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This is more of a request for a new product "category" for your company — 3D Modeling and Animation software. Yes, there are many such programs on the Market but there is one that I've been using for many years that I really like. It's called: "Carrara". I find it to be one of the easiest, feature-packed and lowest cost programs in this category today. However, the company that owns it, "Daz Productions", hasn't supported it for several years. (Yes, there is "free" software, such as "Blender", but it's not as easy to use as Carrara.) Information on the Carrara software is difficult to find on the Daz website but here is the direct link to the boxed product: https://www.daz3d.com/carrara-8-5-pro If you don't want to click on that link, you'll have to visit their website "daz3d.com", then do a website search for "carrara" and, finally, click the "Carrara 8.5 Pro" thumbnail on that page. I don't have any affiliation to Daz Productions, the Carrara software, etc. I'm simply an End User of Carrara and hate to see it just disappear. You've done a fairly good job with Affinity Designer, that I purchased recently, so I thought Carrara would be a good fit for your company.

I've only had Affinity Designer for a few days. In the past, I've used Photoshop, although I'm not an expert. My favorite Adobe program was Fireworks, which has been discontinued. I'm trying to do a very basic thing — set part of a photo to a heavy blur, but whatever I do, the Gaussian Blur seems to always affect the entire photo. (Yes, I could select part of my photo and add it to another Layer but, in the other programs I've used, there was always a quick way to only affect the part of the image which was Selected.) In testing this, with a simple document, these are my Steps: create new document switch to Pixel Persona select the Paint Brush Tool set Width to 110px set Flow to 100% set Hardness to 100% (Steps 4, 5 and 6 are only to create a sharp image, so I can more easily see the results of the blurring effect.) select a blue color draw 5, horizontal strokes, each separated from the others select the Rectangular Marquee draw a selection down through all the strokes but leave parts of them unselected select Effects from the right-side panel put a Checkmark in Gaussian Blur drag the Radius past 15px and "everything" is blurred. Why? Why isn't the blur only applied to the parts of the image "within" the Selection? I see the same results if I use the Selection Brush Tool (or Rectangular Marquee). If I select the Paint Brush Tool and draw across this page, it only paints within the Selection, which is what it's supposed to do. Why is Gaussian Blur ignoring the selected area? Yes, I've tried using the Blur Brush Tool but, no matter how I adjust those Settings, it's effect is extremely weak. I have watched a few Affinity Designer videos and searched this Forum but could not find an answer to this. I'm sure it's something very simple that I'm "doing" or "not doing".