KiheiMan

You are literally translating what I said instead of figuratively understanding the intent. Perhaps I needed to say "promise", meaning that the selling card is that I could use Affinity as if it was Photoshop? And, of course, I can --- just not 100%.

As a person who came to Affinity on the promise of replacing Photoshop, this is disappointing at best. It acts like Photoshop and certainly makes life easier with common commands, but without plugin compatibility it is not a replacement. As for Windows vs Mac, there is enough of us in both worlds to accommodate both IMHO. Implementing a plugin based on a "works in both principal" is not practical. Full Stop.

I'm using Google NIK and I am on Windows 10.

It would be nice to hear from Affinity on this topic. Not only does NIK not work, but there is a bug I demonstrated where it shows 2 plugins as "working" when they are not. Affinity - have you as much as talked to Alien Skin?

Dear Affinity, It's well over a year now and no Photoshop plugins work in Photo! In particular, NIK and Alien Skin are required for my workflow. When I was in your beta, I raised this issue and the answers were not good. Despite that, I still purchased Designer and Photo with the hope that one day they would work. It's not like these plugins breathe rarefied air --- NIK was bought by Google and are free and Alien Skin Eye Candy and Image Doctor are right up there as most popular used. After updating to 1.65, I see no progress has been made as can be seen by this short video I created. Alarming, at best. On top of that, there is actually a bug where preferences says 2 of the NIK filters work when in actuality they do not (and I tested this with a photo not in the video). Here's the screenshot of that. Having said all of this, I am not here to blast you or inflame anyone and will not respond to anything of that ilk. Au contraire, I am here again to beg/plead you to be decisive about Photoshop plugins. This has been a gray situation that is perpetuated from my point of view and demonstrated by the short list of plugins you indicate are certified. In the next few weeks I have to make a decision about Adobe because my CS 5.5 Extended has hit a new problem for which the only current answer is to join the horrible Adobe Cloud --- and for which, by the way, a support agent I spoke to yesterday let me know that 80% of us older customers have voiced opposition to the Adobe Cloud model and yet 80% of those have still relented and have joined. I truly love your approach, the great support and the reasonably close proximity to Photoshop and while I am still a novice I have also adapted Designer as my main vector program without any issues. But Photo won't happen for me without compatibility for existing plugins as I have 100's of files using both NIK and Alien Skin Eye Candy and Image Doctor. It's likely nontrivial for you and equally nontrivial for me. If I know you have a plan to fix this once and for all, I can live with the delay until you get there (months, but not years!). In fact, I have said this before, I would bet you a nice dinner that the great folks at Alien Skin would work with you in some mutual way to get all their plugins working. If there is no plan or the plan remains gray then I will reluctantly buy Adobe Photographer for my business which will cost me about the same as if I followed my older strategy with Adobe to upgrade every 2nd version. I hate the thought of supporting Adobe, but like 80% of 80% who also hate it I will be compelled to buy it (and thus abandon Affinity Photo) --- this part of your strategy is not a winner as a purchase may not equate to adoption and in the long run those $'s will go to Adobe. Rob-> PS: I also use Vertus Fluid Mask 3, which also does not work and while not as popular as NIK or Alien Skin, there is a big customer base.

I'm having a whale of a time trying to figure out a problem and would greatly appreciate it if someone could help me figure out and correct a problem with the attached AF file, which is the logo for my business. The problem: When I export this to a WMF file and then use that in another program to import the vector, I am getting an error that there are paths that are not closed, thus the import can't proceed. As you can see, there is text, a bitmap fill and a curved object (the thumbs up). I want to believe there is no problem with text and if there is I have no clue how to fix that (yes, I tried converting to curves and that doesn't, by itself, help the problem). So it comes down to the curved object. When I select it, I see 5 red square nodes and all the rest is blue square/circle nodes. I have tried to be self-resourceful, but I don't seem to find anything that helps me "close path(s)". I've seen some suggestions here that there is a desire to have AF show indicators or provide a tool that would detect open paths. With this experience, I certainly would support that suggestion and would add that an intelligent option to close the path(s) would be helpful as well. Although I am not a newbie, I am not a professional and only use what I need so this is getting deeper than my knowledge/capability. Again, if anyone can save the day for me I would appreciate it greatly and if you are in the SF Bay Area I'd be delighted to buy you a beer or wine! PS: Is there a way to easily convert this to an AI file? I also have Corel Draw and can do it there, but I have to always try a ton of options with respect to version of AI and it always comes down to a trial-and-error exercise. YIC Logo V2.afdesign

For all the freebies, it would be helpful (even needed) to know what is the same and what is different. On top of that, if they are the same, is there any harm in re-installing them?

Thank you - didn't realize the solution was so obvious (maybe that's why I had a hard time figuring it out!).

When I import an AI file in to Designer, I get a white background despite the fact that AI is a transparent background. What do I need to do to have either a transparent background or change the white to some other color?

Hi Alfred, Your guidance worked and solved a problem I was having where I wanted to "open" a "closed" shape! Thank you! Rob-> PS: Affinity - I would argue this is something that should go in to your node documentation!!!!!

Of the ones I use, Nik Collection is the only one that does work. I think having a list for PC like Mac is warranted, even if unofficial. Having said that, I see that Alien Skin (the one really important for me) and Vertus Fluid Mask are on the Mac so I would hope development would make a concerted effort to make these work on the PC. For Alien Skin, I also need Image Doctor. Is there anything we can do to help influence/promote development to work towards getting Eye Candy functional working on the PC? Sorry to be a broken record about it, but there is no visible movement or progress being made. As I have mentioned, the folks at Alien Skin are likely to be very receptive and collaborative to help make this happen. Update: Looking at the Mac unofficial list a little more closely, the majority don't work as of the lists last update, including Alien Skin and Vertus. If Affinity's goal is to allow us to get of the Adobe cloud model or our older releases, this needs some serious work and it starts with a commitment by Affinity to move in the right direction.

It's getting better for sure, but I would like to bring to Affinity developers a plugin issue. I use Alien Skin Eye Candy quite extensively (as do millions of other users). After installing their plugins directly in to the Affinity Plugins folder (but you can install anywhere), AP see's it. You then must raterize anything you will use in Eye Candy 7 (in PS they do it for you!). Then trying to use it I get an error about needing editable transparency (screenshot #1) which I don't understand - nothing is locked, no other filters active and then followed by an unhandled exception (screenshot #2). When I re-start AP, I get a noticed that a report is being sent (screenshot#3). I had submitted a ticket with Alien Skin and their results are the same. It would be so cool if you and Alien Skin got together to solve the problem. There is no doubt I will buy AP when it is available, but the icing on the cake would be to have Eye Candy working so that I don't have to resort to my PS Extended 5.5 to use it and then import in to AP (and a terrible workflow to boot!).

So far, so good. Any "C" I have converted to a curve has had no more than 8 nodes. I'll work at further reducing them but I'm not so sure that as much as 8 is terrible. Maybe not perfect, but I am not a professional graphic artist and I just need something good enough to export to a PSD so that I can use Affinity Photo (just love this on Windows!) or Photoshop where the real work will begin to beautify the logo.

Thanks Mike, but how do I fix the shapes without losing their artistic (visual) value? That part is not clear to me.

Many thanks for your responses. What I have discovered, and am following this path for the moment, is that starting with the actual letter "C" from a font that looks good and then converting it to curves has potential. I still have to figure out a bunch of stuff, but I think this could be the right direction to take. Agree or disagree?