Aongus Collins
-
Posts
98 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by Aongus Collins
-
-
6 minutes ago, Dr. Bunsen said:
I looked in yesterday lunchtime and was saddened by the tone of the comments. I understand the concern over the potential for a move to a subscription model, but not at all the aggressive and confrontational way in which it has been articulated. Today's clarification is much more reassuring.
Remember: change is the only constant!
Agreed, I felt the same way. Hopefully today's announcement will help alleviate concerns.
- OpaErnst and Dr. Bunsen
-
2
-
3 hours ago, Ash said:
To followup on some of my comments yesterday, we are today enshrining our commitment to the Affinity community in 4 pledges made by the Affinity and Canva teams.
You can read about them here.
We do truly believe the coming together of Affinity and Canva is only going to be a good thing for our customers, staff and the development of our apps. We very much hope you will all continue to be with us on this journey.All the best,
Ash
@AshThanks for your clarification, which goes well beyond anything I'd hoped for. I've been using Affinity Designer since the first Mac beta, and am delighted to see this direction. I don't like subscription plans, but others may differ so a dual or hybrid strategy makes perfect sense -- especially if it brings even a fraction of Canva's 170m users into the Affinity fold.
-
MikeTO,
Thank you so much for the work you put into this manual. It reminds me of the early Adobe printed manuals at their very best in terms of style -- written and visual.
I've used Publisher for cards (birthday, seasonal etc) that were printed digitally, with great success. Now I'm considering something more ambitious: a book printed using litho from a Publisher PDF.
Aongus
-
FWIW, I updated to beta 1742 and can no longer reproduce this issue, so long as hardware acceleration is deactivated in Settings.
Hardware acceleration has always been problematic on this particular system (Dell Precision 5520 with Intel HD Graphics 630/Nvidia Quadro M1200), so any remaining issue is probably due to my machine.
-
-
I can repeat this with the retail version (2.0.4).
-
Hey Chris,
At the time I had installed just one set of brushes -- Frankentoon Neptune. I tested again with all store brushes uninstalled. There was a delay, though a shorter one. If other people can't reproduce this, maybe the issue is with my system.
-
Here is an issue I can repeat in beta 2.1.0.1730.
- With a file open, switch from the Designer Persona to the Pixel Persona.
- If the Colour tab is active, click on the Brushes tab.
- The will be a delay of around 10 seconds while the program freezes. Then you will be able to use the brushes.
If the brushes tab was selected in a previous session, when you switch from the Designer persona to the Pixel persona the canvas will go dark and the program will freeze for about 10 seconds.
FWIW, the brush set selected was Frankentoon - Neptune Inks.
Windows 11, Version 10.0.22621 Build 22621.
i7-7820HQ. 16B RAM. Intel HD Graphics 630 NVIDIA Quadro M1200. -
I've had the same experience, with hardware acceleration disabled. There was a workaround: if I did a "Save as..." the program became responsive once more. As it happens I do most of my work in other software, using Affinity as a production hub and specialised vector tool. I could not imagine relying on the current version as a primary tool.
Dell Precision, Win 11 Pro, 16GB RAM, Intel HD630/NVIDIA Quadro M1200.
-
I've posted positive feedback on V2, but had a bad experience yesterday with Designer. While doing a project involving multiple layers manipulated in the new layers panel, and using a Wacom tablet, the Designer UI froze no less than 8 times. The only feature available was the View Tool (hand).
There is a workaround, which might be of interest to anyone else experiencing this problem. If you do a 'save as' the UI beomes responsive again. So I ended up with 7 versions of that file!
A longer term solution would be to revert to V1 until a patch is available, or move to more stable software.
Windows 11 Pro
i7-7820HQ
Intel HD Graphics 630
NVIDIA Quadro M1200
Wacom Intuos Pro
-
2 hours ago, taustin said:
If you need color seps with trapping try this plugin it works...
And if you need line art from photo here is another plugin...
Note: these are quick fixes until Affinity updates to newer versions of the software...if you need it now and not wait for future updates.
Thanks for the link. Interesting that high-end plugins are available for Affinity. Back in the day I bought a few for Illustrator and Photoshop, and was happy with the results. Certainly a viable approach.
Adobe had a web marketplace for plugins. Maybe they still do. Serif already has an add-ons section on the main website, which could be a good place for third party developers to be highlighted.
-
I can't get my head around the enormous fuss being made in some quarters about V2 pricing. Let's say there are two issues, money and principle.
1. Money. A discounted universal licence gets you 9 apps for €120, or €13 each. Pro users will almost certainly be able to claim the vat back, reducing the cost to around €10. Individual upgrades cost €49 (€39 ex-vat). Amazing value.
Even if Serif were able offer an additional discount to V1 upgraders, it would not amount to much more than a tenner or so. In absolute terms, the sum involved with additional discounts would be very small.
Not enough to justify the fuss.
2. The principle. This seems to be that V1 upgraders should get preferential treatment. Right or wrong, app store policies prevent Serif from doing that. So they have two options: everybody gets a discount or nobody gets a discount. As a V1 upgrader who got a discount, I'm glad they chose first option. It's sign of generosity, not disloyalty to customers.
I wish this forum could get back on track to being a more reasonable space. -
44 minutes ago, WirlyWirly said:
As someone who bought v1 a few years back, I read and understood the license terms. I knew I would be paying for major updates, and now that the time has come I'm more than pleased with the -40% discount. Even if I was paying full-retail, this software would still be worth the asking price.
I bought v1 on-sale ($35x3), so buying v2 for $99 comes out to being about the same as what I paid for v1.
Hopefully this fresh wave of revenue will provide the fuel needed to continue pushing forward. I'm excited for incoming updates and what v3 will eventually bring!
WirlyWirly, that's a concise and accurate summary of the situation. Like you, I'm looking forward to the incoming updates.
-
I was expecting to pay up to €300 to upgrade my Windows, Mac and iPad licences. So a price of €120 came as a great relief! (It's even less if you can claim the VAT back.) I've completed my first project in V2, and it was a very smooth experience. Aside from the headline features, the many small improvements add up.
Thank you Serif.
- Westerwälder and Pixelkobold
-
2
-
2 hours ago, Terry44 said:
I am having the reverse issue. My mouse left click allows to draw on the canvas but I can not left click on any interface items or drop down menus. This is happening randomly and I have to restart Designer to make it work properly.
Wacom tablet pro, non-screen version.
I have a Wacom Intuos Pro and haven't experienced this problem. FWIW here are my Wacom settings. The dreaded Windows Ink has been switched off.
-
I've double-checked, and yes there does seem to be a glitch with the space + ctrl shortcut to zoom in and out. There is a workaround. Tap the 'Z' key to toggle zoom on or off. I find it even easier on the wrist.
-
I've been using it with a Wacom Intuos Pro, and so far it's been very responsive. If anything, drawing with the vector pencil and brush is better.
-
3 hours ago, loukash said:
Mmmm… Freehand…
Still there in my office on my "vintage" PowerMac G4.
AFAIK, it was the first major drawing app to be ported from the classic Mac OS to OS X. That brings me back...
-
In Preferences > User Interface, you can change the icon style to mono. I much prefer this iteration.
Yes, Freehand is sadly missed.
- velarde, AllAppsUser, Normando and 2 others
-
5
-
Credit where credit's due: Serif addressed the MSIX issue within 3 working days. And apologised for their offices being closed over the intervening weekend
As a pro user, I never put a 0.0 version on a production system. It goes on a spare until I get a chance to test. So far V2 of Affinity is very stable for my workflow, so long as hardware acceleration is disabled.
-
After some days using V2, I came across two features I hadn't seen highlighted elsewhere. They are not headline features but are potentially very useful, especially when repurposing a logo for different media. I can imagine other uses too.
1. Now you can specify stroke width by percentage as well as absolute value such as px. This is good for changing a line width. Even better, you can apply such a change simultaneously to multiple curves, each having a different stroke width. This means you retain their relative widths and general appearance.2. There's a new option in the Transform panel to scale line widths, corners, leyer effect radii and text frame contents along with the object. Each of these choices can be switched on or off selectively using a drop-down menu.
-
-
22 minutes ago, Artsketch said:
There is a new 2022 EU law for a 2 year warranty on digital goods and software, including software updates to keep them usable: https://blog.intigriti.com/2022/06/27/new-eu-law-changing-game-digital-goods-producers/
Very interesting! Thanks for sharing. I wonder what effect this will have on prices in the EU, where we already pay more than in the US.
-
If some people are disappointed and want to provide feedback, that's what this forum is for. Fine. Especially when they highlight specific issues. And some people have gone to a lot of trouble to describe and illustrate issues. Unfortunately it seems to me that other posts have expressed a level of negativity I'd associate more with Tw*tt*r than a forum for graphics professionals. Just my two cents.
- PaoloT, Solly, Andreas Schmid and 2 others
-
5
Canva
in Affinity on Desktop Questions (macOS and Windows)
Posted
Thank you for your further clarification, and for pointing out that Canva has fully committed to the four pledges on its website. This is as credible as it gets.
As a freelancer, I don’t need collaborative tools currently, and detest subscriptions.
But if document sync, asset sharing etc means getting work from organisations that have already signed up to Canva (for example, providing customised assets made in Affinity that they could open in the same software), I would reconsider!
To a glass half-full person, this acquisition/synergy has the potential to create new opportunities for Affinity artists.