SrPx

This can be answered by any "AI" expert (I'm not one, but I know about this one aspect) : they don't know anatomy. They can't process how a muscle is inserted into a bone and produces certain external aspect with the skin and flesh over it, and how it looks if rotated in certain angle, its exact bulging if flexed in certain other angle, and how that arm responds to the environment, lighting, other conditions, etc. They are mixing and mashing up, mostly, many bits of information, using patterns that are ways less sophisticated than what we do in our brain, even if we can't process as much data. They are much dumber than what marketers are trying to sell, but that hype brings money. Not saying it won't be possible, but current tech is very far from that (and yet producing enough artistic jobs destruction, but because humans like to shoot their own foot). This can be easily checked... And like anatomy, many other concepts needed in art creation, through skills intensively trained for decades. That besides it not being conscious of itself, not self aware (and that is really far, if ever possible), which is a huge aspect of being able of true artistic expression (and other types of human communication), if not the main one.

Hi,

Did you send a pre separated file? 6 pdfs per color?

I have some use for that in a certain subfield, but it's been a while since they can be used with modern rips architecture, you lose a way to trap.

Yes on Picas! When I was a camera man and did not need to know about sheet size I used picas forever! My only issue with picas is real picas vs picas on computer are not equal (digital picas are exactly 1/72", whereas regular picas on my Plankcs Typographic ruler is slightly larger 72.3 or so per inch.

I have one thing that kills me in printing. PANTONE Color books are not numerical anymore. Some genius's decided to put them numerically at the index and by hue on the printed page. Well that's just a pain somewhere...

I get files in that have the same issues as in the 1980's, RGB/missing fonts...  just had a canva job yesterday where a maroon red was picked from two different online colors that look similar I am sure, but they converted to cmyk and it was light years different.

I blame schools for hiring poor teachers in graphic arts programs. I would love to teach a class on production values of printing. Type, Color and Bleed. I regularly run into experienced designer who don't bleed out items... I would teach about quality font choices on a budget, PANTONE Color to Process, document size!!

How about a class how not use photoshop as a pagelayout program!!

Well, to draw comparison with e.g. Apple, Apple also didn't have any professional audio recording and sequencing software before they bought Emagic some 20 years ago. But that was why they bought Emagic, so that they would have not only the Logic DAW for the pros, but eventually also the free GarageBand – which is directly based on Logic – for everyone. And from what I read a few years ago, reportedly the original Emagic team that now works for Apple is still based in Germany.

Claude Monet (practically the creator of Impressionism) would paint a lot more loosely a female figure and definitely the stegosaurus and the Okapi, which for other reasons have certain problems (among other things, the Okapi's head looks more like a deer's head...btw, Okapi's males do have horns, but skin/hair covered. An stegosaurus had much smaller head, and different shapes in several parts...That almost seems like a mix between a turtle, a brontosaurus, and something else  ).  
The problem can be detected also in the backgrounds (slightly in a different style than the figures, anyway), he would not paint them so, he was after a very fast impression of light and color from reality ("Impressionism" was initially a term invented by an art critic, supposed to be derogatory) , a sensation, more than a very refined thing.  Her hand and wrist over the Okapi have important issues (easily seen when compared to the other, and due to anatomy). Indeed, in certain way this reminds me a bit more of pointillism (even if there's no actual pointillism in there).
But for a greeting card it would be fine.

@William Overington

I am in a  hurry right now, but, having read some bits, I certainly have  (personally) no issue if it is stated that the images are AI generated. I will read it later on. 
There could be some legal issues regarding copyright (as in, not being able to register the images), still, though, for some  operations (that's a bit of a complex matter).  In general I am recommending friends not to publish with AI images for a little while until all is a bit more settled, though (and this not because of ethics or the like). Not ideal, but it should not be a problem.
If everybody would do this (adding such note), things would be much better. 

If you have 'Adobe Stock' (iStock etc.) in mind: While they may own the brand / company they do not "own" the image resources but rather the legal right to sell copies with / for use under certain, limited conditions. Apart from this aspect it is hard to proof whether a specific texture, shape, mood, light etc. within a generated image is developed from the data of a specific image file of their stock library.
It is still evolving and nobody "knows" until court rulings are made…
"Sarah Silverman is suing OpenAI and Meta for copyright infringement"
https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/9/23788741/sarah-silverman-openai-meta-chatgpt-llama-copyright-infringement-chatbots-artificial-intelligence-ai
"We’ve filed law­suits chal­leng­ing Chat­GPT, LLaMA, and other lan­guage mod­els for vio­lat­ing the legal rights of authors."
https://llmlitigation.com/
"More than 200 musical artists (…) have penned an open letter to AI developers, tech firms and digital platforms to "cease the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to infringe upon and devalue the rights of human artists."
https://www.axios.com/2024/04/02/musicians-letter-ai-replace-artists
… and used to create, adjust, fine tune existing or new law, for instance:
"EU AI Act: first regulation on artificial intelligence – The use of artificial intelligence in the EU will be regulated by the AI Act, the world’s first comprehensive AI law." 
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/topics/en/article/20230601STO93804/eu-ai-act-first-regulation-on-artificial-intelligence
"Want your content made using generative AI tools to be accepted into the Adobe Stock collection? Find out how to submit authentic assets that meet our quality, legal, and technical standards."
https://helpx.adobe.com/stock/contributor/help/generative-ai-content.html

Claude Monet (practically the creator of Impressionism) would paint a lot more loosely a female figure and definitely the stegosaurus and the Okapi, which for other reasons have certain problems (among other things, the Okapi's head looks more like a deer's head...btw, Okapi's males do have horns, but skin/hair covered. An stegosaurus had much smaller head, and different shapes in several parts...That almost seems like a mix between a turtle, a brontosaurus, and something else  ).  
The problem can be detected also in the backgrounds (slightly in a different style than the figures, anyway), he would not paint them so, he was after a very fast impression of light and color from reality ("Impressionism" was initially a term invented by an art critic, supposed to be derogatory) , a sensation, more than a very refined thing.  Her hand and wrist over the Okapi have important issues (easily seen when compared to the other, and due to anatomy). Indeed, in certain way this reminds me a bit more of pointillism (even if there's no actual pointillism in there).
But for a greeting card it would be fine.

I thought I'd take Affinity Designer's amazing new spiral tool for a spin in a recent Spoonflower competition. Spoonflower is a print-on-demand service for anyone who wants to buy printed fabrics and wallpaper. These spirals incorporate Pantone Peach Fuzz and Peach Blossom. Peach Fuzz is the 2024 Colour of the Year.

The image above was rendered in Cheetah 3D. The remaining images are Spoonflower mockups.
These patterns can be bought printed on demand; not just on fabric and wallpaper, but also as ready-made duvet covers, pillow cases, table cloths and napkins. https://www.spoonflower.com/en/collections/796023-spirals-by-geometrical_design?productType=FABRIC
I'll be adding more spiral patterns to this collection over the months to come.

It is well accepted, I think, that humans can study the work of other humans and learn from it and improve their own work. Even there, though, if you study the work of a living artist and produce something too similar to one of the existing works, you may be sued for copyright infringement.
The difference with AI, I think, is more a matter of scale, and of not knowing exactly how the source material is being copied or modified.

In the case of AI, the question is whether the developers of the AI had the permission of the artists (photographers) whose work they used to train the AI, and whether the artists were properly compensated for the use of their images for that training. 
You are of course free to take your own photographs in the forest. And you're free to use a Stock agency, who will have appropriately compensated the artists whose work they carry.
The source of the AI training material, and the compensation for using it, are less clear, and that is what is causing the ethical issues from what I've read.

Let's hope Canva purchased Serif because they wanted something a lot different than what they've currently built, including the Affinity brand name.

Maybe.. But I suspect that most people that dislike 2.x might be due to a first impression: they found the situation (too many bugs, initially) at the moment of launch, and left, just switched to other platform. Some others lasted a bit more trying with 2.x, by digging for workarounds by themselves and in the forum. And some (if this thread could serve as a sample, then at least a nice percentage) of us went quite farther and kept seeing huge improvements every next release they made in 2.x, fine tuning tons of things. I have more stability now in 2.4 than I ever had in 1.x (even the best version of 1.x), and the functionality I can make use of is quite more complete in 2.4, plus getting better performance. I don't know the stats, though (of how many of those 3 million users are using 2.x or 1.x). There's also another important issue: for a long time I had projects fully made in 1.x. I did not want to risk (even if there were no risks) a back and forth between 1.x and 2.x. But finished those projects, now I only work with the latter.

Maybe.. But I suspect that most people that dislike 2.x might be due to a first impression: they found the situation (too many bugs, initially) at the moment of launch, and left, just switched to other platform. Some others lasted a bit more trying with 2.x, by digging for workarounds by themselves and in the forum. And some (if this thread could serve as a sample, then at least a nice percentage) of us went quite farther and kept seeing huge improvements every next release they made in 2.x, fine tuning tons of things. I have more stability now in 2.4 than I ever had in 1.x (even the best version of 1.x), and the functionality I can make use of is quite more complete in 2.4, plus getting better performance. I don't know the stats, though (of how many of those 3 million users are using 2.x or 1.x). There's also another important issue: for a long time I had projects fully made in 1.x. I did not want to risk (even if there were no risks) a back and forth between 1.x and 2.x. But finished those projects, now I only work with the latter.

Hi @Ash. Hope you had a great long weekend ... I'm sure there's a lot you've got going on with this whole acquisition, but I wanted to follow up before this gets lost in the shuffle as I have seen a lot of Community Members wondering (myself included) and still not seen anything mentioned regarding AI after the acquisition.

Similarly, with concerns being directed at how "things have happened in the past" and your own assertions that "that is irrelevant in this situation" (paraphrasing here), understanding the independence of Serif vs. Canva "oversight" seems to be of importance to help calm some of the remaining nerves. As you can see just a couple posts above mine, there is quite literally @Tia Lapis is bringing this up and, honestly, it's extremely concerning to me, too, how much control you as a business retain over your own operations vs. what control you (on the surface) appear to have given up.
While I'm still not happy with the situation and how this was announced, and I feel a lot could have been handled better post-announcement, I've really appreciated you approaching this here in the forum as openly as you have. As a small business owner who purposely placed all my "eggs are in your basket" for a number of reasons, as much as I'd love the luxury of taking you at your word (especially re: the irrelevance of what has happened in the past, whether Canva-related or others in the industry), and reading the comments of others, having clarity on these two remaining items would really go a long way to helping provide reassurance that it's not as doom/gloom as it has seemed.
As follow-up, then, could you please speak to these two items, as well?

With regard to Canva,I think we need to hit the ground running, keep our eye on the ball, and make sure that we are singing off the same song sheet. At the end of the day it is not a level playing field and the goal posts may move; if they do, someone else may have to pick it up and run with it. We therefore must have a golf bag of options hot-to-trot from the word 'go'. It is your train set but we cannot afford to leave it on the back burner; we've got a lot of irons in the fire, right now.
We will need to un-stick a few potential poo traps but it all depends on the flash-to-bang time and fudge factor allowed. Things may end up slipping to the left and, if they do, we will need to run a tight ship. I don't want to re-invent the wheel but we must get right into the weeds on this one. If push comes to shove, we may have to up stumps and then we'll be in a whole new ball game.
I suggest we test the water with a few warmers in the bank. If we can produce the goods then we are cooking with gas. If not, then we are in a world of hurt. I don't want to die in a ditch over it but we could easily end up in a flat spin if people start getting twitchy. To that end, I want to get round the bazaars and make sure the movers and the shakers are on-side from day one. If you can hit me with your shopping list I can take it to the head honchos and start the ball rolling.
There is light at the end of the tunnel and I think we have backed a winner here. If it gets blown out the water, however, I will be throwing a track. So get your feet into my in-tray and give me chapter and verse as to how you see things panning out. As long as our ducks are in a row I think the ball will stay in play and we can come up smelling of roses.
Before you bomb burst and throw smoke, it is imperative we nail our colours very firmly on the mast and look at the big picture. We've got to march to the beat of the drum. We are on a sticky wicket. we'll need to play with a straight bat and watch out for fast balls.
I've been on permanent send for long enough and I've had my ten pence worth. I don't want to rock the boat or teach anyone to suck eggs. We must keep this firmly in our sight picture or it will fall between the cracks. If the cap fits, wear it, but it may seem like pushing fog up a hill with a sharp stick.
 
 
Sorry... It's been a heavy Easter and I needed to do something silly 🙂
 

It probably does not have enough data for it. Any average artist is "smarter" than these systems (so I think the term "learn" is somewhat incorrect. They don't know of anatomy like I do (or at all, better said), or any other artist who dedicated at least a decade or so to the  matter). But them having gazillions of data to 'mashup' gives them the edge in many commercial markets, which yep, destroys many artists' way of living, ends up with a bunch of artists having to quit. That while... you telling an artist to dig info about the 1813 locomotive Puffing Billy, or whatever, this person will research about the matter and do a collection of art concepts about it before even starting the project. Will also consider many more nuances (and making more sense at it) than any AI. That advantage is not enough, though. 
The concerns of clients and companies (for not using AI) in some cases are related to privacy issues, industrial secret, etc. As things can get leaked not just with text, also images. And I suppose some level of uncertainty/lack of control introduced by AI is a problem, too.
I have zero problems with AI being used for content aware or speeding up some tedious process, when it is not substituting fully the creative job (BTW, with AI, I have seen in many articles and people's comments in lots of social platforms a considerable confusion about the art concept... a prompt is not "art", no matter how elaborated the prompt). 
The Procreate app has taken a very different stance (probably unique in the industry... huge kudos to them), opposing to AI, to defend the ones who helped them bring the app where it is now (the artists). 
 
Design.. yep, it can be also challenged (the jobs matter). Less so than with artists, by far. But it is already capable of quite in several apps, and perhaps it's a matter of time.
But a designer is a lot more of a "puzzle maker", and we (I am also a designer and 3D artist, though illustration is my passion) have always been able to use such tools to focus on function (more so since the Bahaus ), composition, etc, always thinking on the end user.  Programmers are less affected, and anyway, they have many more ways to integrate with the whole AI train. 
One of the major problems is that.. Although it (the visual art world) has not (yet) seen applied as severe methods as happened in the music industry in the past (to protect the musicians IP), when you use content to build a tool (AI apps, the totally essential scrapping of content), and you don't ask for permission, do not sign any contract... you are using content in an unfair way. Whether regulation will be able to fine tune several matters to bring things to its most fair state, it is hard to guess. Also, there's a lot of money to be gained, and that makes it more difficult, as a lot of powers that be will oppose, money move mountains, way more than ethics.   

It depends on the mix and main focus of the apps and their tools, I guess. 🤷‍♂️
On-device AI tools, using your own content and Apple's, Qualcomm's, Intel's or AMD's AI cores? Meh, whatever. I may even dabble with those here and there depending on the client, practical application, etc.
Crowd-sourced and server-side stuff, which many a creative will tell you is completely anathema from a philosophical standpoint, with no option to opt-out or as the main focus of the app/workflow or of too many of its tools? Oof, no thanks.
I'm taking the same approach to creative work as I am to my writing; or, better put, I may have a more liberal approach, because writing does hold a more sacred place in academia and self-plagiarism is way more of a problem there than in the creative arts. Sure, I may use an LLM to summarise someone else's work just to make my life easier in finding the information I need (I'm still reading the real deal and confirming its relevance before citing a word of it, of course), and I may also use it to produce some outline for a document, because I have a really bad case of ADHD and some trouble in getting work started, but do a clean-room implementation from it, with zero copying and pasting of text (heck, I may even use another Mac logged out of my iCloud account for those prompts, as I have a lot of those lying around and may be wary of its otherwise very helpful Continuity copy-and-paste feature across different devices), of whatever I was aiming to convey. Even if an LLM could, in theory, accurately reproduce my writing style if I fed it all of my academic production and the desired prompt, it would still be a machine doing it, my brain would just wither away, and having to study “my own” work so I could present it and defend it, when I can do that way more easily when it's fresh off the press and fresh in my mind, would sort of defeat the whole purpose anyway.
When it comes to the creative arts, I'm still quite conservative, so let's just say that depending on how… artistic and “authorial” I might want a certain work to be, I might use a certain mix of AI tools (or none at all!), but always based on my own input and assets. That's strictly non-negotiable for me. And, sure, no person is an island and I'm obviously not immune to external influence (you know, as they say, Ex nihilo nihil fit), but I'd rather have my natural, water-and-fat-based intelligence do that process for me. I'm okay with seeing the computer as a colleague I bring in to my process, but I'm not okay with bringing other humans into my process – even if they consented to it! – with the computer as a – IMHO, still quite dumb – mediator. Unless, of course, we humans know each other, or have some line of communication, and can team up to try and trick the computer with our inputs, or something, thus gamifying the whole thing (there's something to be said about the importance of play in the creative process). TL;DR: “AI”, as it stands now, is a bit of a cadavre exquis on a massive scale, except it isn't because people don't know each other, don't see the fruits of their labour, and the machine does all the… stitching together, and if there was a way to just revert that massification process and humanise it a bit, artists might be more willing to embrace it and the results might be more interesting.  
I might actually be on to something there, and using Canva's tools for literal and active collaboration, maybe even between teamed-up strangers, social-network-style, and the machine, could be more interesting than just letting the black-box-of-AI-doom do ALL the work for you. I'm also aware that algorithms were, at least at the outset, human creations, so in a sense we're cooperating not just with the machine but also with its programmers… OTOH, those algos are so far gone, convoluted and themselves machine-generated at this point (they don't call them “black boxes” for no reason) that I can almost put them on the same level as other digital tools I already use, of which I technically know almost nothing and which impact my creative process in ways probably more relevant than many understand or care to admit. You do get that sense of perspective when you get to do proper calligraphy, letterpress, stonecutting, etc. at least once… Then again, that sense of perspective is also what's been nagging me for years to ape many of my colleagues and mod my Parallel Pens and whatnot, but also to go and learn Python, and produce my own add-ons for Glyphs.app. That day will come, even if it's basically useless and I'm retired by then.

I'm actually putting my money in the European Parliament or the European Commission, at this point… They seem to have an axe to grind with international big tech companies, and while some of their demands are completely brain dead (like forcing Apple to allow users to uninstall the Photos app from their iPhones… Are they for real? Nobody's asking for that! 🤦‍♂️), they may eventually hit some fair targets. And, to wit, there's a growing discourse against AI replacing jobs en masse. Unlike in the US and elsewhere, we do give two effs about maintaining a modicum of social stability.

I suppose so, but even if Affinity abandoned whatever plans Ash hinted about being developed for the apps back in B.C. (Before Canva) times & Canva suddenly ceased to exist, continued aggressive development of AI tools of the type widely considered to be a threat to professionals of all types will not stop.
So I think the best we can hope for is some sort of legislation being enacted in the UK, US, Australia, & so on to put limits on how those tools can be used.

Yeah the thumbnail is clickbait which is typical. I found the commentary quite mild on average, but YMMV.

The first video was very interesting; solid points. The second video... It's something I can't really define, but there was "something" -very subtle- on the thumbnail that did not make me wish to watch it   
I don't know of any method (like I do in other forums). But I can think of hitting there at the bottom once you paste the youtube link on the post, where it says something like "this was pasted as rich text, click here to use it as plain text", as what it does is just showing the mere youtube (clickable) links, filling up no space. If you would want it more sophisticated, maybe making a screenshot of the thumbnail, saving to the size you prefer (ie, a 200px width image), inserting the images into the post, then making those images links (with the chain icon (besides the quotes one) after selecting each image) using each Youtube video URL.    

Detailed work is harder with smaller screens (I've had an iPad and currently a S7 Samsung Galaxy tablet (great for painting), but both pale in comparison to working with my calibrated Eizo monitor). Color calibration by hardware, file system, real professional software ecosystem (beyond Affinity and the great Procreate), or even the real state for drawing on a tablet/board with which you can draw from the elbow or shoulder, great for confident line work. I don't deny the convenience of accessing your project files in any device at any moment, if that's a need, and how some workflows do benefit from it. But for a lot of projects, the desktop is an absolute need (I wouldn't consider a professional activity inferior than another, though).

Why? I'm enjoying every minute of it! You can meet the real hard core fans here! The rest will pay monthly no matter what! 😂

It's become a chat thread at this point. If they want to keep it up, it'll help keep the Canva-related tensions off the rest of the forum as all discussions-related can be pointed to here...

- Edited as I was breaking the rule of no quoting, (that it is recommended not quoting, if I got it right), I just realized it- 
- Edit 2: Oh, it was "in disagreement" quoting. It was not in this case. But I just removed the quoting, anyway.
About what is the trend of the thread, I don't think there is one.
"Some" of us reached a certain conclusion (in any case... nobody knows, though!). Although, have to say, it all (the conversation as a whole) sounds to me a bit ridiculous, though... here, in a forum with some hundreds posts in this thread, by very few individuals in the grand scheme of things (for whether positive or negative views on the whole matter), not representative (reliably, in any way) of 3 million users, neither written by any market expert (at least, that we know), and without any first hand solid info about the matter, other than from Affinity team members, which statements I happen to be guilty of trusting (as I trust the individuals). That conclusion is due to certain data, and was/is the opposite to an Adobe->Canva buyout; at least, from recent, new (for us) data. And that the most likely scenario, due to Australian regulation, and some other factors -detailed in several recent posts from a few members- is, besides not really looking probable such acquisition, it is indeed quite possible that Canva just wants to compete (even more) in certain areas and niches, grab more market from Adobe (and I believe Adobe might start -already is, surely, we know of some apps (Adobe Express, maybe?) doing this already- producing and releasing products to counter that. In any case, I still see an enormous difference between the two, in size and even in market. But there's some overlap for the less experienced users, hobbyists, small business, marketing specialists, and everything that matches that skill level in graphic work, in my opinion.  Not expecting the Canva buyout from Adobe is mostly due to what has been mentioned about Australian regulation (but you never know). About the trend of the thread, there is probably none, IMO. There are almost as many theories as people, here . We can read and write until humanity creates a functional base on Mars, but, besides that's not going to move or change "the big events", only time and reality (proof and facts, in whatever direction; and I don't see only two) will convince people of one thing or the other, IMO. Meanwhile, I kind of like the idea of keep making my graphics in Affinity (and my other gazillion graphic tools  , as I never saw it as an exclusive thing, and so, zero problems).