R C-R

My understanding is incomplete at best & possibly at least partially if not completely wrong, so please take that into account, but from what I have read from FAQ's & such from sites like Red River, it includes more than the brightness/dullness of the paper. Exactly what it does include, & specifically if it includes specialty colored papers, I do not know.

You are not entitled to any updates -- all licenses for apps sold through the Mac App Store ("MAS") are non-transferrable, meaning the original buyer cannot transfer the license to anyone else. Technically, anyone selling a Mac is in violation of the licensing provisions if they leave any MAS apps on it. If you want to use the app in compliance with the licensing terms, you need to buy your own license.

From what I can tell, at least for open shapes it does depend on the start & end nodes -- the node nearest the original red end node is the top one.

It is my understanding that these profiles usually come from paper companies like Red River, which maintains a large collection of ICC profiles for specific printer & paper combinations, like these for the Canon PRO-1000 printer. A web search on "paper color profiles" shows several paper companies that offer the same thing. They also can be created from hard proofs (actual printed output) using devices & techniques similar to those used to calibrate monitors.

Are you suggesting that Serif does not do its own market research? I think that is very unlikely. Your #1 reason does not appear to be based on any actual market research. In fact, it seems to be based on some broad & highly dubious assumptions, particularly about how much of the market will (when?) consider the "ecosystems" provided by Apple, Microsoft, etc. as "toxic," whatever that is supposed to mean. It has been mentioned countless times in these forums that the Mac versions are sold only through the Mac App Store ("MAS") & the Windows versions only through Serif's own store. For <ahem> security & privacy reasons, Apple does not share buyer information with MAS sellers, so as things stand now there is no way to sell a cross-platform license because Serif does not know who specifically is buying the Mac versions. That could change, but it would mean developing new anti-piracy protections & update mechanisms for the Mac versions (because that is provided by Apple for all apps sold through MAS), which in turn would mean passing those development costs on to users, maintaining multiple versions of the Mac apps, & so on. So your guess about what this would cost could be much too low, in addition to lacking any market research about the potential demand for it.

I am still not clear about this. From the Custom soft-proof options section of Photoshop's About soft-proofing colors, there is this (emphasis added): So as I understand it, paper color simulation (if supported) is built into the color profile itself. If one of these custom profiles is used for soft proofing, soft proofing must be enabled to see anything it simulates on the monitor, including paper brightness or color, right? Photoshop includes a soft proofing option not to include paper color/brightness simulation, which Affinity Photo lacks, but that does not mean soft proofing in Affinity Photo does not include paper color/brightness simulation.

Document menu > Unclip Canvas 'uncrops' the canvas, revealing what the crop has removed (because cropping in Affinity Photo is non-destructive).

You could say the same thing about rasterizing text, converting text to curves to alter glyph shapes, applying perspective or warp effects, or even altering kerning, baselines, etc., all of which could be considered distortions.

I see the same thing for all the NIK plugins. I assume this happens because cropping is non-destructive. I think this is as it should be -- it would be very annoying if the plugin was applied only to the cropped area & later I unclipped the canvas, revealing the unfiltered part of the image!

I was wondering the same thing. Personally, I only use Art Text for short phrases & labels I am fairly sure I won't ever want to reformat into multiple lines. For the times I do need to do that, it does not take me more than a few seconds to copy the text to the clipboard, delete the Art Text layer, & paste it into a new Frame Text layer.

You can add as many application palettes as you want, store gradients in them, & export/import those palettes.

It is an adjustment layer so you can just toggle it on & off in the Layers panel. If you watch the suggested videos this should be a lot clearer.

As I understand it, there is no default paper simulation unless you use a soft proof adjustment, explicitly select a document color profile from the Assign or Convert menu items, or (unusual) there is already one embedded in the file, and that profile is for a specific printer, ink, & paper combination.

Which ICC profile would the app know to use unless you choose one in the soft proof adjustment layer? It may help to watch the Affinity Photo - Soft Proofing & Affinity Photo - Printing on Windows video tutorials.

Why would you assume that? How would AP even know which of the potentially dozens of different printer, ink, & paper combinations you intended to use for printed output? You can set default color profiles for each of the supported color formats in Preferences > Color Profiles, but that is only for files that do not have an embedded profile.

Not something I have much experience with, but as I understand it the idea is to select the profile that corresponds to your printer & paper.

From https://www.hamrick.com/vuescan/html/vuesc33.htm#outputrawfile (emphasis added): So basically, "Raw" is not the same as "RAW."

If you are talking about scanned transparencies (slides?) I do not understand how development factors into this unless somehow your scanner outputs RAW files. In Affinity Photo, you can use the Develop Persona on any opened file -- it does not have to be a RAW file.

@stokerg mentioned Photos but the same thing applies to iPhoto -- Affinity Photo is not a replacement for either Apple app. You can access your iPhoto library from within Affinity Photo through the View menu > Media Browser item, or from the File menu > Open dialog sidebar Media > Photos item. For as long as iPhoto continues to work with OS X/macOS, you can set Affinity Photo as its default editor in the iPhoto Preferences > Advanced tab > "Edit Photos:" popup menu.

You could convert the ellipse to curves & break the curve at its red start/end node. With the stroke cap set to round or square the ends will touch. You could then drag either or both end nodes to a new location so they cross. To change the start & end point, instead of breaking the curve at the red start/end node, break it at one of the other nodes. To leave a gap you can either set the cap to butt or move the nodes.

Affinity Photo lacks the artboards of Affinity Designer, so if you use Affinity Photo you will have to create a separate document for each page. But Affinity Designer lacks filters & a few other Photoshop-like features, so if you don't mind working with separate documents, it might be the better choice. It all depends on what you want to do.

I first bought MOHO as Anime Studio Debut version 6 when I found it on sale somewhere for about $20. The editing tools were terrible -- for example, the move tool equivalent could not select anything; you had to use a different tool for that & then switch to one of the other tools to move points or do anything else that required a selection. But when I got an offer to upgrade to the Pro 6 version for about $70 I did that, mostly because the Debut versions lack any kind of vector import, as well as many other features of the Pro versions. I eventually took advantage of another upgrade sale offer to get Anime Studio Pro version 9.2 (for under $200 if memory serves), but when Smith Micro wanted even more money to upgrade that to version 9.5, I decided they had enough of my money. As of version 9, the editing tools were still horrible, & I think they may not have been improved much until the switch back to the MOHO name at version 12(??). The current Debut versions still lack vector import/export & many other functions. I do not think even with tool improvements the Debut version is worth its $70 retail price.

It has always been possible to import svg vector files into Anime Studio Pro, but there is still no way to get around the limitation of no more than two end points on a vector path.

I am not exactly sure what you mean by welding in Anime Studio, but if it is layer or point binding, that is not the same thing as joining vector paths. AS can't export to svg vector shapes because the same restrictions apply in svg as in Affinity regarding the number of end nodes a path can have.

Note: not really the same issue but the title of the topic applies so I thought I would mention it here briefly in case others with my issue find it by title: Lately, for both Affinity Designer & Affinity Photo for Mac, the built-in help's search function does not work for me -- no matter what I search for I get a brief spinning wait icon & then a blank page. Any other Mac users seeing the same thing?