SrPx

I think there's some reasons behind the limit, like, maybe not saturating the system somehow, or so that people don't just hit 'like' to a ton of things, making them being more thoughtful/selective so that the best posts get easily detected (it has the counter part that one might not hit a 'like' for a really good post, and is too lazy/lacks of time to dig some other posts with previously set 'likes', or simply, not loving that action itself). Could initially be to avoid a mob of users cornering someone for whatever the reason... but this community has proven to me that is not very fond of hitting the negative emoticons. They are being used only rarely (not giving ideas, lol...)... But...that said, I think around 20 likes/day would be a better approach (haven't seen a limit of likes in other social media systems, if I remember well...)

Me. Totally, for ever...A pity I trashed the Spectrum 48K rubber key avatar for this Sauron thing....

Yes ! I can do them apasionadamente ! EDIT: Is there an option for onequarterheartedly ? I mean, mostly for the afternoon, I'm sleepy then..... Mediterranean lunch, you know...

Just put Aero, but minimize the FX and stuff at Performance. More than for performance reasons, to just keep it at a non annoying level. It's possible, and not hard to do.

I'd second any improvement in this line, in the desktop Windows version....very much heartedly.

Kudos! Argh, am out of likes, today... Seems useful for speeding up realistic and stylized projects.

Do you set your brush settings by double clicking on a brush on the brush library, and setting the settings as you want them to be and stay, or do you access those settings by clicking the "more" button at the top menu bar? Doing the former is how I make it retain the values for each brush.

Interested to know how well it does....

Interesante experimento.

Wow, gbjack, really sorry to hear that. I understand the furor.... [I've worked with large files too, specially for events, too (both raster and vector), back in the day at companies.....but I am typically (not always, tho) lucky...] Some apps do this in Windows from time to time. It's horrid... The one taking over should be really able to, but sometimes sth is wrong in the installer or uninstaller... If nothing works, I'd re-associate manually (by right click on any *.AI file, "open with", mark "open always with this type of file", then browsing to the AI folder, and pick AI executable. If that ain't working either, then is some registry issue, I'd have to edit (probably in several places, and as always, if done by someone expert touching the Windows Registry, even if just a power user not even a system tech. And previous backing up the registry, client files(well, this we do always, anyway), etc) manually the registry, so to force the extension to be opened with AI and not A.XD app. I observed that to happen sometimes, or sth similar, but with PS.... The out of memory stuff can be for a collection of reasons (app related or not). But as I mentioned, it seems their apps are becoming really hardware and resources hungry. Now, that's indeed my main criticism... (I have read in a pair of in depth articles that they are working heavily on performance, they took note of many complaints it seems, about the matter, that's the "less visible improvements", in 2019 versions... It's to be seen where and how does that new path ends. Not optimistic related to that optimization to be too radical, tho). Any other app I've used for 2D (including Affinity apps) is lighter in that resources usage than latest adobe ones.... Well.... That's why it is lovely that there a bunch of other alternatives.

Some good points you made there ( in the post I hadn't read as cross posting happened, not the one you posted just above...geez, this goes too fast....). Sadly, very tight on time right now, and am afraid wont be able to post more till tomorrow at very late hour.... If you are managing/owning a commercial studio (in whatever the field(s)) you are probably aware of all the following, but there's always some bit each of us aren't aware of, so, here I go.... : - Animation: I have a HUGE post with links and stuff about it. Well, actually quite more than one. There are so many apps under the 300 bucks line, which are, equal if not better than the old Flash (Animate) that I don't see a need to get yet another one, but instead, master, or make your employees master, the one, or the ones that integrates best in your workflows and client needs. ( Toon Boom, Cacani, Moho, Animation paper (PAP), Opentonz, etc, etc, etc. For games, maybe more sth like Spine). Toonboon is the king and gets pricey, but there's a variety of product levels and prices, tho. Like in most of these brands. - Video editing: Davinci Resolve not only counts on a solid video editor (very solid), it gives you a totally free version with reduced -yet large- resolution allowed in export, and some other limits not stopping even serious indies to make hi quality work. It has also included a compositing solution (Fusion, can get apart, too) that you could use for kind of the functionality of A. After Effects. Then you have Hitfilm ( also quite capable free version available), perhaps in a lower level (video editing and effects, too). Besides that, for typical simpler commercial videos not so FX heavy, less advanced, rarely will go wrong with Sony Vegas. All these are ~300 (or cheaper) bucks solutions, permanent purchase license. Pretty affordable. There are a long bunch of other affordable tools out there for video editing, even some good ones in the free land. - Audio: I have needed to clean audio, make basic loops, generate game sounds, etc, as u know it ends up happening in every small game studio when you are used for everything, from testing, to audio, translations, etc. For my definitely non-pro needs there (but my files ended in pro products, lol), Audacity always was enough. But there are other free or cheap options like Acoustica or Ardour. If doing something pro, you need to go to the big guys, of course. (but mostly, count on some one really pro person in sound FX, music, etc) There is a literal ton of tools for practically everything. By using a lot of these, I have realized how is not so true that Adobe and Autodesk have the best possible thing ever for this or that field: I mean, for every freaking field, out of the main two/three apps. They totally got it with PS, AI, After Effects (but there are also valid alternatives, IMO, for all those. Specific circumstances will define if one needs Adobe or not (compatibility with clients in native formats, certain feature, etc), Premiere (but same). And some more. But for example, back in the time, the UV mapper included (and even some third party expensive set of plugins) in 3DS Max ( the UVW Window) was NO WAY close to the depth and flexibility found in a sort of individual, one man band developer tool called Unwrap 3D (know it and exchanged mails with the author since Lithunwrap times, the precursor freebie). of course, times change, Max evolved a lot, but this still happens with so many things. Even more when you need very specific tasks in your workflow. There's always a tool absolutely shining over anything else, included behemoths top dogs from large companies. I'm expanding here because you say you have interest on alternatives (ie, you commented interest on Corel, which makes a great work in the area of color separation for printing, to give an example of its huge advantages, and Photopaint is a great helper for an Illustrator finishing works -ie, supports CMYK (not that common, to be supported) there where Corel Painter never did- Still, IMO is no competition for Affinity due to pricing. Specially in an studio needing several seats ) , and so, I guess it might be of interest, but also, to make my point (arguable, I know) that as time passes, it is increasingly clear that there's now so much variety and competition, that the entire HUGE suite concept (instead of at least a smaller, more theme related and compact "suite" of 3/4 estelar tools) made more sense in the 90s, not so much anymore, where all market workflows has over complicated, tasks are way more deep. Just look at the uber crazy complexity of a single workflow in Allegoritmic Substance Painter or Designer. There's quite a whole complex world in its own embedded there in just two apps. This is no 1995 anymore (for both better and worse). Also, discourages going for it the so well tied the market is by Adobe and Autodesk. IMO, would not be a clever move. But imo the clever path is how Serif is doing, focusing on making a master piece out of each of the 3 most fundamental type of tools for the larger market, 2D. Is more wall of text of my 2c, though.

EDIT: Seems I cross-posted, you were writing at the same time.. will read that now.... Gaming?? Engine developers have it already pretty hard to develop with completeness a single game engine (and having worked quite at game dev studios, using one of those is often a very weak/limited solution compared to in-house made engines for custom projects, coded by really estelar programmers) . I mean is clearly a type of product you would not include in a large suite. Blender (is not only 3D composition, it does practically everything in 3D, and even texturing/shading/animating/rendering/video editing, etc, etc. with Grease Pencil, even 2D animating, even while they already had a industry level toon shading rendering with Freestyle) will, almost for sure, never partner with anything commercial, unless the other party ready to go on fully with the strict GNU GPL licensing, and I don't see many (there are instances) commercial closed source companies happy to go that path.... Look, I see sense in what MS has been doing for so many decades -and dominating the world with it- with its Microsoft Office pack, and totally great what open source has there to offer, specially Libre Office. A bunch of softwares kind of targeting a correlated set of tasks. Not stuff going across every possible different industry one can randomly think of. (even while AD/AP and PS/AI can actually be used in a ton of different industries (from medical, to astronomy, fashion, etc... but that's another matter) . I mean, not sure if what you are defining is a suite or the Apple Mac store front at its whole. Just as if all there was from the same company.... Well, in a somewhat serious note, I think that whole list is attacking way too many fronts. One thing is to be too niche, or making just one app for one single platform (ie, Winzip, which BTW, extremely successful and they did only make that, but reigned in Wndows like a Caesar in compressed archives. It goes now by version 23, lol, started all with the zip archiving system back in 1989, MSDOS times, I saw its birth ( anyone around remembers arj files? lol...), the first Windows (way before win 95, and before even Win 3.1) and it has been always strong. Or, as another way more recent example, 3D Coat. Or Zbrush. A full industry standard, now. THE KING. It only has been after many years that they expanded to a pair of other tools, but doing more or less the same stuff than the main one, or parts of it) I sincerely don't see this need of developing every freaking type of application you can run in a machine, and and stamp on it the badge of a 'suite'... What Serif is doing, instead, totally sensible. Is the pack needed for DTP, 2D graphic design, and anything raster and vector. Also, the number of target users is massive: photographers, designers, etc... I once -long ago, I recon- checked the volume in business (in big numbers) moved in 2D compared with 3D, and I was shocked. Despite me considering, having long experience in both, that 3D was in the end, looking at it as a whole, more technically complex, and wider to fully master all micro fields there, it totally blow my mind to check and realize the HUGE difference in money moved, size of market of 2D compared to 3D. So.. targeting that market and photography as the main thing, and even only that, makes the heck of a ton of sense. Meaning, with a vector, a raster editing tools, and now the publishing one, they're good to go for a while... And those are deep matters enough that will take, well, at least half of what took Adobe to achieve in those their current level. Am not saying the full list is crazy. I see some good points there, as are related, complement well the current suite. Like : (well, your point 4 makes me think you need a bit more information on the full functionality of Affinity apps. Or just use them more.) 8 Document editing and execution (eg. Acrobat) If you mean sth like the old Adobe Distiller, yep, I'd agree would be a nice addition. Tho, not sure if that's overlapping quite with AD/AP/Apub current and planned functionality. Seems more compact to me if the needed features PDF related keep being added to those, specially as they have this huge advantage over Adobe and other suites with the common format. 9 Okay, I'd agree, but no need to make it only cloud based. A lot of current target users are not fond of cloud-only handling, particularly. But yeah, and there's a lot of requests for a Bridge like app, an assets browser. As far as I understood, is planned to be done at some point by Serif, might be quite in the future. So, another one in the green list. I particularly see non convenient to attack the WYSIWYG front. I've worked more than a decade doing web code, and being a graphic web designer as well, and in this, it's all going coding centered, not the opposite. There's a reason why Muse was closed by Adobe, and why Dreamweaver is not pushed very much, neither Flash (Animate). Also, there are new workflows in the UI/UX land, and as now have a ton more tasks than we old web designers ever had, it has a ton to do with team shared work, continuous integration, team work, working with online tools like webflow, with a huge push with InVision, Sketch , Figma and, perhaps (weaker in the line, imo) Adobe XD. To put those down, and mostly make a buck, extremely, extremely hard. As also, it is all going not the design desktop app way, neither the full page design, but coding chunks and integrating those mostly generated server side, and coordinated by those UI/UX online, team work tools, very hard to defeat.

Ouch, I meant English grammar ninja....

Yep, I didn't mean directly editing those, of course.... Just enlightening us... Edit: Oh..that was British humor again... I'm always too slow for that....

Yes... ! Don't be humble.....I have seen you in action, fixing grammar disasters..... :

@gbjack Ehm....I don't actually agree with all that. Look, I have deeply trialed both AI and PS in its latest versions, and they are definitely actual jewels. Yes, quite resource hungry and loading (at least in Windows) a lot of extra TSR processes (there are ways to get that 100% under control, tho. But I bet only a 0.01% of "digital population" knows how, lol) removing resources, memory, etc. All of that, with a lot of crazy-geek-level fine tuning can be put under control, and get reasonable, functional performance even in a dinosaur machine like mine (in the signature down below). Heck, even with GPU acceleration off, getting smooth brush painting in huge canvases, while being totally stuck in a raw fresh install ( I took it as a crazy challenge). They were stable in a many hours intensive set of tests in my experience. They are technology leaders, not just market leaders (even if abusing the monopoly status). The price for the entire cloud suite is VERY cheap, BUT for people really needing ALL those apps. Which I believe wont be the case for a vast number of users. And there's no freaking option for a lot of intermediate situations (the photography plan is nice, tho, but quite insufficient for all kind of use cases). No purchase option provided, together with that. So, it is subtle, but is a monopolistic behavior. Still, AI is GREAT, I dislike deeply its UI, true that at companies I got very used to it, but IMO, Affinity Designer is much of a better user experience, easier learning curve, and even more functional. You can want to have a richer feature set (comes with time!!), but Affinity apps are extremely young, while Photoshop I believe is from 1988. With all respect, I don't agree in any bit those statements about the programmers. First of all, if anything, programmers are typically fully following orders. It's a really hard job, not your (not meaning "you") every day boring and easy 9 to 5 job, I expect this kind of activity needing as much of passion and sacrifice being forced ingredients as we 2D/3D artists, designers and illustrators need to put to do our work. Is not like they love to have this or that bug in their code. That goes against their core passion, at least the ones I have personally known. Is more likely these apps are at this point (Adobe's) behemoths, really monster applications, with tons of implications in every chunk of code, many stuff to support, many things interrelated like a delicate cards castle, and chaos intervene more the more factors are in play, towards error possibilities. That said, in my experience, both old (there were some very unfortunate versions, decades ago, btw, another argument to be patient with Affinity NOW) Adobe versions, as current ones, are pretty solid an stable. So, to anyone having a bunch of crashes, be it with Adobe, or Affinity, I can almost guarantee that in a large number of cases is an issue of the OS, or a driver, or etc. It may not appear in other apps usage, but is maybe as not the same graphic libraries, or drivers, are called, for example. IF having one particular rare bug, and only that, the user might have caught a real something that would be of major interest to know by Affinity team: These are (2009?) extremely young applications, which did seem to be born from one OS and then have been painfully ported to another 2 platforms, so is more than expected to have a rough beginning, all software I have known have suffered from this (or way, way worse) in the first years, some even almost 2 decades. So...sorry, while I share the enthusiasm for Affinity apps, I wouldn't share a negative vision about Adobe apps, in technical aspects (and way less, feel so about its programmers). They are pretty good, and their coders have my entire admiration (I admire ANY coder, as I've only been able to code a bit in Python and VB code, lol.... ). Also, posting the names (in a negative vibe), is a bit... I dunno... Not my style, that's for very certain. @John Gibson Finding way more points in common, now in your latest posts. Which is quite an increase , from almost zero . Anyway, I tend to prefer (lately, in general) to focus on the points in common, you know, is hard to get a car moving if each one is pushing in the opposite direction... Yep, agreeing. Freehand was such a joy. I'd add as well Muse (very recently, and the main "business engine" for a girl very friend of mine, she got really mad. But I told her to better learn web coding, even the day she started learning Muse...) , Fireworks being abandoned, and strange strategy with other products, too. But miles away from what I have seen done by Autodesk...(ie, the company acquiring XSI and then making it disappear. I had purchased a version, it was...painful. is not 50 bucks, you know...) Or...outside these two, Deep Paint 3D got abandoned (+2k euros due to crazy shipping and other matters), and a few some more... Relearning constantly. So much, than in 3D I decided, at least for personal projects,which later on became kind of my job, would use open source. So I migrated to Blender. Is way harder but is in a point where "certain" gigs can be done totally in a professional way. Not everything, but a freelancer can choose which gigs to take (if he/she is any good). I mean... I've come to this mindset: One is to corner one all the time in IT, computer stuff, graphics creation. In coding, way more. Even simple stuff like web coding languages need to be re-learnt every 2-3 years, besides being in absolute constant skills and knowledge updated, in a "every-week" basis. It has become natural, I expect some form of this in every front, every app, every industry I touch. It is so, is gonna keep being so, IMO.... Comes well to the debate, as a lot of ppl complaining really is willing to find the exact same workflow in AD or AP as they had in AI and PS. While probably they did not pretended to expect so when switching to Corel or Xara. For some reason, some people expect Affinity to be their cheaper Adobe clone/solution, and "only" that. I've been convinced that is not the case. The sooner we realize that, and get flexible to learn an entire new thing, -despite it keeps some UI standard fundamentals- the happier path we will have in front of us with these applications. Things like the issue with the mask, from....er....that user... and a ton of other complaints, really reflect close to zero of these are willing to go further and investigate HOW would I do this with this new app, to build my very own workflows. Which we did in the past, but the big top dogs (not just Adobe) have made lazy brains for some... I LOVE digging really hard UIs, like they were in its day at first contact (IMO, not anymore with their current improvements) Blender, Inkscape and Gimp. Besides, those are much more capable than a lot of people think. All my point is... yeah, it $ucks, but we need to adapt to a very changing environment, learn faster too. Is very hard to do, heck, I know...The luck with Affinity is that it has an extremely smooth learning curve. IMO, one of the keys to its success. Here I diverge. Corel (Corel Draw, Photopaint, etc) has been many years at total pro level, specially for certain industry sectors....Even if not for every possible use and industry, as Adobe has accomplished. But there are a bunch of very critical things done even better in Corel than Adobe. And it has a subscription model, but not forced, you can purchase the entire suite. And while I think the perpetual licence price is fair, not so great for many pockets. Or deeper pockets but not willing to justify certain kind of money for a type of tool that they find cheaper and very capable (or free, if one is a weirdo freaky geek like me) somewhere else. (a lot of people could do very well with Xara). ANSWER 1 : I never would be interested in the 20 apps. Not even half of them, surely only 3 or 4 (if anything!). As I love other third party alternatives of very different nature. For the existing 3 apps ( and I have ZERO desire in Serif doing any more apps than these 3), well, it'd depend. I'm putting the example as some other freelancers might be in the case. If I keep having certain freelancing workload (moving to a company, I doubt will be the case) , maybe the 3 per year. In reality, more likely as much one or 2 per year (I'm not much into publishing, editing projects), and if really needed. Surely would update no matter what, each app, after 3 years of having purchased each app. If any forced subscription or forced update (disallowing my use of my old version somehow) would show up, I'd fly away, very, very far. ANSWER 2 : Nope. Absolutely not. By any means. I'm even against that. I prefer focused attention to do jewels. Also, as I am versatile with a bunch of existing alternatives ( and many more that I'm sure will appear from existing and new companies), having as well purchased some, and using free software. ANSWER 3 : Not really.... maybe 20 years ago, I would have. No point now. The entire environment has evolved crazily. Is not Adobe alone anymore. There are very good alternatives for every type of tool, in the mid cost (50 - 800 . Even some in the "low cost" (my own definition) range, under 50 ) and open source. Also, I trust Serif, besides is totally their business and their call. ANSWER 4 : Nope. I had my "share" (sorry the pun) of that, small experiences with that sort of thing with other companies, not into that, ever, definitely. ANSWER 5 : What they have already in their plans, of the little I know of, what I have read, makes quite sense. And I completely trust their criteria to make the best for their apps. Besides is , by all means, their call. But being asked, I would love a ton of love for the brush and color picker systems (like if it wasn't known already, lol) and maybe after that, other painting related features, but that last bit would be non crucial. No such thing as unlimited ... I know you mean, huge resources... Considering it getting unlimited resources sounds to me as planning what Christmas decoration shall I put in my new condo in Mars... But ok, let's play... Maybe a ....nope. Really, even thinking hard... there's already a gorgeous alternatives from other brands in most everything I would ever use (and I am as multi profile as one can get in graphics...)...They did hit the target with these 3. At that competitive price, there were no clear options for vectors, overall raster editing, and in publishing... I know way less of that latest type of tool, but does not seem is crowded with cheap yet great solutions. My hopes are 100% more in the line of getting more and more polishing on existing features, maybe adding some more new ones (for me this is secondary), but all about the 3 existing apps. It completes a perfect puzzle with other brands' alternatives for other needs in graphic content creations. We needed these 3, precisely, and now need these 3 to excel and keep competing, IMO. Thank you ! Also, we have around an English ninja around, whenever sth is wrong, he does a Capoeira kick and fixes it.... ( Am I right, @Alfred ? ) I trust more the powers that be behind Serif, as well as the developers, all that bunch, in their criteria. This is one of the points we are farther away in these posts. But as mentioned by now both of us, no big deal in that being so....

Yep, we certainly disagree, it's increasingly obvious to me, in mostly every point. But that's not an issue, at all. I respect your reasoning. I find though, that a lot of what you see as facts, are more in the land of the opinions, too, but we are not going to agree either on that, I'm afraid. And that's perfectly fine, as well. Still... I have certain personal curiosity, and is not the very first time it happens, as neither is the first person reaching here with these POVs (which I am not demonizing. It's interesting hearing people's opinions, whichever they are).... My question is... You seem to really give a lot more value, and the crown of the professional tools (set of tools) , even the right business model, to Adobe CC's entire suite. So, ...Why not just keep using it, if it is so perfect ? (or even if they were at a 70% of your ideal model) I mean, with your views on the matter, I don't see the practical point of all this, and I understand way more the reaction of "crawler87", in that review. That is, this person just immediately went back to Photoshop (is what I do with a ton of software I dislike, those never pass the first hours of trial testing). Because, you know, perfection just does not need anything else, and you even prefer the subscription model, so, all good. I have paid many thousands for purchase-only software in the past, and its updates. Even more, I have even done so with way more money for causes you perhaps would never even believe... Am not a cheap guy when I see it's worth an investment. Anyway, it has become increasingly clear to me that with enough effort and skill, I (and I mean me, not everyone, be it average joes or pros) can use even some instances of open source (there's a huge variance in quality there from one solution to another, there's the great, the average and the terrible. But trust me on that the great is there, too.), and a lot of commercial mid-cost, to a professional level that before I was only skilled enough to do with the major tools (It's WAY EASIER!) : Adobe's and Autodesk ones. Happily, that has changed. And BTW, am a very seasoned professional in a bunch of (graphic content related) fields. You could put that in doubt, and there would be then no way to continue the debate in that matter (as not gonna provide the proofs or any personal data). But not only that about certain type of software... I have worked at companies where, not because of the money, but because of company owners' principles, (and in other ones, for money reasons), it HAD to be open source (in reference to your comment about open source). And I was able to deal with all the printing, web design, video editing, 3D modeling, and etc, for the entire company in several cases using solely open source. Freaking darn hard, but not impossible. There are also tons of business that make a single commercial application, and do enough (even a huge load) money to achieve own personal goals of the business owners, and have a happy life. Whether it matches an ideal model for business' maximum success or not, it wont be as crucial if the founders got what they actually needed or desired. I was not arguing that for an infinite growth, your suggested methods aren't the right ones : I was not really getting into debating that. But really, not looking for debate in all the other points either, as I realize we are too far in our points of view to find common grounds (sadly). I'm solely curious about why don't you just keep using the Adobe CC suite. And is a sincere question, no sarcasm involved or anything (actually, none was really involved in any of my statements or comments). I'm genuinely curious, as, carefully reading your words, you seem to really see all sort of virtues in Adobe CC (or at least, way more than in Serif's offer) , not only in the technical aspect, also in its business model (and so, future perspective) , and even it its renting system. I mean, if I had those views, I wouldn't even waste a single neuron impulse in even one only post here... I mean, what I don't get is the motivation for it... Your points, I understood them well, I might not agree, but they are well explained....(which is quite, as English is not my first language).

Seems Serif is in business since 1987. Probably no problem with the water; the plants would have dried already, I think. And most surely having a different idea about the goals they aim to achieve than your particular ones. The market penetration that Adobe has specially among companies, and how all workflows are so tied to their solutions to incredible depth in the company structure and flows, would require a lot more than just a change ( which I certainly don't wish) in strategy from Serif. Indeed I agree with Mike that is merely impossible. It would take tons of time, lots of luck, and probably, only possible if Adobe would make some collection of stupid very fatal errors. But I don't see them making any error of that magnitude, ever. One could call subscription model an error, I say that it is not if works for them. But if you browse deeply the huge amount of communities (both locally and on internet) and users against that model, you would understand that while (subscription) is a model that is here to stay, it will never fully catch on a large chunk of society around the globe. So big that those form in their own a very lucrative target group for any business. (and there were a bunch of companies doing really well (which does not imply world domination, btw) already, from that "niche", before Affinity. But funnily, to put some contrast to your argument, they were not considered "alternatives" (while they actually were, specially one of them) as Serif's Affinity is perceived now. So... there has to be something being done really well, here...) ( oh, and it is possible to say "the raw truth" and keeping manners. Which yep, are essential for any community. Trust me, I'm not of the faint of heart kind, by any means. But I think politeness is key to seduce with any idea. It has absolutely nothing to do with free speech. ) BTW, Apple (and not that I love that) shares are falling. Sells are falling. One of the main reasons why prices are particularly increasing, lately. The comments about Britain and the British (out of context, imo) , sorry, but did sound a bit xenophobic to me (I ain't no British, btw). Probably you did not wanted them to sound like that, but they did. And the ones about the US, kind of showing 'a bit' of an over glorified view. Even while I have a very good concept about that country, too. About Brexit, it really saddens me that they get out of the EU. But I would never ever blame the British people (the voting) for that decision: is a very complex issue. I do believe Serif is doing certainly great, and whatever they do and how they do it, is working. There's free speech around here, right? Then that's my view...

Intel Xeons ( ideal for servers and render farms) are wonderful machines, generally. But the fact is that these are processors from 2010. I quite believe you will see a large improvement with the SSD added, and RAM increase, in the tasks that you mentioned. 6 core is quite nice, and well, 3.3GHz, not horrible. A today's Ryzen 7 reaches 4.2 or 4.3 in its top gamma on the main stream, soon to reach 4.5 or more in next offerings. The intel's 8700K reaches with overclocking 5 GHz. And latest 9900k, quite expensive, but easily goes further the 5 ghz barrier. Add on top the newer CPU features to help in the tasks, many improvements in these CPUs since 2010, plus improvements in the mother board, BUS, etc, etc. So, you have a "kind of" weaker point there. But a SSD and duplicating the RAM tends to provide a whole new world of experience in a machine, so, I'd be quite optimistic. If later on in the year you see a good moment for another upgrade, maybe a last one on that 2010 machine, well, maybe a slightly (I think you can get till 3.6, not sure if I'm wrong) faster CPU, if there's by then yet support for that. Or... If really the cpus you could get for this platform wont deserve the bucks, just let it be with this one for the time being, see how well it does some more years, then jump to a globally new thing. I do think it is a machine that could live quite longer, yet, with some optimization in workflow, system, etc. I have to say, with 2.8 GHz ( but i7,...2009, even older), non overclocked, am doing just fine (Windows, even) with heavy tasks , but RAWs editing (I don't do that) is a really taxing operation on any system, and obviously, batch processing these or any large dimension images, are always very heavy tasks for any system or app, actually...

Yep, well, I doubt that's the card's fault.... Open files.... --- > Disk speed, CPU and RAM speed, probably even RAM amount... probably multi core powerful processors help there, too (if only because any OS is doing always several things at a time, so might have some more threads for everything, more overal performance). Export or batch---> I believe pretty much the same than above. The card would be the culprit ( in these apps) maybe in graphic glitches (or in a 3D app, getting stuck redrawing the 3D wireframes), slow canvas panning or the like. And even then, could be not the card, but the cpu , ram or disk unable to move well all the data. As far as I know, the card here is mostly used for visualization. So, I'd worry way way more about the other components to get more speed in those actions.

EDIT: Went for lunch, and I had left my post without hitting "submit", so, I hope I am not repeating some of what Dan C just replied. In any overlap, whatever he said has preference... I can indeed speak about brands, not tied by any legal matter or NDA, so, there you have it below, a bloated and useless arguable opinion-full take at it, from me. Almost nobody can give you an accurate answer about these other than Affinity developers themselves, or, people having very particular info (not me), and also, tech savvy enough, quite deeply, into that specific matter and Affinity apps. So , take all what I am telling here (and anyone not included in the mentioned groups) with, not just a grain, but a huge truck load of salt. Both are good cards, even if I have always been an nVidia fan and user, but I have to say AMD's offerings tend to be very nice on our pockets, and they are finally delivering true performance, both in CPUs and GPUs, even if in graphic cards they're keeping a somewhat slower pace (u know, one can't do all perfect at a time...). And that's even unfair, as Vega's cards are good, just expensive, and in the integrated cards, they clearly have beaten in performance all Intel's integrated ones (AMD's 2200g and 2400g CPUs integrated cards do beat intel's latest integrated, in benchmarks) Among those two cards you mention, there's a large difference in "power" (in processing capability, haven't looked into power consumption) in favor of the 580. But it tends to be as well in price. I've heard 580 is pretty much similar in performance (I believe 1060 gives slightly better average frame rate in games played at 1080p (higher resolutions, and there the the 580 is better), but I don't care about games) to one of my fav cards ever in price/performance, lately, the nVidia 1060 (which is an amazing purchase, btw). Already that gen is a bit of old news (nvidia has launched its new thing, RTX platform), but is still impressive. Now, If I, as someone who edits video, renders in 3D a lot.... I would opt by the RX 580 ...IF...noooone of my apps are of the kind that depend only on Cuda, or where Open CL performance is sadly poor, which has happened n some instances. Blender (Cycles rendering) was the case, but heard/read from several sources that the devs have reverted that. Gotta check latest render benchmarks, tho. Being proved in benchmarks that it (RX 580) is so similar to the nvidia's 1060 in performance (and that at newegg.com, you can find a RX 580 at around 180 -220 US $, while a nvidia 1060, around 240 US $, and up (300, etc)....Only considering the 6GB version! As also happens with 1050 2gb and 1050 ti 4gb...the 1060 3g is less powerful, not just has less memory) , so, am not buying a crappy chip with crappy capability just having 8gb, but a similar-to-1060, and so, the 8 GB then do make a large difference in some apps. Blender rendering will not crash if the scene was larger in total than 6gb (I tried the other day to render a huge scene with my crappy 2gb...lol), for example. You can fit more stuff there. Digital painting software (from other brands!!!) can have larger brushes, etc. If in the future, or current betas, Affinity developers start doing more stuff in the card (which I don't know if would be good or bad...), IMO, memory will certainly help. Specially in large operations. But has been told that this is not the trend in these apps, due to (hardware reasons) slow transfer to and out of the card (explained terribly by me, lol). So, in any case, probably should not bring you too much of a headache. Focus more in the other components for now, IMO. Of vital importance is knowing if ANY of your essential apps, in its accelerated by GPU department, uses CUDA cores (nVidia take at it), or Open CL (AMD's) (Edit: forgot to mention that nVidia cards tend to suport BOTH cuda and open CL) . It'd be outstandingly silly to purchase an AMD card if all you need is cuda cores, and your app(s) do not have an option to set both CUDA or Open CL, or, just as bad, having the option for both, it performs really bad in Open CL (or CUDA! There's some scenarios where it is already happening that, and important ones). If one of these scenarios happen, there you would have a total decision making clue. I don't know you, but my machine works in many different matters (surely because I tell it to do so)... Affinity is only one part of it. More memory, and more capability, more cores (essential for 3D rendering), more processing units, more turbo and base speed, faster memory (despite both RX you listed being DDR5) more everything that the 580 has over the 560 (remember there's a very interesting middle point not mentioned, the 570....which Apple sets there in the "perhaps" category...yeah, too much of a risk...) , I'd opt for the 580, easily (again, the cuda/opencl in the apps being a major factor). Mostly for a singular estelar reason: If like me, you end up handling OTHER apps where memory in the GPU is crucial, you'll find this 580 a total bargain, as 8 GBs of GPU memory is going to the roof in price in nVidia brand. 6gb is the last "affordable" (!?) step (the 1060). While not the case in AMD with its RX series. You get usually a bunch of memory in cheap AMD cards. Which is great for rendering. Now, that said, not ALWAYS the case, attending to rendering benchmarks. Some low end RX are beaten badly by nvidia low end, even being sold as "even lower" than those AMD offerings, because the processing power, despite having more memory, is really poor in the very low entry AMD cards. As far as I know, not the case of the 580 (middle-high end) : A brilliant card with 8gb. I'd opt for that one, for sure. And we are not talking about the 590, is quite more high end (still, quite a nice pricing at newegg.com, 280 bucks is a very nice price for that card, nVidia gets really pricier at this level), and some Blender users are talking wonders about it, since quite some time. For blender rendering ( I always mean Cycles rendering inside Blender), the amount of memory is crucial. But only if you consider, imo, the middle-high range, where you don't find any card with excessively poor processing capability. I find, in nvidia, the 1070 (it's middle-high range) , and now the 2070, very sweet spots for someone doing graphic content seriously. And having quite deeper pockets, hehe (around 340 to 400 US $ and +). Those are your "cheap" entry to the 8GB wagon, in nVidia, lol. An amazing card, tho. The new version of that, the 2070, goes easily farther the 500 $ barrier. But right now the price/performance ratio of a RX 570 and 580 is really amazing. I only want to buy these things locally, otherwise, I'd have opted by a 570/580. My distributor didn't sell it at the time, and 590 was a bit too much (price-wise). I'm not tied to any brand, as you see, despite liking hardware a lot... The one thing that really worries me about AMD's cards, tho, is the non Cuda, but Open CL matter... reason why I tend to recommend the combo of AMD Ryzen CPU + nVidia card... But nVidia keeps going with very high prices, so... Now... a 180 $ good deal at Newegg , which is easy to find, for the 8gb RX 580, is to me, sth quite reasonable for having a very solid card for graphic content creation. Now, a 2070 (and I know, quite more poweful!) is 500 bucks. Too much for the 8gb barrier. With that I can buy an entire new Ryzen machine, in certain great local shop... BTW, both cards have DDR 5 memory, the ones you list, 560 and 580. (there's a typo in what you listed). But realize the 560 has "only" 4GBs of memory, while the 580 is 8gb. Too much of a difference. Even more, is quite a faster GPU memory in the latter. As all specs are, much more powerful than with the 560. My ultimate advice, if you sort out if what you need is CUDA cores or Open CL, (and is the case of the latter, if anything) and you find at newegg, or ( my preference) a local shop you trust and know, a RX 580 for around 190 - 220 us$, I'd take that. Is just IMO more future proof as software keeps demanding more and more, in general. The card is quite much better in every department than a 560. If they had listed a 570 as a 'fully sure' supported by Metal, well, then I'd have my doubts...But at the price am seeing now the 580 is, quite cheaper than a 1060, a 1060 from nvidia in performance, but with 2 more GB than the nvidia model... Of course, price related, YMMV, as local shops have sometimes very rare pricing, often just the case of having easier certain distributors, shipping issues, stock matters, etc. IMO, the 580 is a no-brainer if is compatible with your apps, great choice. Look, I've just bought a 1050 2gb, which is WAAAY worse despite being nvidia, and I had to pay localy around 150 euros (basically, the price now at newegg for a RX 580 !!! ) Being super honest here, nope, I don't think is gonna make much of a difference for a big while (specifically in that!). But... dunno.. they use the card for some things... like some panning, visualization, etc. I don't know if I'd be very wrong to think that the much more powerful chip the 580 has will add at least something in performance there. This little bit can turn to more in certain scenarios. There are digital painting apps, a few, that as their function is more limited and specific, can afford to go all GPU, and then, if you shall use any of those besides Affinity, you will be extremely happy to have purchased a 8gb powerful card again, (dig those apps' docs for the cuda/opencl matter!), and way faster card, than a much slower, and 4gb one. For that what you mentioned, specially RAWs, I'd make the wild guess that the major thing to worry about is CPU clock speed, more cores, more CPU capabilities, be it a modern cpu, and system memory: RAM (perhaps even ram speed and latency! In any case, great performance price ratio : 2666MHZ in speed and CL 16 or CL 17 in latency. Gain over that is minimal in most cases, but price grows exponentially. A ryzen machine can see more improvement than intel's, if you overclock the ram in the bios (or AMD's software for that), so, needing to purchase a well for that the ram at 3200 ( in Ryzen mother boards, till 2666 is supported by default). IMO, extremely more important to purchase 16 GB (or more) at 2666 than 8 at 3200 or more.). Starting from the base of using a decent average card so that it does not bottleneck a powerful system, then all what will matter above that -in bucks spent- is cpu, ram and disk. Meaning, a 560 should do quite well, in its department. But I would definitely jump into a 580 if finding a good price. (a pity that for Metal the 570 is not fully validated...after all, is 8gb, too. Has many processing units, has nice speed, etc) Of course, far more important for the tasks you mentioned are imo the CPU, RAM, and maybe an hybrid system, having the OS and apps in an SSD disk, and store/save files in HD, a mechanical drive. Maybe for longer life of the SSD, if u know how to (Mac OS is bit of a mystery in that for me), set all cache systems in the HD. A typical HD with 7200 rpm. (ie, a Seagate Barracuda. Cheap as a disk can get for 1 terabyte (40 or 50 bucks) and frikin' reliable (mine is almost 10 years now, of crazily intensive usage)). I know how to set browser's cache, OS temp folder/files, OS swap file, etc, in the HD, despite being other stuff in the SSD for faster load, but under Windows. No freaking idea on if/how is that possible in Mac OS. But surely is 100% possible. There are people way more tech savvy than me around here. And that speaking generally, as, about Affinity performance, no one does know more than the devs.

Then, maybe a better card will help. But as always, I'm super fan of balanced machines. It's only games where an average cpu and a great card makes sense. Heck, where (price/capability ratio in this very moment in the market, months ago was wildly different. Years ago was mostly Intel everything) maybe just AMD makes the major sense, if price is of any importance (great machines like the i5 8400 have really gone up in price, maybe is the shortage of plants on intel side, or whatever, for what that and similar CPUs really offer compared with, say, a 2600 which u can overclock. Or my fav in nice price/capability ratio now, a 1700...). And even in games, starting not to be the case ( card being so crucial and multi core and cpu speed less so), as besides the bottle neck issue, is not only apps, games are becoming more and more multi threaded. I don't see my self purchasing anything higher than a 1060 or a RX 570 or 580 any time soon... True that my 1050 2GB is short for some GPU power uses in Blender and other apps (GPU based video editing, digital painting GPU based, etc), but even there, a 1050 Ti 4GB (which difference is by no means just the memory, that's one of the many complaints/angers against nVidia with its not so clarifying naming: It's quite a better card in other specs, overall, than the card with same name and 2 GB, non "ti") should suffice for quite advanced productivity/graphics uses. I don't see very clever to purchase anything over that unless all the machine is going on par in capability. IE, all those are imo great cards for productivity for a Ryzen 1700, 2600, core i5 8400...a 1700x/1800x, 2700/x, core i5 8600k, etc, might do a better use of higher cards. I mean, all of these will do well with a 1080 too, but you get more benefit if that large difference of money is put in other parts, specially CPU, then RAM, or first RAM, depending on the workflow and current cpu. Speaking in general, not just Affinity.. ...And maybe I'd dare to go to pretty high card ( if I REALLY need so, which I'd strongly doubt) with an intel 8700k, or AMD 2700x (imo, this one is a good fit no matter the card, thanks to the great pricing...). Or a 9900k / Threadripper in that much higher price range and power consume range of these two latter cases. I mean, a 2600 with a 1080 or 2080 is imo putting bucks in places where productivity will see less of an advantage (indeed, gpu will be bottle necked) than if putting in CPU, RAM and disk, in this order. Even if they improve the card usage, for content creation, I'd go for a better cpu, put the bucks there. Or heck, just more RAM ! And trying it to be at least 2666 MHZ, and hopefully CL16 or so in latency.... The card can be average, and also, is easier to replace for most of the humanity than a CPU... (and IMO, specially with the yet harsh market wounds of the bitcoin miners. Way easier to sell second hand than an CPU. Even at this moment. Even more as most of second hand right now is saturated with utterly destroyed cards that went suffering a large erosion with the mining 24/7 intensive farming...Indeed, last notice I got, nVidia is receiving the punch now in $ due to the fall of miners purchases... Divine punishment, if u ask me..... )

Creo que sí se puede.... Pero no me he metido mucho en eso con Affinity.....En A. Photo, al exportar PDF/X, al darle al botón MORE, en esa ventana de exportado, tienes una checkbox de "overprint black". Habiendo hecho lo de c 0, m 0 y 0, k 100 en donde corresponda, supongo... Separación de color como se hacía en Adobe, creo que aún no se puede. En View/Studio/Color, puedes añadir un "global color" para overprint. Pero ya digo, no he manejado eso aún, tengo mi workflow mucho todavía con otras aplicaciones (sobre todo, CSP).

[ Edit : Nevermind..... I was listing the threads about it, but there's a search button ]

What display settings did you have in preferences ?