SrPx

I mentioned it is an unsupported option... just sth to maybe try to load the app in Wine...

That said, I see all this interesting as, more options, more power (specially for the poor (third/second world, and millions on the first world), my main motivation about Linux. I myself DON'T need it. ) . But...As a full, permanent, solid solution.... I keep thinking the best path is keep helping/promoting/supporting/donating to Gimp + Inkscape + Scribus + Krita + Blender + Synfig (+ etc). These are among the major vessels for the matter, fully open source, within the community, fully and deeply linked to it and its roots. The other option, commercial apps counting on a Linux version are never fully safe. Those can be easily cut down at any time: IE, company bankruptcy, bad finances, crisis, CEO changes of direction, etc. A wine option is cool, but again, you then FULLY depend on the commercial companies, whatever the CEO / chairs changing, economy, etc, in how the binaries keep being compatible with Wine... From one night to next day you fully loose all your entire graphics work environment, if you are willing to depend on that. This is why I see it crazy that the whole community (linux) is not pushing as one single force to support the "pure" community apps. Even those not into making graphics ! If they want Linux to have overall true relevance.....My 2c..... EDIT: And it's highly proved to be possible : Blender, Mozilla Firefox, Thunderbird, Libre Office, Wings 3D... These are at very high level, I mean, for professional use, now. IMO, Gimp (speeding up as we speak), Inkscape, Scribus, Synfig, need more push (donation and promotion, mostly), but have a very strong, solid base. [ Not sure where to place Krita, as if is not "there" is mainly as it is outstandingly young. I've personally met the devs, and I couldn't trust more in that project's development/future... ]

About the DWM whole thing and Wine, altho linked above, I find very interesting to paste @Echoa 's very useful post (not sure if he tried all that using the famous parameter, in Windows 7 ) about the matter. I hope he forgives me for pasting here his full post : ================ [ Thread: An answer to "Can Affinity Photo Run in WINE on Linux?" ] ================ The short answer, no The longer answer, kinda The installer will run once you have .Net 4/4.5/4.7 installed in your Wine Prefix (used staging 3.13) and completes without any problems. Its starting it up that gets rough. The windows version of Affinity photo requires the Windows DWM for composition of the application screen and has some custom DLLs that dont seem to happy to hook into the WINE implementation of Windows. The DLLs just straight fail to load at all and while you can get it to attempt to run switching WINE to Windows 8/10 bypassing the Aero not enabled, the application crashes just after opening. I haven't done extensive testing to get it to actually open, but truth be told you likely won't see good results even if you do. It'll likely run very unstable and slow which defeats it's entire purpose. I imagine because WINE doesn't have a complete DX11 implementation, doesn't have Windows DWM, and doesn't have/implement in full/doesn't implement the exact same any number of other necessary Windows parts it's just not going to be enjoyable. I don't know exactly how ingrained in the Windows ecosystem (dlls, etc) the windows version of Affinity Photo is but my guess is more than WINE can deal with at this time. Hope this helps anyone on Linux looking for an answer and saves you from wasting your time trying to get an application going in WINE just to have it run awful. EDIT: some issue could be a combo of it requiring .NET Framework and a 64bit install/Prefix. Wine can be a bit sketchy with .NET in 64bit prefixes and not all functions work running .NET application. Issues could also be arising from the rendering engine not enjoying running in WINE . Ive tried everything i ccan to narrow down exactly what issues are causing the DLLs in the program folder to not load and i have to just chalk it up to "AP needs fully implemented windows"

Just edited my post to add some more info about that parameter.

For context, I kind of supposed he wanted to load an Affinity app without needing Aero....

@Guilford Yup, If I'm understanding you correctly, indeed there are. But is fully unsupported and not recommended. And not sure if working yet, and/or will work in the future. You can't get support ( I think it's not logged or sth) if using Affinity this way. Still, might be of great interest for several reasons for this all which we are talking about : --no-dwm-warning You can just set that in the Windows desktop icon properties ( is very easy) , I used to have it in beta times until realized I preferred jut to set a very minimal aero config. For sometime I had the two icons. I'm guessing you might also (dunno) load this way from Windows command line (console). DWM is the Desktop Windows Management Composition , and I have some posts about how you could disable most Aero features. Anyway, your latest solution is... actually using windows, if all you are going to do is have other machine (a Windows one) running Designer and access it via teamviewer. That one allows to setup for best performance, but unless you have a great network setup, that thing is gonna lag. If goes through inet, and/or some sort of wifi, I'd predict issues.... Edit: Probably running Affinity with the parameter leads to a sub-optimal way of work for the app. Dunno what stuff could go wrong, really. But... in this very specific case, Wine, people is used to hacks and reduced functionality or even some glitches... so.... what the heck, it's worth a try, right? I just don't have any linux box or VM ( my last job, got me freakingly used to have some VMware or Virtual Box with any number of fully installed distros under my windows machine, as well as a number of Windowses in VMs under the Linux box on the table I had access to(sometimes even accessing the VMs remotely. LOL ) at the moment, neither Wine to test it. Neither any terrible interest/need on doing so, but yep have curiosity in knowing if a solution is met at some point, one way or the other.... Edit 2 : From one developer, about using that parameter : " Windows will fallback to using a legacy driver model, which can lead to rendering and performance problems. This only affects Windows 7, as from Windows 8 onwards, DWM Composition is always enabled "

Please, somebody (anybody) read my (two last ones) posts above.... They're shorter this time !

@Guilford That is indeed very interesting, I look forward to the possibility that Wine option would become a working solution. Is the one having more actual future, probably. I'm almost 100% sure you know the following threads, but just in case you don't, and could throw some light to your research, or of use for the Wine developers you know : https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/65310-an-attempt-to-run-affinity-designer-on-linux-via-wine/&tab=comments#comment-338587 And very important (maybe more) this one : https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/63600-an-answer-to-can-affinity-photo-run-in-wine-on-linux/&tab=comments#comment-329802

A lot would say that because code has to be free and all that.... Me, am not into that war, or philosophical dilema, again, more of a barricades (graphics) grunt, you know....I kind of explained (in the last of my hidden and unbearable walls of text) my own main reasons (for hoping Linux reaches the best status possible for making graphics) : Because Windows costs from 100 to 140 euros (a sensible type of license, at least), in reality, 140, as is the cheapest one you can install in several machines, not forced to the one it came with (which when the machine breaks beyond repair, leaves that people alone in the rain). And so, because 140 euros is a freaking impossible barrier in many countries. Let alone there where you can't even purchase it, no physical way to do so, and importing from another country is absolutely out of range for the average joe/jane of those places. Because MS is increasing the things it should HAVE NEVER done, and does now more than before (XP+Win 7 times look like paradise, now...) , because of its current position (and IMO, because is going a bit the way of the Dodo) and switch of the desktop to be more of a service (and maybe a big data collector). Because is nice to have an option without all that cr4p.....Because is great/healthy to give the two giants (in number of desktops, is mostly one...) some competition, but this would be a very secondary reason. All these are of quite less value/importance, except the very first one I gave in this paragraph. That one is HUGE to have the best hopes for Linux. Even so, I'm definitely not gonna be again the hero ( at a company and also as a freelancer) trying ( actually being successful at it) to make work so many things that don't work for a graphics pro. Once I'll see from outside that the stuff is improved enough, even if not 100% showtime ready, but almost ready ( a lot of the stuff you mention is ready, @toltec, but incomplete, randomly complete to say the least, and that goes against professional use even having the best intentions in favor of Linux) I might then jump in, even to just support it. The price to pay is high if not, and already paid it in its day (everyday during years)... And my main take at it, for what I am upset, is that back in 2002 and before (I've been dealing with this stuff since the 90s), one could argue that there were no resources, no way to care about this. Today, there's a large number of brains, volunteers, money, companies behind Linux, organizations, etc, etc, etc, enough to have put a lot more "love" into the whole graphic content creation thing, as much as has gone to all sort of network, coding, systems or cloud initiatives. But IMO, there's simply no real interest in the community, as a whole, in graphics creation software. Only a few epic heroes and heroines, which are completely left alone to their fight, but that's far from enough to get a platform where an artist, a graphic professional of a bunch of fields, could say goodbye to Windows or OSX and the apps that run over them. Still...gotta tell ya, I have hope.... Edit : My own dream, to be fully sincere, is not "abandoning" a system, but have 3 machines (been years maintaining 4 -5 OSes at home at a time, so, no biggie), each one with one of the systems, being able to do everything with each. That would give always the best option. As there are always peculiarities and "best tool for the task", even among very high end and complete solutions. And well, mostly, because I'm geek/nerd beyond repair. I like this stuff by itself. I like a terminal as much as the latest graphic desktop. So, I don't hate OSes, lol. But I'm lucky to be in the first world (kind of), lucky to be able to afford it. A luck that I don't deserve more than other people...

Ehm.... FJ Guilford, fjg3d for a chance ? Fully porting it by someone would need the company willing to provide the code freely, which I very strongly doubt (although other thing would be if internal talks and negotiations would happen with Linux devs or whatever, maybe needing NDA papers signed for anything to happen, if not contracts, and convincing the powers that be behind money. All my [*very*] wild guessing. Is what would need to happen at any commercial, closed source company I've worked at ). I don't have an idea about the coding side, though.Neither what's needed for it finally working on Wine, indeed, several tried it, latest ones (very serious attempts) saying there was no way...

Hope not ! They're amazing ppl to work with / for.

https://youtu.be/LMueKWzG0WE https://youtu.be/KnnHprUGKF0 [ * Runs away. Very fast .... * ]

Another "hidden" TL;DR from me. Can't keep these short, it seems....

I'm impressed !

Watched the whole video.... Mile long rant about it, spoiler-hidden just below. For the [very] bored.

Very sweet tablet. Totally sounds as a fixable thing. Have you calibrated your tablet, after installed the driver? How do you setup your graphic card in your (Windows?) OS ? In Clone mode ? Extend ? tried switching different modes, see if it works ? Have you done the 3 monitor setup, and then calibrated the one you plan on using the tablet to draw ? Have you checked this info from them about the matter ? https://www.xp-pen.com/ask/detail/id/33/channel/66.html Did you fully, fully uninstall Wacom's or any other drivers before installing XP-PEN's ones ? (if not, uninstall all current, install latest drivers) I'd advice to use latest drivers from their site, for your specific model. Have you tried disabling Windows (if in Windows) tablet/pen input? As well as writing recognition. Sometimes disabling Windows Ink helps (in your tablet driver). In some cases is all the opposite, is actually enabling the tablet input and configuring it well. But you said when unplug the other monitors, it works great, so, my bet here is just a matter of how the whole clone/extend/mirror or whatever mode are you configuring your monitors in your system, combined with the tablet calibration (referring to calibration pen/tablet, not to hardware color calibration). IMO, ensure all the driver full installation is absolutely perfect considering all above, install the latest drivers from their website (not the ones in the dvd) , at XP driver settings once installed, do the calibration, extended monitor, etc. Should totally work. I had a cintiq for a while, and had some issues with my particular setup..... Set your main monitor to your dedicated graphic card adapter (if you have one), as primary, set the tablet-monitor set up as secondary, and calibrate that one using the pen. I hope the brain storm do some good...

You are welcome ! And kudos, those are outstanding brushes.

Hola buenos días, la verdad me encanto esta nueva versión de Affinity Designer, mas rápido mas fluido realmente se siente mas optimizado bueno ya solo quería compartir este fondo, sigo practicando y avanzando lento pero seguro :3 ----- English (not google translated) : Hello, good morning, truth is I love this new Affinity Designer version, faster, more fluid, it really seems more optimized. Well, I just wanted to share this background, I keep practicing and improving, slowly but firmly. :3

Well, then I'm happy, my friend ! If you get stuck, just ask, there's a large bunch of people around here extremely experienced and talented (some comics making old rockers around, too, very kind and eager to help, as well. And people knowing a lot about DTP workflows (and any other aspect and field), very technical matters, so, just ask if you get stuck in some problem, someone will pop with a great solution. ) [ What I mean is that I see here experts in each and every field, almost. That's handy ] Have lots of fun making your comics! I know it is a blast.

My problem with that concept is that, if so, there must be other factors in play. A business model, from Harvard or wherever....You know how economy is not easy to predict even by the best world famous, established gurus (they tend to be proven wrong too many times, and most of them are very cautious with their models, specially lately). My huge issue is that I see that a lot of vendors doing the other model for decades, and currently, a single application (this actually invalidates the statement of a need to make a suite to do something value worthy in business) , for even only one platform, and purchase-only (or as much, bleeding edge option for subscription based + purchase only for the other mass of users). Those companies would have not lasted, otherwise. Winzip being around since the eighties, no less... But Zbrush, beating anyone else, even the ultra powerful Autodesk, with its app, and Autodesk Mudbox (VERY nice software, btw, I indeed like more its UI than Zbrush's...BTW, I have a ZB license purchased since very very long, when they were not yet what they are now) not having even a chance. ZB's got the market, the full domain. No suite needed, no subscription model either. Been purchase-only for a huge while. Typical single, volume, or float (and student) licenses which we've always had in every piece of software for decades. And that's it. And trust me, ZB is a huuge thing in graphics. It gets all the game market, and you know the kind of money that one moves.... both indy/casual and mega pro triple A stuff. It gets the VR market right now. Even a big chunk of the film space (Mari has most of it in what is texturing, tho). There are too many examples. One of the best the mentioned Substance Painter and Designer from Allegorithmic. Giving all sort of options, both models, freedom to choose. And it was clearly not a dark path to transfer ppl fully to subscription, as time passes and they keep both models. Art Rage, Corel , etc. Many examples... They all offer a purchase option. Many of them as single possibility. Those would have sunk decades ago if subscription would be the only way, and/or would have ALL switched. And we are talking about full industry standards. I cannot go to ANY job , game related, and pretend to get the job without knowing (actually fully mastering) Zbrush. No matter how genius could I be with THE ENTIRE Adobe suite and the entire Autodesk one. As much, if they value enough my other skills, and I demonstrate high skill on Mudbox, and they are cool people, they'd allow me to retrain that "second in line" Mudbox skills to transfer them to ZB. But just that. Beware that often a specific critical workflow ( even if just a rare type of project, but that is vital for your company) might not be possible with alternative tools (lacking A or B feature), whichever they are. I'd check with the technical people in your studio, and their workflows. Otherwise there can be surprises (not only with Affinity, but with the other apps I was suggesting). Once knowing fully all the bits, can decide. You're welcome ! :). More than an answer, it needs an study about what workflows are you going to need, in detail, a practical research with your colleagues or employees....IMO I doubt it (but judging the many videos I have seen (some gestures are pure genius), the Affinity iPad implementations outshine almost anything else on the iPad, IMO. The implementation, workflow, etc, is brilliant). But I'm controversial in this matter (generic tablets & iPad vs desktop). For pro work, I always see the iPad as a powerful companion, never a replacement. Even if just for the screen size, this limits in too many ways for pro work. But also for the file system, compatibility with a lot of the professional established software, etc. Still is amazing for showing work to clients , and do stuff when you are away from the desktop ( I guess...) An iPad is a tablet (edit: oh, if meaning a pen-display like a Wacom Cintiq or alternative, yep, u also can), so, yep. Some would say a Surface Pro is a tablet , too... (just imo, for work, actually more versatile. But the jitter in the pen when drawing lines is way worse, as is all of the pen's aspects compared to the Pencil. But again, a size of 12 inches is of limited usage for pro stuff, in both cases. ) The issue is that I see iOS limited, in comparison to Windows and OSX..... Color management, you can't go as much in detail (fine control of that) with certain stuff. Hardware, it limits the size of canvases. So, you might be limited to 10.000 px x 8000 px canvases or the like ( 8k x 8k, etc)...not good enough for me ( I too often need to work fluidly in a (raster) 25k x 20k px, or similar), that's for sure. You can't put either whatever the graphic card or extra RAM memory, nor change the CPU, etc, etc (when a certain project needs it, a particular software, etc) to an ipad. "File system", it's a different paradigm, and there are certain issues with that. Compatibility with certain professional software in a bunch of business types. If we talk about "moving" or "replacement". If we speak of it as a "companion" tool, there I have no objections...

In Photo, you can use Mesh Warp tool (bottom of vertical toolbar). In the top bar as usual appear settings of this tool, set there (Nearest) at the resampling field. Only that this operates only at full layer, not over a selection.It'll look smoothed borders, but once you hit apply is hard egdes. But very irregular, is not though to do this, clearly. Great tool, but wouldn't recommend it for this. Frankly, just don't use a workflow based on transforms for doing the comic flats. I insist you will work faster with lasso freehand / polygonal tool with antialias off. As how shortcuts are working here (unless you use a shortcuts special tool called X-Mouse button control), your best chances with lasso selection is just use lasso in POLYGONAL mode. As then, just point clicking you are doing polygonal selection (practical for well controlled flats areas: remember you need to keep at center of the ink lines in case stuff gets moved at print time) but if you click drag, it behaves as freehand lasso.(always hard edges, ofc). Also, keys are not the same than PS. Here, to remove from selection, keep ALT pressed. To add, is a complex combo of first right click, keep hold, and with RMB pressed, LMB drag . Two button at a time is less control over your hand (and this is an accuracy critical task), plus more stress to the tendons (bad for carpian tunnel, etc), so, I'd advice to use X-Mouse button control to force it to be totally like PS's shortcuts. But that would need an entire new post. (I have a few about that lying around). And anyway, best if you don't need to over complicate your workflow, in any case. I mean, with how it is, pixel tool, lasso, paint bucket and/or just shift f5 (fill...) you are ready to go and make great flats. No need for the transform if use properly the lasso OR, large brushes (I have c and v as keys to increase and decrease brush size as I go, configure your fav keys at Affinity preferences) of the hard edged Pixel Tool. Trust me, is one of those things you can do without missing anything from Adobe PS or whatever.

Re: brushes paint hard. If not using the lasso tool with no antialias, a very standard procedure among pro flatters since always, and really want to use a brush (I think is way slower, but hey) , then yep u can do so as well, in Photo : - Use the 1px tool (one pixel tool, thought for pixel art). Despite being a one pixel tool, you can increase/decrease your brush size as desired while you paint. Edges will always be hard.Obviously, leave flow and opacity at 100% ! And hardness (tho I've seen does not vary hardness with this tool, luckily) Really, you can very well do your comic flats in Photo like in every tool fully capable of that. EDIT: If you don't find the Pixel Tool : You need to click and paintain pressure on the brush tool in the vertical tools bar. 3 tool icons appear, one called Pixel Tool. It'll replace the normal brush until you change this again. Tip: You can use DIFFERENT key shortcuts for each, if you need to fast swap. Tip 2 : Keeping ctrl pressed makes Pixel Tool works as an eraser, hard edges, too!. Tip 3: You have the Pixel Tool, multiply mode (if I remember well) and basic selecting and filling tools as well in PIXEL PERSONA (not in vector persona, which I think is where you are on) at A. Designer. Again, I very much would work on Photo for all this....

If done instead in Photo (which I'd do, specially for coloring), I'd just set the black inks layer in "multiply" mode, then you don't have to worry about removing the white chunk. Anyway, depends heavily on the planned the output (web comics, printing, if printing, what kind of printing, etc). You seem to be willing to do the color flats, and yep, is required by the industry, even at indy level, to avoid any smoothing in the flats. In Photo, use the laso, in polygonal mode (top bar) or normal mode (freehand), but be sure antialias is unchecked. Those will be hard edges. Now u have two options : A) Flood fill tool at 100% tolerance, "contiguous" marked (unless you want to fill other selections at a time which you have overall canvas, that'd be a rare workflow for doing comic flats, tho), which is the usual workflow for those coming from Adobe PS. B) OR.... Shift F5, brings up a dialog, so, a bit slower, to select your color and hit enter/ok. Result is the same, or that is, for me. With the black inks layer, again, depends on final output. Is totally different for offset printing, than digital cheapo printer, than just web/screen for a webcomic. For pritning, you might just scan your inks at 1200 dpi as 1bit image, so, removing the white there is absolutely trivial, and as later on , at printing time, it'd be printed very smooth at final print resolution. But one issue seems is one can't have a 1 bit layer in Photo. The output I usually need does not need that at all, tends to be enough a layer in multiply mode for the inks. But that's me and my circumstances. Maybe you can replicate this workflow in Designer's Pixel Persona, as is a bit of a mini raster editor embedded in a vector based tool. Dunno, as never tried such thing. You have Photo purchased, and you are going for a very raster based workflow (ie, you are not doing the inks as vectors) .So, I don't see the point in using Designer for this.... (edit: and yep, in photo you can select the white with select sampled color, for example. Or the magic wind. Doing a fast test, no issues)

I'm a basic brush kind of artist (I just play with flow to get my oil/digital paint look), but sometimes use special brushes when time is very tight (so, these come very handy in those situations). In other type of situation, is when I REALLY want a traditional feel, like if I were handling a real brush ink, a copic, pentel, or just oil/watercolors. I know there are digital painting software for that, but I am defender of using general image editing apps for illustration. Also, almost completely raster applications, so I am not the best one to ask that, as I believe most illustrators tend to prefer vector tools like Designer (or Adobe Illustrators). I'm a mix of a digital painter and a realistic illustrator: I'm all for Photo, here. ( I do vector work, but mostly design). I don't know how are the demographics, but I see people using a lot custom brushes in both Photo and Designer. You'd probably widen your scope providing both versions. I was seeing your catalog, by curiosity, hours ago. I'm not really your potential customer, as I'm a fan of basic brush setup, and then let the raw painting take care of all, but if anything, I'd see very interesting the port of : - oil paint (probably this I would purchase. When someone asks me for a totally oil-made-but-digital portrait ( I'm specialized in portraits, as a traditional painter), this could come handy.Also, not keeping my oils in my small flat... ). I'd probably mostly care to port this one to Photo. - Markers. As designers, people working in fashion, etc, etc, use them a lot. Also because seeing the shots of the strokes there, they seem very well done....This, being most surely targeted by many designers and illustrators, I'd port to both, Designer and Photo. - Watercolor. A very important one. I'd port to both Photo and Designer. - Color pencils : Designer and Photo. And they quite remember me of actual pencil texture. - Pencils: Love the side shader and shader effect. Maybe more in Photo. - Crayons : Lovely. And have this huge potential for kids books illustration and many styles... I think fit better in Designer, but would be very good for many artists to count on them in Photo as well. - Ink Wash : Seems Japanese inking. I'm not into that too much, but I can see how a bunch of ppl would love those (maybe more in Designer...) -Grunge brushes : Extremely useful, and not only in illustration, also in photo and general editing works, texture making, etc. Both apps, clearly. -Real Charcoal : Love it. If only as reminds me from college...Seems well done, maybe mostly A.Photo... - Natural ink: Of the likes of many, surely Designer mostly. - Soft pastels : Well done! Both apps. - Crosshatching: Seems good but the problem is that Affinity counts on one or two vendors for this that are totally jaw dropping... hard competition here, maybe. Both apps. About the rest... to shorten this a bit (wow, you have a bunch, lol.... ) : - Whispy flats : matches a very trendy style of illustration, I'd expect to seen used mostly in Designer. - Sketch pencils : I see these interesting, too. (AP and AD) - Lettering brushes : Interesting, again, both apps... - Watercolor wash : Curious, for so me reasons, it did look to me more like watercolor than actual watercolor brush seen previously...must be just the samples. Both apps. - Ballpoint pens: Loved that brush samples. If only because I actually learntto draw with those as a kid. There are artists using only these for all their whole production. Both apps. - Rull brushes : Love this one. Not sure if I'd use these or the actual oil brushes above. I'd only use in Photo... - Spray Paint mimic really well what an airbrush does in real life...kudos... Another temptation to grab. - Real Gouache looks cool. I see it more used in AD. - Sponge: Same deal There are so many and so good, that more bundles would make sense... Maybe. I mean, my overall view is that is best to port to both apps. But those more expected to be used in pure illustration, and certain type of graphic design, maybe more into AD, if you have to choose to optimize efforts. Those more in the land of realistic traditional painting/drawing, digital painting, specially if realistic/fantasy/etc, maybe more for Photo. (Again, I'd port to both....) But it's only my personal opinion. Not basing this on any stats.

OH! . Me. Every single day. And is extremely rare that I'd hit the "confused" or "sad" emoticon...