iPad for the first time
“Our work to put full desktop-quality creative software onto iPad has led the world and set new industry standards for what users should expect from iPad apps. And now we’re the first to bring all the features you’d associate with desktop publishing to the iPad as well.
“There’s genuinely never been anything like this before. The power and portability of Affinity Publisher 2 for iPad allows you to take page design and layout out of the confines of the office and into whatever space brings you most inspiration.”
Affinity V2 Universal Licence has also been announced today giving customers an option to buy a package containing Affinity Photo 2, Affinity Designer 2 and Affinity Publisher 2 for use on Mac, PC and iPad – all for a single all-inclusive amount.

The Universal Licence will normally be available for £144.99 – a £155.92 saving on buying all the apps on all operating systems individually. However, Serif is currently offering a huge 40% launch discount making the whole V2 suite available for a remarkable £89.99 one-off cost with no subscription.
Ashley Hewson concludes: 
“The ability to buy for a one-off payment is something that makes Affinity the only viable option for many of the brilliant and inspiring creative people around the world, who would otherwise not have access to the highest-quality tools. There has been a lot of speculation about us moving to subscription recently, so I’m pleased to confirm that isn’t the case!
“For our existing customers we have also been very conscious that, considering many of our sales are generated via app stores, it’s not possible to provide upgrade pricing. That’s the main reason we have decided to offer such a large launch discount – to give users a chance to upgrade at an incredible price.”
Users who don’t require the full package will still be able to buy Affinity Photo 2, Affinity Designer 2 or Affinity Publisher 2 individually for Mac, PC or iPad with the same 40% launch discount. All apps, including the V2 Universal Licence, are also available as a 30-day free trial.

I have one crazy suggestion. There is an option to switch to different view modes in Designer (vector, pixel, pixel retina, outline), even to split views. I cannot see this view modes in Photo now, only in Designer but what about to add "1-bit view" to all Affinity apps? The idea is to get realtime preview of the artwork even the apps will still work in X-bit grey / colour mode. Make it sense or is that stupid suggestion? I don't know... 
 

I love recent 1.9 update of Photo and possibility to link just certain properties of the layer... like only opacity & layer effects. It helps me to quickly change lettering look based on my client wishes
 

I'll disagree, at least with respect to the Help info. Not everything can be completely obvious and self-explanatory. In fact, any complex function will have aspects that the user won't fully understand without reading the documentation, or performing extensive experimentation.

I found some old requests to add Macros to Affinity Designer, here, here and here, just starting new topic to make those requests live. I believe that Macros in AD will be appreciated by many users. 
Any comments from development team?

I found some old requests to add Macros to Affinity Designer, here, here and here, just starting new topic to make those requests live. I believe that Macros in AD will be appreciated by many users. 
Any comments from development team?

Christmas is coming so let's shake the tree again 😜 Any news for the list of upcoming featurefeatures?

Can't wait to share these live filters!! I've found it from this link, the author told me that he was saved Affinity Photo filters as Assets and now #AD can use live filters as well, but perspective fitler not working properly  
Any way it's definitely cool in #AD, try it now 



Afans Live Filters - for Designer 1.6.zip

Here's one page of a short (15pg) story I've been working on.l Originally used the Publisher Beta to begin with and now using the released Version. I'm following the lettering techniques for Illustator from the ComicCraft tutorial I saw on Lynda.com. And i works, even better using Publisher with the Designer persona used when needed. 
The art was hand drawn on paper, real old-school. Will be finishing it up (pencils, inks and colors) in Clip Studio (would like to use Designer, but I like CS for pixel drawing/inking and painting a bit better).
this is a WIP, so as I wrap things up, I'll update this thread as i can. One nice thing is that having a link to the file, rather than embedding, allows me to letter rough penciled pages and see If I need to move things around in the roughs to make the panel "read" better as a visual composition. Yeah, it's a comic thing. This is something that most comics don't do, as it's so production-oriented. Y'know, if novelists can do a second draft, why can't comics. And Publisher allows me that flexibility and freedom. Thanks Serif and Affinity!

Hi All,
Unfortunately, we are hearing many stories from the creative community about how they are being severely impacted by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. We know we can’t solve a lot of these problems, but we do want to try to offer as much support as possible.
That’s why we’re announcing three measures that we've just put in place. They are:
A new 90-day free trial of the Mac and Windows versions of the whole Affinity suite A 50% discount for those who would rather buy and keep the apps on Mac, Windows and iPad A pledge to engage more than 100 freelance creatives for work, spending the equivalent of our annual commissioning budget in the next three months (more details of this will be announced next week). The introduction of the 90-day free trial and deeply discounted pricing is done in the hope that this will make life a little easier for people who rely on creative software to make a living, but may be stuck at home without their usual tools, or for students who might not have access to their Affinity apps on their personal devices. In addition, by increasing our spend on commissioning work from freelancers we can also put some extra money into a part of the industry which will be particularly affected. 
We plan to make the free trial and additional discount available until 20 April, but of course we will continue to review the situation as time goes on.
We have put posts on Facebook and Twitter about what we are doing if it's something you would like to share.
We're now all working from home
In terms of the team here, we have all vacated our Nottingham offices and are now working from home. Naturally this is causing us some disruption, but we continue to type code and expect to carry on making good progress with our development efforts. 
Support is a bit trickier though. Firstly, we can’t accept inbound telephone calls right now, and there are also going to be challenges for our staff to work their normal full-time hours – especially with imminent school closures in the UK. We’re obviously going to do our very best but hope you will understand if we are not as fast to respond to email as usual.
Of course, if a question you have is something which could be answered by our community, then we’d also greatly appreciate if you put that here on the forum rather than contact us directly. It would definitely help us out a lot. 
Frankly it’s hard to know what to say or do in this unprecedented situation. But more than anything else, we want to use this opportunity to wish good health to you and your loved ones at this incredibly difficult time.
All the very best,
Ash

Affinity Publisher uses the Hunspell Engine for spell checking and it also allows for additional Hunspell dictionaries to be added. You can download additional dictionaries from LibreOffice's GitHub page here but you can find direct links in the below post. 

Once you've downloaded the correct file(s), you can use them in Affinity Publisher by following the below instructions:
Please note: There are some differences between how you install Hunspell dictionaries for macOS/Windows, since we use the default spelling dictionaries available within macOS but it's also possible to add custom Hunspell dictionaries too.
macOS
You may already have Spelling dictionaries available but not active within macOS. To check, go to:
System Preferences >  Keyboard > Text and select Set up... from the Spelling drop down menu. Please check the required language if available. If it is, check the required language and restart Affinity Publisher for the dictionary to appear within the app.
If the required language is not available within macOS, you can install standard Hunspell dictionaries for use with Affinity Publisher. Hunspell dictionaries consist of two files, xx_XX.dic and xx_XX.aff. Copy both the .dic and .aff files to: ~/Library/Spelling
Once you have done this the language should become available to select from the Spelling drop down menu in System Preferences >  Keyboard > Text. Once you've checked the required language, restart Affinity Publisher for the dictionary to appear within the app.
Hyphenation dictionaries can also be installed in a similar way but they must be installed into a subfolder. Navigate to ~/Library/Spelling/ as above and create a subfolder with a name in the format of xx-XX ( substituting xx-XX for the locale id ). The dictionary comes as a single file with a name in the format hyph_xx_XX.dic - this file should be copied to the subfolder. Now restart Affinity Publisher for the dictionary to appear within the app.
Windows
You can add additional dictionaries and hyphenation dictionaries by going to Edit > Preferences > Tools. The default Additional dictionary folder used by the app is C:\ProgramData\Affinity\Common\1.0\Dictionaries but you can change this location by clicking Browse... - Please make sure that you specify a folder that holds all subfolders for each locale and not one specific locale folder as this will not work!

To copy any downloaded dictionaries and hyphenation dictionaries to the Additional dictionary folder click Open... but before copying your files to this folder you will need to create a subfolder with its name in the format of xx_XX ( substituting xx_XX for the locale id ). Once you’ve done this you can copy your xx_XX.dic, xx_XX.aff and hyph_xx_XX.dic files to the subfolder. Now restart Affinity Publisher for the dictionaries to appear within the app.

Please note: Any changes to dictionaries require that you restart Affinity Publisher

<EDITED> Please note, Affinity Publisher 1.8.2 for Mac is now live so this thread is locked </EDITED>
We are pleased to announce a major update for the macOS release of Affinity Publisher, version 1.8.1
Changes in this build
The changes in Affinity Publisher for macOS 1.8.1 (made since the last release Affinity Publisher on macOS 1.7.3) are as follows:
 New Features & Improvements:
Template support – save documents as template files to re-use time and time again, share templates across all apps and even access files on multiple devices through cloud storage. New document dialog – it’s now simpler than ever to find, create and manage document presets with customised, saveable presets and thumbnail previews. Unified toolbar – thanks to the integration of window controls and the app’s main toolbar, Mac users (Mojave and above) can now enjoy more usable document space. Updated PANTONE© library – work with a seemingly endless range of colours, including updated PANTONE© Color Bridge and PANTONE© Formula Guide solid palettes (coated and uncoated). IDML import – import InDesign® IDML files, including all text styles, master pages, guides, pinned objects and more, directly into Affinity Publisher. Live preflight checking – customise the app’s all new Preflight panel to receive live warnings for possible errors in your document, including poor image resolution, bleed hazards, overflowing text, spelling errors, missing images or font resources, and more. XLSX import – import spreadsheet data from Excel, Apple Numbers or LibreOffice in XLSX format as a standalone table or inline with your text frames. Document merge – merge multiple documents together into a single file and take advantage of text style mapping, index merging and master page control, whether you’re combining whole documents or selecting page ranges to import. Smart master pages – effortlessly swap master pages and migrate edited content from any page to a new master page layout in a single click without losing any of your work in the process. Collect resources – organise all image resources into a single folder location and share with others in your network. New Anchors panel – easily manage anchors in your document and create new ones from selected text. Apple keyboard shortcuts for text editing —use Apple default keyboard shortcuts for text editing and entry for an even more streamlined workflow Text column dividing lines – add lines to separate columns in text frame settings. Many other improvements. Fixes
List still being compiled   
UPDATING TO THIS VERSION (Free for existing customers)
The software version can be seen on the splash screen and the About dialog (in application menu, Affinity Publisher > About).
If you’ve purchased from the Mac App Store— updates are done automatically next time you run your software after it is available in the Mac App Store. If this does not happen for you, open the Mac App Store app and go to the Updates page and then Store > Reload page or press CMD+R. This should hopefully force the update to show. Apple sometimes phase roll outs around the world which can mean it may take up to 72 hours for your update to be available.
If you’ve purchased from the Affinity Store— each time you start the software it will check for updates and offer to download and install any available update, or in the application main menu there is an option Check for Updates. 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 macOS) can be downloaded from this link (that installer is NOT for Mac App Store purchases and needs a product key).
NOTE: This was originally released as 1.8.0 on the Affinity Store and the Mac App Store. Affinity Photo 1.8.0 on the Mac App Store had a permission missing that caused a problem with plugins and Affinity Designer on the Mac App Store had a single file missing causing lots of issues. Those build have been replaced with an otherwise identical 1.8.1 builds. Affinity Publisher did not have these problems, but it has been rebuilt to keep numbering systems in sync with the Mac App Store for StudioLink reasons.

<EDITED> Please note, Affinity Photo 1.8.2 for iPad is now live so this thread is locked </EDITED>
We are pleased to announce a major update for the iPad release of Affinity Photo, version 1.8.0
Changes in this build
The changes in Affinity Photo for iPad 1.8.0 (over the last release Affinity Photo 1.7.3) are as follows:
New Features & Improvements:
Template support – save documents as template files to re-use time and time again, share templates across all apps and even access files on multiple devices through cloud storage. Customisable keyboard shortcuts – you can now create your own shortcuts using a keyboard attachment for iPad. Updated PANTONE© library – work with a seemingly endless range of colours, including updated PANTONE© Color Bridge and PANTONE© Formula Guide solid palettes (coated and uncoated). Better metadata handling – new support for user-editable fields in image metadata, including the IPTC standard for copyright and other information, plus, batch whole folders of images and tag with appropriate ownership info, and more. PSD smart object support – any smart objects included in PSD files can now be imported into Affinity Photo as embedded documents, letting you easily edit layers within any smart object and maintain a non-destructive workflow into Affinity (can be enabled in preferences) Canon CR3 RAW support – open and edit your highest quality photographs in Affinity Photo
Many other improvements and fixes. Fixes
currently being compiled and will be posted here. UPDATING TO THIS VERSION (Free for existing customers)
The software version can be seen on the corner of preferences screen.
Your Affinity iPad apps should update automatically next time you run them. However, you do need to be logged in with the same Apple ID you used to buy them.
If the automatic update does not happen for you, go to the iPad App Store app and go to Updates. Once you’re there, tap near the top of the screen where it states 'Updates' and then hold, pull down and then release. This should manually refresh the updates page. However, don’t contact us if the updates are not available for you yet—Apple sometimes phase roll outs around the world and this can take up to 24 hours.

<EDITED> Please note, Affinity Designer 1.8.2 for iPad is now live so this thread is locked </EDITED>
We are pleased to announce a major update for the iPad release of Affinity Designer, version 1.8.0
Changes in this build
The changes in Affinity Designer for iPad 1.8.0 (over the last release  Affinity Designer for iPad 1.7.3) are as follows:
New Features:
Template support – save documents as template files to re-use time and time again, share templates across all apps and even access files on multiple devices through cloud storage Customisable keyboard shortcuts – you can now create your own shortcuts using a keyboard attachment for iPad Boolean operation improvements – add, subtract and combine shapes to create custom designs better than ever before Updated PANTONE© library – work with a seemingly endless range of colours, including updated PANTONE© Color Bridge and PANTONE© Formula Guide solid palettes (coated and uncoated) Massive expand stroke improvements –get incredibly accurate results with far fewer nodes than before New Stock panel – quickly access royalty free images through the app’s brand-new Stock panel  Many other improvements and fixes. Fixes
List still being compiled and will be added here. Help updates. Localization Tweaks  
UPDATING TO THIS VERSION (free for existing customers)
The software version can be seen on the corner of preferences screen.
Your Affinity iPad apps should update automatically next time you run them. However, you do need to be logged in with the same Apple ID you used to buy them.
If the automatic update does not happen for you, go to the iPad Store app and go to Updates. Once you’re there, tap near the top of the screen where it states 'Updates' and then hold, pull down and then release. This should manually refresh the updates page. However, don’t panic if the updates are not available for you yet—Apple sometimes phase roll outs around the world and this can take up to 24 hours.

<EDITED> Please note, Affinity Photo 1.8.2 for Mac is now live so this thread is locked </EDITED>
We are pleased to announce a major update for the MacOS release of Affinity Photo, version 1.8.1
Changes in this build
The changes in Affinity Photo for MacOS 1.8.1 over the release build Affinity Photo for macOS 1.7.3 are as follows:
New Features & Improvements:
Template support – save documents as template files to re-use time and time again, share templates across all apps and even access files on multiple devices through cloud storage. New document dialog – it’s now simpler than ever to find, create and manage document presets with customised, saveable presets and thumbnail previews. Unified toolbar – thanks to the integration of window controls and the app’s main toolbar, Mac users (Mojave and above) can now enjoy more usable document space. Updated PANTONE© library – work with a seemingly endless range of colours, including updated PANTONE© Color Bridge and PANTONE© Formula Guide solid palettes (coated and uncoated). Lens correction improvements – benefit from manual lens correction override in the Develop Persona, take advantage of the newly added ‘recently used’ and ‘favourites’ lists, and enjoy improved lens correction of RAW files coming from fixed focal length lenses. Big plugin support improvements – experience the power of a range of plugins in the app, including improved support for Nik collection 2.5 by DxO. Better metadata handling – new support for user-editable fields in image metadata, including the IPTC standard for copyright and other information, plus, save and import metadata files (XMP) [enable in preferences], batch whole folders of images and tag with appropriate ownership info, and more. PSD smart object support – any smart objects included in PSD files can now be imported into Affinity Photo as embedded documents [enable in preferences], letting you easily edit layers within any smart object and maintain a non-destructive workflow into Affinity – even on iPad!. Canon CR3 RAW support – open and edit your highest quality photographs in Affinity Photo. Apple keyboard shortcuts for text editing —use Apple default keyboard shortcuts for text editing and entry for an even more streamlined workflow. Improved handling of RAW files when using batch processing. Improved channels panel behaviour when disabling alpha. New samples New stock brushes (your custom brushes will not be lost). Many other improvements. Fixes
Develop stability improvements. Fixed issues when printing/exporting live filters. Fixed customised shortcut save issues. Fixed various Live Filter rendering issues. Fixed crash loading certain JPEG files. Double click to edit embedded docs from layers panel. CMYK TIFF import improvements. Reference presets for the Pro Display XDR are now supported properly. Filter effects now support high intensity colours in 32-bit mode. Text field expression improvements. Added a new lens profile selector to Develop. Reimplemented the HSL filter's HSV option. Improved quality & file size of results when exporting JPEG. Switching to a mask node will now automatically switch to the grey colour slider. Improved lens correction of RAW files coming from lenses with fixed focal length. Improved unsharp mask “threshold” slider. Improved selection refinement performance & quality. Improved the noise reduction filter result when applied to JPEGs. Improved precision of Gaussian algorithm (to reduce banding). Improved reporting of file load errors (could previously report file corruption incorrectly). Improved performance of operations with large selections. Improved memory use with alternate futures and when replacing image layers. Fixed Styles to show styles that would normally be invisible. Fixed crash when loading some corrupt JPEGs (valid image data, but corrupt following data). Fixed deletion of brushes / styles / etc. not reducing disk usage correctly. Fixed PSD export of hidden layers. Fixed angle cursors when the view has been rotated. Fixed “Create Palette” from CMYK images resulting in RGB colours. Fixed Pixel Selection appears incorrectly when started near page edge. Fixed rasterising a fill layer goes wrong after changing document size. Fixed Marquee Selection not constraining to a square if you drag across the right diagonal. Fixed mis-identification of some Tamron lenses mounted to Canon bodies. Fixed failure to load some PSB files (and failing to report errors). Fixed crash importing PSD files containing embedded colour profiles with unicode characters in their names. Memory management improvements. Assorted other small fixes and improvements. Localisation improvements. UPDATING TO THIS VERSION (Free for existing customers)
The software version can be seen on the splash screen and the About dialog (in application menu, Affinity Photo > About).
If you’ve purchased from the Mac App Store— updates are done automatically next time you run your software after it is available in the Mac App Store. If this does not happen for you, open the Mac App Store app and go to the Updates page and then Store > Reload page or press CMD+R. This should hopefully force the update to show. Apple sometimes phase roll outs around the world which can mean it may take up to 72 hours for your update to be available.
If you’ve purchased from the Affinity Store— each time you start the software it will check for updates and offer to download and install any available update, or in the application main menu there is an option Check for Updates. 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 macOS) can be downloaded from this link (that installer is NOT for Mac app store purchases and needs a product key).
NOTE: This was originally released as 1.8.0 on the Affinity Store and the Mac App Store. Affinity Photo 1.8.0 on the Mac App Store had a permission missing that caused a problem with plugins. That build has been replaced with an otherwise identical 1.8.1 build. The Affinity Store version did not have this problem, but has been rebuilt to keep numbering systems in sync with the Mac App Store.

<EDITED> Please note, Affinity Designer 1.8.2 for Mac is now live so this thread is locked </EDITED>
We are pleased to announce a major update for the MacOS release of Affinity Designer, to version 1.8.1
Changes in this build
The changes in Affinity Designer for MacOS 1.8.1 (over the last release Affinity Designer macOS 1.7.3) are as follows:
New Features & Improvements:
Template support – save documents as template files to re-use time and time again, share templates across all apps and even access files on multiple devices through cloud storage. New document dialog – it’s now simpler than ever to find, create and manage document presets with customised, saveable presets and thumbnail previews. Unified toolbar – thanks to the integration of window controls and the app’s main toolbar, Mac users (Mojave and above) can now enjoy more usable document space. Boolean operation improvements – add, subtract and combine shapes to create custom designs better than ever before. Updated PANTONE© library – work with a seemingly endless range of colours, including updated PANTONE© Color Bridge and PANTONE© Formula Guide solid palettes (coated and uncoated). Massive expand stroke improvements – get incredibly accurate results with far fewer nodes than before. New Stock panel – quickly access royalty free images through the app’s brand-new Stock panel. Apple keyboard shortcuts for text editing — use Apple default keyboard shortcuts for text editing and entry for an even more streamlined workflow. Many other improvements and fixes. Fixes 
(some of these are phrased in the negative but nevertheless fixed)
Clicking close button whilst in full screen does not close window Symbols: crash when performing non-destructive boolean operation with elements within a symbol in certain circumstances Performing a non-destructive boolean operation inside a group with constraints applied crashes Designer Quick double click to rename an object will fail on macOS Sierra Grid moves position when zooming CMYK waterfall covers sliders Hidden layer's pixel content is lost when exporting to PSD Toggle UI does not work after restarting the app Guides Manager: Remove Guide doesn't work Improvement: Add boolean labelled unison in history Assets: Double Click and drag places assets with wrong aspect. Zoom Tool UI (context toolbar) glitches/truncated while being edited Duplicating a Global Colour should suffix the name with 'copy' Cursor Icons are not rotated to match Canvas Rotation User file: PDF import renders TIFF CMYK image in one of the pages entirely red Alignment is incorrectly labelled as Arrange in Export Persona Bullets and Numbering missing quick character selection drop-down PANTONE swatch palette list is ordered incorrectly Sample download bar hard to see using Graphite accents Using CMD+Backspace in the Swatches Panel causes Affinity to crash Text on path hang - file/font specific Add to swatches > As global colour fails with multiple objects Selecting a large number of objects is way too slow Complex imported PDF slows application down Appearance Panel: Check boxes can swap positions when they shouldn't Appearance Panel: Doesn't refresh if a new Stroke or fill is added with the fly-out present Customer Specific PDF fails to export Tool Settings/Presets saved showing in other applications that don't support them Layer thumbnails on the Layers panel don't get updated after changing a a global colour from the swatches panel User file TIFF Alpha does not render correctly Missing tool-tip on Brushes panel Pixel Selection appears incorrectly when started near page edge File > Export: padlock icon state not honoured in certain circumstances Live filters and PDF export: live filters not being processed/rendered when exporting to PDF Windows menu: Enter full screen and Toggle Full screen - duplicate entry Other minor fixes and improvements  
UPDATING TO THIS VERSION (Free for existing customers)
The software version can be seen on the splash screen and the About dialog (in application menu, Affinity Designer > About).
If you’ve purchased from the Mac App Store— updates are done automatically next time you run your software after it is available in the Mac App Store. If this does not happen for you, open the Mac App Store app and go to the Updates page and then Store > Reload page or press CMD+R. This should hopefully force the update to show. Apple sometimes phase roll outs around the world which can mean it may take up to 72 hours for your update to be available.
If you’ve purchased from the Affinity Store— each time you start the software it will check for updates and offer to download and install any available update, or in the application main menu there is an option Check for Updates. 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 macOS) can be downloaded from this link (that installer is NOT for Mac App Store purchases and needs a product key).
 
NOTE: This was originally released as 1.8.0 on the Affinity Store and the Mac App Store. Affinity Designer 1.8.0 on the Mac App Store had a single file missing that caused a number of problems. That build has been replaced with an otherwise identical 1.8.1 build. The Affinity Store version did not have this problem, but has been rebuilt to keep numbering systems in sync with the Mac App Store.

Sorry I have no direct news, but we expect to see this change appear around the same time as 1.8.0 is released, when we will also accommodate some other improvements we are planning on these forums. These changes are already being developed behind the scenes.

Creating 1-bit lookalike is not a problem. Threshold filter makes perfectly good B&W image (and as it is nondestructive you can turn it off/on like preview). You can even export it to 2 colour/B&W PNG. It is then 1-bit truly, but it is not true 1-bit bitmap image, it is 1-bit indexed colour image. It does not behave in InDesign like 1-bit bitmap image. 
This export bitmap export option should be added, preferably to TIF format export.

Thanks for the font creation tool steer, great work by the way  
 

Well, English is my third language but I heard this time definition: SOON = September October Or November... so definitely before Christmas

Well, English is my third language but I heard this time definition: SOON = September October Or November... so definitely before Christmas

Well, English is my third language but I heard this time definition: SOON = September October Or November... so definitely before Christmas

Hi Milos Micatek,
This is being considered/worked as we speak. If everything goes as planned you will eventually see some news regarding this soon.