SrPx

I'll reconsider donating to Inkspace in near future, given the rest. Sorry for the delayed response. It is strange that CMYK is still not supported.
Very nice. PSD also.

🇬🇧 A little tribute to the graphic designer Michel GRANGER, French author of several album cover illustrations by Jean-Michel JARRE including the 4th, “Equinoxe”, released in 1978. The character on this cover is called “the Watcher”. He is adorned with the three Serif colors and looks into the future, saying to himself: what will I become?... And what will we become?...
🇫🇷 Petit hommage au graphiste Michel GRANGER, auteur français de plusieurs illustrations de couverture d'albums de Jean-Michel JARRE dont le 4ème, “Equinoxe”, sorti en 1978. Le personnage de cette couverture se nomme “l'Observateur”. Il est bardé des trois couleurs Serif et scrute l'avenir en se disant : que vais-je devenir ?... Et nous, qu'allons-nous devenir ?...




😉

Last night I made a test drive on Rough Terrain with my new City Bus. Had to do it 🙂
 

Just wanted to share a recent alternative movie poster I created for the film, Alita Battle Angel.
The poster is completely hand-drawn in Affinity Photo 2. As I've noted before, I enjoy the hand-drawn and coloured posters by the likes of Drew Struzan and contemporary artists like Paul Shipper and Kyle Lambert.
This work was completed primarily using the Natural Pencil 2B brush (the underlying sketch) and the Round Soft Brush (colouring over and clouds) with more Natural Pencil 2B coloured pencil over the top for the highlights and detail. There is some use of texture brushes such as spatters and custom dust etc. There are no fancy filters or tricks used. I treat the canvas and drawing as though I were working with real physical media and so start with a scanned 'paper' background. I use an XP Pen pen display connected to my MacBook Pro as my workstation.

Hello! This is my first time posting and using the software. I have been using the alternative for many years and decided to give this a try. I found it challenging at times, but also in love with it too. I will look forward to creating more art in the future. 

Edit: I just hid a wall of text above (still there, but people would have to click it), as was not very on-topic; mostly I was talking about some nice things/tricks/uses I found in Inkscape, replying to Debraspicher about the matter.
My usual take can come as weird, but I got these (bad?) habits of working with any number of tools in a project while in the game jobs. In the morning I'd be constantly switching between Max, Maya, the UV mapping tool, and like 2 or 3 worse than pre-alpha tools (now... those redefined for me the concept of "fest of bugs", geez. But I got used to it) coded by our programmers to integrate stuff in the engine, or engine editors, etc, and maybe in the afternoons, evening, night(some times till crazy hours) PS for the textures while alt tabbing with a 3D painting tool, pixel art for a mobile version, etc...  So, in the end, I see it just as a bunch of pixels, vectors, or polygons that I move around, like in a cheapo tour around Europe. Caring only about the final result. One of the reasons I don't worry much about the Canva thing. I fully understand the small business owner with employees. But I would like to think that even in that case, you could do as I've seen done at some companies I've worked at. They would even lock down (to any exterior contact )  machines with an OS 20 years old, and similarly old software, to ensure the workflows were kept intact, and to avoid new investments in software (back in the day software was a lot more expensive, they would have paid Affinity's licenses yearly, and very happily). They could do that with 2.4 or 2.5 (or etc), if the worst happens (while I don't think it will). Even the more pessimistic assume that a v3 would happen, that's maybe some time ahead of updates and "normal" use. After that, the (small companies') teams with employees could do that "conservative" approach that I mention. I dunno, in my experience, things needed for the job in 2D, DTP, etc, are usually the same for almost decades. Hence why many people and companies could just stick to CS6 and even earlier, for so long.

 

Being semiretired, I cannot afford to go back to Adobe, nor do I want the constant drip of my funds.  I expect to stay with Affinity as long as they do not go to a subscription mode; if they do, meaning that I would likely have to save up for Quark, I can do that—but will use the last version before subscription in the meantime, as I did for mreo than 5 years with InDesign.  (I still have an old computer with InDesign CS4 installed for when/if I want to update an old file.)

Yes, I still have a computer with InDesign CS4 installed, though happily using Affinity since 2019 or earlier.  I expect to stick with Affinity as long as they have the “pay for the version as you need it” model, so hoping for a solid few years at least.

Your writing reminds me of my own writing when I was younger. I started on a typewriter. Then I moved to Word 6, which I used for "creative" writing also, but it became more "script-ish" (as in largely dialogue). Very interesting to see another person use a similar style. A traditional writing style can feel too precise. Writing is a lot like painting, which means it can take almost a lifetime to truly master.
I found your post interesting, so thank you for that. I think I tried Scribus way back when it was newly in development and supposedly it's seen big improvements of recent, or at least I've seen written by others by reading in passing. As for the context of the post you are quoting, it is in reference to the technical issue(s) with accurate vectors, hence the "shark bug". VS is not brought up to be a "tit for tat". We can suggest its relevant here because VS is only 1.2 and yet Affinity is 2.4... What Affinity has managed with their line is seriously impressive and current staff should be commended to have made all that possible. None of us would be here nor it possible otherwise. However, clearly there are quality issues with the updates that being put out and their inability to put out the resulting fires is heavily concerning. If Canva is actually listening, they will send Serif a big fat check to hire al the talent they need to fix the quality issues and other developmental obstacles. Otherwise, the horse is long dead...


Re: Inkscape, I want to love the app as it could have been a stellar piece of software, but its development speed is terribly slow (kinda expected with OSS) and its UI is a cry for help. Will more income help? I'm not sure, honestly. I suspect if others are like me, they may be skeptical that adding money to the equation will automatically lead to speedier development and that exacerbates the issues with raising money for long-term OSS projects. At least with companies, we know they rely on steady revenue and are required to make cash to sustain. There's a cash for value too, as what we pay is supposed to be proportionate to what we receive. I do use Inkscape for some things, especially Trace Bitmap, which works really well for converting delicate ink jobs. It's not as user friendly to me as VS, though admittedly that wasn't my first impression when I first tried VS. I can see VS becoming what Inkscape couldn't be in that regard, should it take on inspiration in the development of a solid "user flow" throughout the breadth of the application. Note: I didn't say workflow... nobody wants a UI filled with inflexible/dead end workflows.. *cough* Illustrator *cough*. Both are held back by some cumbersome UX and strange UI decisions. VS has better document management and that's important for my ability to stay organized creatively as it allows me to also work rationally... two things that can come into conflict for me when writing code.

No PDF/X export (not a single version... and before getting quoted, I know, it's said to be coming before 1.3...but IMO, that's a major feature for pro work, should be there already) which a lot of us need for almost every gig/project for serious print output. And having tried it, I have found bugs (and some strange workflows) even in the very first fast try (confirmed later several times). Still, amazing software, with many features for inkers (I'm kind of one), and it is very much worth the bucks (I'm a 'software collector', so it is not "this instead of", but "and"... still haven't bought it, though, that lack was too important). So, a great software with certain lacks and bugs, just like I would define A. Designer (I like more Affinity Photo, but that's me) or how I would also describe Xara Designer Pro. Too many years since I used Corel D. for work, though, and the permanent license price is out of question, with the current competition.  I don't see many advantages (no real winner among all these, imo. Corel, maybe) in one versus the other or the other one, except when/if needing certain workflow or feature for a project or bunch of projects, as to decide one certain route or another. But in that, I find a lot more useful what Inkscape has to offer me, currently. It's in many of my workflows, indeed, working together with Designer, as fast as copy-pasting nodes! (or exporting, etc) and since a very long while. Indeed, would it (Inskcape) have proper (full) CMYK handling and professional PDF/X export, and some other things fixed, and I'd use it a lot more, almost as my main one for vectors. I successfully do the workflow Inkscape-> Scribus-> PDF/X (just as a curiosity, as I don't need it. And always great to get extra ways, that's my motto), which, btw, besides PDF/X-3 and PDF/X-4, includes the arcane but yet strictly required by some companies PDF/X-1a:2001 (happily, seems Ingram now accepts PDF/X-3:2002 as well) , but I recon the workflow is not yet full newcomer friendly, I needed to solve/guess a number of issues. And I have zero probs with uncommon or hard UIs ...I'd say right now it's more uncommon than hard (just like with Blender).
Outside Adobe, I think there's always going to be some kind of trade for no subscription, no monopoly. But yep, those problems in Designer do need to be fixed (and adding the option for "practical" zero smoothing -well, it's always an average, anyway- while drawing with brushes, etc). I suspect that a lot of that will come, step by step.
 

No PDF/X export (not a single version... and before getting quoted, I know, it's said to be coming before 1.3...but IMO, that's a major feature for pro work, should be there already) which a lot of us need for almost every gig/project for serious print output. And having tried it, I have found bugs (and some strange workflows) even in the very first fast try (confirmed later several times). Still, amazing software, with many features for inkers (I'm kind of one), and it is very much worth the bucks (I'm a 'software collector', so it is not "this instead of", but "and"... still haven't bought it, though, that lack was too important). So, a great software with certain lacks and bugs, just like I would define A. Designer (I like more Affinity Photo, but that's me) or how I would also describe Xara Designer Pro. Too many years since I used Corel D. for work, though, and the permanent license price is out of question, with the current competition.  I don't see many advantages (no real winner among all these, imo. Corel, maybe) in one versus the other or the other one, except when/if needing certain workflow or feature for a project or bunch of projects, as to decide one certain route or another. But in that, I find a lot more useful what Inkscape has to offer me, currently. It's in many of my workflows, indeed, working together with Designer, as fast as copy-pasting nodes! (or exporting, etc) and since a very long while. Indeed, would it (Inskcape) have proper (full) CMYK handling and professional PDF/X export, and some other things fixed, and I'd use it a lot more, almost as my main one for vectors. I successfully do the workflow Inkscape-> Scribus-> PDF/X (just as a curiosity, as I don't need it. And always great to get extra ways, that's my motto), which, btw, besides PDF/X-3 and PDF/X-4, includes the arcane but yet strictly required by some companies PDF/X-1a:2001 (happily, seems Ingram now accepts PDF/X-3:2002 as well) , but I recon the workflow is not yet full newcomer friendly, I needed to solve/guess a number of issues. And I have zero probs with uncommon or hard UIs ...I'd say right now it's more uncommon than hard (just like with Blender).
Outside Adobe, I think there's always going to be some kind of trade for no subscription, no monopoly. But yep, those problems in Designer do need to be fixed (and adding the option for "practical" zero smoothing -well, it's always an average, anyway- while drawing with brushes, etc). I suspect that a lot of that will come, step by step.
 

There are a few other minor improvements to mention in 2.5:
1. Some new cameras have been added to LibRAW:
FujiFilm X100VI Leica SL3 Pentax KF (Rioch) Samsung Galaxy S23+ Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra Sony ILCE-9M3 (A9 III) [improved] 2. As was requested in a few places before and on the last beta, when you have "Transform objects separately" checked and have a multi-selection, if you type a value in either the width or height field and precede it with an equals sign (e.g. H: '=100px') then it will set all objects in that selection to have that specific width or height value entered. This is opposed to scaling the other objects in your selection proportionally based on the key object which is he result you get without the equals sign.
3. DWG polylines import improvements
We have made some substantial improvements when importing polylines, which now ignores the cached points which AutoCAD creates. This simplifies the resulting curves substantially.

trying to replicate the nice circle design with 0 to 100% pressure curve, I found that rendering has some issues at higher zoom levels. This is the same design at different zoom levels (on Macbook M2)


zoom levels.afdesign

I just wanted to say thank you for adding the ability to move width profile points along the curve. It's the little things that make such a difference. It's especially welcomed while working on an iPad with an Apple Pencil.

CleanShot 2024-04-19 at 13.43.24.mp4  

hi @Ash  I tested and wanted to thank you for this massive improvement

I use pencil tool every day and this was one of the most game changer feature for illustrators like me,

Also I'm really happy to see these tools getting attention.

I did a video to show my followers how affinity is getting better and better
 
 

This please!

I think being able to set the tolerance of auto-close feature would be helpful so folks can tune it to their liking, or set it to ‘maximum’ where it would always auto-close regardless of the distance.

The new smoothing algorithm is fantastic! It's such a pleasure to use now, and with almost (I'm just being very fussy) no clean up required. The new implementation of the auto-close settings is really intuitive. Well done. I'll report back any issues I find with it, but just wanted to acknowledge what an improvement this is.
Addendum: Okay, now I know this is going to sound whiny, but is there anyway to reduce or turn off the smoothing? It's now very difficult to draw a rough, hand-drawn line. I do LOVE the new smoothing algorithm, but there are times where I want my lines to look a little rougher.

Apps: Designer
Platforms: macOS, Windows and iPad
We have made some further improvements to the pencil tool.
Firstly we are now using a new curve smoothing algorithm which we believe gives general better, smoother, results when using the pencil tool.
Secondly as has been commonly requested we have now changed the "Auto-close" method so that when you have that option checked in the context toolbar the curve only closes when you are near to the start point of the curve being drawn. You will now get an indicator when you are in range of the start position of the curve so you know when a curve will be auto-closed.

oki, will do so, as I too hate it when I can't finish reading something... (maybe I'll remove it again tomorrow or so, then)
Yep, I often make a local copy of what I wrote before I delete it, mostly if there's some conclusion I want to keep for myself or sth.

@Bit Disappointed
I'm curious about this since a while... So... I'm going to finally make the question. 
If you are so disappointed with the Affinity software, the team, the buyout, Canva, the community... Why not just using a suite, or separate tools from different vendors (there are a few options now, luckily it's not as spartan as we had it the 90s anymore) that you consider actually professional and a better fit ? As you would probably be happier taking that route and saving your personal time and energy, as well.

I promise! It is just curiosity. As, me, when I don't like a software because I think it's lacking key stuff and/or I just absolutely dislike it, I do the practical thing and leave it alone, to move to a solution that suits me better. I've seen some people in this same situation, through the years and in a few communities, with different tools. And it keeps me wondering...
 

There is no way to answer the questions about what will happen in the future other than to wait & see, or as @SallijaneG just wrote, time will tell.
Where did you see Canva say that? AFAIK, they never have claimed they are targeting Adobe or any other company in particular, just trying to improve their share of the graphics software market.

oki, will do so, as I too hate it when I can't finish reading something... (maybe I'll remove it again tomorrow or so, then)
Yep, I often make a local copy of what I wrote before I delete it, mostly if there's some conclusion I want to keep for myself or sth.

oki, will do so, as I too hate it when I can't finish reading something... (maybe I'll remove it again tomorrow or so, then)
Yep, I often make a local copy of what I wrote before I delete it, mostly if there's some conclusion I want to keep for myself or sth.

Not even in 2D, be it web, print/corporate image, game graphic work, film, etc. Despite having lots of indy studios working with other software (Affinity and many more), the very high end, large firms, etc, it's pretty much Adobe (like Autodesk, Houdini, custom solutions in 3D/animation) territory. Despite being a fact that you can do a lot of high end work with Affinity (as you can with Blender in 3D, but until film companies start doing large productions using Blender, that area of the field is exclusive of certain tools. The technical capability of the tool is only part of the equation).  I think Canva is well aware of the current market for Affinity. And IMO, they might want to add new niches or increase/evolve some. As for knowing about Canva (I'm talking about several comments, not just this quoted text) I very well knew about its existence since very long ago. When working with small business owners, and not only having them as clients, also watching and reading material related to marketing, business matters, etc, Canva is everywhere. Tons of times I have handled stuff for some step needed in these users and companies' Canva based workflows, or added/fixed stuff which they started there. It quite makes sense the addition, to empower and help it grow (so, the opposite future of what some predict), from what I have been seeing for a long time with Canva's users. I think they want to expand to a bit higher niche than their current, and compete there, or that their current users are increasingly needing more functionality.  Or maybe both.
Whether more or less integrated in Canva itself, that would be hard to know, right now. But that they really want that level of functionality and nuanced work, for me that's plain clear.
About competing with Adobe... I said it earlier. I doubt any of the alternatives (including Affinity) is realistically hoping to dethrone any time soon the king of the industry (industries) in decades-long pipelines and ways of working which got established through decades in companies of all sizes, custom plugins, familiarity of high end firms and clients, etc. It is a huge ecosystem that, even if it wouldn't upgrade (but it upgrades, a lot, and very fast, I keep up to date with that, even if just a bit, enough to realize it), it would be extremely hard (or impossible) to be really threatened in the high and mid-high end (but... companies. Some freelancers are in my book very "high end", and I know a few that already moved fully or partially to Affinity). At least for some time. Honestly, though, Corel Draw and Xara have been strong competitors in certain areas many years before Affinity appeared, and are still alive, though slightly niche, not a serious worry for Adobe. But they have quite a chunk of users over the world. The same happens with specific apps for certain functionality, which are even better suited than Adobe's for certain activities, (specialized tools, I call them) but this did not put Adobe in danger, either, as a whole. Monopolistic players (monopolies are always bad for us) usually only have themselves as a threat, or regulation/governments, if anything. But Adobe is doing pretty well.
Long plans can be ambitious, though (till some point, being realistic), the free for schools and non profits thing is really smart. If it is a strategy. If it is not, kudos for the gesture, anyway... that is similar to how Adobe and Autodesk made most of their huge user base. Not them directly, but it was already so common in many graphic workers' machines (in "that type of license", I don't condone it), even at companies, and I have seen huge industry standard apps and companies fall before (often due to their "way of the dodo" behavior more than by competitors' actions...ie, Mirai disappeared by its own). Like I never saw coming XSI would stop being the leader or a very key tool for the film industry, and it happened. Autodesk ended up "acquiring to eliminate" it, and so it happened (there was a serious overlap!! Maya and XSI, and 3D Studio till some extent), but people feared the same with Maya when this happened, as it was also acquired by Autodesk, too, while the same company acted very differently with Maya. This software had a huge users/companies base, was much a better tool for character animation than 3D Studio (although, 3DS was good for that with certain addons), had a solid foot in plugins, scripts, pipelines in animation (games and film) based companies, heavily production tested... and so, all this made no sense to kill it after acquired, so it kept strong and updated, despite all the dark predictions. There were also bad predictions with the buyout of Youtube by Google, back in the day (2006, if I remember well... 18 years ago....). More even the case as Youtube was losing money (btw, Twitch was acquired by Amazon, and it was also losing money. Did not kill it and still is the main game streaming platform), due to Youtube's servers costs in video and stuff, it was a non profitable company!.  And that seems to have worked out darn well (in terms of numbers, or in convenience for Google), currently is the second search engine in the world, and many marketers think of it as the the best tool for promotion. Some of us had thought it would just close their offices, be done and that services similar to Vimeo would take over, as Youtube costs are immense. 18 years ago, though....
So, it's a mixed bag, not always in one direction.  I dunno, people is free to think whatever, but I always think about if the buying company has an actual something that is really competing with the acquired product/service (and so, 'acquires to annihilate' ), or if, quite the opposite, needs badly what the acquired company has. Google knew that the future of content and promotion was in video, and Autodesk had no interest in killing the best (some would say that this was indeed XSI, though... I had the Foundation version. At least way less intuitive than Maya, in the UI, for new users)  character animation tool available and so, lose all that business.    
But higher end is super hard to compete with, IMO. The way I see it though, many bosses that I had, small business clients, marketing departments, etc, have a very hard time trying to navigate through Illustrator and Photoshop UIs, while for them Canva is intuitive from the start (one of the main advantages of Affinity is also good UI), and they keep using it. That very low end (but massive! BTW, wasn't the number mentioned 175 million, not 100, neither 75?) market is where they have an enormous chunk of users, and I guess Adobe is not particularly happy about it. I am not saying that's a good or bad thing, but it is a fact, to me. 
[  About the "professional" thingy, well, at least in art, I have a Fine Arts degree, and besides I really learned painting much before going to college (almost free in my country), and a lot of people finishing those studies can't really draw or paint (sad, but it's that way), as it depends on certain level of personal effort and compromise, mostly, than in any academic studies (you can learn the same on your own! even if harder) and in a way you could say comparable to a master in the US, the fact is that I never considered that this made me a professional in any way. I think a professional is a person able to both solve the problems and do the activity required for an specific profile at a company or to cover a market niche successfully (if working by your own as a business owner or freelancer, etc). Also, a person that has the skills and training (by your own, with courses, or college) needed for what the job profile requires, and who has a background (knowledge and technical capabilities) good enough to adapt to any situation in that field. These skills are most likely coming from a mix of personal study and practice, and the actual professional experience. Still, in many jobs in programming, academic titles are required to even get to the interview, but IMO there's always a place for the individuals who are serious about their job, and good at it, with or without college studies. If not in one company, it's in another]
About the main issue, I think a) there are other alternatives, but in terms of export for professional work, stability (yep, some of the competitors, which are very few in doing all what A. does, are a bit of a fest of bugs and lacking key features) and feature set, many of them are still behind what Affinity has. A very small few are in very good shape, though, but for a lot of the Affinity user base, price counts quite. I have paid even 2.5k for a software license decades ago, but these days people even doubt it when it is 300 - 800 $. The other alternatives and FOSS could be used, though, if Affinity ceased to exist (I mean, I certainly would use them). b) the possibility of Canva wanting Affinity to get a medium user ground is very likely, hence not much sense in putting all that money to not use what you just bought. They have absolutely nothing to have that functionality. And yep, I agree with those that think they will make it  (even as an standalone suite of apps) highly connected with the cloud. I do not think they will trash the permanent buy possibility, as neither did Celsys, which keeps releasing a very nice ClipStudio full version once a year, for those willing to update it (I did, while I really did not need it, but it's affordable. Still, I like to have the freedom to decide not doing it).
Affinity's presence now as an "alternative" on internet articles, forums, reddit, etc, is huge (as Canva's. IMO, some people here did not know about Canva because we are immersed in our bubble of usage, and rarely need to go outside that, it is happening also a bit with social media) and mainly the whole user base is about the permanent purchase option. So, I don't see Canva going against that, it would not be wise from a business perspective, if it would mean losing 2.5 (random number) of the 3 millions users, and surely all the marketing that made Affinity big, once they'd make such thing. So, nah, I don't think they will.