toonybrain

Oh my, jaromor, I could not agree with you more. A couple months ago I had almost posted a very similar assessment. I was a Serif user. I owned every single software they produced, and I used every single one of them regularly. I even built websites with WebPlus and I knew zero about code. Serif products were almost too good to be true because they were extremely intuitive and yet affordable. Then Affinity came along. Sigh. Honestly, my first thought was "Who bought Serif and crapped it all up?" From a GREAT line of intuitive products to this trio of Adobe-wannabe uselessness. (I use Illustrator and it's more intuitive, which is remarkable in itself.) I too have the three Affinity products on my computer that just sit there taking up computer real estate. The personas are inexplicable, the ease of use is nonexistent. I wander, wander, wander, click, click, click, fail, fail, fail.... And I'm no stranger to difficult softwares - I regularly use TVPaint. Just today I opened Affinity Photo because I wanted to merely desaturate an image. Sigh. An hour later, and after reading the Affinity Photo Help, I gave up. The Affinity Photo Help is inadequate, and a hair-width away from useless. It would instruct me to desaturate in the "Adjustment panel" in the Photo persona. If any of you can find the "Adjustment panel," I congratulate you. I don't want to hear guff about watching the tutorials: that I cannot accomplish a simple task in a short amount of time is a great shame to Affinity. My suggestion: reassemble the team that developed Serif products to reconstitute these awful "iterations."

Thanks, Chris, for your quick response. I can certainly upload the pdf. May I send it to you confidentially because it's a book proof? I'm almost certain that the original PDF was created in Adobe InDesign, if that helps.

I just downloaded Affinity Publisher BETA; it was previously unknown to me. So, it's my first day with it. I'm not yet as savvy as some of you, but I did use Serif's previous publisher software (PagePlus X8), so I image my transition should be somewhat easy. Serif does makes intuitive products. First thing I did was I opened a pdf book proof to see if it would have editability in AP. Some of the illustrations opened in full RGB color, but some opened as "negatives." I closed the file, then reopened it - same thing. I closed AP, then reopened it - same thing. Bug, or me?

Dittos to Misc33's issue. Thanks, Misc33, for the workaround (i.e., Arrange, up/down). I've restarted AD, and am still experiencing the problem. I thought perhaps I inadvertently did something that locked up the Layers panel in this particular project, so I opened up older AD projects. The layers won't move in them either. At least I can keep moving using the Layer - Arrange option.